In the Eye of the Hurricane

In recent decades the religious landscape has evolved in two different directions. On the one hand, a growing secularization can be observed, at least in the Western countries. On the other hand, new religious movements, sometimes even religiously justified violence, became a more obvious phenomenon. This paper will reflect on what this situation full of tension may mean for churches and religious communities, but also for theologians and politicians. After a short analysis of secularisation and extremism, the next chapter is intended to disentangle the terribly intricate religious semantics. Note, due to issues in translation, such unsolved problems influence the global discussion. But the main intention of this contribution is to clarify why it might be helpful to have knowledge about credition. This might be required not only because of but especially prior to facing the tension between religious extremism and sec-ularisation. Credition are the processes underlying believing and belief formation (Latin: credere = to believe). All beliefs are results of credition. Recently, an international and interdisciplinary network of research tackled the issue of credition. It highlighted their neurobiological base and provided a neural model which hypothesizes how credition happens. Through it one can become aware of the immense and widespread influence which creditions have in the everyday life as well as in science and can provide a communication model of credi-tion which can be used in many situations.