ABSTRACT
Contemporary manifestations of religious fundamentalism are an aspect of a more general religious resurgence in most but not all parts of the world, with western Europe an exception to the general trend (Hadden 1987; Shupe 1990; Bruce 2003; Norris and Inglehart 2004). It is useful to think of the various manifestations of contemporary religious fundamentalism as a counter-movement often militantly opposed to what followers perceive as the inexorable onwards march of secularisation, leading to political and public marginalisation and privatisation of religion. To many observers and ‘ordinary’ people, a further defining characteristic of any form of religious fundamentalism is its social and political conservatism. Socially, religious fundamentalism is regarded as backward looking, anti-modern, inherently opposed to change. Note, however, that if this was actually the case it would be very difficult satisfactorily to explain the sometimes revolutionary political demands and programmes of some religious fundamentalist thinkers and activists. Some aim, particularly Islamists in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim world, to overthrow regimes that they regard as unor anti-Islamic and replace them with more authentically Islamic governments. On the other hand, some Christian fundamentalists in the United States – people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible
and subscribe to a modern form of millenarianism (that is, the teaching in Christianity that Jesus will rule for a thousand years on earth) may seem to fit more closely conventional wisdom.This is because they are often linked to conservative political forces, for example in the USA, whose aim is to seek to undo what they judge to be symptoms of unwelcome liberalisation and the relaxation of traditional social and moral mores characteristic, they believe, of secularisation (Religion and Ethics News Weekly 2004).
