Jason C Bivins

This course's topic is enormously ambitious, and Bivins is a good presenter, who speaks clearly and has no annoying habits. Owing to its ambition, it is a course that really can't satisfy everyone--or perhaps anyone to a full extent. While it does help to illuminate some of the types and causes of religious violence, I wonder if the topic really shouldn't just be human violence. Humans are simply violent, and if they are religious they will frame that violence around their religious beliefs. If they aren't religions, they'll frame it around other ideologies such as communism or even animal rights. So, perhaps this course is just the tip of the iceberg.

In his final lecture, Bivins offers a series of steps to help reduce the climate that creates religious violence. I'm afraid, however, he is asking for a lot more than our pitiful politicians (of all parties) and ill-educated American society are ready to do.

On the negative side, Bivins has a habit of using obscure words like "juridical" when simpler ones would do. But that is not an important criticism.… (mais)