In 1897, respondents to a symposium such as this one would have agreed, however reluctantly, that the twentieth century would be a post-religious age. The evidence favoured Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God, Laplace's announcement that we don't need God as an hypothesis, or Engels' prediction that religion would disappear sometime in the next century. The marriage between science and technology was still in its honeymoon phase. The magic of electricity, of railways, of astounding feats of engineering, suggested that the novels of Jules Verne were more reliable sources of prophecy than the Scriptures. But today, in 1997, as we approach the twenty-first century, Engels' prediction seems an amusing product of Victorian naivety. Religious revival in the twenty-first century seems inescapable. In spite of a century of rapid secularization, fundamentalist religions are stronger than ever and they continue to spread. Evangelical believers have established a presence in the most secular universities. Many astonishing scientific discoveries are barely noticed and those that are, such as the recent discoveries of new methods of cloning, provoke widespread religious resistance. Whole countries have fallen into the hands of armed believers. On the brink of the twenty-first century it may be more timely to ask whether there will be a revival of secularism.

The question is not at all facetious. The current explosion of religious militancy that has brought fundamentalism to the fore in Israel, in the Islamic world, and in America has been connected to the failures of secularism that became so evident in the 1970s. After World War II a kind of liberal social democracy became the common faith in the non-communist world. This faith was focused on the secular, democratic state, and its mission to provide economic progress, and even social and spiritual identity. By the late seventies many of the leading states inspired by this faith were either defeated in war, or, more commonly, unable to deliver a decent life for their citizens. Many collapsed altogether. Militant messianic Judaism came in to fill the gap left by the setbacks of Israel during the Yom Kippur war, and throughout the Middle East fundamentalist regimes arose to displace states that could not sustain the economic and social expansions of the previous decades. Today, in the United States, political figures and intellectuals have to deny that they are liberals, and secular humanism has become a term of abuse. In Russia the state has acted to protect the Russian Orthodox Church against the militancy of evangelical Protestantism. Imagine telling Karl Marx a century ago that the most disciplined popular uprising against a tyrannical regime in the next century would occur on the territory of ancient Persia and that it would be inspired by the Koran rather than the Communist Manifesto.

Thus I am prepared to predict that religious revival will continue into the twenty-first century. But will such a revival be desirable? Religion can inspire a sense of roots, it can inspire a sense of compassion, and it can inspire openness. But it can also, as it is so often today, be a source of strife, fanaticism, and tyranny.

In considering the twenty-first century it is wise to reflect on the lessons of the twentieth. Among these is that secularism pure and simple, when left to its own, can degenerate into a pseudo-religious fanaticism-as it did in the thirties in the era of fascism and Stalinism. Religious revival can degenerate into a relentless quest for hallucination, as it did so often in the sixties, or into unrestrained, messianic fanaticism as it does so often today. The religious revivals that seemed to me the most promising took place after World War II under the guidance of figures such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Buber. While I do not endorse all the views of these figures, the revival contained a valuable recognition of the need for constant religious-secular dialogue. Such religious orientation rejected a secularism that believed that all problems could be solved by new methods of quantification and rejected religious dogmatism that held that all problems had been solved in Scripture. Niebuhr, Buber, and others called for experimentation, openness, and dialogue.

The religious revival that has become so public since the late seventies has entailed openness as well as dogmatism. It has opened the possibilities of greater appreciation for religious forms and symbols that were once derided as archaic. One can hear the music of Hindu sitars, Gregorian chants, and tribal throats in our metropolis. But in some of its manifestations, it has inspired religious believers with the view that in following direct instructions from the Almighty they are immune to the criticism and opinion of the public realm. In such a world we will, in the words of one writer, be faced with Jihad (not only Islamic) or McWorld. Religious revival needs revived secularism, so that each can engage in dialogue with the other, where the religious traditions provide depth to secular hopes that provide confidence.

Louis Greenspan is a professor of religious studies at McMaster University and director of the Bertrand Russell Editorial Project. He is co-editor of Fackenheim: German Philosophy & Jewish Thought (University of Toronto Press).