Religion has continued to exist as a strong and potent force, gripping peoples’ imagination and ways of life, regardless of the rise of modernity, science and technology, capitalism, and rational thinking. At times of acute crisis, there tends to emerge a strong fervor of religious revivalism. By research, a sociologist might possibly prove that the rich use religion during crises to exploit the masses. Or, it may be that the masses recall and revive religion during crises, as a measure of hope.

Communalism is an explicit, outwardly visible reality; for it human beings kill their fellow persons. But behind this lies the invisible trend-the increasing religious revivalism.

The many fundamentalist and revivalist movement which are arising all over the world are also defining their own idea of a political state. The fundamentalist and revivalist are reinterpreters of religion. They go back to, what they consider to be pure, original code of religious behaviur, which involves a total world-view. With the intention of restoring these authentic values the fundamentalist ignore all other values. Islam, for example, is particularly clear about the conduct of the Muslim community. The universe of a Muslim is circumscribed by his or her religion, where politics and religion are inseparable. The resurgence of Islam in recent decades witnesses this linkage.

And in India, many scholars opine that, Gandhi effectively used Hindu symbols in his fight against colonialism. For instance, Gandhi labelled his conception of self-sufficient, autonomous ideal-village communities as Ram Rajya. Numerous tribal uprisings and revolts against the colonial rule, has an explicit religious tinge. For instance, Birsa Munda who led a movement against the exploitation of Mundas by outsiders, began by saying that he has obtained a ‘revelation’ from God. He claimed himself to be a God (Dharti Aba, means ‘father of the world’) and tried to perform miracles. All these are the cases of religious revivalism.

Even in Christianity , there is a growth of conservative and evangelical churches in the United States of America. There is a persistence of interest in religion (if not church-going) in other Western societies. There is a vitality of religion in other parts of the world. Berger opined by highlighting these trends that the world was having a resurgence of religion.

The basic debate has been that some have seen a necessary relationship between modernization and secularization – i.e., modernization leads to a decline in the hold of religion on society – whilst others are skeptical of such a link. Berger focuses attention on the examination of religion in a given context, since what is true of one region may not for the other. What is happening to religion in, for example, the Middle East, may not apply to the South Asian societies. Both in the United States and Europe, there is what has come to be known as the ‘individualization of religion’, which means that the ‘rationality of religion’ is for the individual, who emerges either as a ‘believer’ or an ‘atheist’. Moreover, religion has lost most of its collective functions. The situation in this part of the world is what Robert Wuthnow calls a ‘patchwork religion’ In this context, the meaning is that there are varieties of religious beliefs and experiences, and a continuum from staunchest and rabid believers to extremely rational and critical non-believers.

However, the difference between the United States and Europe is that the Americans continue to go to church and very often express their traditional beliefs. Almost forty million of them call themselves ‘born-again Christians’. One does not come across these things in Europe, but here also, churches continue to play an important role in society, despite the fact that church attendance has reduced and people do not profess their official creed. This is a phenomenon which Grace Davie (2001) calls ‘belonging without believing.’

By contrast, rest of the world is, Berger writes, ‘full of massive religious explosions.’ He has also noted that ‘some of the most impressive religious upsurges are occurring in relatively modernized milieus (such as militant Islamism and the remarkable expansion of Pentecostalism)’ . This should not be interpreted as implying that the phenomenon of secularization does not exist. The point to remember here is that its structure and pattern varies from one part of the world to the other. Berger asserts that we should not assume that secularization wherever it exists is a ‘normal concomitant of modernity.’ Today, Berger’s position is that it is pluralism which is undermining the traditional beliefs and practices. In times to come, religion will continue to have its hold on society, but it will not be one, unified, monolithic religion. Rather, it will be ‘religion with pluralism’.