The March 2008 issue of the Atlantic has three terrific stories that tackle religion in the contemporary world. Each is smart, well-reported and comes to a similar conclusion: Time is on our side. As the world grows smaller and more interconnected, religious extremism gives way to more moderate perspectives.
Alan Wolfe argues the case in an essay on the “coming religious peace.” Borrowing a page from John Wesley, Wolfe quotes the famous revivalist’s prediction about religious enthusiasms: “I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any true revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger and love of the world in all its branches.”
In other words, material success leads to religious moderation. But you don’t need to take Wolfe’s or Wesley’s word for it. A smart chart, graphing the findings of a recent Pew poll, illustrates the relationship between wealth and religiosity in several dozen nations. With the exception of the United States, fatter coffers lead to waning fervor, at least among the rising middle class.
Eliza Griswold’s piece “God’s Country,” a look at the conflict between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, comes to a similar conclusion via a very different route. Thick with detail and illuminating interviews, Griswold says that the religious conflict can mask deep-seated economic and political problems. Nigerians who once coexisted now kill each other in a desperate struggle for resources as much as for self-esteem: “When a government fails its people, they turn elsewhere to safeguard themselves and their futures, and in Nigeria, in the beginning of the 21st century, they have turned first to religion. Here, then, is the truth behind what Samuel Huntington famously calls religion’s ‘bloody’ geographic borders: outbreaks of violence result not simply from a clash between two powerful religious monoliths, but from tensions at the most vulnerable edges where they meet—zones of desperation and official neglect where faith becomes a rallying cry in the struggle for land, water and work.”
Walter Russell Mead brings this all back home, predicting in “Born Again” that American evangelicals are becoming more moderate and more influential. (Yes, he knows he is bucking the current journalistic contention that evangelicalism is dead or dying.) Mead sees the movement headed to a more mature phase that will yield political clout through compromise and coalitions. That, in fact, is one way of interpreting the splintering of evangelical support among Huckabee, Obama, and McCain. Or, as Mead writes, we’re beginning to witness “a more pluralistic and less strident movement, more apt to compromise and less likely to be held hostage by a single issue or party.”
Reassured that things are getting better in this best of all possible worlds, your thoughts now may turn to a vacation, If so, the Atlantic has one more story on religion for you. Francis X. Rocca describes his stay at the Abbey of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen. The monastery, built by Franco, welcomes visitors. But the monks expect guests to adhere to their schedule, which includes more prayer, silence, and potato salad than Rocca had bargained for. Rocca made do, but if enough readers pour in with euros to pile on the collection plate, those monks may moderate, too.
