Confronting Genocide

Religion has too often been a cause of genocide. The essays in this collection examine why, and then propose how religious texts and traditions could be re-interpreted so that religions could become forces against genocide. -- Gregory Stanton, President, The International Association of Genocide Scholars
Confronting Genocide is an essential exploration of this complex dimension of the conceptual foundations of genocide. Steven Jacobs has done superb work in bringing together a broad and rich range of scholarly perspectives. A necessary contribution to genocide studies. -- Peter Balakian, author of The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response
Recommended. * CHOICE, February 2010 *
My God! This book about what our Gods really instruct us—is it 'Do Not Kill,' or is it 'Yes, Kill in My Name' (or alternately both notwithstanding the contradiction)—deserves our deep thoughtfulness along with considerable appreciation to the editor for addressing soundly a largely neglected and censored topic. Steven Jacobs leads us to important encounters with 'exclusivity, superiority, privileged access to God'; 'chosen people'-ness and 'promised land-ness'; 'nationalist-racist ideology undergirded by religious thought'; and how religion often 'divides humanity into believers and infidels, into the saved and the damned.' Highly recommended. -- Israel W. Charny, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide