Radicalism, Violence, and Religious Texts

As readers of this journal are no doubt aware, biblical texts are to be found on both sides of violent struggle. On the one hand, they have provided spiritual, theological, and ideological nourishment for those engaged in fights against injustice, exploitation, and the abuses of power. On the other hand, the Bible has frequently been weaponized to justify domination over the subjugated classes and exacerbate the exclusion of the marginalized. For Roland Boer, this double-edged function of the Bible speaks to the crux of Christianity as caught in a complex tension between reaction and revolution (2012, 225). Religious texts are themselves imbued with multiple layers of divinely-sanctified violence. Their canonization and authorization as sacred Scripture has destined violence once safely contained within the page or scroll to seep out and wreak havoc on the world around us.