The violent deaths of 13 people in the Washington Navy Yard a few days ago brought religious violence back into the news. One of the 13 was the accused shooter, Aaron Alexis, who was reported to be Buddhist. This has stirred up much commentary on Buddhism and violence.
I have to say that most of the commentary I have read over the past few days has been reasonable and thoughtful. I agree with several who say that the West has over-romanticized Buddhism, for example. But I still think (as I've complained about before) that when it comes to any violence associated with religion, people uncritically lump together situations that are not at all alike.
I tentatively classify three kinds of "religious violence" --
The first is genuine religious violence, or violence that would not have happened were it not for religion. This happens when religious teachings or institutions are the direct cause of violence. You can find examples of this in all the world's religious traditions.
Second, sometimes people with their own agendas co-opt religious traditions and use them to legitimize their violent acts. Most of the time, if you took away the co-opted tradition the perpetrators would just find another "container" for their violence, and not necessarily a religious one. When this happens it's the agenda -- political, nationalistic, racist, whatever -- that is the primary cause, and religion a secondary one. I'd put most of the world's terrorists into this category.
And finally, sometimes people who belong to or practice in a religious tradition do things that don't have a dadblamed thing to do with their religions, one way or another. And sometimes those things are violent.
To me, these three kinds of violence are not created equal, and it is unhelpful to slap them all with the same "religious violence" label. Such labeling doesn't teach us anything at all about religion, or people, or violence.
Regarding Mr. Alexis, a picture has emerged of a man whose life had fallen apart. He had lost jobs and friends. He appears to have suffered from post-traumatic stress and possible psychosis. This profile in the Washington Post suggests that for a time, a steady job and attendance at a Thai temple in Forth Worth gave him the structure he needed to function. But he lost the job in 2011, then drifted away from the temple, and he appears to have deteriorated after that.
As Buddhists, we might reflect on how we might guide sangha members toward appropriate psychiatric or other help. We can't always know who might need help, of course. But it seems to me the Navy Yard shooting falls into the third type of "religious" violence, and Mr. Alexis was being driven by something other than religion.
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