About the Book: Religion and Extremism: Rejecting Diversity
Focusing on the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
Douglas Pratt argues that despite a popular focus on Islam, extremist Jews and
Christians can also enact terror and destruction. Religion and Extremism
stresses that the ideological rejection of diversity underlies religious
extremism resulting in violent behaviours and, increasingly, in hardening social
and religious attitudes and responses.
An analysis of religiously-driven terrorism reveals the presence of a
distinctive and rigid form of exclusivity found in these religions. In this
regard, the contemporary resurgence in totalising claims of fundamentalist
ideologues is cause for particular concern. Pratt reasons that however
expressed, the motif