Sigmund Freud observed people have a “death wish”. Charles Dickens described the times as a horror for the lower classes. The arts were describing this dark side of society. HG Wells wrote “War of the Worlds” An arms race began that ended in the 1^st World War. They were drawn to this war as moths to a flame.

America had just had their civil war (61-65) which was experienced in apocalyptic terms of light and darkness, liberty and slavery. Their agrarian society was rapidly industrializing. America did not look forward to the coming war in Europe, but rather saw a coming war in religious terms – a battle between God and Satan. The new pre-millennialism of John Darby envisaged Christ returning to earth before the thousand year peace, replacing the older idea that man would work to bring in the millennium with Christ returning at it's end – post-millennialism. Liberal optimism was being replaced by pessimism.

Darby found this message in the bible itself. Looking with modern literal eyes, he gathered and interpreted what he read as prophesy with specific application in time. He saw 7 dispensations, with humanity being now in the 6^th This would end with the Antichrist deceiving and leading the world through 7 years of terrible war – the great tribulation. Christ returns to stop this war, defeating anti-christ and Satan on the fields of Armageddon outside of Jerusalem. This would initiate the last or 7^th dispensation of 1000 years.

Armstrong sees a similarity then in the European and American vision of the future, as one of progress inseparable from self destruction. People were yearning for extinction, as Freud had earlier identified. A difference. Europeans were hoping to survive the destruction. Americans expected the “elect” would be lifted out of the world entirely before the Tribulation – this being the Rapture. This she calls a “fantasy of revenge ... cruel, divisive and tragic”.

Yet pre-millennialism is more akin to secular philosophy than traditional religion with its balance of logos and mythos. Both have discarded mythos. Both are pessimistic in that they see all things as resulting from conflict. Both are essentially democratic. The truth is something obvious to all and not interpreted by an elite. Bible study became a common activity of ordinary people and the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909 became a best seller with it's facilitating this new style of literal bible study. It still is used.

Americans were rather anti-expert and the complexity of modernity seemed only to increase this distrust. Things were chaotic and unpredictable. Booms led to busts. Psychologists talked about incomprehensible aspects of personality. Higher Critics said the Bible was not what it appeared to be. They wanted plain talk. Since science was the watchword, modern faith must be scientific. But modern science was rather slippery – the world was not actually as it appeared by the senses. The older science of Bacon was preferred – a science where you could directly believe what your senses told you. A faith and a science that had the certainty of “common sense”.

Armstrong observes that “mythical language could not satisfactorily be translated into rational language without losing its raison d'être. Like poetry, it contained meanings that were too elusive to be expressed in any other way. Once theology tried to turn itself into science, it could only produce a caricature of rational discourse, because these truths are not amenable to scientific demonstration. This spurious religious logos would inevitably bring religion into further disrepute.”

This new scientific protestantism in America found its home in Princeton at the New Light Presbyterian Seminary. Theology was not to interpret but rather present and arrange the Bible into a system. Every word was the divinely inspired word of God because it said so. The leaders of this time were trying to “put a brake on reason in the old conservative way, and refused to allow it the free play that was characteristic of modernity.”

While this development at Princeton was establishing correct belief amongst conservative protestants, liberal protestants were increasingly considering dogma to be of lesser importance and were open to the newer science attitudes of critical discovery. These differences began to tear the denominations apart. The congregants found it confusing to be told Moses didn't write Exodus and David the Psalms, that the miracles were not historical. There were essentially in each denomination, people of the old way and of the new way of thinking and believing.

Dwight Moody founded the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to combat the Higher Criticism and has been called the father of American fundamentalism. His message focused not on reason or theology, but on saving souls, and he cared about social reform. Like the Volozhin yeshiva the Moody Bible Institute became a sacred enclave in a godless world. Other Bible Institutes followed across the country. Conservatives were gathering their power and joining forces. They were seeing their adversaries in extreme terms, as enemies – demonizing them and seeing conspiracy everywhere. This took the form of anti-Catholic feelings. Freemasons and Mormons were targets also.

In Europe, this enemy became the Jew. The Enlightenment was only skin deep. In 1891 in Russia restrictions on Jews came again. There were pogroms. 50,000 a year fled from Russia to Europe, US and Palestine. Anti-antisemitism began in earnest in western Europe. Alfred Dreyfus in France was scapegoated because he was Jewish. Jews struggled with the many alternatives of religious expression available to them to cope in different ways with this new assault.

From Habad Hasidism, a Jewish fundamentalism would emerge. In 1897 Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber founded a yeshiva to fight the “enemies of the Lord”. And these were not the gentiles, but the other Jews who were in grevous error. His students were the “pure ones” who were preparing the way of the Messiah.

Zionism – the movement to make a Jewish homeland in Palestine - was the most far-reaching movement in response to modernity. Many influences though David Ben-Gurion's socialism represented the dominant initial ideology. Some simply bought land. Others were political. Others were cultural. Some wanted a haven for expected persecution. There was risk in making Jewish mythos a blueprint for a new Zion. There were many who were strongly against this, believing that such political activism was not proper – even demonic. The orthodox community were appalled by Zionism. But the Zionist movement gained momentum in the last of the 19^th century, with many international conferences. Zionism was a spectacular success, with their physical, strategic and military occupation of Palestine. The movement was secular, even anti-religious. Zionism itself replaced general modernism as the locus of Jewish change.

There had developed different Jewish ideas of the ancient land of Israel. It was a powerful idea for them all. The land was quite inseparable from the Torah and God and was very much connected to their identity one way or another. Secular Zionists were more pragmatic about this wanting more simply that a people should have a land and Palestine made the only sense. There was little consideration of the fact that other people presently lived there. So seeds of strive were sown not only between the various voices but between the Palestinians even before modern Israel became a reality.

Although many in the west have come to think that Islam is against anything western, that is not the case. Islam shares many spiritual ideals and notions with the west. Ideas had developed independently within Islamic society about separation of religion and politics, intellectual freedom of the individual, the need for rational thought, the ideals of justice and equity. Many Muslims were entranced with western ideas partly because of these similarities. Both societies had many ideals in common even if there was much difference in industrial, military and social matters.

In Iran in the mid 19^th century, there were many intellectuals that understood western culture and were as rebellious as the Jewish Zionists, wanting a more secular society. They believed Shia tradition had and was holding the people back. Religion should be practical or it was useless in their eyes. Why weep over Hussain if the poor remained poor and without justice? Mirza Aga Khan Kirmani insisted true religion meant rational enlightenment and equal rights, industrial progress, promotion of knowledge, and improvement of the general welfare. Like many modern secularists, Kirmani blamed religion for all that was wrong. And here again Armstrong points out her theme, it was rational thought – logos - that caused these troubles, not religion - mythos. They also were against the Arabic elements of Islam and wanted their Persian identity restored.

Like reformers after them, Kirmani and friends mistook the western differences. They saw the west more as a “machine to emulate” than a complex interwoven through a society. So they focused on items like secular law codes and education to replace religious law codes and education. For without infrastructure and the sundry elements of an economy, the changing of an agrarian society to an industrial society, where could newly educated young Iranians find a place? The reformers themselves were only partly exposed to modernism, largely through western books, and were disposed to it by the more liberal of their own traditions. This put them doubly in conflict with the conservative elements of their own society. Also they were as elitist as other progressive philosophers before them and certainly did not envisage a democratic society.

Colonial excess however caused even the ulema to become involved in politics. In 1891, the a British company got the monopoly on tobacco and in protest a fatwa was issued banning the sale and use of tobacco in Iran. This brilliant political move where the whole country stopped smoking caused the revoking of this unfair concession.

Egypt also regarded Europe with admiration and as congenial to the Muslim spirit. Rifah al-Tahtawi was an imam sent to Paris for study by Muhammed Ali. He was impressed that things worked, that ordinary people could read, the work ethic, and the passion for innovation. On his return to Egypt he felt the need to open the gates of “ijihad” or independent reasoning, and bring the ulema into modern times. Change was the law of life and education was the key.

At this time some Christian writers from Lebanon and Syria settled in Cairo and established journals on medicine, philosophy, politics, geography, history, industry, agriculture, ethics, and sociology. This brought crucial modern ideas to the general public. The Christian Arabs wanted the Muslim states to become secular. This early period of admiration was to change dramatically.

Jamal al-Din known as al-Afghani, wanted modernity, but did not love the British. His travels convinced him that the power of the West would crush the Islamic world. Arriving in Cairo in 1871 he began working for a pan-Islamic counter to the western power. He wanted Islamic reform that was true to its roots. With time short, action was needed immediately. He feared annihilation of Islam. (again, one of the themes found in times of change) He accused his people of “imitating the Europeans” and put his finger on the issue. Since Western society had arrived where it was by innovation, how could Eastern society arrive at a proper place by mere imitation? But his solution expected too much of religion. Religion alone couldn't do this. His own faith practice was one of devotion and openness to change. He practiced the mysticism of Mulla Sudra. He believed Islam essentially to be true science. He put mythos and logos in the same boat. This attempt to convert religion into politics caused his eviction from Egypt in 1879 and Iran in 1891.

The colonial perspective of the West became a stereotypical and inaccurate view of Islam that remains even to the present, and has justified a century of invasion. Algeria in 1830, Aden in 1839, Tunisia 1881, Sudan 1889, Libya and Morocco 1912, the Ottoman empire in 1915. Raw materials were sent to the west. Western goods shipped back displacing local crafts.

“This modernization was experienced as intrusive, coercive, and profoundly unsettling... Afghani had wanted Muslims to modernize themselves and escape this transformation of their society into an inferior copy of Europe. Colonialism made this impossible. Middle Eastern lands that came under Western domination could not develop on their own terms. A living civilization had been transformed by the colonialists into a dependent bloc, and this lack of autonomy induced an attitude and habit of subservience that was profoundly at odds with the modern spirit. Inevitably, the earlier love and admiration of Europe, epitomized by Tahtawi and the Iranian reformers, soured and gave way to resentment.”.

Egypt was not quite a colony, but it was bankrupt and dependent upon European loans. In 1875 Egypt sold the Suez cancel to Britain. Over the next few years foreign control increased. There was some opposition and in 1882 The British established a military occupation. The British proconsul Lord Cromer became the real boss of Egypt and put overseers beside Egyptians throughout Egypt. He had typical colonial ignorance and disrespect for the local peoples and their history. He felt such a retarded country needed his supervision. Traditional services and institutions were displaced by Cromer's systems of court and school. An elite of Egyptian beaurocrats was created. At first, the British ran the country rather well, and all the people benefited. But over time young British took the best jobs over young Egyptians. Foreigners had privilege the locals did not have and were often exempt the law. There was considerable frustration in the country.

Muhammed Abdu was a disciple of Afghani and most upset with the occupation. Yet he wanted Egypt to be modern. He wanted reform more than revolution. He was respected both by the Egyptians and by the British. He thought the pace was too fast. The new legal system was not understood by the people, and in consequence the land was becoming lawless. He wanted reform of the Shariah and Islamic traditions so that people could understand and participate in the change. They were between and were without. The missionary schools alienated children from their own society. The state schools were the worst, neither teaching religion nor teaching adequate science. Western educated graduates would accept any change at all. The madrassah schools discouraged independent thinking and modern education. Their graduates resisted all change.

In 1899 Abdu became the mufti of Egypt, the country's chief consultant in Islamic law, and was determined to reform traditional religious education. But the ulema resisted all his efforts. Unlike in Iran, the Egyptian ulema had too long seen themselves marginalized and their society destroyed, and they resisted all Abdu's efforts to find a moderate way. In 1905, dispirited, he resigned and died shortly after.

Another example of these difficult times was over the veiling of women. It was seen by Europeans as degrading. It was seen by Egyptians as a proper tradition. It was not a part of Islam, but a custom found in many parts of the the world. In fact its Islamic origin was in copying the Byzantine Christians and the Zoroastrians of Persia. But the veil became an icon. Egyptians made the veil the symbol of resistance to colonialism. Muslims now regard the veil as a sign of true Islam.

“The modern ethos was changing religion. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were Jews, Christians, and Muslims who believed that their faith was in danger of being obliterated. To save it from this fate they resorted to a number of stratagems. Some had retreated from modern society altogether and had built their own militant institutions as a sacred bastion and refuge; some were planning a counteroffensive, others were begining to create a counterculture and a discourse of their own to challenge the secularist bias of modernity. There was a growing conviction that religion had to become as rational as modern science. In the early years of the twentieth century, a new defensiveness would lead to the first clear manifestation of the embattled religiosity that we now call fundamentalism.”