ABSTRACT
All major religions have texts and traditions that justify or even require violence under certain circumstances and conditions. Both Islam and Sikhism originally emerged in contexts of conflict, where believers were both exposed to violence and had to use it in self-defense. Christian just war principles have also been used to justify violent opposition to oppressive regimes, as in the decision of the leading Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer to support the planned assassination of Hitler, and in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. For Muslims the starting point of jihad, the struggle to maintain and promote the faith, which can be entirely peaceful, sanctions violence as a last resort, when it is believed that this is the only way that Islam can be secured. The alignment of religion with secular nationalisms also has great potential to unleash violence. The Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry is the most enduringly emotive case of state-sponsored violence.
