Not in God’s Name: Making Sense of Religious Conflict
Author: Paula Fouce
Publisher: Paradise Filmworks International
Pages: 254
Genre: Nonfiction/Religion
Format: Paperback/Kindle/Nook/iTunes
Book Description:
“We're all praying to the same Divine, which
is called by many names or no name at all.” In her new book, NOT IN GOD’S NAME: MAKING SENSE OF RELIGIOUS
CONFLICT (based
on award winning film that aired on PBS "Not in God's Name: In Search of
Tolerance with the Dalai Lama"), Paula
Fouce searches for solutions to end the escalating violence between religious groups.
She has lived and worked in many South Asian countries including India, Tibet, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
and Kashmir,
where she experienced a variety of vast cultural and religious diversity. But Fouce came face-to-face with the
destructiveness of religious-based conflict while in India when Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
As a result of Gandhi’s murder, thousands of
Sikhs were massacred. Fouce escaped unharmed, but she was shaken by the
explosion of violence from a people who had treated her with care and
compassion before the death of their leader. The experience prompted Fouce to
undergo a personal quest to understand the reasons behind the intolerance. What was the genesis of violent religion-inspired
conflicts – the underlying chaos that has led to major violent conflicts such as the Crusades (1095–1291), the Partition of India in 1947, the 2009
Mumbai attacks, the September
11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the 2015 Paris attacks, and other
religion-inspired conflicts?
In NOT IN GOD’S NAME: MAKING SENSE OF RELIGIOUS CONFLICT, Fouce
shares her journey for spiritual enlightenment that began after she survived a
car crash in which she was thrown from the vehicle. After her recovery, Fouce
traveled to India
in 1974 for a semester of study focused on Hindu and Buddhist art. During an
early trip, Fouce met Mother Teresa. She returned to India after graduating from college
to continue her spiritual exploration, export art, and guide luxury tours.
NOT IN
GOD’S NAME: MAKING SENSE OF RELIGIOUS CONFLICT discusses the histories of
Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, as well as Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and other religions. Fouce spoke
with several leaders in the religious tolerance movement, including the Dalai
Lama; Mark Juergensmeyer, professor
of Religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Dr. Karan Singh, a member of India’s Upper House
of Parliament; and Dr. Joseph Prabhu, a trustee of the Council for the
Parliament of the World’s Religions. In the book, the author asks probing
questions of faith leaders and scholars in order to devise solutions for ending
the violence among religious groups.
“Although there are differences, we can
develop a deep respect for all faith traditions that contribute untold richness
to our civilization. Religious tolerance is our greatest tool for promoting
world peace,” Fouce says. She identifies specific causes of religious
intolerance and offers solutions for bringing the world’s faiths together.
After escaping the Indian religious riots in 1984, Fouce was “was
struck with how religion had been twisted and used to create dissention and
violence, the antithesis of its intention. My point of view is focused on how
to bridge our differences; and my book goes into detail, even describing the
compassion training that is now taught in many top universities.” Over the
three-year period that Fouce worked on NOT IN GOD’S NAME: MAKING SENSE OF RELIGIOUS CONFLICT, she used the transcripts from interviews for the film documentary
of the same title (which was aired on PBS stations nationwide) and researched
news stories of current religious conflicts. “Education
is sorely needed to ensure a peaceful world where it is
understood that diversity is not a threat or a detriment to one’s own
good. Diversity is to be celebrated,” Fouce says. “Our unquestionable right as human beings is to freely worship the God
of our understanding and to follow
that spiritual path whose practices support our doing so.”
Fouce’s purpose
for writing NOT IN
GOD’S NAME: MAKING SENSE OF RELIGIOUS CONFLICT is to help the reader to understand that there are
solutions to religious intolerance. “How do we change the minds of
violent fundamentalists? This is the real task ahead, together
with preventing people from being attracted to such ideology in the first
place. Can we find a middle ground, a live-and-let live coexistence? Herein lies
the only answer to the challenge of creating
a peaceful future with acceptance. The continued existence of the human race
depends on it.”
