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"The Crossroads of Religion, Violence, and Peace: An Introduction to Issue Five of Practical Matters"

by James W. McCarty III and Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon

We welcome you to the fifth issue of Practical Matters. This issue is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the ways that religion and religious practices contribute to both violence and peace. This is, in many ways, an old subject. Indeed, as both Talal Asad and now William Cavanaugh have argued, the framing of the Enlightenment project itself, whatever we would make of it, has been tied up with myths and metaphors of the violent nature of religion—which is in itself, they would argue, a dubious category.

The Wars of Religion echo in any conversation around religion and violence, at least, any conversation in Europe or North America, where this journal is geographically situated. Yet, this is also a new subject. For much of the twentieth century, many intellectuals wrote off religion as dying and irrelevant. The Arab-Israeli wars; the Iranian Revolution; the mass suicide at Jonestown, Guyana; the religious and ethnic conflicts of the 1990s; and now September 11th and the once-named War on Terror have come as a shock to those who accepted the thesis of religion’s demise, which included not only academics but also foreign policy experts and military strategists. Ever since, academics, political actors, and grassroots activists have been scrambling to answer the overly broad and partly problematic question, what does religion have to do with violence and what can it contribute to peace?

You will not find a definitive answer in this issue, but you will find a series of steps that the editors of and contributors to the journal were committed to take in order to further our understanding of the intersections of religion, violence, and peace. The first step was to place this conversation in the context of religious practices and practical theology. One of the seminal works in arguing for religion as a resource in diplomacy was Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft. This work included theory but also case studies of ways in which religious actors, acting out of their traditions and within religious institutions, helped bring peace to areas across the world.

We reaffirm that jumpstart to the conversation, as it is irresponsible to talk about how religion plays a role in conflicts and peacebuilding without looking at the institutions, theologies, and actors on the ground that have been both working toward peace and contributing to conflict. We also further this first framing by bringing together scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners to provide readers with a rich array of thought and practice on this question. ...

Read the rest of the essay over at Practical Matters.

The timing of our interview is especially prescient given the recent news that the state of Connecticut is on the verge of abolishing the death penalty. That would make them the fifth state in five years to do so and the seventeenth (17th) state with no capital punishment. The most persuasive argument against the death penalty seems to be the fear that an innocent person may be executed. But the Rev. Warnock's objection extends beyond even that.

In this video clip, the Rev. Warnock argues that the American criminal justice system is too rife with errors and human frailty to be entrusted with the ultimate form of punishment. In particular, the contradictions and complications in the way capital punishment is sought after and administered in the United States (i.e. minority defendants of white victims and poor defendants are more likely to face capital punishment charges) make the use of capital punishment in American society a social justice, not just a criminal justice issue. Though I imagine the Rev. Warnock would be against the death penalty even if we were guaranteed that the criminal justice system worked flawlessly, the fact that it absolutely doesn't ought to be cause enough for us to celebrate Connecticut's decision to no longer return an eye for an eye.

Jermaine M. McDonald
Co-Managing Editor, Practical Matters Journal

Practical Matters is a graduate-student run, transdisciplinary, multimedia journal that seeks to ask and provoke new questions about religious practices and practical theology. Founded in 2007, Practical Matters publishes peer-reviewed scholarship in several different media types and genres, reflections and essays by practitioners and teachers, video and audio interviews with scholars, reviews of current work in religious practices and practical theology, musical performances, photographic essays, and more.

Practical Matters has a broad target audience. At the time of our founding, we were unique in our ability to nurture a conversation about religious practices between scholars of religion, practical theologians, religious practitioners on the ground from a variety of religious perspectives, and the like in such an easily accessible forum. Though the number of online, open access journals has proliferated since 2007, we still believe Practical Matters fills a unique niche.

Three articles in our first issue "Imagination," (Issue 1, Spring 2009), exemplify this point. "Victory of a Dream" is an article about a novel adaptation of the Christmas-time classic, The Nutcracker, that features traditional Indian aesthetics in its dance techniques, musical scores, and sets (an interesting reversal of the Americanization or Christianization of traditionally Eastern practices such as Yoga). "Making a Mandala" is an ethnographic film of monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta, GA making a mandala in the atrium of a building at Emory University. "A Song to Sing, A Life to Live" is a video of an extended conversation between Emily Sailers (one half of the famed folk duo The Indigo Girls) and her father Dr. Don E. Sailers (professor emeritus of theology and worship at Emory University) about musical and liturgical imagination. The diversity of religious traditions, media-type, and intended audience reflected in these three articles from the "Imagination" issue is representative of each issue of Practical Matters.

The staff of Practical Matters is composed of graduate students in religious studies at Emory University. The entire agenda of the journal–issue themes, feature articles, selected book reviews, and the like–are determined by the staff, each of whom are members of the "up-and-coming" class of leaders and scholars for whom State of Formation seeks to provide a forum. This is why we think the partnership between our organizations is so cogent.

We hope to extend conversations about the content of Practical Matters here at State of Formation as well as speak to interesting issues related to religious practices that garner mainstream attention from time to time. Please take a few moments to check us out at www.practicalmattersjournal.org. There are four issues available for viewing, "Imagination," (Issue 1, Spring 2009), "Youth" (Issue 2 Fall 2009),"Ethnography & Theology," (Issue 3, Spring 2010), and "Religion, Health & Healing," (Issue 4, Spring 2011) with a fifth issue, "Violence and Peace," scheduled for a May 4, 2012 release. You can reach us at comments[at]practicalmattersjournal.org. We look forward to the discussion!

Jermaine M. McDonald and Jessica M. Smith
Managing Editors of Practical Matters