Like Coca-Cola

The renewal of Christianity across the world — but which brand?

The obvious question may be: where did He go? Of course God hasn't gone anywhere; the title of this book could well be God is Still Here. It's just that in popular culture and public debate, we are seeing a renewed interest in his followers' actions, and this book is about how religion has regained the public sphere with much clamour.

God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge(Allen Lane Publishers)

Micklethwait and Wooldridge believe that the need for certainty is one reason for religion's renewal. It is counter to the loss of community and morality through modernization and globalization, and is therefore spreading when secularists thought the latter two developments would kill it off. It is also, it seems, like Coca-Cola or Hollywood movies — the free market and American cultural hegemony is good for its dissemination. And, indeed, the authors think that America is a great example of how religion can be done properly, as opposed to the example of Europe (where secularism's intolerance clashes with Islam's intolerance), and despite obvious problems. This is perhaps one of the book's major conclusions that could be challenged.

The book is perfunctory towards religions other than Christianity and Islam (the two main evangelizing religions), and regions other than the US, and while the first half of the book is a panoramic view of recent Western religious history, it focuses gradually onto the great American experiment, perhaps reinforcing the stereotypical view that American Christianity is Christianity. (It could perhaps be titled God is Still Here in America). In doing so the authors try to answer why "so many Americans are drawn to God". They have a typically American faith in America, believing that the separation of church and state has made America great. It is certainly good in the ways they describe. America has largely maintained freedom of belief and freedom of government from religious interference. But is the public mingling of faith and politics always a bad thing?

Wooldrige and Micklethwait

The book is equivocal about the megachurch phenomenon, where there is little separation between church and business, criticizing, amongst other things, megachurch aesthetics, but understanding of the megachurches' appeal, in their can-do brand of Christianity and prominent community presence. The book covers the Religious Right, but also the lesser known New Religious Left (as it could be described) who are moving away from the traditional soapboxes of American Christianity, and emphasizing Jesus' teaching on social justice.

The authors also bring out the contradictions of America in the eyes of the world. The US is hated, they say, for both its puritanism and its pornography. In Middle Eastern countries generally, although the authors offer examples of more liberal forms of Islam elsewhere, American freedom is seen as a curse rather than a blessing, and this is the greatest impediment to spreading the democracy that the previous American administration thought would be welcomed like Charlton Heston at a rifle range.

But it is the very American version of Christianity — sure-footed, positive thinking and capitalist-friendly — that is appealing in places like the new China. The book begins with the meeting of a Chinese house-church, an example of how modernization and globalization is bringing not only economic expansion to the developing world. While the Chinese government is cautiously loosening the reigns, it is perhaps worrying that the otherwise blessed new religious freedom arising in the cities is often the homophobic, anti-science, prosperity gospel version of faith that is so dominant in American culture.

There is a tendency of this version of faith to see everything in terms of a secular versus sacred battlefield, and Micklethwait and Wooldridge can fall into this perspective also. This is a book that deals primarily with the on-the-surface battles; it says less about the often more complex thoughts of individuals in the pew (for coverage of this far less quantifiable area, try perhaps Australian writer Tom Frame's new book Losing My Religion). But it is in the public arena where there is the most misinformation and simplification of argument, so hopefully this book can shed some light for the people either booing or cheering on why God is still hanging in there.

Nick Mattiske