Shall The Religious Inherit The Earth?

At the beginning of the 21st century most of the world population remains poor in the extreme and deeply religious, whereas the wealthy few are for the most part secular. In this context religion becomes an expression and symbol of resistance.

Kaufmann argues that this "produces an ethno-religious self-consciousness, which insulates religion from decline." Indeed it makes it into a formidable ideological weapon. Russell might be shifting uneasily in his grave.

The classic model developed with the Iranian revolution of 1979. Ayatollah Khomeini appealed to all those who were disenfranchised by the shah, who was supported every inch of the way by the secular West.

Merchants who lost out to industrial enterprises, clerics bypassed by reforms and crucially the swelling ranks of the poor migrants to the cities all became the shock troops of the new order.

Radical and fundamentalist Islam was here to stay.

A pattern was also emerging of secularism and individualism, seen as an expression of Western expansionism and corruption, being targeted for harassment and violence. Shades of Kristallnacht? Afghanistan under the Taliban was a particularly telling example.

But fundamentalism has contaminated other religions too.

In Israel the fundamentalists have gradually taken over the political discourse by displacing the moderate and secular and dictating much more aggressive and ruthless expansionist policies.

In Poland, since the demise of socialism, the emboldened fundamentalist Catholic church was encouraged by the new elites to strengthen its grip on all aspects of governance and played a crucial part in securing socially backward legislation.

It was the Polish church that created an embarrassing stalemate when it goaded Polish politicians into insisting that the preamble of the EU constitution must contain references to Christianity as Europe's common heritage.

They haven't succeeded, perhaps giving a momentary respite to Russell.

The large-scale economic migrations of the last two decades have been coupled with a radicalisation of the disenfranchised minorities in most European big cities.

Over the last 30 or so years social policy responses have favoured rights over responsibilities encouraging separateness over integration, Kaufmann says.

And religious beliefs, Kaufmann points out, will be anti-social if pushed to an extreme and their political expression backward and repressive.

Tellingly, Pope John Paul II opportunistically reached out to Muslims and evangelical Protestant groups in his search for allies in the fight against UN family planning and gender equality initiatives.

By the end of the century there will be nine billion of us. Statistics show that secular populations remain static, while religious fundamentalists are registering record above-replacement fertility rates.

This demographic transition will take a century to complete and Kaufmann, in his secular heart of hearts, believes that without an ideology inspiring social cohesion the fundamentalists are in with a chance to just "inherit the Earth."

Ernst Bloch once commented that religious myth bore a truth that atheistic communism ignored at its peril and "implored the movement not to abandon its Utopian eschatology."

"Secularism, shorn of ideology, cannot inspire a commitment to generations past nor sacrifices for those yet to come," insists Kaufmann.

While recognising that religions can contribute to debates about society's ills, it is vital to acknowledge that universal human rights values articulate a better foundation for a socially cohesive society than any one religion, much less a fundamentalist one, can ever do.

Kaufmann is controversial, highly informative and thought provoking. A not-to-be-missed contribution to one of the most pressing and complex debates of modern time.