David Wesley Hammerman 
Georgetown Universitiy 
Washington 

BUILDING BRIDGES

An Analysis of How Religion Can Be Used to Heal Societal Wounds along Racial and Political Lines

Summary

Topic of this paper is how religion can be used to achieve political and racial reconciliation. The main thesis is while we have seen the power of religion to be used as a way to divide society and cause conflict, there is also the potential to achieve reconciliation along both political and racial lines, which seem to have become intrinsically interconnected. The paper will explore religion as an agent of societal division, introduce conflict based in religious differences and explain the idea that religion is not necessarily the cause of conflict, but is used to escalate it. There is description of how we can build bridges using faith-based initiatives to heal the societal wounds of conflict. The Author writes about success of post-Apartheid South Africa, the partial sucess in the United States and ways to apply the concepts to Israeli Society.

Key words: religion, reconciliation, conflict, Israeli Society