In the waning years of the twentieth century, a few years before the terrorist attacks of 9/ll, Samuel P. Huntington wrote a best seller, The Clash of Civilizations.

The Soviet Union had dissolved, and the Cold War was over. Americans reveled in the dawning digital age, freed, they believed, from fears of a global conflict. Huntington, a professor at Harvard University, did not share their optimism for the new age.

In the absence of cold war ideology, Huntington suggested, religion was becoming more important, not less. Secularization had disrupted communities and cultures. I saw this disruption in the Middle Eastern countries where I lived during the 1990’s. Oil wealth led to vast change in one, Saudi Arabia. A consumer society emerged in one generation from an isolated, desert kingdom, bringing in Westerners who got drunk and watched x-rated movies. Most of the 9/ll terrorists came from this shell-shocked nation.

Humans needed, Huntington said, “new sources of identity, new forms of stable community, and new sets of moral precepts to provide them with a sense of meaning and purpose. Religion . . . meets these needs.”

Are the clashes and terrorist attacks since the publication of Huntington’s book only a struggle between religions or do they stem more from a struggle between religion and no religion?

Western societies have assumed an upward progress toward secular utopias with high rates of material benefits. In an age of rapid change, ordinary men and women may yearn for purpose and meaning. Where do they find them?