The Future of God in the Global Village: Spirituality in an Age of Terrorism and Beyond
Religion thrives at the start of the twenty-first century, despite a plethora of predictions that it would die out a century ago, according to retired religion professor Thomas McFaul. In The Future of God in the Global Village, he looks at the myriad faith traditions that flourish today and the reasons for their continuing strength.
For indigenous peoples, in particular, faith is a bedrock of identity and perspective amid the turbulence of twenty-first-century societal change. For people of all backgrounds, religion is a means to spiritual nourishment, community, and self-improvement—personal needs that McFaul asserts people will continue to feel and that no amount of technological innovation or improvements to material living standards will in themselves satisfy.
McFaul also notes the religious pluralism that, he states, is one of the major trends of our age. Today’s globalized world brings different religions into regular contact with each other to a degree never seen before. Furthermore, new religions are forming all the time and will probably continue to do so.
Yet, McFaul observes, religious toleration is still far from universal. Extremists of every major faith tradition incite their followers against those of other faiths. Religion-on-religion strife in our age is much milder than that which transpired in past eras, thanks in part to the institution of secular democracy, but it remains to be seen whether new generations of theocratic leaders might undo democratization’s progress.
It is imperative that the world’s religions learn to coexist, McFaul concludes. There will not be peace among the nations, he says, unless there is first peace among the religions.
McFaul’s The Future of God in the Global Village is an ecumenical look at how religion, like human society itself, continues to evolve. Religious and non-religious readers both will find much of interest within this book.
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