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Religion has a dual legacy in human history regarding peace and violence. Conflict resolution theory must examine more systematically the decision‐making of religious actors and leaders in order for strategies of peacemaking to be effective in the relevant contexts. It is the argument here that the study of religion and conflict resolution will yield an important new field of inquiry. A series of topics need to be addressed, including the mixture of religious and pragmatic motivations in behavior, the struggle between intracommunal moral values and other traditional values that generate conflict, multifaith dialogue and pluralism as conflict resolution strategies, the sociopolitical impact of religious leadership on conflict generation and resolution, the limited scope of religious ethics in regard to the rejection of nonbelievers and traditional outgroups, and the promising role of interpretation of sacred tradition in generating peacemaking strategies.

The author delineates four basic models of church and state relations in the democratic world and applies them to both Europe and Israel: the established church model (England, Greece, Sweden); the strict separation model (France, the Netherlands, Russia); the recognized communities model, or the "German" model (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Belgium); the endorsed church model (Italy, Spain, Poland, Armenia, Ireland). Relations between religion and state in Israel are in some ways close to the recognized communities and the established church models. Israeli democracy is not different from the European democracies in terms of freedom "of" religion, but in terms of freedom "from" religion. Conclusion: "In Europe, the trend is away from less democratic, less liberal and less egalitarian separationist and established church models. Increased religious legislation and the increased political strength of the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox in Israel seem to suggest that Israel is moving in a different direction." (DÜI-Hns)

"Das Christentum ist seinem Selbstverständnis nach eine Liebesreligion, aber seine Geschichte
ist nicht zuletzt auch eine Geschichte der Gewalt. Der Text versucht diesen Widerspruch zu erklären. Er untersucht mit den Mitteln der Analytischen Sozialpsychologie, ausgehend vom Text der Bibel, was in dieser Religion der Ausübung von Gewalt
entgegenkommen kann." (Autorenreferat)