Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have convinced many western intellectuals that secularism is the way forward. But most people don’t read their books before deciding whether to be religious. Instead, they inherit their faith from their parents, who often innoculate them against the elegant arguments of secularists. In the race for souls, demography counts for more than eloquence. And demographic reality is very much slanted against secularism: what no one has noticed is that far from declining, the religious are expanding their share of the population because secular birthrates have plunged below replacement.

Based on a wealth of demographic studies, Kaufmann shows that the more religious people are, regardless of income, faith tradition or education, the more children they have. Religious countries have faster population growth than secular ones which is why immigrants are typically much more religious than their secular host societies. The cumulative effect of immigration and religious fertility will be to reverse the secularisation process in the West. Not only will the religious eventually triumph over the non-religious, but it is those who are the most extreme in their beliefs who have the largest families.

Within Judaism, the Ultra-Orthodox may achieve majority status over their liberal counterparts by mid-century. Evangelical and neo-traditional Christians will eventually follow suit in the United States and Europe. Islamist Muslims have won the culture war in much of the Muslim world, and their success provides a glimpse of what awaits the Christian West and Israel.

Drawing on extensive demographic research, and considering questions of multiculturalism and terrorism, Kaufmann examines the implications of the decline in liberal secularism as religious conservatism rises – and what this means for the future of western modernity.

Hear the interview with George Miller of Blackwell’s on the book

See youtube video of Eric’s  talk at the RSA on April 15

Latest Articles and News

• I will be speaking on 1-3 October at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House, Australia
• My review of Doug Saunders’ ‘Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Reshaping Our World’ will appear in Literary Review in September
• August 2010: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), ‘Sunday Nights’ programme with John Cleary, featuring the book and some of my (!!) musical selections
• I review Pascal Bruckner’s excellent book, ‘Tyranny of Guilt’, in the August issue of Prospect magazine
• See my recent piece for the Irish Times on the book, ‘Population boom in third world provides a boost for religions’, 20 July
• 8 July 2010 – my article on this year’s Twelfth marches, ‘Why Orangemen must put best foot forward’, Belfast Telegraph
• 25 June – Review of the book at Spiked Online (Tim Black) - ‘The barbarians are copulating at the gates’
• 22 June – Review of the book in Taki’s Magazine (John Derbyshire) - ‘Religious Extremists Will Inherit the Earth’

Reviews of the book