Germans reconsider religion

Mr. Habermas is not alone. The spread of democratization worldwide has resulted in religious groups taking much more active roles in shaping their societies.

"Although there is a process [in Europe] of individualization of religion, there is no process of privatization: On the contrary, religion goes public," says Rolf Schieder, a theology professor at Humboldt University in Berlin. While this resurgence has surprised many European secularists, he acknowledges, there's been a "crucial shift" among sociologists of religion who now see religion as a modernizing factor – both throughout history and today.

During his trip to Germany this week, Pope Benedict seemed to encourage such a shift among secularists. "This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see ... when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate," he said in a speech at the University of Regensburg.

Still, citing personal religious convictions as a basis for one's political position remains anathema for German politicians, in part because of Kaiser Wilhelm's "Gott mit uns" (God is with us) statements during World War I.

But politicians seeking input from religious figures on ethical questions is not only accepted but sought out, says Voigt. "While religion has long enjoyed a more public role in Germany than in a country like France, whose laïcité tradition strictly confines religion to private life, only more recently has religion become more accepted in [German] public discourse," says Professor Schieder.

He recalls a little girl from East Germany who was asked when the Berlin Wall came down if she believed in religion.

"Oh no," she replied. "I'm normal."

In the last 15 years, however, that notion that being normal and being religious are two different things has been changing, says Schieder. One factor driving that change may be the renewed interest over the last two decades in German political economist Max Weber, who linked Calvinism to the rise of capitalism in his seminal work, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism."

But another key factor, Schieder and other experts agree, is the presence of 2.6 million Muslims in Germany today.

"Some people have claimed that the presence of Muslims in these societies, and the possibility of Turkey coming into the European Union, might actually reinforce in the long run the Christian identity of Europe because it will remind Europeans of what they've been and make them want to recover that," says Timothy Shah at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington.

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