Peace on Earth: The Role of Religion in Peace and Conflict Studies - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1498525903 ISBN 13: 9781498525909

Publisher: Lexington Books, 2015

Synopsis

Peace on Earth: The Role of Religion in Peace and Conflict Studies provides a critical analysis of faith and religious institutions in peacebuilding practice and pedagogy. The work captures the synergistic relationships among faith traditions and how multiple approaches to conflict transformation and peacebuilding result in a creative process that has the potential to achieve a more detailed view of peace on earth, containing breadth as well as depth.

About this title

Review:

These insightful essays and informative case studies gathered by Matyok and Flaherty will help readers understand why developing peace literacy is not only something many religious believers consider essential, but also why developing religious literacy is essential for those studying and working toward peace. Peace on Earth: The Role of Religion in Peace and Conflict Studies provides valuable tools to help peace scholars, peace educators, and peace activists alike better understand roles religion and religious actors play today in both conflict and peacemaking.--Jennifer S. Bryson, Witherspoon Institute

This volume will be a useful counterpoint for those who associate religious bigotry and scapegoating with the advent of many violent clashes in the world, as well as a valuable pedagogical aid in the philosophical teaching about peace and conflict studies. Religion is only one somewhat inconsistent source in the development of public morality and norms which lead to conflict resolution, but it is undoubtedly an important one and subject to much misunderstanding; battles over faith and belief or between religion and science may be among the most challenging to resolve. The reader will grapple with many such contentious issues, not least the relationship between religion and human rights, the proper place of religion in political life and the most advisable balance between religious and secular institutions.--Fred Pearson, Wayne State University

This is an important and exciting book with depth as well as breadth of coverage of the role of religion and religious actors in peace building work. The diverse and rich case studies and the theme of constructively addressing 'religious illiteracy' should make it a useful volume for students, researchers, and a wide variety of practitioners.--Siobhan McEvoy-Levy, Butler University

This book provides insightful views of the place of religion in peace and conflict studies. Its amazingly wide, yet deep, reports of diverse religions' approaches to peace and conflict offer specific paths to peacebuilding. The editors have assembled excellent contributors, with great knowledge about and experience with the important topics they examine. Every reader will learn about more and better ways that peace can be advanced at many different levels from this work.--Louis Kriesberg, Syracuse University

Academic peace study programs frequently ignore religion as a partner in pursuit of conflict resolution. These 24 essays advocate religion as a vital, if partial, participant in any serious pursuit of lasting peace. Religion's absence in peace studies--and peacemaking--is a crippling lack. Contributors to this volume present casebook studies of religious groups involved in recent conflict resolution--successes and failures alike. Brief but nuanced accounts of several religious traditions, with their ambivalent histories of war and peace efforts, are excellent summaries of those traditions, and also show how they have fallen short of their ideals. Some religious groups, only rarely at the table, present the unique witness they have maintained, often in the face of persecution or marginalization because of their relative size or beliefs and practices at odds with dominant religions. The essay on military chaplains stands out, as it discusses going beyond the unarmed morale officer for war-weary troops, to becoming a middle-range actor in affirming that those outside the military unit are not 'other.' The essays demonstrate in diverse ways that religion can be the source of conflict, but also a source of peace building, tolerance, and peaceful coexistence. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; general readers.--CHOICE

About the Author:

Thomas Matyok is associate professor in the Program in Conflict and Peace Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is a co-editor of Critical Issues in Peace and Conflict Studies: Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy. Maureen Flaherty is assistant professor in peace and conflict studies at the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, St. Paul's College, University of Manitoba. She is the author of Peacebuilding with Women in Ukraine: Using Narrative to Envision a Common Future. Hamdesa Tuso is a faculty member at the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies of the University of Manitoba. He is the founder of the Oromo Studies Association, and founder and director of the Africa Working Group. Jessica Senehi is associate professor of peace and conflict studies, and associate director of the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice, St. Paul's College at University of Manitoba. She co-authored with Sean Byrne, Violence: Analysis, Intervention, and Prevention, and coedited the Handbook of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Sean Byrne is professor of peace and conflict studies, and founding head of the Ph.D. and joint MA programs in peace and conflict studies at University of Manitoba, and founding director of the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice housed in St. Paul's College at the University of Manitoba. He is author, co-author, and co-editor of numerous books, journal articles and book chapters.

About this edition

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1498525903
• ISBN 13: 9781498525909
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 454
• Editor: Matyók Thomas, Flaherty Maureen, Tuso Hamdesa