The Just War and Jihad Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam By R. Joseph Hoffman, ed. (New York: Prometheus Books, 2006. 303 pages.)

Abstract

The fifteen chapters of this book bring together scholars from a variety of
fields to examine and analyze what they perceive to be a relationship
between religion and violence. Generating a feeling of déjà vu, they rehash
previously developed assumptions, arguments, and biases that tend to ignore
underlying causes related to the “existence of the sacred,” for reasons apparently
beyond the domain of secular comprehension. The articles reiterate
conventional secular arguments about the dangers of religious convictions
on “peace” and tend to vary in quality and consistency, which reflects on the
book’s overall merit.
Although it is not feasible to go into each chapter’s details, it is important
to underscore their basic thrust and common theme: the issue of legitimation
and what confers legitimacy on action, be it violent in nature, such as
in war or conflict, or simply legal and organizational. Hector Avalos (chapter
6) puts it candidly. In the “relative” framework of “empirico-rationalism,”
he argues that religious violence is always “immoral,” positing that “life,” as
a manifestation of that which “exists,” is worth more than that which does not
exist (p. 113). However, this does not preclude war in the absolute. One
arrives at this conclusion after reading J. Harold Ellens’ “The Obscenity of
War” (chapter 2) as well as the Committee for the Scientific Examination of
Religion’s (CSER) “Protocol on Religion, Warfare, and Violence” (chapter 15) ...