Jason C. Bivins

A big challenge in understanding interreligious conflict is figuring out the role national identity plays. See why this is the case in modern-day Israel, where conflicts between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam demonstrate the fractious experience of overlapping histories and the limits of secular power in a complex religious world.

Focus on the role of war gods in human cultures and sacred texts. Then, take an extended look at the medieval Crusades, as well as Cold War religious imagery. It turns out the roots of war gods aren't as removed from our present day as we'd like to think.

In the first of two lectures on the power of stereotypes and misrepresentation to justify religious violence, look at how church reformers in Europe and the United States of America produced a series of enduring, negative images and stereotypes of Catholics: as degenerate, orgiastic, drunken, and power-mad.

Discover how religious violence is almost always justified by portraying its targets as something other than human, or as malevolent. Professor Bivins explains how the social process of Other-ing has led religions to process and create fear through scapegoats, demons and monsters, false gods, and Antichrist figures.

Sacrifice is one of the most fundamental building blocks of religion. Here, examine how and why people commit self-harm and sacrifice for religious purposes. Topics include animal sacrifice during India's Vedic period, self-denial and asceticism (such as vows of celibacy), and religious suicides from ancient Rome to the modern era.

For humans, the world is always about to end. Using examples like the People's Temple, the Branch Davidians, and Aum Shinrikyo, as well as 19th-century America, explore the meanings of apocalypticism as a form of human meaning-making, as well as its role in the phenomenon of religious violence.

When is it permissible to go to war? Learn how Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all wrestled - morally, conceptually, strategically - with questions about how to balance religious ideals with real-world conflicts, and how religions define violence in the context of war as a necessary, limited evil.

Focus here on a very specific aspect of Other-ing: the idea of different races as the objects of religious violence. First, examine how religions generate racial ideas. Then, take a closer look at two very different expressions of racial religion: white supremacist Christianity and the Nation of Islam.

Generally speaking, heresies exist in every religious tradition. Professor Bivins explains how religious violence can consist not only of physical harm against people or groups but of legal constraints, denials of basic liberties, and misrepresentation. Examples you'll consider include Pope Gregory IX's heresy courts and the trial of Galileo.

How have religious traditions responded to sexuality with demonization, social constraint, and physical assault? What are some of the oldest, most outlandish forms of religious self-discipline? How has religious and political persecution worked to target specific issues related to sexuality and morality (specifically abortion and homosexuality)?