ABSTRACT
The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist states of eastern Europe in the late 1980s seemed to many to be the end of one age and the beginning of another. The great ideologies that had dominated thought and public life for two centuries and more seemed to have imploded and destroyed themselves. Was it that one ideology had triumphed? Or was it perchance that the Christianity that had been for much of the time excluded from the public forum by aggressively secular forces would return triumphantly to a place close to the seat of power? How was one to interpret and respond to the new situation, with all its opportunities and challenges?
