Pew Research, one of the most reputable socio-religious research outfits, last month published figures for December 2012 which showed clearly that highly religious countries are more likely to experience social conflict than those that are secularised. Consider Pakistan, Syria, Sri Lanka and Nigeria on one side and Austria, Canada, and Australia on the other.
Researchers go on to say, "The share of countries with a high or very high level of social hostilities involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012. A third (33%) of the 198 countries and territories included in the study had high religious hostilities in 2012, up from 29% in 2011 and 20% as of mid-2007. Religious hostilities increased in every major region of the world except the Americas. The sharpest increase was in the Middle East and North Africa, which still is feeling the effects of the 2010-11 political uprisings known as the Arab Spring. There also was a significant increase in religious hostilities in the Asia-Pacific region, where China edged into the “high” category for the first time."
So is social hostility linked to religious observance or are there other complicating factors? Looking closely at the Pew lists I could not help noticing that 'high hostility' also equates to 'low economic development' and/or 'internal economic disparity' in many if not most cases. So perhaps there is a link between 'religion' and 'levels of economic development'? My gut feeling is that there are many factors intertwined here and it is not so helpful for Pew to link just two.
Nevertheless, it does leave us with a question to face. How do followers of Jesus establish his reign on earth without heightening inter-community hostility? Not a new question of course.
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