Clashing Minorities, Converging Majorities: Toward a Coming Religious Peace

Jon Pahl, Ph.D.*

For scholars of religion and violence, the recent past poses a conundrum. Are civilizations clashing—as Samuel Huntington has provocatively posed, or cooperating, as Steven Pinker has recently contended? Pinker recognizes the apparently quixotic character of his argument on behalf of cooperation, and acknowledges that the 20th Century and first decade of the 21st were notable in a notorious way for World Wars, genocides, and the rise of terrorism (1). But Pinker also marshals impressive data on behalf of his claim that over the centuries, but especially in the past fifty years, developments in political organization, literacy, scientific and technological mastery, and social and economic cooperation have significantly improved the duration and quality of life for many human beings.