A God for all seasons.

• Author: Wolfe, Alan
• Position: The Case for God - Saving God: Religion after Idolatry - God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World - The Evolution of God - Book review

Karen Armstrong, The Case for God (New York: Knopf, 2009), 432 pp., $27.95.

Mark Johnston, Saving God: Religion after Idolatry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 248 pp., $24.95.

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 416 pp., $27.95.

Robert Wright, The Evolution of God (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009), 576 pp., $25.99.

In 2004, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, U.S.-based editors and writers for the Economist, published The Right Nation. "The sound that we have been hearing in the background of American political life for the past thirty years," they wrote in that book, "is the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar of liberalism." Conservative ideas are vibrant, they argued, and conservative politicians entrepreneurial. With an equal mixture of brio and boldness, Micklethwait and Wooldridge concluded that because "American conservatism had both history and sociology on its side," its future could not be brighter.

Writing about politics is always a risky business, but even by the lowest expectations of predictability these men were way off the mark; five years after their book appeared, only the unelected Supreme Court, of all the branches of American government, is currently in the hands of the political Right. Undeterred, Micklethwait and Wooldridge are in the prophecy business once again; their new effort, God is Back, predicts a future for religion as bright as the one they once held out for conservatism.

When The Right Nation was published, I wrote a negative review of it in the New York Times, pointing out its superficiality and pitch-perfect ear for whatever passed in Washington for conventional wisdom. Let me then offer some retrospective praise: God is Back is so dreadful a book that it makes The Right Nation seem prescient by contrast.

Every shopworn and simplistic idea floating around in the intellectual universe about the world's religious revival is trotted out by Micklethwait and Wooldridge to buttress their breathless claims about God's return. Indeed, Micklethwait and Wooldridge even rehash some of the more overused language of their last masterful treatise to explain God's bright future: they entitle the section of their book dealing with religion's decline in Europe "The Long Withdrawing Roar." Long ago I learned never to trust books that quote either William Butler Yeats's "The Second Coming" or Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach." This is not because these poems are mediocre; both are in fact masterpieces. It is because their most famous lines--"Things fall apart," "slouches towards Bethlehem," "passionate intensity," "a darkling plain," "ignorant armies"--have turned into cliches. Micklethwait and Wooldridge love the Arnold poem so much that they seemingly cannot write a book without citing it.

We are presented with two contrasting paths to modernity: European secularism versus American religiosity. The story of mainline religion's decline and its replacement by evangelical fervor is told for the umpteenth time. As if it constituted revelations all their own, the authors speak of how religiosity helps business firms retain employees and customers, encourages personal well-being and discourages immoral behavior. Religion need not be anti-intellectual, they boldly proclaim; some pretty smart people happen to believe in God. When it comes to religion, many like it "hot," and they--the Pentecostals and like-minded enthusiasts--are the ones growing most rapidly.

God is back not only in the United States, the authors go on to argue, but globally as well. Megachurches are spreading in Asia and Latin America. A combination of anger toward and fascination with American materialism fuels fundamentalist rage. Religious wars are breaking out all over, most especially in Africa, as conservative Christians compete for followers with conservative Muslims. Immigrants from devout countries arriving in Europe have turned that secular desert into a religious oasis. The idea that secularism is incompatible with faith has proven to be a myth. No matter where you look, "the great forces of modernity--technology and democracy, choice and freedom--are all strengthening religion rather than undermining it."

The best social scientists have known for some time that reality rarely moves in such a linear direction, but that lesson has not been absorbed by Micklethwait and Wooldridge. Thesis driven to a fault, their book simply selects the facts they like and ignores those that complicate their story. George W. Bush's religious convictions are given a prominent place; Karl Rove's lack of them is never mentioned. A striking rise in the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation is interpreted to mean that those very same people do not necessarily lack religious sentiments. They write that religion "helps ordinary people all over America to deal with the problems of alcoholism and divorce, wayward children and hopelessness" without mentioning the fact that states populated by fervent believers have the highest rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births in the country. They discuss a performance of a Mozart opera in Germany canceled so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities; in fact, Idomeneo was performed without incident at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, its beheading of the Prophet included. To support their argument they describe Canada as "an honorary part of Europe" rather than an actual part of North America. The conflict between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria is emphasized; their hard-won areas of agreement are downplayed. God is Back is filled with such evidence; alas, very little of it can be trusted.

When I attend sermons at American megachurches, I cannot help but notice that as much emphasis is put on church growth...