In God's Name Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century [Hardcover]

Despite the widespread trends of secularization in the 20th century, religion has played an important role in several outbreaks of genocide since the First World War. And yet, not many scholars have looked either at the religious aspects of modern genocide, or at the manner in which religion has taken a position on mass killing. This collection of essays addresses this hiatus by examining the intersection between religion and state-organized murder in the cases of the Armenian, Jewish, Rwandan, and Bosnian genocides. Rather than a comprehensive overview, it offers a series of descrete, yet closely related case studies, that shed light on three fundamental aspects of this issue: the use of religion to legitimize and motivate genocide; the potential of religious faith to encourage physical and spiritual resistance to mass murder; and finally, the role of religion in coming to terms with the legacy of atrocity.

Omer Bartovis John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of History at Brown University. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Davis Center, Princeton University, and a Junior Fellow at Harvard's Society of Fellows.?

Part I:The Perpetrators: Theology and Practice
Part II:Survival: Rescuers and Victims
Part III:Aftermath: Politics, Faith, and Representation

Phyllis Mackis Professor of History, Director of Graduate Studies and has been Acting Director of the Institute for Research on Women at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis.