Summary / Resumé
Heinz-Günther Stobbe: Religion and Violence. Critical Marginal Notes on the Current Debate
The relation between religion and violence has become a broadly discusses topic again today. Suicide bombings and other forms of religiously motivated violence force us to deal with an issue we thought to have overcome in the Europe of the Enlightenment. One has to differentiate here, however, between the patterns of interpretation, which religions use to account for violence in the world and the signifi cance of phenomena of violence within the religions themselves. A world without violence is hardly thinkable for most mythologies and religions. Biblical creation accounts, however, outline an ideal future without violent action on behalf of God or Man. In order to properly assess the signifi cance of violence within a religion, a purely peace-ethical attitude is not suffi cient. There has to be a rather basic approach, particularly with regard to a theological examination of an outdated practice of sacrifi ce, which ultimately ignores God’s godliness and thereby inextricably amalgamates religion and violence.
Heinz-Günter Stobbe : Religion et violence. Notes critiques au sujet d’ un débat actuel
Le rapport entre religion et violence fait aujourd’hui à nouveau l’objet de multiples débats. Des attentats-suicides et d’autres formes de violence à motivation religieuse poussent à se poser une question qui, dans l’Europe des Lumières, paraissait surmontée. Il faut distinguer entre les modèles d’interprétation par lesquelles les religions expliquent la violence qui existe dans le monde et l’im-