Strategic Foresight Group uses the 4-G framework to analyse the future of countries. Three of the 4 Gs – Growth, Governance and Geopolitics – represent traditional drivers that determine the destiny of a nation. Increasingly we are finding that the 4th G – God – is assuming importance in our calculations.

The resurrection of God within a century of being declared dead by Friedrich Nietzsche is quite impressive. God’s prospects have been going up and down. In the 1960s, Time magazine asked on one of its covers if God was over and done with. By the end of the millennium God had been revived.

The rising importance of God is these days associated with social and political changes taking place in the Islamic world. Turkey elected a religiously oriented party 80 years after abolishing the Caliphate. I noticed several more women wearing hejab when I visited there earlier this year than when I first visited the country in the 1980s. In particular, women associated with the power structure, as spouses of important ministers or office holders in the ruling party or the government, were conspicuous in their preference for tradition. This is not to suggest that Turkey of tomorrow is Iran of yesterday. Prime Minster Erdogan is very keen on the country joining the EU and has invited the Pope to visit his country in 2006.

Iran continues to be governed by the college of Ayatollahs and their power was reasserted in the recent elections to the parliament as well as presidency. In post-Saddam Iraq, religion is an important force in politics. When Afghanistan wrote its constitution, the most significant issue was about ensuring the religious character of the state. In Southeast Asia, it is possible to notice increasing adherence to religion in the social sector, though the Malaysians defeated a religious party in the elections. In Southeast and Central Asia, Hizb-ut-Tahrir is spreading far and wide. Pakistan and Bangladesh, of course, continue to be the citadels of religious extremism.

While changes taking place in the Islamic world, enhancing the role of God in society and politics, are highlighted by the world media, the real growth of the popularity of God is taking place in the United States and the Christian parts of Latin America, Asia and Africa. Already, 70-80 million Americans, out of the total population of 300 million, are estimated to be evangelicals. One of our researchers at Strategic Foresight Group is examining this development and will present her findings on the future prospects for God in American society and politics in due course.

The religious forces question the very spirit of the American constitution. Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues had taken pains to separate religion and politics. The confinement of religion to the private domain is credited for the popularity of Church in the United States, as compared to its decline in Europe. Now the new fundamentalists essentially want religion to enter social and political life in a big way.

The big question of our time is whether the American politics in the next 20-30 years will be governed by God. As the American economy declines and America’s role as a leader of the community of values is rejected by West Europeans, Canadians and others, will the United States need an anchor for its society in the form of religion?

While the United States and many of the Islamic countries provide good prospects for divine rule, many other parts of the world have turned away from God, especially from politics and society. In Europe, Christian Democratic parties are on decline. The success of one of them in the German elections had to do with economics, not religion. In India, Bhartiya Janata Party, the standard bearer of political Hindutva, is debating whether it should give up politics of religion in order to win in the politics of power. In China, Falun Gong is purely a spiritual and social moment. It has nothing to do with introducing religion in politics, even though the paranoid Chinese would like to believe otherwise. In Japan, Nepal and a host of Asian countries, the younger generation is turning away from God.

Why is God gaining ground in the United States, Latin America, parts of Africa and Islamic countries, when people in other parts of the world are happy with the confinement of faith to private life? Does it have to do with the fact that the countries where God is rising in politics are precisely the ones where economic conditions of pockets of population are declining? Or does it have to do with the fact that these countries are feeling a sense of relative loss of power and need something to believe in? Is God just a cover for underlying political and economic dynamics?

Earlier this year, I was invited to address a session at Davos on whether God loves democracy. Whether God loves democracy or not, the current trends indicate that from George Bush to Ayatollah Khamenei and Gerry Adams to Pervez Musharraf, all those leaders who believe in authoritarian or expansionist approach to power games seem to be pushing God in public domain. The Future of God outside of our intimate spiritual realm will therefore depend on the failure of economics and the success of autocrats and imperialists. Nietzsche used the character of a mad man to declare God dead. If he were alive today, he would probably use the character of a dictator to declare the rebirth of God.