great faiths remain valid, the daily
experience of an individual in the twenty-first century is unimaginably
removed from the one that he or she would have known in any of those ages
when this guidance was revealed. Democratic decision-making has
fundamentally altered the relationship of the individual to authority.
With growing confidence and growing success, women justly insist on their
right to full equality with men. Revolutions in science and technology
change not only the functioning but the conception of society, indeed of
existence itself. Universal education and an explosion of new fields of
creativity open the way to insights that stimulate social mobility and
integration, and create opportunities of which the rule of law encourages
the citizen to take full advantage. Stem cell research, nuclear energy,
sexual identity, ecological stress and the use of wealth raise, at the
very least, social questions that have no precedent. These, and the
countless other changes affecting every aspect of human life, have brought
into being a new world of daily choices for both society and its members.
What has not changed is the inescapable requirement of making such
choices, whether for better or worse. It is here that the spiritual nature
of the contemporary crisis comes into sharpest focus because most of the
decisions called for are not merely practical but moral. In large part,
therefore, loss of faith in traditional religion has been an inevitable
consequence of failure to discover in it the guidance required to live
with modernity, successfully and with assurance.

A second barrier to a re-emergence of inherited systems of belief as the
answer to humanity's spiritual yearnings is the effects already mentioned
of global integration. Throughout the planet, people raised in a given
religious frame of reference find themselves abruptly thrown into close
association with others whose beliefs and practices appear at first glance
irreconcilably different from their own. The differences can and often do
give rise to defensiveness, simmering resentments and open conflict. In
many cases, however, the effect is rather to prompt a reconsideration of
received doctrine and to encourage efforts at discovering values held in
common. The support enjoyed by various interfaith activities doubtless
owes a great deal to response of this kind among the general public.
Inevitably, with such approaches comes a questioning of religious
doctrine