ABSTRACT
As fundamentalism reappeared on the public scene in America in the past decade, it was rediscovered by social scientists. This rediscovery was partly motivated by simple curiosity, which was shared by many Ameri cans. Here were people making strong claims about a range of issues on seemingly traditional religious grounds, asserting a peculiar vision of American society, and demanding that Americans listen to their views on morality as well as public policy (cf. Falwell 1980). Sociologists of religion wanted to know more about the nature of this newly articulated vision, and about the way in which it might be realized. Moreover, the fundamen talist claims seemed to be receiving support from a substantial number of people, who identified with the core of a conservative Protestant religious tradition and, as participants in a significant social trend, could no longer be ignored in public discourse. Sociologists started to ask who they were, and what their influence was likely to be. But not only did they try to satisfy their curiosity and to chart the new trend, sociologists also faced a theoretical question. According to the conventional sociological wisdom, modernizing societies are undergoing a process of relentless secularization (see Wilson 1982), in which religion becomes increasingly irrelevant in the affairs of society; but then how was this apparent revival of conservative religion in the public sphere possible?
