Americans are among the world's most religious, whose country was forged out of Judeo-Christian teaching, but what holds us together is not only the commonality of religious roots but tolerance for other beliefs, and of no belief at all. Separation of faith and state, which is anathema to much of the Islamic world, is the first article of our political catechism. The First Amendment, which forbids the government to establish a state religion or interfere with the individual's right to worship as he pleases, guarantees the pursuit of our founding aspirations and protects our most cherished ideals.
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people," John Adams wrote in 1789. "It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." He was not writing as a sectarian, but understood that the rule of law requires the discipline of a moral tradition.
There have been frequent times in our history when prophets of doom cried that modernity and progress and the secularization of society would destroy the religious foundation of America. It never happened. More recently, the "megachurches" are decried for their extravagance, yet such congregations reflect the ways religious people update and discipline themselves within a spiritual life.
Just as the small churches and synagogues offered a caring network of support and a sense of neighborhood to new immigrants, the megachurches use contemporary approaches and new media technologies to expand the reach of faith in the big cities.
Secularism as we know it in the West has never fostered opposition to belief, but acknowledges the difference between what should be rendered unto Caesar and what should be rendered unto God. Sharia law makes no such distinction, and in fact loathes the distinctions. Therein lies the problem, which invites the clash of civilizations.
As we celebrate our different religious holidays this month, we ponder the risks and dangers posed by those who neither share nor appreciate the notions of tolerance, individually and collectively. When we break the fast, there's the food for thought.