Something strong to consider

This article has all the markings of substance.
You can easily click on all the rest in this series from www.economist.com from this site.
We'll see if the boys at bl.com and other sites are up to the text here.

http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10015163

Good fodder here for the Killian, Pierce and Cartledge Blogs

Here is a teaser:

RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE
The lesson from America
Nov 1st 2007From The Economist print edition
The superpower has mastered the politics of religion at home, but not abroad
WRITING of Calvin Coolidge, H.L. Mencken once observed that he might be dull and smell of boiled cabbage but at least “the president of the United States doesn't believe that the earth is square, and that witches should be put to death, and that Jonah swallowed the whale. The Golden Text is not painted weekly on the White House wall, and there is no need to keep ambassadors waiting while Pastor Simpson, of Smithville, prays for rain in the Blue Room.”
APMy place...
There is no firm evidence that George Bush has ever kept an ambassador waiting so that he could talk to his pastor, but given the number of religious figures flowing through the White House it would be surprising if that had never happened. And Mr Bush has done plenty of other Godly things that would have surely made the secular Mencken wince, such as naming Jesus Christ as his favourite philosopher.
Two great questions have run through this special report: where exactly is the line between church and state? And what, if anything, can be done to ameliorate the wars of religion? Both questions lead to America. It is the spiritual home of modern choice-based religion and pluralism. It is also the world's most powerful country. Virtually every conflict to do with religion has ramifications for the White House. And America's experience has been interesting: success in dealing with religion at home, failure abroad.
Squaring the public
The idea that America might offer some form of model will annoy many Europeans: they detest its moralistic side. Yet the main explanation for America's culture wars is that it is a country full of religious people; not that the system set up by the First Amendment is wrong.
The line that the Founding Fathers drew between church and state still causes controversy. The Supreme Court spends a lot of time on issues such as whether a Christmas crib in a public place can be rendered secular by the presence of a plastic reindeer (yes, though preferably with a Santa as well), or where a state court can display the Ten Commandments (the garden is fine; the building not).