Word: secularized
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Church-related colleges, most of which are small, are worse off than secular institutions. Only 1.6% of Catholic colleges and 4.2% of Protestant colleges are in the top two groups, compared to 56.8% of secular schools...
...current champion author is Billy Graham, whose most recent book, Angels, has sold a phenomenal 1.4 million copies in hardcover. While Preacher Graham helps a secular publisher (Doubleday) hit the Evangelical market, Jimmy Carter and Johnny Cash have turned to Evangelical houses to print their autobiographies (Why Not the Best? and Man in Black). Many best-selling authors, though, are virtually unknown outside the Evangelical circuit. Hal Lindsey, a onetime Jesus Movement leader, has sold more than 15 million books since 1970. His favorite theme: interpretation of Bible prophecies to prove that Jesus will soon return, most likely...
Other conflicts involve longstanding secular grievances. They are perhaps primarily not religious so much as they are exertions for recognition and even survival. Yet the element of religion gives all these wars an odd phosphorescence. What is important is usually not a deep spiritual faith but rather an intense loyalty to the religious community. The phenomenon has something to do with a clinging to identity, especially in such enclaves as Northern Ireland and Lebanon, whose national identities are fractured and cannot in themselves command patriotic followings. One of Egypt's leading intellectuals, Political Scientist Magdi Wahba, sees signs everywhere...
Religion is not only certainty, but a confused striving for truth; not only the imposition of dogma, but the open, undiscriminating act of mercy. And certainly secular societies have not managed to avoid war or cruelty. Yet the paradox of religion-at-war remains shocking...
There are some satisfactory reasons for going to war. Self-defense - and even survival - are the most compelling. But religion, with its ancient, emotional connotations, shows up in these wars like a tribal ghost of Hamlet's father, urging revenge. Religion, especially when it blends with the secular religion of nationalism, fetches back to timeless grievances and can find in them that nasty, righteous "Gott mil Uns" that wants no truck with the enterprise of peace - which in this world is always temporal and temporary...