About
Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace
The Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace addresses both the problem of religion and conflict and the possibility and practices of peace, giving particular attention to peace. Articles address everything from interpersonal relationships to international politics and draw from any discipline or combination of disciplines that can illuminate the journal's central concerns. While the journal’s first audience is scholars, its aim is to be relevant and accessible to peace practitioners and anyone else concerned about these themes.
The journal is a publication of Plowshares: a peace studies collaborative of Earlham and Goshen Colleges and Manchester University. It is shaped by, but not confined to, the perspectives of the three historic peace churches-Society of Friends, the Mennonite Church, and the Church of the Brethren-associated with the colleges that compose the collaborative.
Published twice yearly, the journal is an open access, online publication. All articles are peer-reviewed. Copyrights remain with authors. They have agreed to provide open access to their material, provided users give proper credit and do not alter the work in any way.
Funded originally by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Inc., the Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace is generously supported by the Henry Luce Foundation Initiative on Religion and International Affairs.
Foundational Memo
The problem of religion and conflict is one of the defining and increasingly inescapable features of our age, touching every level of society and politics. The rise of global population and increasing mobility mean that religious difference, too often experienced as religious conflict, is no longer present only in great urban areas, but in regions and towns long-accustomed to religious homogeneity. Learning to live well with religious and other differences becomes a need for everyone, not just for the residents of a few exceptional places. At the same time, the aftermath of the Cold War brought into visibility and stark relief what had long been the case, a plethora of regional conflicts, both inter- and intra-state, involving parties defined by some combination of ethnic, national, and religious difference. Ending such conflicts and healing from them have often proven to be intractable and tortuous tasks, though not without significant success stories.
While religion as conflict-causing problem sometimes seems to predominate, even mesmerize, in both popular and scholarly thought, religion as resource for peace is already a significant theme. In South Africa, both the apartheid ideology and resistance to it drew from religion, as has the post-apartheid recovery. While South Africa provides an especially striking example, many other conflict situations are marked by some mix of religion as source of both conflict and peace. If the need is great, the resources for addressing it are not. Cold War peace priorities left peace advocates ill-prepared to address the problem of religion and conflict, and most social science training in the secular academy leaves academics equally ill-prepared. Certainly some individuals do outstanding work; some journals publish occasional articles on religion, conflict, and peace; the volume of books grows steadily. Nonetheless, the work available at present is on a scale not nearly adequate to the need.
As a contribution to addressing this great need, the Plowshares Collaborative proposes to establish an online scholarly journal dedicated to the themes of religion, conflict, and peace. It will be marked by the following features.*
- While JRC&P will address both the problem of religion and conflict and the possibility and practices of peace, we will whenever possible give particular attention to peace.
- JRC&P will interpret its themes broadly, publishing work on everything from interpersonal relationships to international politics.
- JRC&P will draw from any discipline or combination of disciplines that can illuminate its central concerns.
- While JRC&P's first audience will be scholars, we intend that it will be relevant and accessible to peace practitioners and anyone else concerned about these themes.
- JRC&P will be shaped by, but not confined to, the perspectives of the three historic peace churches-Society of Friends, Church of the Brethren, and the Mennonite Church-associated with the colleges that compose the Plowshares Collaborative.
*We have found no journal that provides such a focus. The journal that comes closest, and makes a very important contribution, is Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, the annual journal of the Colloquium on Religion and Violence. Contagion, however, publishes only work based on the ideas of René Girard, and while the analysis of religion and conflict is the central theme, it publishes work applying Girardian analysis to many areas of culture and scholarship
Advertizing rates and specifications
Each issue of the Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace receives more than 10,000 hits and, as an open access publication, is used as course material and source material for research. To support our work and help you increase the visibility of your institution or organization, The Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace sells advertizing space to colleges, universities, seminaries, and nonprofit organizations devoted to peace research and advocacy and conflict resolution. Ads must be pre-designed to size and ready for posting to the website (jpg and gif formats are preferred). The Journal does not offer ad design services. Contact the managing editor, at jrcpeditor@manchester.edu to place an ad.