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New Atheism and the Causes of Religious Violence Introduction New Atheism and the Causes of Religious Violence Marcus Schulzke University of Leeds [email protected] Introduction The Global War on Terror raises important questions about the links between religion and violence. Each time a terrorist attack occurs, politicians and media commentators are quick to take up the debates over whether it was inspired by religion and the extent to which an attack by religiously-motivated terrorists implicates all members of a religious community. These issues have been particularly contentious following attacks by Islamic terrorists and have provoked further concerns about immigration, ethnocentrism, and a looming ―clash of civilizations.‖ During this same period, new atheists have engaged in a concerted effort to challenge religion‘s influence on public life. As part of this effort they have called attention to the links between religion and violence, and those between religion and terrorism in particular. New atheists have sought to demonstrate that religion encourages violence and that international security may be improved through secularization. Terrorism studies and new atheism share an interest in exploring the links between religion and violence, yet they are separate discourses that rarely engage with each other. Terrorism studies is overwhelmingly an academic enterprise that is carried on by social scientists and addressed to other social scientists or policymakers. By contrast, new atheism is a diffuse social movement that is informally led by public intellectuals and that takes a more inclusive form because of their efforts at public outreach and persuasion. My goal in this essay is to generate some dialogue between these fields by showing the extent to which each can benefit from the other‘s insights. I argue that new atheism provides a compelling account of how religion promotes terrorism, which improves on some of the theories developed in terrorism studies. Studies of religious terrorist organizations have produced important empirical findings, yet they often fail to address some fundamental questions about the relationship between religion and violence. In particular, they fail to note the ways in which faith motivates and excuses violence. New atheists give greater attention to the causal mechanisms that underlie religious violence and are able to more effectively explain things like how faith influences violent actors, the links between religious moderates and extremists, and the persistence of religious violence over time. New atheism can likewise benefit from drawing more heavily on terrorism studies. New atheists develop strong theoretical accounts of how religion and violence are linked, yet their empirical support comes from a relatively small range of high profile examples of religious violence. New atheists tend to focus on organizations like Al Qaeda, while overlooking the many other terrorist organizations with different ideological configurations. New atheists‘ critique of religion can gain greater sophistication and nuance by acknowledging that religion does not simply cause violence but rather does so in conjunction with grievances that may not have a religious dimension. The Rise of Religious Terrorism No ideology has a monopoly on the use of violence or on terrorism in particular. A diverse range of actors engage in terrorism, with motives ranging across the political spectrum. Throughout much of the 20th century, terrorism was most closely associated with leftist organizations, and indeed the history of modern terrorism is often traced back to communist and anarchist organizations that were formed in Russia during the final decades of the nineteenth century. The most infamous terrorist organizations of the 1960s, and 70s, were generally left- wing and nationalist organizations that did not have strong religious affiliations. Even some of the precursors to religious terrorist organizations, such as those representing the Palestinians, were primarily secular and motivated by non-religious goals. The ideological character of terrorism changed during the 1980s, when the incidence of religious terrorism rapidly increased at the same time as many leftist organizations were destroyed or went into decline (Enders 2005: 47; Rapoport 2004). Although secular terrorist organizations continue to exist and still carry out attacks around the world, they have been overshadowed by the proliferation of religious terrorist organizations that have carried out major mass casualty attacks. Islamic terrorists have created the most active and prominent organizations, but they are joined by a host of other violent actors with different religious affiliations (White 2001; Rapoport 2004; Pratt 2010). Christian identity theorists carried out several major attacks in the United States, such as the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, as well as smaller attacks against abortion clinics, religious sites, and members of the media. Japan was attacked several times by the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Jewish terrorists have instigated violence between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as killing more moderate Jewish leaders, including Yitzhak Rabin (Pedahzur 2009). Despite the proliferation of attacks from organizations with strong religious affiliations pursuing religiously-motivated goals, there is a great deal of debate in the terrorism studies literature about the extent to which religion is a cause of violence. For some commentators, religious terrorism represents a distinctive form of violence that is characterized by a particular set of objectives, tactics, and ways of organizing. Others think that religion‘s influence on terrorism is overstated and contend that ostensibly religious terrorist organizations are either less threatening than they appear or that they are largely driven by non-religious motives. Enders and Sandler take the former perspective, as they identify ―eight essential contrasts‖ between religious terrorists and the left-wing terrorists that preceded them (2005: 48). These contrasts are important to consider, as the debate over the link between religion and violence in terrorism studies is generally a debate over the extent to which these types of claims about the distinctiveness of religious terrorism are accurate. First, whereas left-wing terrorists attempted to represent a particular group, religious terrorists claim to represent the will of God. This divine mission makes religious organizations less concerned with alienating potential supporters and third-party audiences. Second, while left-wing terrorists tended to attack selected targets that with minimal use of force, religious terrorists favor mass casualty attacks launched against general targets. Third, in an effort to minimize casualties left-wing terrorists often gave warnings about impending attacks. Religious terrorists, for whom the casualties themselves are the desired goal, attack without warning and attempt to promote a generalized fear of unexpected attacks in the future (Enders and Sandler 2005: 49). Fourth, left-wing terrorists generally avoid suicide bombing, while some religious organizations endorse this tactic as a means of intimidation and an act of religious devotion. Fifth, left-wing terrorists showed an interest in their constituency and maintaining its supports, and while religious terrorists also depend on their constituencies, they are generally less strongly attached to them and less concerned with acting according to constituents‘ wishes. Sixth, left- wing terrorist organizations favored tactics such as ―robberies, kidnappings, and assassinations‖ and religious organizations prefer ―bombings, armed attacks and kidnapping‖ (Enders and Sandler 2005: 49). Seventh, left-wing terrorists have no interest in using weapons of mass destruction because these weapons are indiscriminate and counterproductive in building popularity. Religious terrorists, by contrast, often show an interest in obtaining and using those weapons. Finally, whereas left-wing terrorists treat violence as a means to an end, religious terrorists may see violence as an end in itself because it is directed against nonbelievers who deserve divine punishment (Enders and Sandler 2005: 49). Two issues are particularly important in this characterization of religious terrorism: whether religion causes or promotes terrorism, and whether religious terrorism is more destructive or threatening than secular terrorism. As I will discuss later, the literature on religious terrorism has found compelling evidence to show that religious terrorism does tend to be more pernicious and less restrained than secular variants. However, researchers have generally been more reluctant to take on the issue of whether religion actually causes violence. One literature review of the field notes that ―[m]ost of the literature that we reviewed avoids or skirts the issue of religion (except in studies that purport to show that it is not an important factor in terrorism)‖ (Davis 2009: xlviii). It goes on to say that ―Intellectually, scholars are uncomfortable highlighting religion because they see it as a mere subset of ideology (or, at least, as heavily overlapping with ideology)‖ (Davis 2009: xlix). Aside from a few noteworthy exceptions (Stern 2003a; Juergensmeyer 2003, 2006), this characterization is fairly accurate. Thus, while terrorism studies has reached well-supported conclusions about the destructiveness of religious violence, there is substantial room for improving accounts of the causal mechanisms that produce it. Evaluating
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