The Encyclopedia of World Religions

water and religion S 473

ised the Crusaders that all their sins would be forgiven. It provides a social network that can be used to motivate people to support the war. It also turns enemies into demons. Doing that may allow people to commit atrocities that they would other wise find unthinkable. RELIGIOUS ATTEMPTS TO LIMIT WAR Although religions can legitimate war, they may also act as a brake on war. Since the time of A UGUSTINE OF H IPPO , Christians have tried to iden tify the conditions that make war just or proper. They have commonly said that (1) the war must be fought for a just purpose; (2) all other alter natives must have been tried and have failed; (3) the warring party must carefully distinguish between people who are fighting (combatants) and those who are not, although inevitably some people will die as “collateral damage;” and (4) the amount of force used must be proportional to the threat, that is, it must not be excessive. Such a “just-war” theory may limit the kinds of wars in which people engage. Unfortunately, warring par ties can also use just-war theory in their wartime propaganda. Religions have also developed traditions of PACIFISM , that is, traditions that reject war and vio lence either in whole or in part. Religious pacifists in North America today include the so-called peace churches, namely, the M ENNONITES , the A MISH , the Brethren, and the Q UAKERS . They also include Bud dhist organizations such as the Buddhist Peace Fel lowship and the Zen Peacemaker Order, as well as people inspired by the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther K ING Jr. on nonviolence. Further reading: J. Harold Ellens, ed., The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004); Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, 3d ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Oliver McTernan, Violence in God’s Name: Religion in an Age of Conflict (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2003); John P. Reeder Jr., Killing and Saving: Abortion, Hunger, and War (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996).

water and religion The religious symbolism and significance of water. Water is one of the rich est and most prevalent of religious symbols. Like most symbols, it can have many meanings, not all consistent: Water can be chaos, destruction, life, purity, and rebirth. Water first of all can represent the primordial chaos before the world completely took form: “In the beginning,” the first chapter of Genesis tells us in the B IBLE , “the earth was without form and void . . . and the Spirit of G OD was moving over the face of the waters.” In Japanese mythology the primal parents first came down upon an endless ocean, and out of it congealed the first island ( see I ZANAGI AND I ZANAMI ). Water is the raw material, or the formless context, out of which real creation commences. Returning to the waters, then, as in RITUAL bathing and BAPTISM , can be like a return to the beginning so that one can, as it were, start off life again fresh, as though newly made. Because it is shapeless and spreads out to cover everything, water can also be destructive. In the Bible, the Great Beast in the book of R EVELATION came out of the sea. When God wished to destroy what he had made, he sent a great flood. Many FLOOD STORIES can be found in world mythology ( see MYTH AND MYTHOLOGY ). But the flood is not truly the end. The stories also contain as account of SALVA TION out of the waters: N OAH ’s Ark, for example, and the great Hindu sage M ANU who, by means of power gained through PRAYER and fasting, was able to survive a universal flood and, in the form of a great fish, rescue other beings. Thus life can come out of water, as it does in rain, a great gift of HEAVEN . Water is also in the womb and so is a symbol of birth. The Christian rite of baptism, consisting of washing or immer sion with water, represents new birth by a symbolic return back to the womb and the primordial chaos in order that one may come out again, clean and renewed ( see SYMBOLISM IN RELIGION ). Indeed, water is widely spoken of as a source of immortality. The River of Life was said to water the Garden of Eden, and the Q UR ’ AN speaks of the rivers of paradise. The prophet Jeremiah called G OD “the fountain of living waters,” and the book of Revelation says that