The Sociopolitical Role of Religions in Reconciliation and Peace-making in Contemporary Societies

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to invite you to contribute to a forthcoming Special Issue of Religions, an open-access peer-review journal, on The Sociopolitical Role of Religions in Reconciliation and Peacemaking in Contemporary Societies. This issue will build on established insights from multidisciplinary studies of religion as it relates to conflict, violence, and peace, highlighting specifically religious dimensions of efforts to address pressing contemporary issues of peacemaking, social justice, reconciliation, and global solidarity. At a time when religious aspects of reactionary populism receive prominent attention, there is a growing need for up-to-date analysis of religious ideas, movements, and initiatives that explicitly affirm pluralism, peaceful relationships, and inclusive community as well as accountability for historical and present-day injustices.

Starting with the recognition that religion, in conjunction with other factors, contributes both to conflict and peace, this Special Issue aims to clarify ways in which religious actors and ideas are involved in processes aspiring towards the transformation of deep-rooted conflicts involving rival social groups, identities, and ideologies. Embracing contributions from theology and the humanities as well as from interdisciplinary social science and peace research, the issue will showcase scholarship that 1) illuminates critical and constructive religious responses to persistent social divides; 2) demonstrates the multifaceted relationship of religion to major conflict and peace issues in a contemporary context; 3) accounts for interpretive diversity and contestation within religious communities and among religious leaders; 4) attends to the intersection of religion with diverse identities, historical experiences, sociopolitical factors, and/or sources of motivation; and 5) analyzes distinctive dynamics within a particular case (or multiple cases) as well as to broader contexts of comparison and significance.  

To complete this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are needed. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Contemporary efforts on the part of religious actors to address protracted conflicts and longstanding injustices, including harms inflicted against indigenous and racialized groups through colonialism, oppressive social institutions, and extractive economic processes;
• Uses of religion to advance justice, reconciliation, and coexistence among groups affected by protracted conflict, or to challenge predominant political approaches and narratives;
• Contending “peace paradigms” within a single religious tradition, based on divergent interpretations of texts, definitions of peace/justice, and understandings of normative practice;
• Distinctive meanings or “keynote themes” associated with peace that are inherent within a particular religious tradition, and utilized as resources in contemporary peacemaking efforts;
• Ways in which specific sociopolitical applications of religious peace teachings either reinforce or contrast with more secular approaches;
• The role of religious leadership in peace processes, in calls for the application of specific peace teachings, and/or in efforts to “use traditional sources to heal the tradition”;
• Various aspects of gender and religious peacebuilding (including “less-visible” women’s peace leadership or activism within patriarchal settings, or efforts to address past and current injustices towards women and/or gender minorities);
• Religious responses to populist nationalism, authoritarianism, and nativism;
• Ways in which religious peacemakers understand interfaith dialogue and apply it within sociopolitical contexts, particularly where religious differences intersect with other sources of division (e.g., ethnic, racial, and/or national identities, economic inequalities, historical oppression, contested sacred sites);
• Religion and spirituality as sources of empowerment and cultural capacity in grassroots and indigenous peacebuilding efforts;
• Understandings of spirituality among communities of people working for peace/justice, and frameworks through which peacemakers communicate the spiritual significance and rootedness of their work;
• The role of religious communities, organizations, and institutions in enabling (or obstructing) sustained peacebuilding work and/or activism for social justice;

• Religious peacemaking methods and practices that can be construed as innovative, or that expand understandings of what is possible or desirable (for example, in relation to nonviolent action/witness, interfaith dialogue, multifaith projects/coalitions, hermeneutics, education/training, mediation, and advocacy for peace, social justice and/or coexistence);
• The role of faith-inspired activism in confronting problems of global scope (e.g., war, environmental degradation, poverty, and human rights abuses); in engaging superordinate goals such as human security, sustainable development, climate justice, and the advancement of human dignity; and/or in promoting secular-religious coalitions and partnerships.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Nathan Funk
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• religion and peace
• religion and reconciliation
• religion and social justice
• religious leadership
• religious activism
• interfaith dialogue
• religion and culture
• religion and peacemaking
• religion and peacebuilding
• spirituality and peace