ABSTRACT
Almost all around the world, with the striking exception of western Europe, religion in a multitude of forms, from what Peter Berger calls ‘furious religion’ to transcendental meditation, is powerfully resurgent. There are a variety of interpretations of this development. Some see religion in this generation as rushing in to fill the vacuum left by ‘the end of ideology’. This is perhaps true of the United States more markedly even than the Middle East and the southern hemisphere, where to some extent societies were immune to the Enlightenment, and were seldom as dominated by secular ideologies as the West. Religion there has always been a major player in the public arena. Those, on the other hand, who agree with Fukuyama that we stand at the end of history tend to see the worldwide resurgence of religion as a wild and desperate protest against the modern world and all modernity stands for. For some, resurgent religion is the only way of opposing American Empire and its supportive ideologies. Others again see liberal democracy, especially as exemplified in the United States, as itself offering a vacuum of values under a thin veneer of Christianity, in which immorality, faithlessness and irreligion flourish without restraint. Sexual torture and degradation in Abu Ghraib prison, and other horrific incidents, confirm such opinions. And it is easy to argue that religion, meaning in this case right-wing conservative Christianity, has never been as influential in American politics as it is today in the presidency of George W. Bush.1
