Across Europe,the conflicting currents of secularism, Christianity, and Islam are compelling Europeans to wrestle with their values as never before. As he urged closer ties with Europe Monday, President Bush played down the current political disputes. “No power on earth will ever divide us,” he said.

That may be true when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. But his remark ironically hints at a transatlantic chasm over US and European values, and the role each side assigns to a fundamental facet of human life: religious faith.

Two events last year neatly frame the challenge: In the United States, a California man tried to remove “One Nation, Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Americans cried foul - roughly 90 percent wanted to keep the phrase - and on June 15, the Supreme Court halted the bid on procedural grounds.
Religion’s role in public life, and its influence on politics, have been center-stage questions worldwide since Sept. 11, 2001. But the debate in Europe has been complicated by the continent’s difficulty in integrating its fast-growing Muslim immigrant minority. It has been sharpened by tragedies such as the bombing of a Madrid train station last March, and the brutal murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic extremist last fall.

Those incidents “will reinforce secularism” in Europe, predicts Patrick Weil, a sociologist of religion at the Sorbonne in Paris. “The tendency now in Europe is to say we have to be clear on the limits to religious intervention” in public life. “We are not going to sacrifice women’s equality, democracy, and individual freedoms on the altar of a new religion.”

Secularists who think like that are swimming in friendly waters in Europe, where religious convictions and practice have dropped sharply in recent decades, and where mainstream churches - especially the Catholic Church - continue to lose members and influence. Read More>>

Three days later, in Brussels, officials agreed on the final text of the European Union’s new Constitution. The charter made no mention of God, despite calls that it recognize Europe’s Christian roots.

Indeed, its secularism has led to jokes that Europe is one big “blue” state. But Europeans aren’t laughing. Buffeted by the crosscurrents of secularism, Christianity, and Islam - and mindful of a history of religious violence - they are wrestling with their values and identity as never before.

“The clash between those who believe and those who don’t believe will be a dominant aspect of relations between the US and Europe in the coming years,” says Jacques Delors, a former president of the European Commission. “This question of a values gap is being posed more sharply now than at any time in the history of European-US relations since 1945.”