"[American President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961)] believed sincere faith was conducive to moral conformity, and that religion was the best, cheapest, and least oppressive form of social control" (Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, p.701).
"Religion is now a major player on the world stage in a way that was scarcely conceivable 30 years ago... In the 1960s sociologists believed that the world was in the grip of an irreversible process of secularisation - though they could not account for the United States, at once the most modern and one of the most religious countries in the world.
"Now sociologists are drawn to the opposite conclusion: the more modern the world gets the more religious it becomes. It has been well said that whereas the major conflicts of the twentieth century were ideological, those of the twenty-first century will be to do with identity in which religion is a key element. Globalisation draws people out of their village communities, where they had an assured place and identity, into sprawling urban areas making goods for the Western market. There, gravitating to the mosque or church, they find their identity in relation to their religion.
"Religion is often accused of causing conflict. In the modern world, however, it is more likely that religion will be a marker of identity in a conflict that has already broken out for other reasons" (Richard Harries, We should not fear religion, guardian.co.uk, December 19, 2004).
"It could be argued, though these things are hard to prove, that puritan eras come upon hard times of massive social disruption - the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, the wrecking by WW II of Europe and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima..." (Bob Ellis, Sex, Good Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald, October 23, 1999, p.22).
"Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago argues that America is now experiencing a fourth Great Awakening, like the religious revivals that have periodically swept America in the last 300 years" (Nicholas D. Kristof, God, Satan and the Media, nytimes.com, March 4, 2003).
"A century ago, Max Weber, a founder of sociology, observed that the Protestant work ethic was what had made northern Europe and America rich. Recently, Niall Ferguson, a British historian at New York University, argued that today's economic stagnation in Germany and other European countries owes much to the decline of religious belief and church attendance during the past four decades. The Protestant work ethic, he thinks, is dead.
"... belief in the afterlife, heaven and hell are good for economic growth. Of these, fear of hell is by far the most powerful, but all three indicators have a bigger impact on economic performance than merely turning up for church. The authors [of the paper "Religion and Economic Growth"] surmise, therefore, that religion works via belief, not practice..." (The Economist, God, man and growth, November 15, 2003, p.76).
"As the religion of secular consumerism is left behind like a rusting fin, sterner religions that involve real moral principles and angry gods will make a comeback... Traditional values and patterns of behaviour that atrophied during recent generations are destined to make a comeback as the capacity of the governments wanes. This revival will not be confined merely to Islamic societies, nor even to the Third World. Religious and tribal revival will be spread everywhere by the rise in power of small groups and the logic of economic decline... One of the mysteries in the ordering of human life is the way that otherwise inadequate or even dysfunctional social systems can be made functional by religion..." (James Dale Davidson and Wiliam Rees-Mogg, The Great Reckoning, p.40, 215, 225).
Russia
"Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin's surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers...
"This close alliance between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church has become a defining characteristic of Mr. Putin's tenure, a mutually reinforcing choreography that is usually described here as working "in symphony."
Mr. Putin makes frequent appearances with the church's leader, Patriarch Aleksei II, on the Kremlin-controlled national television networks. Last week, Mr. Putin was shown prominently accepting an invitation from Aleksei II to attend services for Russian Orthodox Easter, which is this Sunday.
"The relationship is grounded in part in a common nationalistic ideology dedicated to restoring Russia's might after the disarray that followed the end of the Soviet Union...
"While church attendance in Russia is very low, polls show that Russians are embracing Russian Orthodoxy as part of their identity...
"Russia has far more Muslims than Protestants or Catholics - anywhere from 7 million to 20 million, depending on how religious observance is measured. But the Russian Orthodox Church regards Islam as far less likely to lure converts...
"Archbishop Ioann, the chief Russian Orthodox priest in the Belgorod region, said Russians had a deep connection to Orthodoxy that the government should nurture. "In essence, we have begun to live through a period that is like the second Baptism of Russia, just as there was before the Baptism of ancient Russia," he said, referring to Russia's adoption of Christianity in the year 988...
"The Rev. Vladimir Kotenyov, a Baptist minister, said ... "This is how they [government officials] think: If you are a Russian person, it means that you have to be Russian Orthodox" (Clifford J. Levy, At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church, nytimes.com, April 24, 2008).