Reconceiving Religious Conflict

Wendy Mayer is Professor and Associate Dean of Research at Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity, and Research Fellow in Biblical and Ancient Studies at the University of South Africa.Chris L. de Wet is Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Studies at the University of South Africa, and Honorary Research Fellow at Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity.

• PrefaceAbbreviationsPart 1: Foundations1. Re-Theorising Religious Conflict: Early Christianity to Late Antiquity and BeyondWendy Mayer2. Religious Violence and Its Roots: A View from AntiquityJan BremmerPart 2: Rhetorical and Literary Trajectories3. Blindness in Early Christianity: Tracking the Fundamentals of Religious ConflictPieter J. J. Botha4. Religious Conflict, Radicalism, and Sexual Exceptionalism in the Rhetoric of John ChrysostomChris L. de Wet5. Give it Up for God: Wealth, Suffering, and the Rhetoric of Religious Persecution in John of Ephesus’s Church HistoryChristine Shepardson6. Epiphanies and Religious Conflict: The Contests over the Hagiasma of ChonaiAlan H. CadwalladerPart 3: Christianization7. Contested Domains in the Conflicts between the Early Christian Mission and Diaspora Judaism According to the Book of ActsChristoph Stenschke8. Christianisation and Late Antique Patronage: Conflicts and Everyday NuisancesMaijastina KahlosPart 4: Threats of Violence9. "A Wise Madness": A Virtue-Based Model for Crowd Behaviour in Late AntiquityPeter Van Nuffelen10. Religious Violence in Late Antique Egypt Reconsidered: The Cases of Alexandria, Panopolis and PhilaeJitse H. F. DijkstraPart 5: Ancient and Modern Intersections11. Collaboration and Identity in the Aftermath of Persecution: Religious Conflict and Its LegacyElizabeth DePalma Digeser12. The Usefulness of Violent Ends: Apocalyptic Imaginaries in the Reconstruction of SocietyGerhard van den Heever

"It is imperative that we take contemporary social and religious conflict seriously, while cultivating appropriate insights and skills to navigate our way through the storms. We live in times of superdiversity, supermobility and constant change. In such times, social and religious conflict surface with negotiation of identities and boundaries. The formative centuries of Christianity witnessed similar struggles. In this thought provoking book, leading scholars in the field of early Christianity provide fresh perspectives on theoretical aspects for understanding religious conflict along with new insights to help us proceed with ongoing discernment as the tides of change break upon the shores of our social landscape."- Jacobus (Kobus) Kok, Evangelische Theologische Faculteit Leuven, Belgium"Reconceiving Religious Conflict is an excellent addition to the growing body of scholarship on religion and violence. The bibliographies that accompany each chapter are exceptional and include ancient writings that have often been overlooked. At the same time, each chapter includes the application of models and methodologies that help to illuminate a more fine-tuned analysis of this literature. ... Mayer and de Wet’s collection enhances both our resources and the application of those resources to the study of religion and violence." - Rebecca I. Denova, University of Pittsburgh, USA