CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Relating religion and violent conflict is a quite easy to do. Most of the violent outbreaks in the world, both past and present, are embedded in religious terms, ranging from the first century Jewish-Roman War, to the eleventh century Crusades, to seventeenth century 30 years War to the twentieth century Irish civil war to recent conflicts in Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Iraq, and Israel/West Bank/Gaza. Connecting religion and peace building is equally easy to do. History of human includes many examples where the people religiously motivated acted in different ways to bridge divides, promote reconciliation, or advocate peaceful coexistence. It thus becomes clear that understanding the dynamics of conflict—both the sources of discord and the forces of resilience—requires an understanding of the connections between conflict, religion and peace building. And yet sensitivities and uncertainties surrounding the mere mention of religion frequently stand in the way of that understanding. This general discomfort with examining the religious dimensions of conflict dynamics poses problems for development practitioners at several levels. At the most basic, a lack of awareness of the religious context may adversely affect interventions or provoke active resistance, even when large scale violence is not a significant risk. Where the risk of instability is higher, inattention to religious identities or to the views and aspirations of religious leaders may result in mischaracterizations about what the conflict is actually about or how likely it is to become violent. Nevertheless, Christian religion is a peace loving religion with well over two billion followers throughout the world, Christianity is an Abrahamic religion centered on God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. One of the big issues surrounding Christianity is that some people question the existence of the Trinity. Other points of debate are the Christian beliefs in Immaculate Conception, the original sin, the existence of the Devil, and the coming of the apocalypse. Learn more about Christianity and find out how it became the world’s largest religion with holidays that are known worldwide. Where violence is a reality, discounting the Christian religious dimension or resisting engagement with Christian religious actors may result in overlooking the many opportunities to tap into religion as a force for compassion and promoting peace. According to David Little and Scott Apple by, religious peace building is a term used to ‘describe the range of activities performed by religious actors and institutions for the purpose of resolving and transforming