Status Updates From The Myth of Religious Viole...

"Well into the twentieth century, ...religion was considered to be one of the principal binding forces that held a civilized society together. Church and state were separate institutions, but religion was not separate from the culture and political life of the nation. Government was expected to protect the rights of dissenters, but it was not expected to remain neutral with regard to religion."

The myth of "The Wars of Religion" has "a foundational importance for the secular West, because it explains the origin of its way of life and its system of governance. It is a creation myth for modernity." It "is also a soteriology, a story of our salvation from mortal peril."

Cavanaugh traces the history of the word "religion" to show how it developed from the idea of "a binding duty" in the ancient world to mean "a unified system of metaphysical beliefs" (or something like this, there are over 50 different potential definitions, and that's part of the problem this chapter addresses) in the modern area.

The trick is to define it so as not to include secular "isms," which can't be done.

"Most scholars who write on religion and violence give no definition of religion. Others will acknowledge the now notorious difficulty of providing a definition of religion, but will give some version of the assertion that “everybody knows what we mean when we say ‘religion.’” This is a sign that something is probably wrong. One should react as one would when urged by a realtor to waive an inspection..."

"There is no transhistorical and transcultural essence of religion, and essentialist attempts to separate religious violence from secular violence are incoherent. In "Western" societies, the attempt to create a transhistorical and transcultural concept of religion that is essentially prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of the liberal nation-state."