Challenges to a religious third side
Strengthening religion’s role as part of a strong third side for peace ultimately must include both supporting conditions that contribute to faith-based peacemaking and reducing the conditions that give rise to violent religious extremism.
While there will rarely be clear and definitive answers as to whether religion’s role in a conflict situation is wholly positive or negative, certain factors may contribute to religion being more or less susceptible to manipulation for destructive purposes. Pluralist societies where social, economic, and political ties extend across and help link different religious communities may be less prone to religiously motivated violence. An active culture of interfaith communication and cooperation can provide a strong counter to attempts to draw conflict along religious lines. The promotion of religious tolerance and respect for diversity by faith leaders, as well as social, legal, and political institutions, can go far in preventing violence. A clear separation of church and state also appears to help reduce the space for manipulating religion for political purposes (though experiments in more democratic Islamic political systems may find new ways of merging religion and politics while still balancing tensions).Ultimately, religion is a living human expression that must respond and adapt to ongoing processes of human change. When change sparks conflict or poses actual or perceived threats to individuals and communities, they can adapt new ways of managing a constructive relationship between their faith and the world, or they can react and resist with negative force.
Fundamentalism
The recent growth in extremist fundamentalism across many religious traditions represents a powerful negative reaction to rapid modernization and the secularization of many societies over the past fifty years. Fundamentalism is not unique to any one religious tradition, although recent global attention has focused on the rise of extremist Islamist groups.
In fact, the term fundamentalist was first used in the 1920s by conservative evangelical Protestants in the United States who sought to protect their faith from evolutionists. Fundamentalist movements can now be found across all the world’s major faith traditions and are often a factor in intrareligious conflicts within traditions. At their most extreme, they are characterized by a rejection of modernization and secularization; strong, sometimes glorified leadership; rigid, often repressive social rules; apocalyptic predictions; and high intolerance toward outsiders and moderates of their own faith tradition. Fundamentalist movements often have both a religious and political agenda that is designed to thwart the threats they perceive from modernization. While fundamentalists claim to be preserving and reviving the core truths of their religious tradition, in reality they usually pick and choose language from sacred texts and manipulate teachings to serve a particular agenda. While they claim to be returning to the fundamentals of their faith, in fact they are reacting to a changing world around them (Almond, Appleby, and Sivan, 2003).Fundamentalism itself may not be a problem: people do need ways of coping with the rapid changes of globalization and modern life. However, fundamentalist movements clearly become dangerous to human relations when they use religion to justify violence and take on extremist militant agendas. Mitigating against extremist fundamentalism requires both engaged effort from more moderate members of the same faith tradition to open dialogue, reduce intrareligious conflict, and constructively manage perceived threats from modernization, as well as secular approaches that can address underlying economic, social, and political problems. While fundamentalism may appear a purely irrational and extremist reaction to modernization, the very real problems of global economic and power disparities, marginalization, and environmental and cultural degradation contribute to the appeal of extreme religious responses and do need to be addressed.
Prevention and Reconciliation
One final challenge worth considering is when during a conflict cycle religion might be more or less suited to contribute positively. While religious values, actors, institutions, and identity may be present throughout the duration of a
conflict, their potential third side contributions will not be the same at all points in time or under all circumstances. In some cases, religion may be perceived as such a volatile part of the problem that trying to incorporate it overtly into a solution would be like pouring fuel on a fire. In any case, choosing the right strategy at the right moment to maximize religious resources for peacemaking will no doubt be a challenge.
In Burundi, after hundreds of thousands were killed in interethnic violence, local Quaker communities teamed up with fellow Quakers from the United States to find ways of restoring relationships and breaking the cycle of conflict. The experience of decades of conflict led Burundian Quakers to recapture a largely unexplored religious testimony of peace and nonviolence in their faith tradition and to respond to the violence around them with innovate peacemaking initiatives. To help rebuild their country, they identified two particularly acute needs: (1) dealing with the widespread trauma that they saw across all groups from years of ethnic violence, and (2) providing people with skills and training that would help them manage conflict without resort to violence in the future. They developed innovative workshops in trauma healing and alternatives to violence that brought Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa together, often for the first time in many communities. As their country struggles to stabilize a fragile peace, Burundian Quakers continue to train thousands of people across Burundi in the vital skills of rebuilding relationships and preventing future violence.
While many courageous religious leaders have acted in the midst of violent conflict to help save lives, speak out for peace, and bring an end to killing, the third side roles often played by religion are most effective when seized before a conflict erupts into violence or to help restore relationships after war.
In the midst of violent conflict, religiously motivated actors can play important roles as witnesses and protectors, even as peacekeepers and by providing safe refuges, but their impact will likely be limited by the escalating dynamics of the conflict. Before violence erupts or when conflict deescalates, more space and opportunities are open for positive religious contributions to reconstructing societies and preventing a slide back into war. This is not unique to religion’s role—the space for constructive nonviolent conflict management is always greater in the pre- and post-conflict phases and conflict becomes much more difficult to handle after it has become deadly. Still, positive religious contributions in relation to beliefs and values, leadership, social networks, and identity may be most effective in the modes of prevention and reconciliation.Religious actions can and should be helping to prevent deadly conflict by countering the negative use of religion to fuel conflict and promoting cooperation, tolerance, and respect for human dignity. As a case in point, many Muslim leaders across the world are speaking out more actively against the recent rise in attacks against civilians perpetrated by extremist groups claiming an Islamic mission. Working to reclaim the sacred space of Islam and engage Muslims globally in renouncing violence, they hope to constrain the negative use of their religion and reduce the number of recruits available for such missions in the future. In a similar way, religious leaders of all faiths can promote teachings that encourage interfaith tolerance and respect, help adherents manage conflict constructively, and reduce the potential for new cycles of religiously motivated violence. If disputes begin to escalate, religious leaders with standing in the community can step in to deter violence and help mediate a solution. Such prevention efforts by religious leaders have helped head off violent disputes and reduce bloodshed in many cases, but more attention to mobilizing religious and other peacemaking resources before violence erupts is urgently needed.
Following the experience of violent conflict, religion can also be a vital tool for restoring relationships and encouraging reconciliation among former combatants. Most religious traditions include teachings on forgiveness, reconciliation, or managing relations with former enemies. In many ways, faith-based efforts can go where secular reconstruction efforts cannot, into the deepest pain individuals have experienced with resources to help them find hope again. As mentioned earlier, religious institutions and structures often survive wars or state collapse when other social and government institutions break down. Faith networks, churches, temples, and mosques are often the first to begin picking up the pieces after war and will remain as part of the communities long after humanitarian workers and international aid has moved on. More sustained support for religiously based peacebuilding efforts as a conflict recedes from the headlines is often needed.
While religion can function throughout a conflict cycle in both negative and positive ways, greater study is needed into how religiously motivated peacebuilding can be particularly effective in preventive efforts to avert violence and in restoring relationships in the aftermath of war.