Faith, Citizenship, and Identity

This is the result of a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. Based on the question, it seems like Moslems, regardless of where they reside, identify with their religion more than their countries’ citizenship. Conversely, the Christians consider themselves more of citizens than members of their religion.

Many Christians in the US identify more with their religion than with their country. This distribution is rather skewed when compared to the European countries. One is left to wonder as to the reasons behind this and to the relationships between secularism, secularization, modernism, and of course, religion.

• Why is it that invariably, Moslems identify with Islam more than their country of residence?
• Why is it that the US numbers are statistically different than other countries in the West?
• Why is the Moslems distribution in France more balanced than any other place?
• What does this tell us about the Moslem/Christian dialog around current and future issues?

These and other questions will be addressed in a future article on this blog. Stay tuned.