Secular or ReligiousFor the complete report in TIME Europe click on this link
Believe It Or Not - by Andrew Purvis
Disputes between the pope and some Muslims mask a deeper fault line — Europe is struggling to determine whether its future will be guided by religious values or secular institutions.
After decades of rising secularism and declining church attendance, religion is now back on Europe's political agenda. Islamic terrorism and Turkey's hopes of entering the European Union have compelled politicians from Vienna to the Hague to declare their Christian identity; Pope Benedict XVI is making the war on secularism a defining feature of his papacy.
The age of keeping God out of politics is over, says Jytte Klausen, a Danish political scientist and author of The Islamic Challenge, a recent study of Muslim élites in Europe. "European politics," she says "is no longer a religion-free zone." Battle lines are being drawn that have not been seen for decades. They are not necessarily between Christian and Muslim. They are instead between secular Europeans and people of faith — any faith — and the conflict may well determine the future of the European state.
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