The New Cold War?

Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State

Mark Juergensmeyer

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520086517
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520915015
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Politics

Will the religious confrontations with secular authorities around the world lead to a new Cold War? Mark Juergensmeyer paints a provocative picture of the new religious revolutionaries altering the political landscape in the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Impassioned Muslim leaders in Egypt, Palestine, and Algeria, political rabbis in Israel, militant Sikhs in India, and triumphant Catholic clergy in Eastern Europe are all players in Juergensmeyer's study of the explosive growth of religious movements that decisively reject Western ideas of secular nationalism. Juergensmeyer revises our notions of religious revolutions. Instead of viewing religious nationalists as wild-eyed, anti-American fanatics, he reveals them as modern activists pursuing a legitimate form of politics. He explores the positive role religion can play in the political life of modern nations, even while acknowledging some religious nationalists' proclivity to violence and disregard of Western notions of human rights. Finally, he situates the growth of religious nationalism in the context of the political malaise of the modern West. Noting that the synthesis of traditional religion and secular nationalism yields a religious version of the modern nation-state, Juergensmeyer claims that such a political entity could conceivably embrace democratic values and human rights.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface to the Paperback Edition
• Introduction: The Rise of Religious Nationalism
• Part One: Religion vs. Secular Nationalism
• 1. The Loss of Faith in Secular Nationalism
• 2. Competing Ideologies of Order
• Part Two: The Global Confrontations
• 3. Models of Religious Revolution: The Middle East
• 4. Political Targets of Religion: South Asia
• 5. Religious Ambivalence toward Socialist Nationalism: Formerly Marxist States
• Part Three: The Problems Ahead
• 6. Why Religious Confrontations Are Violent
• 7. Democracy, Human Rights, and the Modern Religious State
• Conclusion: Can We Live with Religious Nationalism?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• List of Interviews
• Index