Modernity presented a challenge to the world’s religions. It provided advanced thinkers from the 18th to 20th centuries who believed that supernatural religion was headed for extinction. There was a sharp decline in religious belief and practice in some places which eventually spread scientific culture that convinced small minorities that the only realities worth considering were those that could be measured scientifically. But the most prominent trends of the last century have been the further spread of major world religions, in new forms, and their attacks on elements of a secular and global modernity. Buddhist ideas and practices were well received in the West. Christianity spread even further; majority of Christians are no longer in Europe and the United States. Islam also spread widely because of religious pluralism on a level never before seen. Fundamentalism is a major reaction against modernization and globalization. It has developed in every major religious tradition
with many features of the modern world that appear threatening to established religions. Fundamentalists have responded with selective rejection of modernity and actively use modern communication technology. The term “fundamentalism” comes from U.S. religious conservatives in the early twentieth century; called for a return to the fundamentals of Christianity.
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