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This page provides links to matters of general religious interest, but above all, to the place of religion in European history and western culture. Note that it is indeed appropriate to include Islam here among the three great western religions: It drew upon, preserved, and contributed to "western civilization." The emphasis on this site is practical rather than ideological in nature: It is simply impossible to understand the development of Europe without reference to the role of religion.

As the sociologist and politician— first president of Czechoslovakia—Tomas G. Masaryk (1885-1937) put it,

Anyone not knowing what Christianity stands for would really be a stranger in our cultural domain; and how could anyone understand European history and the system running through it, if he had not been taught about the reality and development of the Church? But the difficulty is how to teach it, from what standpoint to appraise historical facts—a hard problem for the schools.

—President Masaryk Tells His Story, Recounted by Karel Capek, translated from the Czech (NY: G. P.Putnam's Sons, 1935), 47-48

Masaryk was a believer, but radically different writers shared at least his cultural-historical assessment. Both the archetypical macho author, Ernest Hemingway, and the pioneering Marxist atheist playwright, Bertolt Brecht, claimed the Bible as their preeminent literary model. It provided a stock of stories, and by means of vernacular translations, even the bones of our modern literary languages.