ABSTRACT
In other words, the concern with world order has not superseded preoccupations with local concerns, be they family, jobs, communities, or deities. Indeed, pervasive tensions between local and global forces have become a central feature of our time, and they seem likely to endure for as long as one can see into the future. To be sure, the proximate and the distant have always been uneasily linked, but in recent decades the “distant” has become global in scope, thus intensifying absorption with the prospects for world order and the dangers of world disorder. It is an absorption that has heightened religiosity everywhere, with many individuals and peoples feeling a need to find a more encompassing meaning in a world that has become ever more complex, both more proximate and more distant. This need has fostered a revival and spread of fundamentalism – of thought that leaves no room for doubt and answers all questions – in virtually every religion. In so doing, it has intensified tensions both within and among the several religions.
