ABSTRACT
Once again the spirit of Protestantism is accompanying the expansion of capitalism in many parts of the world. Alongside the globalizing economy, where the needs of nation-states are being rapidly subordinated to those of an expanding world system, a particularly American kind of fundamentalist Christianity is able to reproduce itself. Although the world is said to have entered a “postmodern” age, where old liberal certainties of rational cause and effect are suspect, it certainly is not “postindustrial,” for there is more industry and production than ever. Industrial production is merely being transferred and reorganized in other parts of the world. The process requires that hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people must adhere to new systems of discipline, often under very harsh conditions. Their traditional beliefs and cultures can no longer sustain them, and the chaos of the city makes them long for new order and connections to others. No one can yet know what the cultural requirements of the completely restructured world system will be, but our research suggests that new forms of fundamentalist Christianity are particularly well suited to exist alongside the nascient social, economic, and political networks.
