The battle for God

by Karen Armstrong.
New York:   Knopf, c. 2000.

“In The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong shows us how and why fundamentalist
groups came into existence and what they yearn to accomplish.” “We see the West
in the sixteenth century beginning to create an entirely new kind of
civilization, which brought in its wake change in every aspect of life – often
painful and violent, even if liberating. Armstrong argues that one of the things
that changed most was religion. People could no longer think about or
experience the divine in the same why; they had to develop new forms of faith to
fit their new circumstances.” “Armstrong characterizes fundamentalism as one of
these new ways of being religious that have emerged in every major faith
tradition. She examines the ways in which these movements, while not monolithic,
have each sprung from a dread of modernity often in response to assault
(sometimes unwitting, sometimes intentional) by the mainstream society.”
“Armstrong sees fundamentalist groups as complex, innovative, and modern –
rather than as throwbacks to the past – but contends that they have failed in
religious terms. Maintaining that fundamentalism often exists in symbiotic
relationship with an aggressive modernity, each impelling the other on to
greater excess, she suggests compassion as a way to defuse what is now an
intensifying conflict. ” From the jacket cover