ABSTRACT
Radical political movements with religion as part of their identity and ideology have emerged to challenge the secular state in every part of the world, in every major religious tradition. Within the United States there have been far more acts of terrorism and extreme violence related to Christianity than Islam, though the impact of the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, overshadows most other acts of terrorism within the United States. The tradition of Christianity has had an ambivalent relationship with violence. Like most religious traditions, the teachings of Islam praise nonviolence, and the very name of the tradition means “peace.” The Indic traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, have a reputation for honoring nonviolence and subscribing to peace. Like Hinduism, the Buddhist tradition is regarded as nonviolent and not political. Monica Toft and Timothy Shah survey the global rise of religious politics and extremism in God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics.
