"First of all, my persuasion is what really breeds violence is political differences. But because religion serves as the soul of community, it gets drawn into the fracas and turns up the heat"
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Smith is pulling the pin on a popular cultural grenade: the reflex to blame religion for bloodshed. As a theologian who spent his career translating faiths to a skeptical modern public, he’s not exonerating religion so much as relocating the motive force. “What really breeds violence” isn’t creed, he argues, but politics - the fight over power, borders, resources, status. Religion becomes the accelerant because it’s “the soul of community”: the language people use to name who they are, what they owe each other, what feels sacred enough to die for.
That framing matters. Smith’s intent is diagnostic, almost mediating: if you misidentify the engine of conflict, you’ll prescribe the wrong cure. His subtext is also defensive, but strategically so. He’s conceding religion’s visibility in conflict (“gets drawn into the fracas”) while insisting it’s often recruited, not original. The phrase “turns up the heat” is doing quiet rhetorical work: it admits religion intensifies, sanctifies, hardens - without granting it authorship of the brawl.
The context is late-20th and early-21st century discourse where “religion causes war” became a secular shorthand, especially after televised sectarian violence and post-9/11 polemics. Smith offers a more sociological picture: religion functions as a badge of belonging, so political combatants weaponize it for mass mobilization and moral certainty. He’s warning that modern conflicts are rarely pure theology; they’re identity politics with a halo - and that halo makes compromise feel like betrayal.
That framing matters. Smith’s intent is diagnostic, almost mediating: if you misidentify the engine of conflict, you’ll prescribe the wrong cure. His subtext is also defensive, but strategically so. He’s conceding religion’s visibility in conflict (“gets drawn into the fracas”) while insisting it’s often recruited, not original. The phrase “turns up the heat” is doing quiet rhetorical work: it admits religion intensifies, sanctifies, hardens - without granting it authorship of the brawl.
The context is late-20th and early-21st century discourse where “religion causes war” became a secular shorthand, especially after televised sectarian violence and post-9/11 polemics. Smith offers a more sociological picture: religion functions as a badge of belonging, so political combatants weaponize it for mass mobilization and moral certainty. He’s warning that modern conflicts are rarely pure theology; they’re identity politics with a halo - and that halo makes compromise feel like betrayal.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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