Kriminelle Religion
Regarding events in Bosnia and Lebanon the author addresses the nature of the relation between religion and crime. The very question is unusual. Most people assume that genuine religion does not come into conflict with the law. This assumption is due to an understanding of religion as something aest...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | German |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Diagonal-Verlag
2012
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| In: |
Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft
Year: 1999, Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Pages: 95-111 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | Regarding events in Bosnia and Lebanon the author addresses the nature of the relation between religion and crime. The very question is unusual. Most people assume that genuine religion does not come into conflict with the law. This assumption is due to an understanding of religion as something aesthetic and private, protected by the constitutions of secularised states. But this assumption has been proved wrong, as the case of Waco shows. If genuine religion is something interior, the leader of the group in Waco could only be a criminal, the people with him hostages. The explanation of the civil war in former Yugoslavia as >ethnic cleansing< had the same background. Careful study has revealed religion to be a major factor. Serbs interpreted the tensions in former Yugoslavia in terms of a holy battle between faithful Christian Slavs and infidel Slavs that had turned to Islam. Part of their definition of the situation was an authorisation of violent actions. In Lebanon, similarly, discourses in the Shi'i community were crucial for transposing suicide into martyrdom. The violent suicidal operations in the first part of the eighties contradicted Islamic law. Whether the action was seen as suicide or as martyrdom depended on the discourses in Islamic circles. Finally the author draws attention to the notion of >religion<. In the modern world religion has become a concept which ascribes to all cultures a norm and a world view which differs from reality. A breakdown of legal order can therefore »unleash« religious communities. |
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| ISSN: | 2194-508X |
| Contains: | In: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/0030.95 |