**5. Secularisation and Fundamentalism**

When discussing essential factors contributing to the development of religious fundamentalisms, literature on the subject usually refers to the threat of modernisation and related secularisation, i.e., departure from the traditional, religious models and values (Harrison 2008; Armstrong 2004). This is to a large extent true, as it was shown, in the reference to the beginnings of the fundamentalist movement in the USA. The first fundamentalist Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, similarly emerged in reaction to the rapid westernisation of Egypt as a result of British colonisation. Thus, it is claimed that fundamentalism is one of the side-e ffects of secularisation processes, a "rage" of religiousness, so to speak. In accordance with this hypothesis, fundamentalism is supposed to be a response (reaction) of religious people to religion being denied the right to a presence in the public space (Bruce 2000, p. 101), a "revenge of God" (Kepel 1994). The example of the Muslim Brotherhood, which identifies modernisation with secularisation and consequently looks for the sources of all social, economic and political crises in the Muslims' departure from the precepts of their faith, indicates that this hypothesis has a significant explanatory value.

Nonetheless, it is also worth noting that in contemporary times it is true mostly when applied to the relationship between the West and non-Western cultures. Secularisation—being an essentially European, and to some extent Western, phenomenon—does not cause a special "irascibleness" of the religion prevailing in Western hemisphere. This is triggered, if at all, in di fferent cultures, mainly Islam.

This does not undermine the significance of the hypothesis which sees in secularisation an important cause or context of fundamentalism in the West, for there is a deeper layer to it. As noted above, in the age of modernity, secular fundamentalisms have developed on an unprecedented scale, leaving their imprint in the modern era not only as political religions, but also as a deep-running current of understanding politics in the spirit of unconstraint. It is therefore worth considering whether this hypothesis does not also provide us with an answer regarding the sources of Western, secular fundamentalism.

When looking for what represents the *novum* in the intellectual climate of modernity, one can hardly ignore the radically secularising, grea<sup>t</sup> new narration initiated during the Enlightenment which replaced the hitherto prevailing Christian narration. As noted by Joseph Ratzinger, "[t]he Enlightenment attempted to define the essential norms of morality while claiming that they would be valid *etsi Deus non daretur*, even if God did not exist" (Ratzinger 2005, p. 354). This reflection has led to the invention of a "secular public space" and a "secular state" as an area of "pure power" organised by man "as though God did not exist" (Mazurkiewicz and Gierycz 2016, p. 136). Consequently, the *sacrum* has been finally removed from its central, pivotal place which had organised social life (Casanova 1994, pp. 11–39).

Once Providence was forced into "retirement," in a process profoundly linked to the Enlightenment belief that once mankind entered its adulthood and all "dogmas and formulas" became expendable (Kant 1784), the legitimacy of the religious narration about eternal happiness and paradise was undermined. This did not, however, eradicate the very idea of a perfect order from social consciousness. On the contrary, the emerging modernity lives and breathes the idea of perfection, with a sense—clearly visible in the writings of the Enlightenment luminaries—that it is just "a step away" from achieving the state of perfection in human a ffairs. This new hope probably first appeared in the writings of Francis Bacon, for whom "the restoration of the lost 'Paradise' is no longer expected from faith, but from the newly discovered link between science and praxis" (Benedict XVI 2007, no. 17). In the course of transformations that followed in subsequent ages, the source of hope is shifted from science to scientifically designed politics that—as exemplified in Marx's flagship work—"recognizes the structure of history and society and thus points out the road towards revolution, towards all-encompassing change" (Benedict XVI 2007, no. 20).

The process of secularising Christian hope in the West thus opens a gateway, to use Eric Voegelin's expression, to the process of immamentising the eschaton; to an attempt—by definition doomed to failure—at making the ideal world come true in the here and now, and to ultimately destroy all evil. This entails a huge fundamentalist potential. As Krzysztof Dorosz rightly points out: "as long as the apocalyptic awareness is rooted in faith, God's sovereignty is respected, leaving it up to him to choose the time and place of intervention. Man is only supposed to wait. If, however, the apocalypse becomes secularized, or if it penetrates the imagination of religious activists who usurp for themselves the prerogatives of God himself, it becomes a real power in the world" (Dorosz 2010, p. 23). Naturally, the usurpation of God's prerogatives is possible first of all when the true God is removed from sight. In this perspective, one can clearly see that the process of secularisation doubly, so to say, weakens the dam against fundamentalism. Not only does it generate in non-Western cultures movements of "angry religiousness," but also, in regard to the secularised world, leaves room for claims that the ideal world may be made to come true in the here and now, thus contributing to the emergence of secular fundamentalist concepts. In other words, in consequence of making God irrelevant for the world, modernity creates perfect conditions for replacing the hope of God's kingdom with the hope of a kingdom of man.

The above conclusion reveals the special, irreplaceable role of religion as a safeguard against fundamentalism. Whether we understand religion as a set of beliefs and practices, or as a relationship with God, it is a way, which starts, to cite Max Scheler, "from something absolutely holy" (Scheler 1921). Consequently, by its very nature it situates man's natural longing for "a radical improvement ... in the relationship to a supra-empirical Reality" (Kłoczowski 2004, p. 1064). The matter is of key importance, since this need for a "radical improvement, a salvation," as indicated by Kłoczowski (2004) or Zdybicka (2006), is an anthropological, inherent to the human condition, need. If we realise that fundamentalism involves an attempt at actualising eschatological hopes in the temporal world, we must conclude that only religion can provide a systemic hedge against their immanentisation and warrants keeping an eschatological distance. Unless it is immanentised, it will contribute to a constructive involvement in matters of this world. Let us note the social and political significance of Christianity, which "did not bring a message of social revolution like that of the ill-fated Spartacus, whose struggle led to so much bloodshed ... Jesus, who himself died on the Cross, brought something totally different: ... an encounter with a hope stronger than the sufferings of slavery, a hope which therefore transformed life and the world from within" (Benedict XVI 2007, no.4), which was demonstrated, for example, in the eradication of slavery in Europe.

Obviously, experience shows that not every religion can or even does perform such a role, and not in all circumstances. In view of the above comments which show fundamentalism as a problem of the specific mindset related to an immanentisation of messianic hopes, it appears that the key variables which are worth discussing here are (1) a religion's attitude to reason, and (2) its attitude to the temporal world.
