End of the World Religions

I've been reading too much Philip K. Dick lately, and I've got religion on the brain. There is a short story called "The Little Black Box" where he first introduced Mercerism and the empathy box. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be the same world that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? takes place in, but either way it's worth reading. In my mind, Mercerism is much more palatable than some of the gnostic ideas he put together in Valis et al. The pre-nuclear war Mercerism in "The Little Black Box" seems more noble than what we see of it in DADES, and that may be because things have yet to fall apart. In an "end of the world" scenario, I'd imagine that there would be a huge upswing in religious beliefs, mainly in traditional, fundamentalist beliefs. Of course, when the White Rider doesn't show up and the initial shock wears off, there will be a secular resurgence and the development of new belief systems (either created whole-cloth or amalgams).

I'm trying to think of examples of religions in a post-apocalyptic settings, and am having some trouble. I know that in A Canticle for Leibowitz, the Catholic Church has become a major power in the U.S. by reverting to a Medieval way of operating. There's an Orson Scott Card short story where the Mormon Church has done essentially the same thing. World War Z has the Orthodox Church take on the role of killing those infected to prevent the sin of suicide from being committed. But other than those examples (and Mercerism - after all, DADES takes place in a world that is slowly dying from radiation poisoning), I'm having trouble.

Well, I know what my next research project will be: Look for more examples of religious mutations. Just as societies would have to adapt and change, religions would too.

Edit: Duh. I forgot The Book of Dave, which, once you get the hang of the modified Cockney slang, is a fantastic read. The religion of Dave starts out fairly innocuous, but gets pretty fucked the more you learn about it.