The Lustre of Our Country: The American Experience of Religious Freedom. By John T. NoonanJr. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. xii + 436 pp. $35.00 cloth.

Abstract

overlap in the various chapters. But English-speaking readers will gain much from the firsthand reportage of the close links between ethnicity and religion, and become more aware of the dangers that too close an association brings. The Bosnian tribal gods described by Lenard Cohen have indeed taken a terrible toll. And the story is far from finished. The religious dimension of this conflict is certainly more than manipulation by unscrupulous nationalist politicians. But it should not be exaggerated. For the same reason we should not expect any significant contribution to the making of a peace settlement from religious authorities whose credibility has been so compromised. As is clear from other conflicts throughout this century, once the clergy identify their churches with ethno-nationalist causes, the path of retreat is extraordinarily difficult, either in victory or defeat. As Gerard Powers rightly states: "the challenge for religious leaders in the Balkans is to show that religion can be a counter to extreme nationalism and a source of peace because of, not in spite of, its close link with culture and national identity" (245).