ABSTRACT
One of the most pivotal ideas about societal development during the twentieth century – that nations would inevitably secularize as they modernized – was misplaced. After World War II, the apparent decline of religious faith and growing secularization in various parts of the world including, most clearly, Western Europe, fitted neatly with the idea that technological development and the application of science to overcome perennial social problems of poverty, hunger and disease would result in sustained progress for all. And in this process, it was believed, religion would be an inevitable casualty.
