Today, religion is often accused of being the main root of violence in our world. Closely connected to this widely held assumption is the thesis that it was the European wars of religion at the beginning of the modern age that forced the European societies to develop a secular state characterized by its separation of religion and politics. Following this widespread master narrative the privatization of religion is seen as the precondition of the emergence of peaceful secular democracies. In recent times serious doubts are raised against these well-known assumptions and narratives. In 1995 the Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh challenged the usual view of the wars of religion by claiming that these wars were rather the birth pangs of the emergence of the modern nation state with its own affinity to violence. Independently from Cavanaugh, also José Casanova, a sociologist of religion, criticized the widely held assumptions about the wars of religion in his keynote lecture at the 2008 meeting of the research group „Religion – Politics – Violence“ at the University of Innsbruck (http://www.uibk.ac.at/plattform-wrg/idwrg/idwrg_25.pdf).

While analyzing various kinds of early modern military conflicts in comparative perspective historians too have recently developed much more nuanced views of the religious wars and the emergence of the modern nation state. This final meeting of the research group „Religion – Politics – Violence“ is dedicated to a careful interdisciplinary reassessment of the meaning and character of the European wars of religion by focussing on the complex and changing relationship between religion, violence and state building. By using different methodological and theoretical approaches historians, sociologists, political scientists, philosophers and theologians will engage in an interdisciplinary debate that will also indirectly contribute to a better understanding of the religio-political situation of Europe today. A final part of the symposium will focus on the seven-year journey of the research group „Religion – Politics – Violence“. What were the aims, what are the achievements and what are the most important questions that still need to be answered?

Joint Organizer: Research Platform „Politics, Religion, and Arts“, University of Innsbruck

Organization: Wolfgang Palaver, Harriet Rudolph, Dietmar Regensburger

Conference Fees: participation is for free, but registration is strictly required (limited access)

Registration Deadline: May 7, 2012;

Further information: http://www.uibk.ac.at/politik-religion-kunst/arge/arge.html