Locating Religious Violence in the Spiritual Constitution of Experience

Abstract

This work sought to address the question of where religious violence is located in our constitution of experience, so as to show how transcendental phenomenology can help us begin to better understand religious violence. The paper begins with an outline of four distinct levels of phenomenological analysis provided by transcendental phenomenology. It then relates those four levels to religious experience, showing that religious violence can refer to violence occurring on all four of those levels. In doing so, it also shows that “religious experience” can refer both to particular experiences we call ‘religious’ and to a dimension of all experiencing. Finally, the paper ends with the suggestion that religious communities wishing to address the question of religious violence must pay attention both to the spiritual force that animates them and to the cultural context in which they express that force.