The religious studies department at the Tempe campus held a lecture Thursday to discuss the connection between religious groups and nonviolent protests.

The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict invited Sharon Erickson Nepstad, the director of religious studies at the University of New Mexico, to speak about her research on nonviolence.

Nepstad said she has thought about nonviolence as a strategy for protest reform for more than 20 years.

“Some people will say it’s OK to try nonviolence, but if it doesn’t work then we’ll have to resort to violence at some point,” she said. “Why don’t we reverse that? Why don’t we ever say, we’ve been trying violence for several years and it’s not working so we better resort to nonviolence?”

Through her studies, Nepstad said she’s seen that nonviolence is more effective than violence, especially among religious groups.

The reason religious groups are effective in protesting is that they have organizational resources, transnational ties and rich traditions that can help to cultivate and sustain commitment from the community, she said.

During the lecture, Nepstad focused on four historical events, two of which were successful in a nonviolent protest and two that were not.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in East Germany in 1989 was a successful nonviolent protest, she said.
A religious group was the forefront and churches struck an agreement with German leaders in the 1970s, Nepstad said, and the church became a free space for people to organize when few other places like this existed.

Another example is the 1986 four-day “bloodless revolution” in the Philippines, which was nonviolent because Catholic bishops said killing wasn’t a part of their religious vision, Nepstad said.

A component of the success in both movements was the mutiny among the soldiers, she said.

In the Philippines, for example, the nuns and priests talked to the soldiers and told them they belonged to the people, not the Marxist regime, Nepstad said.

After this, 80 percent of the soldiers joined the protest, she said.

Linell E. Cady, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, said religion is an important aspect of peace building.

“There are a number of traditions, communities [and] individuals who are inspired by a whole range of religious traditions around the world who have been enormously important in fostering and building peace,” she said.

Carolyn Forbes, assistant director for the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, said this lecture and others the department holds stimulate people to think about the field of peace.

Religious studies senior Selena Stoichkov said she came to the lecture to learn someone else’s take on the subject.

“I want to see how she’s defining peace and conflict,” Stoichkov said. “It’s a hot topic these days.”

Reach the reporter at rachel.jimenez@asu.edu