Abstract
The author has admired Professor Mark Juergensmeyer's work, especially Terror in the Mind of God, which is the result of extensive interviews he had with people involved in terrorist acts around the globe. This chapter gives the author's own reflections, based on his experiences in Japan, before providing a more detailed response to Professor Juergensmeyer's paper. It discusses the situation in Japan as a specific example of the marginalisation and secularisation of religion, while discussing fundamentalism from a global perspective. Professor Juergensmeyer clearly shows the reason why acts of religious violence, such as the Sarin attack in the Tokyo subway or the '9/11' attacks are happening in the contemporary world. As he explains, they are responses to globalisation and to what is regarded as 'Westoxication'. They are also related to what is thought of as the 'ploy for the expansion of America's global reach'.Keywords: America's global reach; fundamentalism; Japan; marginalisation; Mark Juergensmeyer; religious violence; secularisation
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