Introduction

It was probably inevitable that the onset of a new Millennium in the year 2000 would give renewed impetus to assessments of religion and its place in the secular world. For example, the Economist offered an obituary of God in which ‘after a lengthy career, the Almighty recently passed into history’. Doubts about this outcome clearly remained, however, since the article ended with the observation that ‘the test will come on Judgement Day when man, we are told, will meet his maker. Or will it be God meeting his?’1