Monday, January 26, 2004
Religion proves to be an eternal growth industry
Religion is always either a blessing or a curse.
Since 9-11, we have been made painfully aware that violence can be rationalized as a competition between religions. But religious faith has not suffered from that violence. If anything, it has strengthened its grip on believers. The lasting hunger for religious identity trumps all efforts to exorcise faith. Today, four out of five of the world's people are adherents of established religions, pursuing lives motivated by faith.
Year-end polls reveal that the religious faith of Americans, traditionally intense, has strengthened since the late 1980s. More than eight in 10 Americans today affirm that "prayer is an important part of their daily lives." Even more -- 87 percent -- insist that they never doubt the existence of God. Eighty-two percent of Americans told the Gallup International Millennium Survey that God is "very important" to them.
In Europe, by contrast, 49 percent of Danes, 52 percent of Norwegians and 55 percent of Swedes say God does not matter to them at all. When the European Union agrees on a constitution, it will likely dispense with any mention of God. The acerbic British critic A.A. Gill dismisses the Europeans' flirtation with secularism, knowing that people need more. "Christianity," he says, "started out with 11 members and was at its strongest and purest. If it goes back to being 11, or if I'm the only poor creature in the world still afflicted with it, it will make no difference. God will still be there and will still love us unrequited. The world was still round when nobody believed it."
And indeed, religion worldwide is a growth industry, favoring the far left and the far right -- ecstatic Pentecostalism and rigid fundamentalism. The perennial pull of religious faith owes much to what it promises. Secularism teaches that each individual is autonomous. Faith teaches that God does not change, and that people must. Religion is characteristically conservative, carefully preserving its treasure -- a caring God who listens, a sense of the sacredness of life, eternal hope and the solidarity of humankind. Religious faith is even reactionary, in the sense that it seeks to recapture the innocence and integrity we believe the Creator intended when he conceived of human nature.
This helps explain the resurgence of fundamentalism in the world's great religions. Those faiths that demand the most of their adherents in belief and behavior thrive and will thrive because they deliver confidence and inspire hope and trust -- what the psychologist William James called religion's "cash value." The danger within fundamentalism is its temptation to be certain that God is always on its side.
The enduring power of religious faith is that, when humbly sought, it can offer direction, integrity, the realization of one's innate worth, the sense of being at home with the universe and, not least, the need to commit to loving service.
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