The revival of religion is partly the consequence of the defeat of Marxism. In fact it possible to say that it is a research of more sense in a period of globalization that interrogates a lot of values. This revival has also real negative impact, to the extend it is leading to returns of wars of religion. It is the reason why this new area has to be interrogated.
This revival is first linked to a failure of Marxist ideas. For this reason there is a great return to old traditions. To this extend it is possible to see a revival of religions everywhere in the world. Europe looks to be an exception in laicism, as religion is very important in the United States, in South America, in Africa or in Asia. Even if in China there is a communist regime, Confucianism has come back to a lot of aspects in society. It the reason why it is possible to say religions have a great role again. The revival of these religions create also a revival of traditional oppositions between moderates and conservatives. In the Catholic religion, the opposition between Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Kung defined a lot the confrontations of the end of the XXth century, between a great intellectual contesting aspects of the legacy of Vatican II, including the historico-critical method which is a basis of the modern interpretation of religious texts, and Hans Kung who is a great defender of the Vatican II legacy. Today there are revivals of reactionary and reformist ideas, for instance in Protestantism or Islam. Misfortunately reactionary tendencies are a lot more prevalent than reformist ones, and this domination has to be fought.
It can also be seen than there is a revival of wars of religion. The September 11 attacks are showing a return of these wars. Islamism is linked to social and economic issues, but also to a desire to rebuild a golden age of the Islamic civilization. The Islamic world never really recovered from the Aboukir battle against Napoleon, as there was a great gap concerning the technology : guns were confrontating swords, which was traumatic in the Arabic world. The fact offensive Jihad was advocated by Sayyid Qutb, who was a founder of the radical Islamism of today, is a sign that this revival is wished. Huntington spoke about the clash of civilizations and he was right. We come back to a classical period with a return of oppositions between these civlizations. But the return of religions is a real fact : the great French arts critique André Malraux said that “the XXIst century will be religious or won’t be” : he was globally right as well. To this extend the wars of religions, and influence religions can have everywhere can be very logical to this extend. It is the reason why promoting dialog, nuance and more studies can fight, as they always have been able to, these trends.
The observer 