ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explains the significance of important biographical experience in the formation of religious identity, representation, and narration. In his interviews, immediate, meaningful contact with victims led toward different manners of representing Iraqi victims. The author examines the question, why did some Christian religious elites support the war and why did others not support it? To answer this question, he takes a micro-level interactionist perspective that considers how important personal experiences shape identity and narration of conflict. The encounters of some respondents with structural violence were not limited to domestic experiences. The author makes an analytic move that is classically sociological. He looks for the social origins of a curious empirical phenomenon that at first glance may not seem to be related to its social roots. The social structure of race differences in the United States highlights the degree to which how society is collectively shaped influences the prospects of individuals and groups in that society.
