Two decades into this new century, analyzing the role played by the different facets of religion in mass violence and genocide remains a challenging task. After the events of September 11, 2001, and the violent, destabilizing phenomenon of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, some scholars and commentators argued that religion was the driving factor, inherently irrational and violent.Footnote ¹ At the other end of the spectrum is the growing body of literature on religious reconciliation and peacemaking, emphasizing religion's positive potential in postconflict and postgenocidal situations.Footnote ²

The anniversaries of the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda are reminders of the importance of this topic. Although neither of these genocides nor the conflicts in which they occurred were primarily religious in nature, there is no doubt that religious leaders and communities were perpetrators, “bystanders,” and—in the case of Bosnian Muslims—deliberately targeted victims. In the aftermath of both genocides, religious groups and approaches were instrumental in the processes of dialogue and reconciliation.

As this indicates, the role of religion in genocide and conflict is complex, as is the topic itself. What do we mean when we speak about “religion”? Are we talking about the role played by religious belief—and if so, whose beliefs, because within every religious tradition and community one finds a variety of beliefs and practices? Religious traditions exist globally and transnationally, and there are very different cultural and national versions of each religious tradition. Who or what versions do we designate to be “normative” for that tradition?

Or are we speaking more about religious “players”: individual actors who claim religion as their primary motivation, institutions that speak on behalf of a certain faith body, or organizations that are funded by religious groups? Digging further down, do the roles of these players represent religious belief or doctrine, or are they based on something else? Does religious violence and the targeting of religious minorities reflect a convergence of religious identity with populism, nationalism, and power struggles, and if so what triggers this development? To what extent in this convergence are religious teachings (or contradictory interpretations of those teachings) significant—or to what extent does involvement in a genocidal conflict represent a betrayal of religious ideals or the fanatical distortion of beliefs? Who can legitimately claim to represent a religious community, and how is such legitimacy established? How much legitimacy and credence in a given conflict do dissenting voices within a religious tradition have, and how do we evaluate the historical role of religious actors and institutions—or their dissidents—in the aftermath of a genocide? How do such dynamics affect outside interpretations of that conflict and the possible options for intervention?

Many of these questions fall within the professional expertise of theologians and scholars of religion. Historians can document and interpret events and the roles of different actors, but knowing how to decipher the theological subtexts and significance of these factors—in conjunction with a deeper understanding of the history of a given religious tradition or its history in conflicts with other traditions—can be key to knowing whether what is unfolding marks a break with tradition or builds on a foundation laid long before. Such questions are equally important, but will be answered very differently, in the case of Nazi Germany, Bosnia, Rwanda, or the Islamic State.

Much of our contemporary understanding of these issues has been shaped by the literature on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. This may be in part because the Holocaust occurred in a Western context and an international consensus about what had happened emerged quickly after the defeat of Nazi Germany. It was also due to the Allied victors’ determination in the wake of the second catastrophic European war in several decades to thwart any possible recurrence. There had been a deep lack of such consensus after 1918, particularly when Germany denied its guilt in the First World War, leading to widespread resentment and a resurgence of nationalism within the German population. This was one reason why the Allied armies in 1945 held war crimes trials in camps such as Flossenbürg and MauthausenFootnote ³ shortly after they liberated them, and war crimes trials throughout Europe continued for decades. The surviving leaders of the Nazi regime were put on trial in Nuremberg. Allied forces interviewed surviving camp inmates and gathered documentation about the camps. The survivors of the Holocaust were instrumental in generating and shaping an understanding of what had happened. In the decades that followed, much new historiography was done that corrected some early misconceptions and deepened our knowledge of other factors.

Out of this process two issues in particular emerged that are central to understanding the role that religion played in the Holocaust and instructive for the examination of this factor in other genocides. The first has to do with belief, culture, and the dynamic relationship between religious majorities and minorities: in the case of the Holocaust, the intersection between the history of Christianity and the deeply embedded nature of anti-Semitism in Western culture.Footnote ⁴ In terms of the many insights here that can be generalized to other cases of genocide, a primary one concerns the dynamics of religious “othering”—the segregation and targeting of a religious community, the scapegoating and stereotypes that take hold in the broader culture, and the ways in which such hatred escalates to a violent life of its own. The history of anti-Semitism in Western culture goes hand-in-hand with the history of Christianity, beginning with the initial “parting of the ways” between what had been a Jewish sect led by Jesus and his followers and the “Christendom” established under the Roman Empire in the fourth century.Footnote ⁵ The prejudices against the Jewish minority that resulted took various forms over the centuries, including forced conversions, ghettoization, and violent pogroms. Beginning with the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century emancipation laws, there were also counter-developments toward greater acceptance, assimilation, and full legal status for the Jewish community. These latter developments, however, were viewed and polemicized in some sectors of the Christian world as dangerous forms of “secularism” (with which “the Jews” then became identified). By the early twentieth century, anti-Jewish prejudice had become ethnicized and polemicized throughout Europe.

Although there was a dramatic rise during the 1920s in right-wing Christian anti-Semitic movements throughout Europe, it was in Germany that this combination proved most fatal. A detailed account of the history of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany goes beyond the scope of this article, but in general both institutions and their leaders made their compromises with the Nazi regime, assisted by leading theologians who became advocates for a “nazified” Christianity.Footnote ⁶ Some leaders, particularly within Protestantism, did so wholeheartedly and others more reluctantly, but in general the anti-Nazi resistance that emerged in the churches came from ordinary laypeople and clergy, not from church leadership. After 1939, Christian anti-Semitism was a significant factor in the collaboration of local populations throughout the countries that endured Nazi occupation.

A related and controversial question is the extent to which National Socialism itself can be considered “Christian” or the ideological outcome of Western Christian history.Footnote ⁷ Because the German population was almost entirely Christian, most National Socialists were themselves Christian. Germans considered their nation a deeply Christian culture, and Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda regularly used Christian imagery including crucifixion scenes. At the same time, there were anti-Christians within the Nazi Party, and significant critiques of National Socialism on theological grounds came from some Protestant and Catholic laypeople (notably women), clergy, and theologians, as well as internationally from the Protestant ecumenical movement and theologians such as Jacques Maritain, Reinhold Niebuhr, and James Parkes.Footnote ⁸

The second factor concerns the dramatic changes in the Jewish-Christian relationship in the wake of the Holocaust, and this is relevant for understanding processes of religious reconciliation in general. In 1947, the International Conference of Christians and Jews held a conference in Seelisberg, Switzerland, which produced the “Ten Points of Seelisberg,” widely regarded as the first post-Holocaust statement of Christian-Jewish relations.Footnote ⁹ The process begun in Seelisberg led to the acknowledgment of Christian guilt and responsibility for the persecution of the Jews, to profound changes in Catholic teaching about Judaism, as reflected in the Vatican II statement Nostra Aeatate, as well as to decades of dialogue and scholarship that have created a different interfaith relationship between Christians and Jews.Footnote ¹⁰ Among other things it sparked new critical and transformative work on Christian scriptural exegesis and theology. This process can be traced in the long list of statements of guilt and repentance made over the decades by different Christian churches in Europe and North America.Footnote ¹¹

These theological and ecclesial developments constitute a significant form of post-Holocaust reconciliation between Jews and Christians. They did not occur in isolation, however. They took place within the larger context of war crimes trials, reparation agreements, the creation of Holocaust ceremonies, memorials, and museums throughout Europe and North America, and last but certainly not least the work of historians who documented the critical and difficult aspects of the history. Indeed, a crucial factor in post-Holocaust theology was the historiography that established the critical truth of what had happened.Footnote ¹² It is important to note that the acknowledgment of this truth occurred only over time; the early post-Holocaust era was marked by a hagiography that portrayed the churches far more heroically than actually had been the case.Footnote ¹³

The extensive body of scholarship on the history of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and the long history of Western anti-Semitism has influenced how scholars of other genocides understand their topic. In some ways this history offers important insights; in other ways, however, it may be misleading, particularly with respect to religious questions, which is why the questions outlined at the beginning of this essay are important. Although, for example, there are good reasons why in the case of the Holocaust there is a focus on theological belief (e.g., Christian teachings about Jews), this reflects a particularly Western understanding of belief within the framework of centuries of Christian exegetical and theological literature. A similar dynamic exists for understanding the role of religious leadership and institutions, which are structured differently in Christianity than in some other religious traditions.

The reverse is also true: scholarship on other genocides and religious conflicts has led scholars to reexamine previous assumptions about the role of religion in the Holocaust, particularly with respect to the larger contexts in which genocide occurs. Among other things this has led to a growing body of literature on the role played by religious minorities, gender dynamics, and the historical and ideological framework of colonialism.Footnote ¹⁴