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26 

HUMAN FORMATION, RELIGION, AND 

VIOLENCE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF AN 

UNHOLY ALLIANCE. 
 

John Segun ODEYEMI, Ph.D 
Department of Theology 

Dusquene University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, USA. 
frjay1368@gmail.com 

 
Precis  
As our world continues to evolve and grow, we recognize a spike and an 
upward curve of violence across the world.  Within the complexities of 
our common humanity which has made remarkable advancement in 
scientific and technological developments we find an intricate and hydra 
headed space of unbridled capacity for carnage, terror and violence.  In 
this essay, I seek to explore the idea of human formation, which ought to 
lead to wholesomeness and the creation of good citizens.  I place the 
ideal especially against the idea of ‘religion’ and religious violence, which 
has become volatile and prevalent in various regions of our world. In this 
paper, I simply lay out a format, which challenges assumptions, and 
hopefully provokes further reflections and seeks to question the 
contradiction of religion(s) and why they breed violence.  In addition, I 
will explore the ontological assumptions about human formation and the 
intersections of the nature of this unholy alliance. 
 
Introduction 
We live in a complex world of multi dimensions and inter-dependence 
with many aspects of our existence constantly intersecting with or 
without our conscious awareness.  In this essay, I intend to explore the 
varied levels of intersections between religion, the wholesome and moral 
formation of the human person in the society and how violence is yet a 
reality between human formation and religious beliefs.  Naturally, 
religion, among other factors is observed to be one of the fundamental 
bedrock of the formation of an ethically upright person and citizen. It is 
therefore a conundrum worth exploring, when religion itself becomes 



Section III: Religious/Socio-Cultural Perspectives And Human Formation    357 

violent and when religious persons embrace violence.  To proceed, there 
is a necessity to clarify a subtle yet quintessential shift in terms used in 
the title of this paper.  In my research, specialists in the area of life 
coaching in modern psychology and studies in human behavioral 
sciences have brought me up to speed that they no longer speak only of 
human formation; rather, there is a deeper reflection on the totality of 
the formation of the human person.  The distinction between these two 
ideas will be explored further in the next section.  For this essay, the term 
‘religion’ will be employed essentially in reference to the Abrahamic and 
monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  Remarks will 
be made briefly about other religions only to buttress points and support 
arguments.  Even though many scripts have been written specifically 
looking at religion and violence, this paper adds a new dimension as it 
relates the formation of persons with all its implications and the 
propensity for the same religious persons and their religious beliefs to 
become agents of violence. 
 
The Idea of Human Formation and the Formation of the Human 
Person 
 Lou Vallone is a leading figure among life coaching experts of the 
Human Formation Coalition (HFC).  They focus on helping individuals 
particularly people preparing or already in ministry within the Catholic 
and Protestant denominations.  Vallone makes the distinction between 
human formation and the formation of the human person understood 
from the perspective of development.  He asserts that while human 
formation is viewed broadly as one aspect, the formation of the human 
person encompasses some aspects that comes together to build an 
integral whole.  Within the newer approach, the formation of the human 
person includes intellectual, spiritual, pastoral formation (or relational 
formation), and human formation.  Vallone and other coalition members 
insists that the program of the formation of the human person is more all 
embracing than the outdated model of a broad human formation 
approach.  Within the intellectual formation, the person undergoing 
formation is helped to understand their intellectual abilities/capabilities.  
They are intellectually reinforced to be successful in their ministry by 
their insertion into the appropriate intellectual traditions of where they 
belong and will function.  Here you build the mind.  For an integral 
formation to take place, the spirituality of the tradition remains 
paramount with the hope that this formation leads to the development of 
a personalized spirituality.  Here you build the soul.  Within pastoral 
formation, Vallone and the coalitionists speak of relational or 
professional formation, which creates a matured person who is able to 
interact with others in a healthy and balanced manner.  Here you train a 



358 Formation of the Human Person in the 21st Century 

person, mind and body to re-engage and interact in the field.  It is the 
combination of these various aspects of the human person when properly 
annexed that can produce a balanced citizen or a person who carries out a 
specific role within the society. Finally, this is the kind of human 
formation that is geared towards behavioral and psychosomatic 
development of the individual, now approached under the title of the 
“Formation of the Human Person.”1 
 
The Nature of Religion 
Religions broadly are a set of belief system, which forms a pattern of 
practices, behaviors, worldviews, morals that relates to the connection 
between the human and supernatural world.  Religions of the world, 
according to leading scholars cannot be classed, categorized or defined 
under one simple category.  Generally, religions have sacred stories, rites, 
rituals, symbols, holy places, and doctrines, which often times are 
preserved or transmitted by sacred texts.  Fundamental to the practice of 
religion is an attempt to understand the origins of human existence, the 
origin of our universe (and sometimes, its impending dissolution), and 
the notion of a transcendental being often referred to as God.  In classic 
antiquity, particularly deriving from its Latin etymological roots, religio is 
understood as a sense of moral rectitude, ethical obligation or duty 
towards others, nature and even God.  At this stage, religio did not 
reference the idea of doctrine or ritual practices.  Religious beliefs and 
practices are many and varied around the world the usual common 
trends include the belief in the supernatural, omnipotent being/deity 
who is responsible for the creation of the world.  This supernatural being 
expects a specific moral rectitude in this world as to earn a reward either 
in this world, in the next or in both. 

Organized religions has been traced back by anthropologists to 
the Neanderthal age, and religious speculations goes even further back to 
the earliest dawns of human history.  Religions remain relevant because 
it has the power, through symbols, texts, rituals, liturgies to evoke a sense 
of mystery that ‘legislate’ order in existence.  According to Raymond 
Scupin and Christopher DeCorse, “A religious worldview helps people 
to discern the meaning of pain and suffering in the world.  Sacred myths 
help people make sense of the world and also explain and justify cultural 
values and social roles.”2  While some claim that religion as faith 
contradicts reason, others argue that faith and reason are interlinked, so 
that when they are properly annexed religion tends to bring forth a 
properly mannered individual.  Religions of the world could almost be 
marked out distinctly by regions, however, the majority of self-professed 
practitioners of religion in the world belong to the three monotheistic 
and Abrahamic faith of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,   Hinduism and 



Section III: Religious/Socio-Cultural Perspectives And Human Formation    359 

Buddhism closely follow these.  In recent times, a certain demographic 
known as religiously unaffiliated, who are either self-acclaimed atheists 
or agnostics are yet  found to have some religious beliefs or tend to some 
spirituality especially of the Eastern types.  In the United States for 
instance, while many Americans no longer go to the Christian Churches, 
many are found to be attracted by various Eastern religious philosophies 
like yoga or meditation. 
 While ontologically, religion should be the ideal space for an 
alternate world of peace, justice, truth and non-violence, historically, 
religion has been known to be the harbinger for violence.  Tikva Frymer-
Kensky sums it up thus, 
Religions find themselves actively engaged in violence.  Islam confronts 
the rise of militant extremism and the world’s perception of Islam as a 
violent religion.  Judaism is coping with the challenges of having military 
power and with the national struggle with the Palestinians and the 
immediate threat of suicide bombing.  Hinduism faces the issue of the 
violent confrontations between Hindus and Muslims in North India.  
Buddhism must deal with the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and the 
genocide in Cambodia and its aftermath.  Even Christianity, which has a 
past of violent conflict, now must reevaluate its concepts of just war, now 
that technology makes limited war very difficult and the issue arises of 
whether to intervene militarily in order to prevent genocide or other 
atrocities.3  
 It is important to note that from a purely historical perspective, when 
religions become violent, at the very root of that violence usually is 
found people who manipulate and hijack religion for personal purposes.  
It could be for political gain, economic gain, the oppression of minorities 
or for cultural gains. Therefore, we can establish that innately, religion is 
not per se violent but it can be used to perpetrate violence. 
 There are various reasons why religions may turn violent, and these 
reasons will be explored carefully later on in this paper.  For now, it 
suffices to point out an underlying theological problem that is often not 
identified when there is a conversation about religions.  Most religions 
require faith, a strong belief based on personal spirituality and 
conviction, without physical proof, in the existence of a benevolent 
higher being known as God.  Religion can exist epistemologically but the 
true act of religiosity is faith.   Therefore, it is possible for an individual 
to be religious but the same individual is not a person of faith.  Religion 
can be likened to a container, and its content is faith.  Relying primarily 
on the Abrahamic and monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity 
and Islam, and even though we can trace a history of violence among 
them in gargantuan proportions, yet we can find littered all through 
history, great men and women whose goodness and positive 



360 Formation of the Human Person in the 21st Century 

contributions continues to inspire humanity even today.  The relations 
between religions and violence or in a more specific manner the 
relationship between practitioners of religions and the religions they 
practice are quite diffused; in proximity, religions, persons and their 
environment can be violent and can be kind.  I argue that most people 
are introduced to religion but never quite make the next step; a personal 
growth into faith.  It is my position that it is within the various camps of 
religionists that the world has produced extremists thereby giving birth 
to religious violence.   
 Some argue that violence is embedded deep in the DNA of every 
human person.  And given the right conditions, motivations or even 
provocation, the beast in everyone can come to the surface.  There are 
also those who opine that there is a natural cosmic evil, an eternal battle 
between light and darkness, between good and evil, and more succinctly 
when couched in religious language; it is the eternal battle between God 
and the devil for the human soul.  J. Harold Ellens debunks these 
assumptions by arguing, “The notion that evil is cosmic and that reality is 
split, from the transcendental level down to our empirical experience, is 
profoundly untrue.  There is no evidence on the basis of which to 
conclude that there is such a thing as cosmic evil or that some grand 
warfare between good and evil, God and the devil, rages in the universe 
or in our personal world.”4  Ellens continues, “…the suffering of this 
world arises from our actions or our failure to act, either from inadequate 
or bad will, or from inadequate or bad information, or from inadequate 
or inefficient effort, or from lack of power or ability to do better or 
indifferently.”5  Ellens submits that religious violence is born out of the 
nature of humanity still grappling with understanding the power of 
nature and the complexities of the world around us.  Outside of the 
erroneous belief in ontological evil or cosmic conflict between good and 
evil, Ellens avers that violence by humans broadly “…are just 
communities of inadequate, ignorant, and sick humans trying to find 
their way to meaning in a world of radical freedom, constant growth, the 
perpetual change attendant upon growth, and the pervasive pain that 
accommodating change always brings.”6  Ellens surmise that humanity is 
naturally capable of devising violence, “without metaphoric prodding or 
genetic pathogenesis.  The Palestinians and Israelis have no mortgage on 
violence; al Qaeda is not unique, but typical, of the universal human 
pathology; we need only to look within our own psyches or souls.”7  
 Faith is personal, dynamic and specific that requires a commitment 
of the will to something abstract and otherworldly.  When religion leads 
to faith, it requires a certain kind of clarity and self-understanding that 
makes one commit to justice, equity and not perpetuating hate and 
violence.  Conversely, religion without faith creates fundamentalism of 



Section III: Religious/Socio-Cultural Perspectives And Human Formation    361 

the negative type.  It believes narrowly and exclusively, insisting that he 
or she possesses a monopoly of God and true religion.  
 
The Definition of ‘Violence’ 
Violence has become commonplace in society that many people have 
become inured to its effect.  We encounter violence on our streets on 
daily basis; in the beatings meted out by the police or the army to 
protesters, to the pickpocket who is caught and summarily condemned 
by mass hysteria and set on fire on our streets.  The simple acts of 
jostling to get on a public transport is violent in nature but accepted as 
the norm.  When a worker eventually makes it home and settles into the 
sanctity of his home, he encounters violence on the TV news, violence 
from a spouse bitter for lack of adequate funds to run the house.  When 
eventually he attempts to sleep, he is confronted with the violence of 
high temperatures without electrical power to combat it by the use of any 
kind of cooling device, and sometimes, the singsong of mosquitoes who 
remind you of how poor you really are. 

All of these may be perceived as a collage of separate actions, 
however, violence of all sorts are interconnected, “by a web of actions 
and behaviors, ideas, perceptions, and justifications.  While the individual 
and situational dynamics of violent behavior may vary somewhat, they all 
share a number of essential characteristics that bind them together into 
what we can call the unity of human aggression.”8  

One must not presume definitionally or otherwise that violence 
is limited only to physical aggression, bodily harm or injury; violence can 
also be emotional or psychological.  In this light, I find Leonard 
Berkowitz’s definition of violence apt, “any form of behavior that is 
intended to injure someone physically or psychologically.”9   An attempt 
to trace the continuum of violence exemplifies the depth and range of 
how violence subtly has become a subculture in modern times.  Within 
the spectrum of violence, we can include, physical assault, murder, serial, 
mass, spree killings, domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, crime of 
passion, street crimes, hate crimes, mob violence, genocide, verbal and 
psychological abuse, terrorism, kidnapping, gang violence, ethnic 
violence and religious violence. 
Religious violence are usually born out of delusions that subjectivises 
and personalizes truth.  Harold Ellens encapsulates religious violence 
very succinctly thus,  
Violence is always the product of such worldviews.  Whether it is 
violation of the truth, or violation of persons, property, and appropriate 
procedures for human social and juridical order, it is violence.  Whether 
it destroys persons, the necessary conditions of healthy human existence, 
or useful understandings of the real world, it is violence.  Whether it 



362 Formation of the Human Person in the 21st Century 

corrupts freedom, constraints legitimate liberty, or fouls the human nest 
with mayhem and bestiality, it is violence.  Whether it oppresses persons 
or peoples with the force and power of empire building, represses hope 
and the resilience of the human spirit with mass-casualty fear and 
intimidation, or terrorizes the tranquility of children with media reports 
of those kinds of mayhem, it is phenomenally destructive violence.10 

Religious violence therefore is a creation of a person or persons 
whose ethical formation is flawed and thriving on absolutists’ and 
fundamentalistic positions degenerates into psychosis. This is a 
dangerous psychosis because wherever it is found it is usually dogmatic, 
ideological and exclusivist in nature.  It cannot be reasoned with, it 
cannot be reviewed or critiqued, it is rigid, unchanging and cannot 
tolerate any other truths outside of its own, neither can this position 
accept amendments or new insights.  Whenever the absolutist feels 
cornered or threatened by an opposing idea, in their demented mind, to 
defend their own truth is to result into violence.  
  
When Religion Become Violent: From Fundamentalism to 
Extremism 
Core to religious violence is the conflict between orthodoxy, liberalism 
and modernism at crossroads for the modern person in contemporary 
times.  Overtime, religious violence has been fomented by those who 
claim orthodoxy, be it the Catholic crusades, the never ending Jihads of 
radical Islam and the Jewish- Palestinian conflict; they are grounded on 
orthodoxy.  However, it has become even more problematic when it is 
re-translated as orthodoxy against liberal post modernity.  Events of 9/11 
remain a poster child and watershed for an outrage incomprehensible or 
imaginable to the normal human psyche until it happened.  Beyond 
perhaps, political and economic reasons, this act of brazen terrorism is 
primarily an ideological one.  In one act of savage violence, the world 
experienced the collision of extreme Islamic orthodoxy against a 
perceived extreme Western liberalism and the ‘waywardness of Western 
modernism.’ Sadly, and according to Ellens, “The tragedy of that 
terrorism is severe enough at the physical and material level to gain 
global attention and concern.”11  This writer states that the real tragedy of 
this violence lies in the fact that “it is a state of the soul or psyche, 
conditioned and twisted by specific religious archetypes.  Those terrorists 
apparently really believed that their action was an execution of the will 
and intentions of God and for it they would have ‘exceedingly great 
reward’.”12 

Conversely, we must consider what Andrea Riccardi refers to as 
‘The Decline of Religion’; a situation where postmodern liberalism has 
jettisoned the idea of religion and twentieth century industrial and 



Section III: Religious/Socio-Cultural Perspectives And Human Formation    363 

technological civilization has found a new god.  Some contend that 
modernity with its new humanism has sounded the death toll for 
religious belief.  Within modernity is the evolution and creation of the 
new political order, the state.  Riccardi states, “The state’s view has been 
a secular one, and the secular view has even been an ethic that has 
become as it were a lay religion, with its own social rites… Society has 
ceased to identify itself with religion.”13 In this view, summarily, 
The twentieth century continued with the idea that modernity was 
sweeping religion away from its role as a protagonist in history… religion 
came to be associated with fanaticism or with the memory of the wars of 
religion which had stained Europe with blood or which had been fought 
between the Christian world and the Muslim world.  The elimination of 
religion from social life was regarded as a factor of progress and 
stability.14 

Subliminally we must also reflect on the relationship between 
the origins of the political state and religions.  While Islam and Judaism 
can lay claim to a religion that is embedded strongly in the culture and 
nationhood of the environs in which it originated, Christianity does not 
share the same history.  In fact, for the first three centuries of its infancy, 
Christianity was persecuted by the state and its political machinery.  In 
contemporary times, the infractions of the state against religion, albeit, 
Christianity as a religion in the separation of Church and state is worthy 
of evaluation in another paper.  It suffices to say that religions can 
become violent depending on how the political state impinges on 
religious liberties or how it favors one religion against the other in a 
multi-religious space. 

Emmanuel Ojeifo in a newspaper piece written and published by 
This Day newspaper on March 19, 2020, while reflecting on religion and 
violence argues that when people become entrapped in what he calls 
“mental and theological prisons of sectarianism”, they become blind and 
unable to perceive what is valuable due to globalization and how it 
impacts the religious sphere.  Ojeifo states, “They think to welcome this 
good [of globalization] is to put their faith at risk of extinction.  The 
reaction to this is therefore, one of intolerance to difference, which finds 
expression in the rhetoric of ‘We’ vs ‘Them’ or ‘The Chosen vs. The 
Rest.’  When this intolerance is pushed to the extreme, it leads to the 
vilification and demonization of the other.”15  And in the classic Wole 
Soyinka saying, we then move quickly from “I am right, you are wrong,’ 
to ‘I am right; you are dead’!  It is within this scope that poorly formed 
individuals turn into a menace to society.  While religious formation, 
formal education, societal education, peer education all fail to produce a 
worthwhile citizen, you end up with a maniac, closed minded absolutist 
ready to cause mayhem if his way is not the only way.   



364 Formation of the Human Person in the 21st Century 

Edward Schillebeeckx extrapolates on two claims made by 
religious adherents, which quickly devolves into violence; first, he points 
out the claim made that one religion is the only true religion.  According 
to him, “Here the right of the other religion to exist is consistently 
denied.  In a multicolored society such a negation is in itself a virtual 
declaration of war.”16  Second, is what he calls the established guarantee 
of the wellbeing of human society based on ‘my God alone’ syndrome.  
He avers, “This second foundation for religious violence is the 
conviction… on the basis of its claim that the god whom they confess is 
the direct guarantee of the wellbeing of human society.”17  Schillebeeckx, 
submits that “Even if a religion recognizes itself as one alongside many 
other religions, it can incite violence because of all kinds of alliances or 
presumptions, hidden or open, which are in fact bound up with it and 
therefore because of an implied distorted picture of God.”18 In his final 
summation, Schillebeeckx states, 

…the whole of human kind is the elect people of God.  
All historical forms of belief in a religious election must 
be at the service of and subject to the criticism of 
universal election; otherwise the self-understanding of 
election in individuals, peoples, or faith communities 
also pose a threat, involves danger and violence, to those 
of other faiths or none at all.  This can prove a breeding 
ground of violence.19 

Religions therefore, to remain through to its classical definition and 
foundational authority remains true in so far as it does not make 
absolutists claims to truths about God-even when there are doctrines or 
scared texts that make these claims.  No government or persons can 
legitimize this sort of claim without leaving the back door open for 
violence.  Anyone can choose to believe in what they believe in, but no 
one can impose their beliefs on others even when it implies an eternal or 
temporal damnation of body or soul. 

Fundamentalism usually is born of orthodoxy and it is not 
limited to the religious sphere alone.  According to J. Harold Ellens, 
“Fundamentalism is a psychopathology that drives its proponents to the 
construction of orthodoxies in whatever field it is in which those 
proponents live or work.”20  Ellens is of the opinion that “Today we 
would certainly be forced to include in that category of most dangerous 
movements both Islamic religious fundamentalism and fundamentalistic 
Israeli politics.  All three of the great Western religions that derive from 
ancient Israelite religion of the Hebrew Bible are plagued by the presence 
of this sick psychology and its heretical products.”21 

Most dangerous of all is the danger of misinterpreting sacred 
texts.  Religions mostly approach their sacred text as revealed or divine.  



Section III: Religious/Socio-Cultural Perspectives And Human Formation    365 

As such, the message of sacred texts are taking seriously.  History has 
shown that many times, religious violence erupts because of the 
interpretations without context, without an understanding of history, 
worse still, without education in the field. D. Andrew Kille opines that, 
“To understand the role of sacred scriptures in shaping violent attitudes 
and behavior we must recognize that texts do not do anything in 
themselves.  It is only in the dynamic encounter between the text and a 
specific reader, in a specific community, in a particular historical and 
cultural context that individuals engage, interpret, internalize and 
ultimately act on these texts.22 

It is therefore easy for individuals to take a text out of context 
and run with it. The sacred texts can be approached from proper exegesis 
or simply from the point of eisegesis. The combination of wrong 
interpretation of sacred texts coupled with fanatical extremism is the 
most dangerous recipe that can quickly result into religious violence. 
 
Proposals 
Even though religions may have been used historically as a tool to back 
up violence, to maintain power, to subjugate others and often times to 
disenfranchise the less powerful, religions remain essential to the 
equilibrium of persons and the society.  Religion wields its own power 
over people’s minds and lives.  It affects how many relate peacefully or 
otherwise in a largely pluralistic society.  Religion can be used to form 
cooperation between nations and it can be used to cause wars among 
sovereignties.  No matter how much contemporary culture lays claim to 
civility, the litmus test is found often in how we employ religious tenets 
to build or tear down communities.  In Olusegun Okedairo’s work, 
titled Africanism, he asserts, 

…a country may have all the means of modern 
technology but should it lack the necessary properties… 
then rather than be said to be civilized is uncivilized.  A 
country’s constitution that features the right to freedom 
of thought, conscience and religion among other rights is 
a civilized one.  In the same vein, one of the indices of a 
country’s holy writ that is uncivil or a man’s incivility or 
lack of culture is the absence of these fundamental rights.  
Hence anybody who discriminates, ridicules, attacks, 
maligns, maims or kills another on account of religion is 
not only wicked…but strictly speaking, he is not 
civilized, he is a pagan, bush man or ill mannered.  Call 
him a zombie, you will not be wrong, because you would 
have beyond this planet to find a more striking example 
of mechanical religionists, blind adherent to a verbal 



366 Formation of the Human Person in the 21st Century 

formula without any regard for conscience or common 
sense.23 
Politicians, religious leaders and all who hold positions of 

authority over others must turn away from the seduction of using 
religion to illegitimately maintain and perpetuate personal gain and 
power.  Rather, leaders ought to explore means by which religions can be 
a tool for ameliorating all sorts of class misunderstandings. Helena 
Cobbans is right when she avers, “At their very best, religious ideals and 
precepts can, when confronted with the chaos and the bottomless 
tragedy and perversion of the natural order that are induced by war, be 
used in ways that provide succor to afflicted and healing at all levels of 
society from the individual person through the group to the nation.”24.  If 
bad people can manipulate religion for personal gain, then good people 
must work tirelessly to make sure religion is a veritable tool for 
development and growth. 

In recapitulating as part of a few proposal, we can result to a 
simple antithesis of the problems already enumerated.  Namely, we need 
to pay attention to the fundamentals of the formation of the human 
person; rounded and wholesome.  Anything else creates the conducive 
atmosphere for the breeding of anarchists and extremists.  The 
interpretative approach to the reading of sacred texts in all religions, 
when not attended to respectfully and intellectually will continue to be 
the ontological basis for religious violence.  Sacred texts are powerful and 
portends possibilities for peace or violence.  The proliferation of religions 
around the world into conservative, moderate, liberal, ultra-modern, etc, 
and the re-interpretation of scriptural texts under these varying traditions 
remains an underlying factor for religious violence.  Unfortunately, very 
little can be done in correcting this error.   It is important also to study 
and come to an agreement of the interaction between ‘Church and State.’  
There is a need for an anthropology particular to a place and its people to 
know the degree of separation.  Traditionally, some cultures are very 
religious and their civil codes derive from their religious worldview.  In 
some other climes, this is not so, especially as it can be found in most of 
western democracies.  Most importantly, religions should not be used as 
a political advantage against other religions within a body politic or as a 
leverage for the maintenance of power.  For religion not to turn violent, 
it must not be used to give undue advantage to adherents either for jobs, 
appointments or admissions. Finally, wholistic human formation should 
create citizens whose altruism is not based on indices like religion, 
ethnicity or political alliances rather, these citizens must be focused on 
the thriving of the commonwealth, peace building and non-violence.  
 
 



Section III: Religious/Socio-Cultural Perspectives And Human Formation    367 

Conclusion 
As part of our efforts as religious people or civil society to engage in 
attempts at proper formation of the human person, we must keep in 
mind that the world will never embrace one faith or one religion.  In 
living the reality of pluralism of religions, all citizens must accept the task 
of learning the maxim, ‘live and let live.’ On this Andrea Riccardi states, 
“Reality and the religious traditions have constantly given rise to a 
demand for dialogue and understanding between the different religious 
worlds.  This orientation contrasts with the tendency to retreat into 
narrow identity and to engage in conflict, and with the use of the 
religions for nationalistic or bellicose ends.”25 It is for this reason that 
many countries now create channels to engage differing religious groups 
within their enclave in constructive dialogues.  

In contemporary times, the monotheistic religions must take the 
lead in a new re-orientation of its adherents towards peace building 
through more ecumenical and dialogical relationships.  Hermann Haring 
sums it up as a need for “a revitalization of communication, a democratic 
attitude and an appropriate differentiation of functions.”26  Haring goes 
further to state that religions for modern man will be less violent if 
dissidents are not suppressed or condemned as kafirs or heretics but 
engaged and taken seriously as dialogue partners, violence then can be 
averted.  According to Haring, “Those who want to overcome violence 
credibly must overcome its legitimization, whether manifest or 
concealed, in their own communities… That makes the chances for the 
future all the better, the less Christianity and Islam succumb to the 
seduction of worldly power.”27  We know from history that none of the 
great religions of the world can be exonerated of the complicity in violent 
conducts.  It is the duty of religion in the modern context to oppose 
violence in all its forms and overcome its productivity. Yet this 
nonviolence must not become passivity especially in reaction to political 
and class oppression of the masses.  Religion necessarily must be at the 
forefront of forming the human person in consciousness, social 
responsibility and when necessary civil disobedience and active 
resistance. 

More than at any other time in history, religion must become 
more a synonym for peace in practical ways.  For instance, the gathering 
of world religions and their leaders in Assisi to pray for peace at the 
invitation of the Pope.  We cannot but recall the role of the Truth and 
Reconciliation Committee in post independent South Africa and the 
same work done after the Rwandan genocide.  The work groups in 
Islam, even though overshadowed by mainline political Islam must be 
encouraged and given a spotlight.  Groups such as Muslim Peace 
Fellowship, Muslim Civil Rights Protection Center, and an emerging 



368 Formation of the Human Person in the 21st Century 

number of Muslim intellectuals and authors who all seek nonviolence 
and means of peaceful resolutions to conflicts.  The Eastern religions, 
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Brahmanism and so 
forth, already notionally have the idea of nonviolence within their believe 
system.  Like the West, they have not always fared well in keeping peace. 
But they also have a chance to reclaim their own history and antecedents 
to do no evil to anyone.  

It is a duty binding on anyone involved in the formation and 
educating of others to seek to open the minds of those educated that the 
world does have grey lines, and so it is never directly black or white.  For 
religious violence to be overcome we need a new generation devoid of 
the psychopathology of religious extremism of all sorts.  The greatest 
challenge of all is to educate people who understand that responding to 
violence-by-violence will never yield any meaningful or positive results.  
True religion that has transited to faith will always seek the paths of 
grace, of peace and work for the welfare of the human family.  True 
religion must abhor violence and imposition of its own creed on non-
adherents.  True religion must always be committed to the work of 
healing a broken world and uniting a fragmented people.  Outside of 
these, it is no longer a religion; it is a mechanism of oppression and 
suppression disguised by those who stand to gain by it as religion.  
 
 
Endnotes 
                                                      
1 Oral interview with Rev. Lou Vallone, MDiv., MA JCB, Coach/Trainer HFC.  

Interview was held at his residence on March 5, 2020   
2 Raymond Scupin & Christopher R. DeCorse.  Anthropology: A Global Perspective. 

9th Edition. (Los Angeles: Sage Publication, Inc., 2021)(Instructional Copy) P. 467 
3 Tivka Frymer-Kensky. Religions and Violence: An Analytical Synthesis. The 

Ecumenical Review.* 
4 J. Harold Ellens. (Ed.) The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, 

Christianity, and Islam. First Edition. (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004), P. 3 
5 Ibid. 
6 Ibid. P. 8 
7 J. Harold Ellens. Sacred Scriptures, Ideology, and Violence. First Edition. Op.Cit. P. 

256 
8 Alex Alvarez & Ronet D. Bachman. Violence: The Enduring Problem. (Los Angeles: 

Sage Publications Ltd., 2021) (Instructional Copy), P. 3 
9 Leonard Berkowitz. Aggression: Its Causes, Consequences, and Control. (New York: 

McGraw-Hill, 1993), P. 3 
10 J. Harold Ellens. Sacred Scriptures, Ideology, and Violence. Fourth Edition. Op.Cit. 

P. 122 
11 J. Harold. Ellens. Op.Cit. P. 264 



Section III: Religious/Socio-Cultural Perspectives And Human Formation    369 

                                                                                                                         
12 Ibid. 
13 Andrea Riccardi. “Between Violence and Dialogue: The Religions in the Twentieth 

Century” in Wim Beuken & karl-Josef Kuschel Religion as a Source of Violence? 

Concilium 1997 Number 4, P. 72 
14 Ibid. P. 73 
15 Emmanuel Ojeifo. “A Global awakening of the Spirit.”  This Day Newspaper, 

March 18th Part 1, March 19th Part 2 
16 Edward Schillebeeckx. “Documentation: Religion and Violence” in Concilium, 

Op.Cit. P. 132  
17 Ibid 
1818 Ibid. P. 133 
19 Ibid. P. 136 
20 J. Harold Ellens. (Ed.) The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, 

Christianity, and Islam. Fourth Edition. (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004), P. 

120  
21 Ibid. p. 121 
22 D. Andrew Kille. “The Bible Made me Do It”: Text, Interpretation and Violence. In 

J. Harold Ellens. (Ed.) The Destructive Power of Religion. Op.Cit. P. 56 
23 Olusegun Okediaro. Africanism. (Lagos, Nigeria: Kofo-David Graphics, 2006), P. 

165 
24 Helena Cobbans. “Religion and Violence.” Journal of the American Academy of 

Religion. Dec., 2005, Vol. 73, Number 4, P.1125 
25 Andrea Riccardi. “Between Violence and Dialogue: The Religions in the Twentieth 

Century.” Op.Cit. P. 80 
26 Hermann Haring.  Overcoming Violence in the name of Religion (Christianity and 

Islam) in Concilium, Op.Cit. P. 88 
27 Ibid. P. 91 


