As countries modernized, some believed, religion would matter less, religion being a relic of a superstitious age. Religion would finally die. Instead, the modernization of nations has often brought opposite results.

The changes have even complicated relations between the United States and its allies. Cambridge Lecturer Andrew Preston notes two countries which surprised the United States by the strength of their religion. [link]

President John F. Kennedy was exasperated at the Buddhist resurgence in Vietnam which undermined a Vietnamese president we supported. As Preston points out, perhaps the president should have noticed that ninety percent of the country was Buddhist.

Another president, Jimmy Carter, underestimated the power of Islam in Iran, which led to the fall of the U.S. embassy there and the installation of an Islamic anti-American regime. Iran was a modernizing nation, a result of oil revenues, but religion’s hold did not vanish. In fact, modernization may have increased yearning for the certainty of religious belief in the face of rapid change.

The current election triumphs of religious parties in Middle Eastern countries, recently liberated from dictators, continue this trend. They join a long list of countries who were supposed to disavow religion as they modernized, but didn’t.

Some of the world’s fastest growing Christian and Islamic communities are in Africa. Exploration for Africa’s resources is pulling countries on that continent into the modern age, even as religion increases.

Perhaps religion is one area where the West lags behind.