Berkley Center

In this article, Timothy Shah reviews the work God is Back by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. Contradicting the conventional wisdom about God’s demise, Micklethwait and Wooldridge discover that the forces that were supposed to consign the Almighty to the ash heap of history have served to only make him stronger. In addition to uncovering religion’s resilience in the 21st century, Micklethwait and Wooldridge give a firsthand account of how religious groups all over the world use modern methods to convert people. The authors focus on the US brand of evangelicalism as a key to reconciling God and modernity. The takeaway for God’s partisans in Iran and elsewhere is to avoid pinning God to the mast of a particular government or political party, as this renders him hostage to political fortune.