The Christian Century

In the current culture wars, religious liberals tend to ally themselves with the educational establishment against those on the Religious Right who are attacking the public schools. In politics and theology, I line up with the left. Nonetheless, I believe with the right that public education is hostile to religion—not least to liberal religion. The problem isn't the absence of school prayers.

The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation, by R. Scott Appleby
Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer

Even after a century of Christian expansion worldwide, Europe still matters immensely in the map of the faith. According to the World Christian Data base, Europe—including Russia—has 580 million Christian believers, which is more than a quarter of the global total.

The nation has grown less religious in the last two decades, a new study shows, with a 10 percent drop in the number of people who call themselves Christians and increases in all 50 states among those who are not aligned with any faith.

Turkey advertises itself both as “secular,” thanks to its constitution of 1923, and as “98 percent Muslim.” India is called “secular,” thanks to its constitution of 1947, and is often seen as having the highest level of religious participation of any major nation.