The Role of Religious Education in Peace Building and National Security

Abstract

Religion is central to the spiritual uplift of man; it unites man if its tenets are kept and also teaches men to live in peace with one another and to shun greed. Therefore, divorcing religion and moral education is an impossible task because of their long-standing historical antecedents. Religious education forms a backbone to moral education.This paper however looked at the role of religious education in peace building and national security using the library and oral sources as methods in qualitative and thematic analysis. The paper revealed that religious education instils values and high morals in the citizenry. It also integrates individuals into the larger society, thereby giving them a sense of identity within the larger community. The paper therefore recommended that teachers of religious education at all levels of Nigerian educational system should be consistent in promoting moral and ethical values while imparting religious knowledge in students; the student should be encouraged to demonstrate such moral values in their day-to-day dealings or affairs with fellow human beings. Adherents of different religions in Nigeria must join hands to replace religious violence with peaceful co-existence, injustice with justice, conflict with peace, ignorance with education, disease with health,and human degradation with human dignity through teachings in Churches and Mosques as well as through exemplary godly living.