f

r
i

THE DESECULARIZATION
OF THE \TORLD
andWorldPolitics
Religion
Resurgent

Edited by Peter L. Berger

P e te r L . B e rg e r Tu Veiming
Jo n a th a n S a cks Ceor ge Veigel
D a vi d N 4 a rti n Cr ace Davie
A b d u l l a h i A . An- Na' im

E thics and P ublicP o lic y Ce n t e r

$/ashingto n ,D. C.
\WilliamB. EerdmansPublishingCompany
Grand Rapids ,Mic h ig a n
 viii PREFAcE

tor of the Harvard-Yenchinginstitute;JonatharlSacks,the chief rabbi

'weigel,my predecessor
of Britain and the commonwealth; George
at rhe center and tl're aurhor of a forthcomirrg biography of Pope
studentof the evangelical r'rp-
John Paul II; David Martin, the leading
surgein the Third'v/orld; GraceDavie,a British sociologist who is an
..p.rt on religion in Europc; and Abdullahi An-Na'im, an interna-
tionally .e.ogniz.d scholrr of Islam and human rights'We owe a debt
of gratitude to our seven authors, ior traveling to washington to
,p.ik for the additionalwork they did to preparetheir papersfor
"nd
publication. TbeDesecularizatiln
of tbeWorld,
I would like as well to thank ProfessorBacevichtbr askingus to
collaboratewith him, always a task both intellectuallystimulating A GlobalOueruiew
and personallyrewarding.on his behalfand my own, I wish to thank
for his initiative,his counsel
John Kizer and the Greve Forrndation Peter L. Berger
ihroughout, and the foundation'sfinancialsupport.Finally,-these es-
,"yr.ni... editedfor publicationby Carol Griffith, editor at the Ethics
and Public PolicyCenter,to whom we at the Center and all who read
this book are in debt. ter,vyearsagothe first volume coming out of the so-calledFun-
damentalismProjectlandedon my desk.The Fundamentalism
Elliott Abrams. President Project was very generouslvfrrnded by the MacArtlmr Foundatiun
Ethics and Public Policy Center and chairedby Martin Marry the distinguishedchurch historian at
the Universiry of Chicago.A number of very rcputablescholarstook
part in it, and the publishedresultsare of generallyexcellentqualiry.
But niy contemplationof this first volume gaveme what has been
calledan "aha!experience."The book was very big, sitting there on
my desk-a "book-weapon,"the kind that could do seriousinjury. So
I askedmyself why would the MacArthur Foundationstiell our sev-
eral million dollarsto supporran internationalstudyof relisiousfun-
darnentalists?
Tivo answerscameto mind. The first was obvious and not very in-
teresting.The MacArthur Foundation is a very progressiveoutfit; it

Peter L. Berger is University Professorand director of the Institute for the

Study of Economic Culture at Boston University. Among the books he has
written zreA Far Glory: The Questfor Faith in an Age of Credulity (1992) and
Redeerning Laughter(1997). This essayis adaptedwith permission fiom the
original article,which appearedtn The l,,lational
lnterest(no. 46, Winter 1996/
97; Washingon, D.C.).
 ()l T f' l E \\ ( ) RL t)
L ) E S t - ( . L I L . . \ l ilZ ,\1 - l( ) N
L rn d c r s t ands liur dl m e n ta l i s ts to b e a n ti -p ro {ressi ve; the P roj cct,
then, was a matter of knowing one's enetnies. But therc rvas also a
more intcresting answer. "Fundamentalism" is considered a strange,
hard-to-understand pirenonenon; the purpose of the Project was to
delve' into this alien rvorld and ntake it more utrderstandable. But tc'r
whorn? Who llnds this world strange?'V/eil, thc tllswer to tftat ques-
tion was easy: people to r,vhom the olEcials of the MacArthur Foun-
dation nornrally talk. sttch :rs professors at elitc A.rncricln unil-erst-
ties. And u.ith this catnc the al-ra!crpc-rience.Thc- cotlcern that trlust
have led to this Project r.vasbased on an upside-down perception of
the world, according to which "fundamentalisnt" (which, rvhen all is
said and done, usually refers to any sort of passionatereiigious move-
ment) is a rare, hard-to-explain thing. But a look either at history or
at the contemporary world revcals that what is rare is not the phe-
nomenon itself but. knowle dge of it. The difficult-to-understand
phenomenon is not Iranian mullahs but American universiry profes-
so15-i1 might be w'orth a rntilti-million-dollar pro-iectto try to ex-
p l a i n t hat l
Theory
Mistakesof Secularization
My point is that the assumption that we live in a secularizedworld
rs falsg. fhe world today, with some erceptions tffiEiEET*ill iome
p." * y, i s.as fu ri o u sllqe !ig1911g1l$ry4;q tilt ;. pI
"if ".*
1 more so than evei. TTii means that a whole body of literature by his-
y' torians and sotial scientistsloosely labeled "se!u14!Zaqe! Jb99ry-"is
I cssentiallymistaken.In rny earlywork I contributedto this literature.
\I was in good compaltv-rnost sociologistsof religion had similar
l,icrl,s,and we had gocldreasonsfor holding thetn. Sorr-re of the rvrit-
ings we producedstill standup. (As I like to tell my students,one ad-
vantageof being a socialscientist,as againstbeing,say,a philosopher
or a theologian,is that you can haveasrnuch fun when your theories
are falsifiedas rru'hert they are verified!)
Although the term "secularizationtheory" refers to works from
the 1950sand 1960s,the key idea ofthe theory can indeedbe traced
to the gdfglrtenurerlt.That ideais simple:Moderrrizationnecessarily
leadsto'adeclineoircliqion, both in socieryand in the minds of indi-
viduals. And it is preciselvthis kev idea that has turned out to be
PETER
L. tsER(,ER 3
wrong. To be sure, modernizationhashad some sccularizingeffects,
ntore ln some L-rlaces than in others.But it hasalsoprovokedpower-
ful movements of coun-r_elSegg]q4zxlon. AIso, secularizarionon the
societallevel is nor necessarily linked to secularization on the levelof
individual consciousness. certain religior.rsiusritutionshave lost
power and int-luencein many societies,but botli old and new reli-
giousbeliefsand practiceshavenevertheless continnedin the lives9f
indr'iduals, somerirnestaking ner,vinstitutional tornrs and sonre-
timesleedi'q to greatexplosions of relisir)usten'or.convcrselyi rcli-
giously identiiled institutionscan play socialor political roles even
rvhenvery feu'peoplebelieveor practicethr' religion that thc rnsritu-
l,ltions represent.To say the least,the relation between religion and
/'moderniry is rather complicated.
The proposition that moderniry necessarilyleadsto a decline of
religion is, in principle, "vafue_{le,e."That is, it can be aftlrmed
both by peoplewho think it is good news and by peoplewho think
it is very bad ncvu's.Most Enlightenment thinkers and mosr pro-
qressive-mindedpeopleever sincehave tendedtoq'ard the idea that
secularizationis a good thing, at leastinsofar as it does away with
religiousphenomenathat are "backward,""superstitious,"or ,,reac-
tionary" (a relieiousresiduepurged of thesenegativecharacteristics
may still be deemed acceptable).But religious people, including
those with very traditional or orthodox beliefs,have also affirmed
the moderniry/secularirylinkage, and have greatly bemoaned it.
Some have then defined mgdglqty_tls the enemy, to be fought
il
t I wheneverpossible.Others have,on t[e6ritrary seenmoderniry as
some kind of inr,inciblervorld-viewto which reliqiousbelietsand
l7 Practices should adaptthemselves. In other words. r('ic.tiL''n:rnd
arl-
aptatiorr ilre nvo strategiesopen to religionscorlmunities in a world
t' understoodto be secularized.As is alwaysthe casewhen strategies
arc based on mistaken perceptionsof the terrain, both stratcgies
have had very doubtful results.
It is possible,of course,to rejectany number of modern ideasand
values theoretically,but making this rejection stick in the lives of
peopleis much harder.To do that requiresone of rwo strategies. The
first is religiousreuolutitttt:
one tries to take over socieq,as a whole and
make one'scoLlnter-modernreligion obligatoryfi-rreveryone-a diG
ficult enterprisein mosr countries in the contenrporalyworld.
 4 DESECu LARI ZATI O N O F THE v O RLD
(Franco tried in Sparn and failed; the mullahs are stillat it in Iran and
a couple of other places.) And this doeshave to do with modernrza-
tion, which brings about very heterogeneous societiesand a quantum
leap in intercultural conrmunication, two factors favoring pluralism
and not favoring the establishment (or reestablishment) of religious
monopolies. The other possible way of getting people to reject mod- n
errr ideas and values in their lives is to create religioussubculturesde-',tl
signed to keep out the intluences of the outside society. That is ai/
somewhat more promising exercise than religious revolution, but it,l
too is fiausht with difficulry. Modern culture is a very powerful
fclrce, and an immenser e fTort is required to maintain enclaveswith an
airtight defense systenr. Ask the Amish in eastern Pennsylvania. Or
ask a Hasidrc rabbi in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Interestingly, secularization theory has also been falsified by the
results of adaptation strategies by religious institutions. If we really
lived in a highly secularized world, then religious institutions could
be erpected to survive to the degree that they manage to adapt to
seculariry That has been the empirical assumption of adaptation
strategies. V/hat has in fact occurred is that, by and large, reiigrous
communities have surv'ived and even flourished to the degree that
they have not tried to adapt themselves to the alleged requirements of
a secularized world. To put it simply, erperiments with secularized
religion have generally failed; religious movements with beliefs and
practices dripping with reactionary supernaturalism (the kind utterly
beyond the pale at self-respecting faculty parties) have widely suc-
ceeded.
The CatholicChurchvs.Modernity
The strugglewith moderniryin the Roman CatholicChurch
nicely illustratesthe difficulties of various strategies.
In the wake of
thc Enlightenment and its multiple revolutions,the initial response
by the Church was militant and then defiant rejection.Perhapsthe
most magnificentmoment of that defiancecame in 1870,when the
First Vatican Council solemnly proclaimed the inflllibiliry of the
Pope and the immaculateconceptionof Mary literally in the faceof
the Enlightenmentabout to occupyRome in the shapeof the army of
Victor Emmanuel I. (The disdain was mutual. If vou have ever vis-
PETER
L tsERCER5
ited the Rornan monument to the Bersaglieri.thc elite arnry u'its
tlrat crccupiedthe EternalCiry in the nameof the ItalianRisorguncnto,
you may have noticed the placement of the heroic fisure in his
Bersaglieriuniform-he is positionedso that his behinJ points ex-
actly toward the Vatican.)
The SecondVaticancouncil, almosta hundredyearslater,consid-
erablymodified this re.;ectionist
stance,guidedasir was by the notion
of agiornanento,bringing the church up to date-that is, rrp to <iate
with the modern world. (I rememberaskinga protestantthe.logian
what he thought would happe' at the council-this was befoie it
had c.nvened; he replied that he didn't know but he r,,u-as surc they
would not readthe minutesof the lastmeetinsl)The SecondVatican
council was supposedto open windows, specificallythe windows of
the catholic subculturethat had been constructedwhen it became
clearthat the overallsocietycould not be reconquered.In the united
States,this catholic subcuhurehasbeenquite impressiveright up to
the very recentpast.The trouble with openingwindows islhat you
can't control whar comes in, and a lot has come in-indeed, the
rvhole turbulent world of modern culture-that hasbee' very trou-
bling to the church. Under rhe currenr pontificare the church has
been steerirg a nuancedcourse berweenrejection and ad;rptarion,
with mi-xedresultsin different courrtries.
This is asgood a poinr asany ro rrrentiorr
that ail rrryobscrvatiorrs
here are intended to be "value free,,;that is, I am trying to look at
the current religioussceneobjectively.For the duration of this ex-
erciseI have put asidemy own religiousbeliefs.As a socioloqistof
religion. I find it probablethat Rome had to do some rei'i'q*in on
the lcrel ot-both docrrineand practice.in the wake of thc i-nstitu-
tional disturbancesthat followed vatican II. To saythis, however,in
no way implies my theologicalagreementwith what has been hap_
pening i' the Roman catholic church under the present pontifi-
cate.Indeed, if I were Roman catholic, I wourd have considerable
misgivingsabout thesedevelopments.But I am a liberal protesrant
(the adjectiverefers to my religious position and not to my poli-
tics), and I have no immediate existentialstakein what is happen-
ing u,ithi' the Roman communiry. I am speakinghere , ,o.iolo_
gist, in which capacityI can claim a certain competence; ",
I have no
theoloqicalcredentials.
 6 t)ESECLI LARI ZATToN oF THE v / oRLD
Tnr Glosal Rtlrcrous ScENr
On the international religious scene, it is conservative or orthodox or
traditionalist movements that are on the rise almost everywhere.
Thesc movements are precisely the ones that rejected an agiornamen-
to with modernity as defined by progressive intellectuals. Conversely,
religious movernents and institutions that have made great eiTorts to
confbrm to a perceived rrroderniry are :rlmost every\,v'hereon the de-
cline. In the United States this has been a much commented upon
fact, exemplified by the decline of so-called mainline Protestantlsm
and the concomitant rise of Evangelicalism; but the United Statesrs
bv no nr eans un u s u a l i n th i s .
Nor is Protestantism. The conservative thrust in the Ron-ranCath-
olic Chtrrch under Jolin Paul II has borne fruit in both number of
converts and rcnewed enthr.rsiasmamong native Catholics, especially
in non-Western countries. Following the collapse of the Soviet Un-
ion there occurred a remarkable revival of the Orthodor Church in
Russia. The nrost rapidly urowingJewish sroups, both rn Israel and
in the Diaspora, are Ortirodox. There trave been sirnilarly vigorous
upsurges of conscrvative religion in all the other major religious
c om m unit ic s - I s l a n r, H i n d u i s m , B u d d h i sm-as w ei l as revi val
l nov c m ent s in s m a l l e r c o mmu n i ti e s (s u ch as S hi nto i n Japan and
Sikhism in India). These developments differ greatly in their social
and polrtical irnplications. W}rat they have in common is their unam-
t
I biguousll, religiottsinspiration. Consequently, taken togelhsp thsl'
providc a massive falsification of the idea that modernization aird sec-
\
ularization are cognatc phenomena. At the very least they show that
counter-secvlarizationis at least as important a phenomenon in the
c ont c m por ar y w o rl d a s s e c u l a ri z a ti o n .
Bclth in tlic nredia ancl in scholarly publications, these nrovernents
are oftL-n subsumed under the category oi"fundamentalism." This is
not a feiicitous terrn, not only because it carries a pejorative under-
tone but also because it derives from the history of American Protes-
tantism, w'here it has a specific reference that is distortive if extended
to other reliqious traditions. All the sar-ne.the term has sonre sLlg€les-
ti v e us e if one w i s h e s to c rp l a i n th e a tb re rnenti oneddevel opments.It
suggestsa cornbination of several features-great religious passion, a
defiance ofwhat others have defined as the Zeitgekt, and a retrlrn to
PETER L BER C EI{ 7
traditicinaisourcesof religiousauthoriry.Theseare indeedcolrlroll
featuresacrosscultural boundaries.And they do reflectthe presence
of secularizingfbrces,since they must be understoodas a reacrion
against thoseforces.(In that sense,at least,somethingof the old secu-
larization theory may be said to hold up, in a rarher back-handed
7
way.) This interplayrf r"."l"rirl"S r"d.c
{
is, I rvould contend,one of the mosr inportant topicslor a sociology]-
of contemporaryreligion, but far too large to consider here. I can/
only drop a hint: Moderniry for fully understandable reasons,under-
mines all the old certainties;uncertainryis a condition that many
peoplefind very hard to bear;therefore,any movement (not only a
religiousone) that promisesto provide or to renew certaintyhas a
readl rnarket.
Dffirences AmonQ Thriuing Mouements
While the aforementioned common features are important, an
analvsisof the socialand political irnpacrof the variousreligiousup-
sLlrgesrnust alsotakefull accolrntof their differences.This becomes
clearrvhen one looksat what arearguablythe tr,vonrostdynamicreli-
gious upsurgesin the world today,the Islamic and the Evangelical;
the comparisonalsounderlinesthe rveakness of the categoryof "fun-
damentalism"as appliedto both.
The Islamicupsurse,becauseof its more immediatelyobviouspo-
litical ramiflcations,rs betterknog,-n.
Yet it would bc a seriouserror ro
secit oniy through a political lens.It is an irnpressivercvival ot'cnr-
?x
phatically religiouscommitments. And it is of vast geographicalscope,
affecting every single Muslim counrry from North Africa to South-
eastAsia.It continrresto gain convcl'rs,cspeciallyin sub-saharanAf-
rica (whereit is often in head-oncompetitionwith Christianiry).It is
becoming very visible in the burgeoning Muslirn communities in
Europe and, to a much lesserer-tent,in North America.Everywherc
it is bringing about a restoration,nor only of Islamic belicfs but of
distinctivelyIslamic life-sryles,which in many ways directly contra-
dict nrodern ideas-such as idcasabout thc relatiou oi- religion ancl
the state,tire role of women, moral codesof cvervclavbchavi.r. and
the boundariesof religiousand nroral tolerance.The Islamic revival
is by no meansrestrictedto the lessmodernizedor "backsrard"sec-
 8 DESECu LARI ZATToN oF THE woRll)
tors of sociery as progrcssiveintellectualsstill like to think. On the
contrary it is very strong in citiesrvith a high degreeof moderniza-
tion, and in a number of countries it is particularlyvisible among
people with W'estern-stylehigher education-in Egypt and Turkey,
for example,many daughtersof secularizedprofessionals are putting
on the veil and other accoutrementsof Islamic modesry.
Yet there are also great ditlerenceswithin the movement. Even
within the Middle East, the Islamic heartland,there are both reli-
giously and politically irnportant differencesbetr,veenSunni and
Shiiterevivals-lslanricconservatism meansvery differentthingsin.
say,Saudi Arabia and Iran. Away from the Middle East, the differ-
encesbecome even greater.Thus in Indonesia,the most populous
Muslim country in the world, a very powerfirl revivalmovenlent,the
Nudhat'ul-Ulama, is avowedly pro-democracyand pro-pluralism,
the very opposite of what is commonly viewed as Muslim "funda-
mentalism."Where the political circumstancesallow this, there is in
many placesa lively discussionabout the relation of Islam to various
modern realities,and there are sharpdisagreements among individu-
alswl"roare equailycomrnitted to a revitalizedIslam.Still, for reasons
deeplygrounded in the core of the tradition, it is probablyfair to say
that, on the whole, Islam has had a difficult time coming to terms
with key modern institutions,such as pluralism,democracy,and the
market economy.
The Evaneelicalupsurge is just as breathtakingin scope.Geo-
graphicallythat scopeis even wider. It has gainedhuge numbers oi
converts in East Asia-in all the Chinese communities (including,
despiteseverepersecution,rnainlandChina) and in South Korea,the
Philippines,acrossthe SorrthPacific,throughout sub-Saharan Africa
(where it is often synthetizedwith elementsof traditionalAfrican re-
ligion), apparentlyin parts of ex-Communist Europe. But the most
remarkablesuccesshas occurred in Latin America; there are now
thought to be between forry and fifry million EvangelicalProtestants
south of the U.S. border, the greatmajoriry of them first-generation
Protestants.The most nurnerouscomponentwithin the Evangelical
upsurgeis Pentecostalism, which combinesbiblical orthodoxl' and a
rigorous morality with an ecstaticlbrn-rof worship and an emphasis
on spiritualhealing.Espcciallyin Latin America,conversionto Prot-
estantismbrings about a cultural transformation-new attitudesto-
L tsERGHR9
PETER
ward rvork and consumption,a new educationalethos,and a violent
rejectiorrof traditionalrnarhismo (women play a key role in the Evan-
gelicalchurches).
The origins of this worldwide Evangelical upsurge are in the
United States.from which the missionariesfirst went out. But it is
very important to understandthat, virtually everywhereand emphat-
ically in Latin America, this new Evangelicalismis thoroughly in-
digenousand no longer dependenton support from U.S. fellow be-
lievers-indeed, Latin American Evangelicalshave been sending
missionariesto the Hispaniccommuniry in this country where there
has been a comparableflurry of conversions.
Needlessto say,the religiouscontentsof the Islamicand Evangeli-
cal revivalsare totally different.So are the socialand politicalconsc-
quences(of which I will saymore later).But the rwo developlnents
alsodiffer in anothervery important respect:The Islamicmovement
is occurringprimarily in countriesthat are alreadyMuslim or among
Muslim emigrants(asin Europe),while the Evangelicalmovementis
growing dramatically throughout the world in countries where this
rype of religion was previously unknown or very marginal.
Exceptions to the Desecularization Thesis
Let me, then, repeatwhat I said a while back: The world today is
massivelyreligious, is anythingbut the secularizedworld that had
been predicted(whetherjoyfuliy or despondently)by so nlany ana-
lystsof modernity. There are,however,wvo exceptionsto this propo-
sition, one somewhatunclear,the other very clear.
The first apparentexceptionis Europe-more specificaliy, Europe
west ofwhat usedto be calledthe Iron Curtain (the developmentsin
the formerly Communist countriesare asyet very under-researched
and unclear).In WesternEurope,iinowhere else,the old seculariza-
tion theory would seem to hold. With increasingmodernization
therehasbeen an increasein key indicatorsof secularization,both on
the levelof expressed beliefs(especially
thosethat could be calledor-
thodox in Protestantor Catholic terms) and, dramatically,on the
level of church-related behavior-attendance at sen'icesof worship,
adherenceto church-dictatedcodesof personalbehevior (espccially
with regardto sexualiryreproduction,and marriage),recruitmenttc-r
 10 DE S E C u L AR T z A T T ooNF T H E \\' o R L r)
the clergry'.These phenomena, long obseryed in the northern coun-
tries of the continent, have since World War II rapidly engulfed the
south. Thus Italy and Spain have experienced a rapid decline in
church-relatcd relieion. So has Greece, thereby undercutting the
claim of Catholic conservatives that Vatican II is to be blamed for the 1/
dccline. There is now a rnassivcly secular EuroiiliureJlid what has V/
happened in the soLrthcan be simply describecl (thongh not thercbl' \
e x plained) by t h a t c u l ttrre ' s i n v a s i o n o f th e se countri es. It i s not fan-
ciful to prcdic--tthat tircrc wili be sir-nilardevelopments in Eastern Eu-
rope. pr c c is c lv t,-i tl rt d c g ri ' c th a t_ th e s c c o unt;tes i oo rvi l l be i rrtc-
grated into the new Europe. /t
-"''
While these facts are not in'dispute, a number of recent works in
the sociology of religion, notably in France, Britain, and Scandinavia,
havc questioncd the term "secularization" as applied to these devel-
opments. A body of data indicates strong surwivals of religion, most
of it generally Christian in nature, despite the widespread alienation
from the organized churches. A shift in the institutional location of
religion, then, rather than secularization, would be a more accurate
description of thc Eurrope:rnsituation. All the sarne, Europe stands
out as quite different from other parts of the world, and certainly
, from the United States. One of the most interesting puzzles in the
' socioiogy of religion is why Americans are so much more religrous as
twell as more churchly than Europeans.
\ The other exception to the desecularization thesis is less ambigu-
ous. There exists an international subculture composed of people
with'W'estern-ty?e higher education, especiallv in the humanities and
social sciences, that is indeed secularized. This subculture is the prin-
ci pal " c ar r ier " o i p ro q re s s i v e ,En l i g h te n e d bel i ets and val ues.W hi l e
its members are'relatively thin on the ground, thev are very influen-
tial, as they control the institutions that provide the "official" defini-
tions of realiry notably the educational system, the media of mass
communication, and the higher reachesof the legal system. They are
remarkably sirnilar all over the world today, as they have been lor a
long time (though, as we have seen, there are also defectors from this
subculture, especially in the Muslim countries). Again, regrettably,I
cannot speculate here as to why people with this type of education
should be so prone to sccularization. I can only point out that what
we have here is a globalized e/ile culture .
PETERL BEI TCER 11
In country after country then, religiousupsurgeshavea strongly
populist character.Over and beyond the purely religious motives,
theseare movementsof protestand resistance againsta secularelite.
The so-calledculture war in the United Statesernphaticallyshares
,l
this feature.I rnay observein passingthat the plausibilityof secular-
izationtheory owes much to this internationalsubculture.When in-
tellectualstravel, thcy trsuall,vtouch down in intellcctualcircles-
th:itis. arnongpeoplen-ruchlike thenrselves. Thcv caneasilytill into
the misconceptionthat thesepeoplereflectthe overallvisitedsociery
r,r.hich.of course.is a big mistake.Picturea secrrlar from
intellccttral
'W'estern Europe socializingwith colleaguesat the faculryclub of the
University of Texas.He may think he is backhome. But then picture
him trving to drive through the traffic jam on Sundaymorning in
dow-ntown Austin-or, heaven help him, turning on his car radiol
V4rat happensthen is a severejolt of what anthropologistscall cul-
ture shock.
RrSuRcpNT RELIGIoN: ORTcTNSAND PRospEcrs
After this somervhatbreathlesstour d'horizonof the global religious
scene,let me turn to somethe questionsposedfor discussionin this
set of essays.First,what aretheoriginso;ftheworldwideresurgence of reli-
gion?Two possibleanswershave alreadybeen mentioned. One: Mo-
derniry tends to undermine the taken-for-granted certainties by
rvhich people lived through most of history.This is an unconrfort-
ablestatcof affairs.for many an intolerableone, and reliqiousnlove-
ments that claim to qive certainryhave greatappe:rl.Tu'o: A purely
secularview of realiryhasits principal sociallocationin an elitc cul-
ture that, not surprisingly,is resentedby large numbers of people
who are not part of it but who feel its influence (most troublingly, as
their children are strbjectedto an educationthat ignoresor even di-
rectly attackstheir own beliefs and values).Religious movements
with a stronglyanti-secularbent can thereforeappealto peoplewith
resentmentsthat sometimeshave quite non-religiorrssources.
But I would refer once more to the little storywith which I began,
about American foundation officialsworried about "fundamental-
ism." In one sense,there is nothing to explainherc. Stronglyfelt reli-
 12 oF THE woRLD
DESECULARIZATToN
sion has alwaysbeen arouttd: what needsexplanationis its absence
rather than its preselrce.Modern scculariryis a much more puzzling
phenon-renonthan all these religious explosions-if you will, the
Universiry of Chicagois a more interestingtopic for the sociologyof
religion than the Islamic schoolsof Qom. In other words, the phe-
nornenaunder considerationhere on one ievel sirnply serveto dem-
onstratecontinuiry in the place of religion in human experience.
Second,uhat is the likcll,jnure courseof this religious Given
resurgen(e?
the considerable variery of important religious movements in the
contemporaryworld, it would make little senseto venture a global
prognosis.Predictions,if one daresto make them at all, will be more
useful if applied to much narrow-ersituations.One prediction,
though, can be made with some assurance:There is no reasonto
think the world of the twenty-first century will be any lessreligious
than the world is today.A minoriry of sociologistsof religion have
been tryine to salvasethe old secularizationtheory by w'hatI rvould
call the last-ditch thesis:Modernizatiot doessecularize,and move-
merlts like the Islamic and the Evangelicalones representlast-ditch
defensesby religion that cannot last; eventually,secularirywill tri-
umph-or, to pr.lt it less respectfully,eventually Iranian mullahs,
Pentecostalpreachers,and Tibetan lamaswill all think and act like
professorsof literature at A.rnericanuniversities.i find this thesissin-
gularly unpersuasive.
Having made this generalprediction-that the world of the nert
century will not be lessreligiousthan the world of today-I will have
to speculatevery differently regardingdifferent sectorsof the reli-
gious scene-For example, I think that the most militant Islamic
movementswill find it hard to maintain their presentstanceuis-i-vk
nrodernity once they succeedin taking over the governmentsof their
countries (this, it seelrts,is alreadyhappeningin lran). I also think
that Pentecostalism, as it existstoday among mostly poor and unedu-
cated people, is unlikely to retain its present religious and moral
characteristics unchanged,as many of these people experienceup-
ward social mobiliry (this has alreadybeen observedexensively in
the United States).Generally,many of thesereligiousmovementsare
linked to non-religiousforcesof one sort or another,and the future
course of the former will be at least partially determined by the
courseof the latter.In the United States,for instance,militant Evan-
PETERLBERCER I3
gelicalism',villhavea difTerentfuture corlrseif sonreof its cattses suc-
ceedin the political and legalarenasthan if it continuesto be fius-
trated in these arenas.Also, in religion as in every other area of
human endeavor,individual personalitiesplay a much larger role
than most social scientistsand historians are willing to concede.
There might have been an Islarnic revolution in Iran without the
Ayatollah Khomeini, but it would probably have looked quite differ-
ent. No one can predict the appearance of charisrnaticfigureswho
u'ill launch powerful religious movements in unerpected places.
Who knows-perhaps the next religiousupsurgein Americawill oc-
cur among disenchantedpost-modernistacademics!
Third, dotheresurgent dfr-erin tlrcircritiqueoJthesecular
religions order?Yes,
of coursethey do, dependingon their particularbelief systems.Cardi-
nal Ratzingerand the Dalai Lama will be troubled by different aspects
of contemporarysecularculture.'V/hatboth will agrecupon, however,
is the shallownessof a culture that tries to get alongwithout any tran-
scendentpoints of reference.And they will havegood reasonsto sup-
port this view.The religiousimpulse,the questfor meaningthat tran-
scendsthe restricted spaceof empirical existencein this world, has
been a perennial featureof humanity. (This is not a theologicalstate-
rnerlt bur an anthropologicalone-arl agnosticor even an atheistphi-
losopherrnal,wellagreewith it.) It woulclrcquireson-rething closcto a
mutation of the speciesto ex'tinguishthis impulse for good. The more
radicalthinkersof the Enlightenmentand their nrore rccent intcllcc*
tual descendantshoped for somethinglike this, of course.So far it has
not happened,and asI haveargued,it is unlikely to happenin the fore-
seeablefuture. The critique of secularitycommon to all the resurgent
movementsis that human existencebereft of transcendenceis an im-
poverishedand finally untenablecondition.
To the e\tent that secularirytoday has a specificallymodern lbrm
(there r.l'ereearlier forms in, for example,versions of Confucianisrn
and Hellenisticculture),the critiqueof secularityalsoentailsa critique
of at leasttheseaspectsof modernity. Beyond that, however,different
religious movements differ in their relation to modernity. As I have
said, an argument can be made that the Islamic resurgencestrongly
tends toward a negativeview of moderniry; in placesit is downright
anti-modern or counter-modernizing, as in its view of the role of
women. By contrast,I think it can be shown that the Evangelicalresur-
 14 DE S E CU L AR T z A T T ooN
F THE woRLD
gcnce is positively modernizing in most placeswherc ir occurs, clearly
so in Latin America. The new Evangelicalsthrow asidemany of the tra-
ditions that have been obstaclesto modernization-nmchisrno, for one,
and also the subservienceto hierarchy that has been endemic to Iberian
catholicisrn. Their churches encourage values and behavior patterns
that contribute to modernization. To take just one important case in
point: In order to participate fully i' the lifb of their congregations,
Evangelicalswill want to read the Bible; this desire ro read the Bible
encourases lite racy and, beyond this, a positive attitude torvard educa-
tion and self-improvenenr. Tl"reyalso will want to be able tojoin in the
discussion of co'gregational alTairs,since those matters are largely in
the hands of lalpersons (irdeed, largely in the hands of women); this
lay operation of churches necessitatestraining in administrative skills,
including the conduct of public meerings and the keeping of financial
accounts. It is not fancitirl to suggestthat in this rvay Evangelicalcon-
gregations 5sn-s-illiclvertentll', {o [s sLl1s-as schools for denrocracy
and for social nrobilirv.
Rlrrc;rous RrsuRceNCEAND'WoRr-n
Alr,qrns
otl'rer questio.s posed for discussion in this volume concern the re-
l a ti o' oit hc r c ligi o r-rsre s u rg e r)c eto a n u mb e r of i ssuesnot l i nked to
re l i g ion.
r First, intemationalpolitics.Flere one comes up head-on against
the
thesis, cloque'tly proposed
lonq ago bv San'ruel rJ'ntington,
that, with thc cnd of the cold'ot war, internarional affairs will be af-
fected bv a "clash of civiiizations" rather than by ideological conflicts.
There is something to be said for this thesis. The g;reatideorogical
conflict that anirnated the cold war is certainly dormant for the mo-
n l cn t , but I , f br on e , w o u l d n o t b c t o n i ts fi n a l demi se. N or can w e be
sure that new ideolclgical conflicts mav not arise in the future. To the
extent that nationalisnr is an ideolclgy (more accuratell,,each nation-
aiisrn has tts orutt ideoiogy), ideology is alive and well in a lonq list of
c()tlntrles.
It is also plausible that. i. the absence of the overarchins confron-
tation between Soviet clommunism and thc Anrerican-led west, cul-
tu ral anim os it ies su p p re s s e dd u ri n g th e c o l d w ar peri od are surfac-
PETERLtsERCER 15
r'g. Sorrre of rhese animosities have themselves taken on an
ideologicalform, asin the asserrionof a distinctiveAsianidentirvbv a
of governmentsand intellectualgroups in East and Soutir-
'umber
eastAsia.This ideologyhasbecomeespeciallyvisiblein debaresover
the allegedll'ethnocentric,Gurocentric characterof human rishts as
propagatedb1'the United Statesand other\vesterngo,r..r,-.rits and
governmental organizations.But it would probably be arr cxaggera-
tion to seethesedebatesassignalinga clashof civilizations.The situ-
ation closestto a religiouslydefinedclashof civilizationswould come
about if the vn'orld-viewof tlre mosr radicalbranchesof the Islarnic
resurgencecameto be established within a u'ider spectnlm of coun-
tries and becamethe basisof the foreig' policiesof thesecountries.
As yet this has not happened.
To assess the role of religion in internatio'al politics,it would be
useir-rlto distinguishbetweenpolitical,'r-,,',".-",'rt,that aregenuipell.
inspiredby religion and thosethat usereligion asa convenientlegiti-
mation for political agendasbasedon quite non-religiousinterests.
Such a distinction is ditEcult but not impossible.Thus there is no
reasonto doubt that the suicidebombersof the IslamicHaw-smove-
ment truiy believe in the religious motives they avow. By conrrast,
there is good reasonto doubt that the three partiesinvolved in the
Bosnianconflict,commonly represented asa clashbetweenreligions.
are really inspired by religious ideas.I think it was p
J. o'Rlurke
who observedthat thesethree partiesare of the ,.r-,-r..".-.,speakthe
sanrelanguage,and are distinguishedonly by their relieion. u,hich
.
.., \ rr.rrrctrl-rhernbelicve.The same:kepricismaborrtrlre.ilieio,,, n.-
!'/'
rure of an allegedlyreligiousconflict is expressedin the followinq
joke from Northern Ireland:As a man rvalksdown a dark street
ii
Belfast,a sunnranjumps out of a doonvay,rroldsa gun ro his head,
and asks.''Arevou Protestantor catholic?" The man stutters.*well.
actually,I'rn an atheist.""Ah ves," saysthe gunman, ,,but are you a
Protesrant or a Catholicatheist?''
r Second,wttrandpeace. It rvould be nice to be ableto savthat reli_
gion is everywherea force for peace.lj'fbrtllnrtelll it is n.t. Very
probablyreligion in the modern world more often fosters*.., boti-,
berq'eenand rvithin nations.Religiorrsinstitutionsand movenielts
are lanning wars and civil r,r'arson the Indian srrbcontinent,in the
Balkans,in the Middle East,and in Africa, to rnenriononly the mosr
 l6 DESECuLARI ZATToN oF THE \ ( / o R L I - )
obvious cases.Occasionally,indeed,religiousinstitutionstry to reslst
warlike policiesor to mediate be&veenconflicting parties.The Vati-
can mediated successfullyin some international disputesin Latin
America. There have been religiouslyinspired peacemovementsin
severalcountries (including the United States,during the Vietnam
War). Both Protestant and Catholic clergy have tried to mediate the
conflict in Northern lreland, though with notablelack of success.
But it is probably a mistake to look here simply at the actionsof
formal religious institutions or groups.There may be a diffusion oi
religious values in a sociery that could have peace-proneconse-
quenceseven in the absenceof lormal actionsby church bodies.For
example,some analystshavearguedthat the wide diffusion of Chris-
tian values played a mediating role in the processthat ended the
apartheid regime in South Africa, even though the churches were
mostly polarizedbewveenthe rwo sidesof the conflict, at leastuntil
the last few yearsof the regime,when the Dutch ReformedChurch
reversedits position on apartheid.
r Third, economic development. The basictex'ton the relation of reli-
gion and economic developmentis, of course,the German sociolo-
"Weber's
gist Ma-r 1905 work The Protestant Ethk and theSpirit of Capi-
talism.Scholarshave been arguing over the thesis of this book for
over ninety years.Flowever one comes out on this (I happento be an
unreconstructedWeberian),it is clearthat somevaluesfostermodern
economic development more than others. Something /ike'Vleber's
"Protestantethic" is probablyfunctionalin an earlyphaseof capitalist
growth-an ethic, whether religiously inspired or not, that values
personaldiscipline,hard rvork, frugaliry and a respectfor learning.
The new Evangelicalisrnin Latin America exhibits thesevalues rn
virtually crystalline purity, so that my own mental subtitle for the re-
searchproject on this topic conductedby the centerI directat Boston
Universiry hasbeen, "Mo< Weber is alive and well and living in Gua-
temala." Conversely,Iberian Catholicism, as it was establishedin
Latin America, clearly does nol foster such values.
But religious traditions can change.Spain experienceda remark-
ably successfulperiod of econornic developmentbeginning in the
waning yearsof the Franco regime,and one of the important factors
was the influenceof Opus Dei, which cornbinedrigoroustheological
orthodoxrywith a market-friendly opennessin economic matters.I
PETER
L BERCER 17
havesuggestedthat Islam, by and large,has diftlcultieswith a rnod-
ern market economy; yet Muslim emigrants have done remarkably
well in a number of countries(for instance,in sub-Saharan Africa),
and there is a powerful Islamic movement in Indonesia that might
yet play a role analogousto that of Opus Dei in the Catholic world.
I should add that for years now there has been an extended debate
over the part played by Confucian-inspired values in the economic
successstoriesof EastAsia; if one is to credit the "post-Confucian
thesis"and also to allow that Confucianismis a religion, then here
would be a very important religious contribution to economic devel-
opment.
One morally troubling aspectof this matter is that values llnc-
tional at one period of economicdevelopmentmay not be functional
at another.The valuesof the "Protestantethic" or a functionalequiv-
alent thereof are probably essenrialduring the phase that Walt
Rostow called "the take-off," but may not be so in a later phase.
Much less austerevalues may be more functional in the so-called
post-industrialeconomiesof Europe,North America,and EastAsia.
For example, frugaliry however admirable from a moral viewpoint,
may actually be a vice economically speaking.Although undisci-
plined hedonistshave a hard time climbing out of primitive poverry
they can do well in the high-tech, knowledge-driven economies of
the advancedsocieties.
r Finally, humanriglts and social
justice.Religious institutions have,
of course,made many statementson human rights and socialjustice.
Some of thesehave had important political consequences, as in the
civil-rightsstrugglein the IJnited Statesand the collapseof Commu-
nist regimesin Europe. But, as mentioned previously,there are dif--
ferent religiously articulatedviews about the nature of human rights.
The samegoesfor ideasabout socialjustice: what is justice to some
groupsis grossinjusticero others.Sometimesit is very clearthat po-
sitionstakenby religiousgroupson such mattersare basedon a reli-
giousrationale;the principledoppositionto abortionand contracep-
tion by the Roman Catholic Church is such a clear case.At other
times,though, positionson socialjustice, even if legitimatedby reli-
gious rhetoric, reflect the location of the religiousfunctionariesin
this or that netrvorkof non-religioussocialclassesand interests.To
stavrvith the sameexample,I think that this is the casewith most of
 I&
l8 LARI ZATI O N
I)ESEC:LI TI I E V/ O RLL )
')F

the positionstaken by Aurerican Catholic institutions on sr-rcial-jus-

tice issuesother than those relating to sexualiryand reproductton.
I l-ravedealt very briefly with inrmcnselycomplex matters.I was
askedto give a global overview,and that is what I have tried to do.
There is no rvay that I can end this u'ith some sort of uplifting ser-
mon. Both thosewho havegreathopesforthe role of religionin the
affairsof this world and those who-fearthis role must be disappointed
2
by the factualevidence.In assessing this role, there is no alternative
to a nuanced,case-by-caseapproach.But one statementcan be made
with great confidencc:Those who neglectreligion in their analyses RomanCatholicism
in
of contemporaryatlairsdo so et greatperil.
tbeAgeoJJobnPaulII
Ceorge Weigel

A" the edqeof the twenry-firstcentury the impact of thc Roman

\r.-,f Catholic Church on world affairs vividly illustrateswhat Pro-
fessorPeterBergerdescribedin the previouschapterasthe non-sec-
ularizationof late moderniry.That Catholic impact, which can be
measuredempirically from Manila to Krak6w, and from Santiagode
Chile to Seoul, also refutes the expectations-indeed,the deeply
cherishedhopes-of many of the founding fathersof thc modern
world.
Voltaire,it will be remembered,died with the wish that the last
king be strangledr','iththe guts of the last priest,and the revoltrtion
he helpedto inspiredefined its goal as little lessthan the or.'erthrorv
of thc civilization the Church had helped nLlrtllre for ccnturic-s.
When Italian troopsoccupiedRome in 1870,completedthe unifica-
tion of Itall'by absorbingthe PapalStates,and sent the pope into rn-
ternalexileasthe "prisonerof the Vatican,"it waswidely thought that
the CatholicChurch was a spenthistoricalforce.As recentlyas 191.9,

George Weigel, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center from
1989to mid-1996,is now a senior fellow at the Center.He haswriren or
edited sixteenbooks. The most recent, Wirnessto Hope:The BiographyoJPope
John PaulI will be published worldwide in the fall of 1999.

t9