Religious Dimensions Of War And Peace: Introduction

Abstract

The current era of global and local restructurings, as well as the development of what Saskia Sassen terms 'new geographies of centrality', presents complex challenges for today's scholar of religion. New entanglements of religious ideas and political action, and changing formations and locations of religion require new interpretive perspectives. The rise of global media, and new discourses of difference, merit particular attention. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights acknowledges the heightened role of the media in inciting acts of violence and discrimination on religious grounds in its revised resolution on 'Combating Defamation of Religions'. Bruce Lincoln reminds that religious markers mask the fact that, like other cultural phenomena, religious communities and institutions 'wage their wars around rival claims to scarce resources: people, territory, wealth, positions of power, and economic advantage, but also such nonmaterial resources as dignity, prestige, and all manner of symbolic capita'..Keywords: Bruce Lincoln; global media; peace; religious communities; Saskia Sassen; United Nations Commission on Human Rights; war