F,-

q
Religionwassupposedtofade aug asglobalization
andfreedom
"r* spread.
Instead,it'sbooming
aroundtheuorld, oftendeciding
who
t
getselected.
And the diuineinteraention
ts justbeginning.
Democragis
t
I
I
giuingpeoplea uoice,andmoreandmore,thg uant to talkaboutGod.
I
I
E-' By Tirnothy sarn'el shah and Monica D*ffy Toft
Ir
E

fter Hamas won a decisivevictory in
I
.il$t
-
January'sPalestinianelections,one of
E its supportersreplacedthe national
flag that flew over parliament with
7 i its emerald-greenbanner heralding, "There is no
r
, i i : :
il. ,
God but God, and Muhammad is His prophet.', In
Washington, few expected the religious parry to
'
rake power. "I don't know anyone who wasn't
caught off guard," said U.S. Secretaryof State
CondoleezzaRice. More surprisesfollowed. Days
;ü after the Prophet'sbanner was unfurled in Ramal-
lah, thousandsof Muslims mounted a vigorous,
r-n sometimesviolent, defenseof the Prophet'shonor
Lncities as far flung as Beirut, Jakarta,London, and
I\["jtr New Delhi. Outragedby cartoonsof Muhammad
originally publishedin Denmark, Islamic groups,
governments,and individuals staged demonstra-
rions,boycotts,and embassyattacks.
On their own, theseeventsappearedto be sud-
den eruptionsof "Muslim rage." trnfact, they were
only the most recent outbreaks of a deep under-
;urrent that has been gathering force for decades
and extendsfar beyond the Muslim world. Global
nolitics is increasinglymarked by what could be
called "prophetic politics." Voices claiming ran-
.cendentauthority are filling public spacesand
',r-inningkey political contests.
These movements
;ome in very differenr forms and employ widely
-'arying tools. But
whether the field of battle is
lemocratic electionsor the more inchoatestruggle
-or global public opinion, religious groups are
:ncreasinglycompetitive. In contest after contest,
when people are given a choicebetweenthe sacred
and the secular,faith prevails.
God is on a winning streak.It was reflectedin the
1979 kanian Revolution, rhe rise of the Taliban in
Afghanistan, the Shia revival and religious strife in
postwar Iraq, and Hamas'srecentvictory in Palestine.
But not all the thunderbolts have been hurled by
Allah. The struggleagainstapaftheid in SouthAfrica
in the 1980s and early 1990swas srrengthenedby
prominent Christian leaders such as Archbishop
Desmond Tutu. Hindu nationalistsin India stunned
the international community when they unseated
India's ruling party in 1998 and then testednuclear
weapons.American evangelicalscontinue to surprise
the U.S. foreign-policy establishmentwith their
activism and influence on issuessuch as religious
freedom, sextrafficking, Sudan,and aros in Africa.
Indeed,evangelicals have emergedas sucha power-
ful force that religion was a stronger predictor of
vote choice in the 2004 U.S. presidentialelection
than wasgender,age.or class.
The spreadof democracy,far fromchecking the
power of militant religious acrivists,will probably
only enhancethe reachof propheticpolitical move-
ments, many of which will emerge from demo-
cratic processesmore organized, more popular,
and more legitimatethan before-but quite pos-
sibly no less violent. Democracy is giving the
world's peoplestheir voice,and they want to talk
a b o u tG o d .
DIVINE INTERVENTION

ffi l;tnotby SarnuelShahis seniorfellow in religion and woild

";:fairsat the Pew Forum on Religion6 public Life. Monica
It did not always seem this way. In April 1966,
Time ran a cover story that asked,"Is God Dead?"

M )uffy Toft is associateprofessorof public policy at the

-thn
F. KennedySchoolof Gouernmentand assistctnt direc-
:tr of tbe John M. Olin Institute for StrategicStudiesat
It was a fair question.Secularismdominatedworld
politicsin the mid-1960s.The convenrionalwisdom
sharedby many intellectualand political eliteswas

äW
ry
:itruard Uniuersity. that modernization would inevitably extinguish

furv I Aucusr ZOOo 39

 Why God ls Winning
religion's vitality. Bat if 1966 was the zenith of sec-
ularism's self-confidence,the next year marked
the beginning of the end of its global hegemony.
In 1967, the leader of secularArab nationalism,
Gamal Abdel Nasser,suffereda humiliating defeat
at the hands of the Israeli Army. By the end of the
1"970s,Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, avowedly
"born-again" U.S.PresidentJimmy Carter,televi-
sion evangelistJerry Falwell, and PopeJohn Paul
II were all walking the world stage. A decade
later,rosary-wieldingSolidaritymembersin Poland
and Kalashnikov-totingmujahedin in Afghanistan
helped defeat atheistic Soviet Communism. A
dozenyearslater, 19 hijackersscreaming"God is
great" transformed world politics. Today,the sec-
ular pan-Arabismof Nasserhas given way to the
millenarian pan-Islamism of Iranian President
M a h m o u d A h m a d i n e j a d ,w h o s e r e l i g i o u s
haranguesagainst America and Israel resonate
with millions of Muslims, Sunni and Shia alike.
"\7e increasinglyseethat peoplearound the world
are flocking towards a main focal point-that is
the Almighty God," Ahmadinejaddeclaredin his
recentletter to PresidentBush.
The modern world has in fact proven hos-
pitable to religious belief. The world is indeed
more modern: It enjoys more political freedom,
Theperiod andpolitical
inwhicheconomic
modernization intense-
most
hasbeen
thelast30to40years-has aiumpin
witnessed
religious theworld.
vitalityaround
more democracy, and more education than per-
haps at any time in history. According to Freedom
House, the number of "free" and "partly free"
countriesjumped from 93 in I97 5 to 1,47in 2005.
UNESCoestimatesthat adult literacyratesdoubled
in sub-SaharanAfrica, Arab countries, and South
and \7est Asia between 1,970and 2000. The aver-
age share of people in developingcountries living
on lessthan a dollar a day fell from 28 percent to
22 percentbetween 1.990 and 2002, according to
'Sforld
Bank estimates.
If people are wealthier, more educated,and
enjoy greaterpolitical freedom, one might assume
they would also have becomemore secular.The-'
haven't. In fact, the period in which econorll::
and political mgdernization has been mos:
intense-the last 30 to 40 years-has witnessedI
jump in religious vitality around the world. Th=
world's largest religions have expanded at a ra;:
that exceedsglobal population $owth. Consido:
the two largest Christian faiths, Catholicism ani
Protestantism,and the two largest non-Christia:
religions,Islam and Hinduism. According to th.
\X/orld Cbristian Encyclopedia, a greaterpropor-
tion of the world's population adheredto thesereJ-i-
gious systemsin 2000 than a century earlier.At th=
beginning of the 20th century, a bare majorifl- o:
the werld's people, precisely 50 percent, wer:
Catholic, Protestant,Muslim, or Hindu. At rh;
beginning of the 21st century, nearly 64 percer'::
belongedto thesefour religiousgroupings,and th.
proportion may be closeto 70 percentby 202:
The \7orld ValuesSurvey which coversB5 percen:
of the world's population, confirms.religion'i
growing vitality. According to scholars Ronali
Inglehart and Pippa Norris, "the world as a whol;
now has more people with traditional religiou.
views than ever before-and they constitute .
growing proportion of the world's population.-
Not only is religiousobservancespreading,it r.
becomingmore devout. The mos:
p o p u l o u s a n d f a s t e s t - g r o w irn
countries in the world, including
the United States,are witnessins
marked increasesin religiosity.ln
Brazil, China, Nigeria, Russia.
SouthAfrica, and the United States.
religiosity becamemore vigorous
betweenL990 and2001,.Betweer
1987 and 1.997,surveys by the
Times Mirror Center and the Perl-
ResearchCenterregisteredincreas-
es of 10 percent or more in the proportlons ol
Americans surveyedwho "strongly agreed" thar
God existed,that they would have to answer foi
their sinsbefore God, that God performs miracles.
and that prayer was an important part of their
daily life. Even in Europe, a secular stronghold"
there have been surprisingupticks in religiosity.
God's comebackis in no small part due to the
global expansionof freedom.Thanks to the "thiri
wave" of democratizationbetweenthe mid-l970s
and early 1,990s,aswell as smallerwavesof freedorr
since, people in dozens of countries have beec
empoweredto shapetheir public lives in ways thai
I
'll
L]
I"i;nmeans
g0:Hamas's
surprise
victory wasjustthelatest
inPalestine
triumph
:i,:reinconceivablein the 1950s and 1960s.A
::rtern emergedas they exercisedtheir new political
':eedoms. In country
after country, politically
.rpowered groups beganto challengethe secular
: :,nstraintsimposed by the first generation of
:odernizing, postindependence leaders.Often, as
.:. communistcountries,secularstraitiacketshad
::en imposedby sheercoercion;in other cases,as
.:i Atatürk's Turkey, Nehru's India, and Nasser's
.3]'pt, secularismretainedlegitimacybecauseelites
;rnsidered it essentialto national integration and
.l :,odernization-and becauseof the sheercharismaof
::ese countries' founding fathers.In Latin America,
i :ight-wing dictatorships, sometimesin cahoots
. ith the Catholic Church, imposed resrrictions
:;rat severelylimited grassrootsreligious influ-
:nces,particularly from "liberation theology" and
?rotestant"sects."
As politics liberalized in countries like India,
lrlexico, Nigeria, Türkey, and Indonesiain the late
-990s,religion'sinfluenceon political life increased
Jramatically.Evenin the United Srates,evangelicals
:1,
-rercised a growing influence on the Republican
?arty in the 1980s and 1.990s,partly becausethe
:residentialnomination processdependedmore on
forpolitical
lslam.
popular primaries and lesson the decisionsof tra-
ditional party ieaders.Vhere political sysremsreflect
people'svalues,they usually reflect people'sstrong
religious beliefs.
Many observersare quick to dismissreligion's
advanceinto the political sphereas the product of
elitesmanipulating sacredsymbolsto mobilize the
masses.In fact, the marriage of religion with poli-
tics is often welcomed,if not demanded,by people
around the world. In a 2002 Pew Global Attitudes
survey,91 percent of Nigerians and 76 percent of
Bangladeshissurveyedagreedthat religiousleaders
should be more involved in politics. A June 2004
six-nationsurveyreportedthat "most Arabs polled
said that they wanted the clergyto play a biggerrole
in politics." In the samesurve1r, majorities or plu-
ralities in Morocco, SaudiArabia, Jordan, and the
United Arab Emiratescited Islam as their primary
identity, trumping nationality. The collapseof the
quasi-secularBaathistdictatorshipin Iraq released
religious and ethnic allegiancesand has helped
Islam play a dominant role in the country's politi-
cal life, including in its recently adopted consritu-
tion. As right- and left-wing dictatorships have
declinedin Latin America and democratizationhas
JurvIAucusr zooe 4L
 Why Godls Winning

deepened,evangelicalshave becomean influential swathsof India through its religiousand socialacnrisn

voting bloc in numerouscountries,including Btazil, and laid the groundwork for the Bharatiya Jana;r
Guatemala,and Nicaragua. Party'selectoralsuccesses in the 1990s.Similargrouis
in the Islamicworld includethe Muslim Brotherhoc,'il
in Egypt and Jordan,Hamas in the Palestinianter:---
THE NEW ORTHODOXIES tories, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Nahdlar-:J,
Far from stamping out religion, modernization Ulama in Indonesia. In Brazll, Pentecostalsha"n*
has spawneda new generationof savvyand tech- organizedtheirown legislativecaucus,representingnl
nologicallyadept religiousmovements,including percent of congresspeople. Religious communin,"r+
EvangelicalProtestantismin America, "Hindutva" are also developingremarkabletransnationalcapr-
in India, Salafistand \Tahhabi Islam in the Middle bilities, appealingto foreign governmentsand inrer-
East, Pentecostalismin Africa and Latin America, national bodies deemedsympatheticto their cau:e"
and Opus Dei and the charismaticmovementin the Today's neo-orthodoxies may effectively u'sr
Catholic Church. The most dynamic religiosity the tools of the modern world, but how compa:-
today is not so much "old-time religion" as it is ible are they with modern democracy?Religio:r
radical, modern, and conservative.Today's reli- radicals, after aII, can quickly short-circuit demac-
giousupsurgeis lessa return of religiousorthodoxy racy by winning power and then excluding no*-
than an explosionof "neo-orthodoxies." believers.Just as dangerous,politicizedreligion can
A common denominatorof theseneo-orthodoxies spark civil conflict. Since2000, 43 percentof ci",'rl
is the deploymentof sophisticatedand politically capa- wars have beenreligious (only a quarter were re '-
ble organizations.Thesemodern organizationseffec- giously inspired in the 1.940sand 50s). Extrems
institutionsaswell asthe lat-
tively marshalspecialized religiousideologyis, of course,a leadingmotit;-
est technologiesto recruit new members,strengthen tion for most transnationalterrorist attacks.
connectionswith old ones,deliversocialservices,and The scorecardisn't all negative,however.Religrc'rrr
presstheir agendain the public sphere.The Vishwa has mobilizedmillions of peopleto opposeautho:'
Hindu Parishad,foundedtn 1964, " saffronized"large tarian regimes, inaugurate democratic transition.r"

Godandpassthelegislation:
Praise havea growing
Christians
Evangelical impact politicsandpolicy.
0nAmerican

42 FonsrcN Porrcv
 , :Dort human rights, and relievehuman suffering.
: :ee 20th centuqr)religious movementshelpedend
" . cnial rule and usherin democracyin Latin Amer-
:i. EasternEurope, sub-SaharanAfrica, and Asia.
. -r. post-VaticanII Catholic Church playeda crucial
"-,e by opposing authoritarian regimesand legiti-
--:ring the democratic
aspirationsof the masses.
Today's religious movements,however, may
: - r have as much successin promoting sustainable
':eedom. Catholicism'shighly
cenrralizedand
, rt_qanized charactePmade it an
' -iectivecompetitor with the state,
i:d its institutional tradition
:-lped it adapt to democraticpol- Religious canquickly
radicals
:-;s.Islam and Pentecostalism, by
-,rntrast,are not centralizedunder power
bywinning andthenexcluding
: singleleadershipor doctrinethat
:-.-nrespond coherentlyto fast- politicized
asdangerous,
::oving social or political events.
- o c a l r e l i g i o u s a u t h o r i t i e sa r e
,:ien temptedto radicalizein order to compensate
- r their weaknessvis-ä-visthe stateor to challenge
:ore establishedfigures. The trajectory of the
'.,rungclericMoqtada al-Sadrin postwarIraq is not
-rusual. The lack of a higheraurhorityfor religious
'r:tes might explain why most religious civil wars
'rnce1940-34 of 42-have involvedIslam, with
' of thesebeing Muslim versusMuslim.
\7e need
.,-.okno further than Iraq today to see religious
authorities successfullychallengingthe forcesof sec-
ularism-but also violently competing with each
other.Evenin a longstandingdemocracylike India,
the political trajectory of Hindu narionalismhas
demonstratedthat democratic institutions do not
necessarilymoderatetheseinstincts:\fhere radical
Hindu nationalistshavehad the right mix of oppor-
tunities and incentives,they have used religious
violenceto win elections,most dramatically in the
stateof Gujarat.
shoft-circuit
democracy
nonbelievers.
Just
religion
cansparkcivilwar.
The belief that outbreaksof politicizedreligion
are temporary detourson the road to seculariza-
tion was plausiblein 1976, L986, or even1996.
Today, the argument is untenable.As a frame-
work for explaining and predicting the course of
global politics, secularismis increasinglyunsound.
God is winning in global politics. And modern-
tzation, democratization,and globalizationhave
only made him stronger. [El

Pipgl Notris and.Ronald.fi*1.:h.rr,,9jfe-r.a o,verviewof politicizedreligion in Sacred

1loroygh
and Sec.ular:Religion and Politics'Worldwide(New York: Cambridge.U.niversity Presl,2004).
For polis.news,and of religion'simpacton public life in the-UniredStaiesano arouncl
1n_alysis
\x/cbsitesof rhe"Pew & PublicLifeandJ. p;; ai;b"i
roÄm onReligion
ff,;"ril;;:::.:.n.