The Revenge of God

"The Revenge of God" is an account of the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in the modern world, and of the conflict and strife to which it has given rise. Gilles Kepel examines this development by comparing three major world religions - Christianity, Judaism and Islam. He shows that there are striking similarities between all three religions: despite the individual character of each religious doctrine and the revivial of conflicts between them, all violently resist the spirit of enlightenment and the secular values which it has produced - liberalism, democracy, individualism and the privatization of morality. Kepel argues that all three fundamentalisms have benefited from a growing disenchantment with political ideologies and secular utopias. Each of them includes a "militant" membership of young, educated and modern people; each pursues both a strategy "from above", seizing state power and using state legislation to promote its ends, and a strategy "from below", by evangelizing the masses and taking control of their daily lives.
Kepel's account ranges from Europe to America and the Middle East, from Protestant "televangelists" to ultra-orthodox Jews, from Islamic groups to the "charismatic renewal", and uncovers a hidden and often disturbing reality.