What Are the Churches and Others Saying?

Religion​—A Force For Peace Or For War?

WE LIVE in an age of science and technology. Yet religion still is a powerful force in the lives of people and in world affairs. Most people still belong to one religion or another. And it still is commonly believed that all religions work for the good of mankind.

At times the different religions come together to talk about peace. For example, in August 1979, 338 delegates from 47 countries met in Princeton, New Jersey, at the Third Assembly of the World Conference on Religion and Peace. They represented all the major religions of the world: Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Zoroastrian and others.

At such meetings the religious leaders express their concern for world peace. And much is said about each religion’s contribution to it. However, time and again the speakers hit on a common note: not all practice what they preach.

Speaking on Hinduism’s role in world peace, Swami Ranganathananda of Calcutta, India, said: “A study of the aims and objects of religion reveals it to be essentially a discipline for peace. Yet even a cursory study of the history of religion shows that all the religions of the world have contributed to war as much as to peace in varying degrees.”

Professor K. G. Saiyadain of New Delhi, India, said: “In the history of man, so many conflicts and persecutions have been provoked and so many wars precipitated in the name of religion that many quite well-meaning persons have turned away from it and are unwilling to seek its cooperation in their efforts for peace.” Then, regarding the Islamic religion, the professor, himself a Muslim, continued: “When I speak of Islam and its contribution to peace . . . I am not offering any defense of misguided or irreligious Muslim rulers or others who may have strayed away from the path and defied Islam’s insistence on peace as the only right way of life.”

Speaking of Christendom’s role in world peace, clergyman John H. Burt of Ohio, U.S.A., said that the actual record of Christians is “a record that is full of unhappy and unfaithful chapters when it comes to war.”

These are indeed thought-provoking statements. But even more thought-provoking is the question: Is religion a force for peace or for war? What do the facts show?

[Blurb on page 3]

Religion is discredited by the many wars fought in its name