At the very deepest levels our spiritual needs seem as great as ever. Believers want a full-blooded religion that packs an emotional punch. One that provides both meaning and values for us to live by and that offers us a purpose beyond the bottomless hollow of consumer culture. In Western countries this search for a solid spiritual anchor has again put religion and the church at the very centre of an intense political debate. In countries like Canada, the US, Britain and Australia, fundamentalist Christianity has gained a new lease on life, pulling in adherents from mainstream churches and making loud noises about contentious social issues.
Fundamentalist preachers offer a clear prescription for both personal and social behaviour.
Spokesmen like US preacher Jerry FaIwell offer a smooth blend of personal salvation and down-home values. In practice, though, this fundamentalist morality is shot through with right-wing ideology. It poses a stark literalist vision of good and evil which neatly polarizes the world into two warring camps. Falwell and his supporters lay the blame for the world s ills on the twin demons of godless communism and godless secularism . The fundamentalist solution is to put women back in the kitchen, blacks in their place, gays in psychiatric hospitals and Marxists in church.