The militant religiosity that we call fundamentalism has surfaced in all the major faiths in the twentieth century. It constitutes a reaction against and a rejection of modern Western society, but it is not a monolithic movement. The fact that fundamentalism has erupted in almost all cultures indicates a widespread and worrying disenchantment with modern society, which so many of us experience as liberating, exciting and empowering. One of the most dangerous aspects of the fundamentalist phenomenon is that it seems incomprehensible to the liberal or secular world. The two camps within the same society scarcely speak the same language and have few values in common.
Fundamentalism often expresses itself violently, but it springs from deep fear.
Every single fundamentalist movement that I have studied in this book is inspired by a dread of annihilation. Fundamentalists are convinced that the secularist establishment is determined to wipe them out, even in the United States. They feel that their backs are to the wall and that they must fight their way out of the impasse in which they find themselves. I have chosen to concentrate on fundamentalist movements in Judaism, Christianity and Islam because these have so far been easily the most prominent and influential. Fundamentalism as a phenomenon began in the United States in the early twentieth century, so American Protestant fundamentalists were the pioneers of this militant religiosity, and show its problems, pitfalls, dynamics, concerns and dangers.