Interreligious Dialogue and Conflict

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 January 2025 | Viewed by 1397

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Religion and Culture, VID Specialized University, NO-0319 Oslo, Norway
Interests: religioscapes, migration, diasporas; international relations, politics of religion and culture, cultural diplomacy, soft power; identity, belonging, European integration (Europeanisation); interreligious dialogue, conflict, reconciliation; balkans, eastern mediterranean, middle east

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to our Special Issue with an article which explores the intersection and interrelation of politics and religion, with a particular focus on the aspects of hostility, threat of aggression, conflict and reconciliation. The international political landscape is rife with types of engagement, as mentioned above. Geopolitical tensions, often drawn from historical perceptions of enmity, antitheses, belonging and sovereignty over territory, are not devoid of the religious element and soft power that it entails. As advocates of war or mediators of peace, religious actors have a significant role in swaying popular views and ultimately offering political legitimacy.

This Special Issue aims to inform scholarship through various disciplines and case studies that fit the intentionally broad description above. To that end, we welcome submissions that deal with issues such as conflict justification (just war), religious spatial/territorial ownership, as well as mediation, interreligious dialogue and conflict resolution.

Case studies may (non-exclusively) focus on the Arab–Israeli conflict, the Yugoslav wars, or the Russian–Ukrainian war, whereby emergent patterns, overlaps and differences may be identified through the juxtaposition of cases, and the extension parallels between religious actors may be drawn on the basis of their attitudes and rhetoric comparatively.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: religious studies and theology, politics and international relations, anthropology and ethnography, sociology and social sciences. Interdisciplinarity is desirable and strongly encouraged. 

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Georgios Trantas
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • religion
  • war
  • conflict
  • reconciliation
  • religioscapes
  • soft power
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • Balkans
  • Russia

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 238 KiB  
Article
Religion Against Violence: Insights of Contemporary Philosophy and Eastern Patristics
by Olga Vasilievna Chistyakova
Religions 2024, 15(11), 1360; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15111360 - 8 Nov 2024
Viewed by 660
Abstract
This article examines the concepts of violence and religion as social phenomena of modernity. Religion and the church are presented not as specific organizations or denominations, but as important social institutions and are reflected in philosophical and anthropological terms. I carry out the [...] Read more.
This article examines the concepts of violence and religion as social phenomena of modernity. Religion and the church are presented not as specific organizations or denominations, but as important social institutions and are reflected in philosophical and anthropological terms. I carry out the idea that religion as a modern social institute in cooperation with other social communities can resist violence, especially its aggressive forms. Based on some philosophical theories, the causes of the emergence of the different forms of social violence, as well as definitions of violence, are explored. In this context, the article presents the ideas of Hanna Arendt, Carl von Clausewitz, Bertrand de Jouvenel, James Mill, and Max Weber. Special attention is paid to the conception of the mimetic origin of aggression and violence in “primitive” or “archaic religions” elaborated by the French philosopher René Girard. He compares the social roots of aggression and violence in these religions with the Biblical ones and prefers the latter for their potential in preventing and overcoming the imitation types of violence. Girard’s anthropological justification of the mentioned historical religious traditions is presented. A significant part of the paper is devoted to the views of the Eastern Church Fathers of Early Christianity, considered in the concurrence of their humanistic ideas with those of noted contemporary philosophers. I see meaningful ideas for preventing extreme forms of violence and aggression in the contemporary world in the doctrines of the Early Eastern and Byzantine Fathers, especially those of the classical patristic period. In this regard, this article presents the anthropological and humanistic teachings of Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, and John of Damascus. The Early Church Fathers’ ideas are analyzed from a philosophical point of view, as having rational and anthropological grounds which are relevant for the present day’s human existence. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interreligious Dialogue and Conflict)
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