>
> I think the claim is just wrong. I see no evidence
> that consumer culture is going to take down Islam, or
> any other religion for that matter. Religion is going
> strong in the US.
I know less than nothing about popular culture in the various parts of the Islamic world (by less than nothing I mean when I catch random glimpses I'm repeatedly surprised) but in the U.S.A. consumerism seems to be 100% compatible with fundamentalism. Jesus loves big shiny SUVs and wide-screen teevees and if you love Jesus enough he may see to it you can afford new ones soon!
In fact, doesn't it appear that you can't be taken seriously as a U.S. Protestant fundamentalist unless you are a big big big financial success? All mansions and limos and bigger, newer, costlier mega-churches. Even billionaires have got Pop Walton and his pickup truck. Who among the high-profile evangelists is as ostentatiously modest as Pat Robertson is ostentatiously rich?
Quite a contrast to the traditional Christian vow-of-poverty doctrine, but Americans simply refuse to listen to any boring loser of a poor person, even if behind and above him as he speaks there were a halo and a choir of angels.
Yours WDK - WKiernan at gmail.com