Hector Avalos on Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence
Audio here!
People who represent the religious Left – such as Jim Wallis of Sojourners, and Michael Lerner of Tikkun – have advocated for what they feel are the inherently progressive teachings of Christianity and Judaism. If this is so, that would mean that fundamentalists have gotten religion wrong. But what if it’s the religious Left who has it wrong? What if violence is built directly into the Abrahamic religions?
Biblical scholar Hector Avalos will talk to this issue as we discuss his new book, Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence. Avalos is the founder and Director of the U.S. Latino Studies Program at ISU, and the Executive Director of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, a part of the Council for Secular Humanism.
A former fundamentalist preacher born in Mexico, he became the first Mexican American to obtain a Ph.D. in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies from the Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.