Ch 24 pg. 740- 747

          Religion is, again, an on going factor that continues to influence the world.   In the most recent century religion has played a more powerful role than expected.  Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam had long functioned as transregional cultures, spreading further then any initially thought they would.  In more current times, religious pluralism characterized the world's societies.  Fundamentalism is one response to how traditions in new areas has been modernized.  Fundamentalism is a term derived from the United States, where religious conservatives in the early twentieth century were outraged by critical and "scientific" approaches to the Bible.  Throughout the entire world today, it is impossible for someone to start a new religion that would appear threatening to another.  Fundamentalism represented a religious response, characterized by one scholar as "embattled forms of spirituality...experienced as a cosmic war between forces of good and evil." In the beginning they wanted to separate themselves from the secular world in their own churches and schools.

          The most prominent of the fundamentalism that emerged in the late twentieth century was Islam.  Unfortunately, the image of Islam has been permanently engraved into America's mind with the image of Osama bin Laden and the destruction of the World Trade Center.  By the mid-1990s, bin Laden had found a safe haven in Taliban ruled Afghanistan, from which he and other leaders of al-Qaeda planned their now infamous attack on the World Trade Center and other various targets.  Even though this horrible event took place, there has been an effort in the Muslim community to create a new religious and political order on the teaching of Islam.  By the 1970s, political independence had given rise to major states in Egypt, Iran, Algeria, and other places.  These places sought after the Western and secular policies of nationalism, socialism, and economic development.  This was the context in which the idea of a new Islam alternative to Western models of modernity began to take shape.  That effort to return to Islamic principles was labeled "jihad," an ancient and evocative religious term that refers to struggle or striving to please God.