How are we to engage with the religious aspects of terrorism? This vital contemporary question lies beneath much of today’s political and inter-cultural anxiety, as well as at the core of resolving much conflict across the world. The deeper we enter into it, as the author of this timely book himself confesses, the more aversive and troubling it becomes. Yet without doing so, we remain far from understanding the spiritual and emotional strength of violence, never mind finding effective response.

What is required, argues James W. Jones, is a complex multi-disciplinary approach, paying close attention to the changing specifics of religious terrorist phenomena. This is an approach Jones himself embodies, being both a Professor of Religion and a practising and teaching clinical psychologist. His illuminating study thus draws widely from various vital research sources with much care and conciseness. After first addressing the strengths and limitations of current social psychological models of terrorism in general, the author introduces the central psycho-religious themes by focusing on the chilling self-expressions of Muslim jihadists. These key features, he convincingly outlines, are also found in other religious traditions. This he demonstrates with particular reference to the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, and the disturbing apocalypticism within the US religious right (notably and shockingly illustrated by the popular ‘Left Behind’ publications) but also with telling reference to others such as the Tamil Tigers.

Jones persuasively argues that the religious character of religious terrorism must be understood in its own right, not as a mere expression of other contributory factors. He traces the way in which religions can radically dichotomize the world into good and evil, clean and corrupt, and how human aggression can be intensified through emphasis on purification and scape-goating. This can be exacerbated powerfully in the lives of individuals through reinforcing and making use of powerful psychoanalytic dynamics such as shame, humiliation and the drive towards cleansing self and world. Whilst submission to idealized authority also plays a key part, such features are easily nurtured today by local groups utilizing global communications. Without addressing such trends of religious and personality development, counter-terrorism actions thus remain fruitless and even counter-productive.

The book ends with a challenge to us all about how we must handle religious language and life. We are called to face the reality that every religious tradition offers ambiguous resources both for violence and its transformation. Are we then able to raise up religious leaders with sufficient courage, communication skills and ability to affirm mystery and critique how religion can justify violence? Other perspectives are also necessary for this process of combating the religious dynamics symbolized in the violence of Cain, given its alarming potential today by modern technology. This book, however, offers sobering but essential reading for those who would seek to react creatively rather than merely instinctively recoil.