What Do the Facts Show?

Religion​—A Force For Peace Or For War?

THOUGH the world at large appears to be at peace, “more than two dozen small wars flicker and rage around the globe . . . taking thousands of lives,” says an Associated Press dispatch. Closer examination reveals the “dismal truth that probably half or more of the wars now being fought around the world are either openly religious conflicts or involved with religious disputes,” says newspaper columnist C. L. Sulzberger. For example:

In Lebanon, one of the battlegrounds of the Crusades, Christian and Muslim political factions are still engaged in what the Associated Press dispatch called “wars rooted in age-old enmities.” The fighting is principally between the Maronite Christians and the Sunni Muslims. But also involved are Greek Orthodox and Uniate Christians, Shiah Muslims and Secret Druzes. The death toll since 1975 is at least 42,000. Considering the size of the country, this could well be one of the bloodiest civil wars in history.

“People killing people in the name of religion in Northern Ireland has cost 2,079 lives in 12 years; 144 of those policemen,” says the Los Angeles Times. Though the basic issue is civil rights​—the rights of the Catholic minority versus that of the Protestant majority—​religion is deeply involved, and both sides have resorted to a militant solution. The result? The country has been transformed “from a quiet backwater and stronghold of strict moral standards to a free-living, mid-20th century society, corrupted and changed by violent words and deeds,” writes Barry White in the Toronto Star.

In the Philippines “the Defense Ministry has offered rewards of $4,000 [U.S.] each for the capture, dead or alive, of two Filipino ‘rebel’ priests,” reports the New York Times. Another news dispatch says that “four Roman Catholic priests who abandoned their parishes . . . have been seen leading communist insurgents in skirmishes with government troopers.” While “activist priests have taken to carrying guns” in the north, according to Newsweek, Muslims in the south are fighting their ‘holy war’ against Catholic majority rule.

Conflicts involving religion are by no means limited to these few places. There are the struggles between Turks and Greeks on Cyprus, between Hindus and Muslims in India, between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East, between Christians and Buddhists in Burma, between Muslims and Coptics in Egypt. And there is clergy involvement in political and guerrilla movements in Central and South America. Of course, there are other factors involved in such wars. But why is religion involved? And why is religion unable to stop them?

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Trouble Spots

El Salvador

Northern Ireland

Cyprus

Egypt

Lebanon

Pakistan

Cambodia

Philippines

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Religious youths in Ulster with gasoline bombs

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Religious Filipino insurgents at training session