Religion plays a complex role in modern conflicts, serving both as an inspiration for violence and a powerful force for peace. A growing number of conflicts around the world involve religious claims and have religiously inspired combatants.
Kroc faculty and visiting fellows have published widely on the roots of religious violence and the potential for religious communities and movements to work for peace. The Program on Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding, established in 2000 at the Kroc Institute, welcomed 16 scholars of religion and peacebuilding as visiting fellows. The program has published Women and the Contested State: Religion, Violence and Agency in South and Southeast Asia and The Politics of Past Evil: Religion, Reconciliation and the Dilemmas of Transitional Justice (both Notre Dame Press).
Kroc Director Scott Appleby is leading a multi-year, interdisciplinary project to compare Islam and Roman Catholicism. Designed to build professional fellowship among Catholic and Muslim academics and public intellectuals, the project will examine the experiences of Catholic and Muslims as they have encountered secularization, modern science and reproductive technologies, the concept of religious freedom, democracy and constitutionalism, the secular nation-state, and other issues. The project will produce books, articles, and white papers analyzing the shared experiences and contested terrain of these world religions in a globalizing and modernizing era.
