Fagenblat, review of The Mixed Multitude by Pawel Maciejko (original) (raw)

An intriguing thesis slithers through this impressively profuse and promiscuous garden of sociohistorical erudition. Religion is not experiencing a comeback, the renowned scholar of political Islam argues, but a significant transformation brought about by the secularization intended to marginalize and diminish it. The modern walls of separation erected between church and state and the emergence of the secular public sphere have not weakened religion but purified and empowered it. Unloosed from the moderating and meliorating influence of culture, religion has become radicalized and de territorialized, faith communities have been de-ethnicized and globalized, and worldly knowledge has been replaced by "holy ignorance." The irony is tempting, and the array of evidence -from the spread of Pentecostalism to the development of the Ramakrishna Mission to the Ukrainian pilgrimages of Breslover Hasidim, and on -truly dazzling. Blink. Examine the cases. Compare and contrast. With religion, too, the devil is in the details.