Religion and the State: Why Moderate Religious Teaching Should Be Promoted‪.‬

Should the US government and the international community actively promote religion overseas, especially in the Islamic world? Such an approach may seem wrong on many grounds. Religion is a major force driving jihadists in the Middle East, and separation of state and religion is one of the cornerstones of US democracy and the type of regime the United States promotes abroad. And, as young people say, religion is so "yesterday"; the march of history, starting with the Enlightenment, has been toward secularization and the dominance of reason. The case of religious education in the Islamic world suggests, however, that all these assumptions are erroneous and that the United States should actively promote religion overseas, albeit not in any and every form. The United States is involved in changing schooling in several Islamic countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. One may oppose such an active US role, but as long as that role exists, the question remains: how should the US government affect the religious content of education overseas?