THE SIGHTING of the crescent moon last week signalled the beginning of Ramadan throughout the Islamic world. For oh servant Muslims, Ramadan is a month of repentance, marked not just by fasting but also by genuine efforts at forgiveness, peace and reconciliation.
In Algeria, however, there were fears of an upsurge in the campaign of violence being waged by Islamic militants. Within days, rebels from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) kidnapped five village girls and slit their throats. According to the Arab-language daily, El Khabar, the gang used their victims' blood to write the initials GIA on a village wall.
In the Middle East and North Africa, it is impossible to separate religion and politics. Wednesday morning's agreement on Hebron still looks shaky, despite the approval of the Knesset, and many of the difficulties arise not only from conflicting claims by Muslims and Jews to the land, but in the claims of Jews and Muslims to the same buildings. Both religions recognise Abraham as the founding, patriarchal figure, and both claim his burial place in Hebron, where the Tomb of the Patriarchs is both a mosque and a synagogue.
In post-enlightenment Northern Europe, many regard it as bad taste to introduce religious elements into political debates. Religion has had a positive, creative role in the arts - painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music have all benefitted not solely from the patronage of the churches, but have drawn their keenest insights and inspirations from religious themes. The poetry and plays of T.S. Eliot, Dostoevsky's Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov,. even the secularised Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos shaped his Epitaphios around the Good Friday and Easter liturgies of the Orthodox Church.
But if it is impolite and rude to try to take account of religious views in political debates in this part of the world, this is not the case in most other regions.
In South Korea yesterday, the Catholic Church found itself at the centre of the nation's deepest crisis as trade union leaders sought refuge in Myongdong Cathedral in Seoul and Cardinal Stephen Kim tried to open a dialogue between the strikers and the government. In Peru, the Catholic Church continued all this week to mediate between the government and the kidnappers in the Japanese ambassador's residence.
And the news yesterday that Archbishop Desmond Tutu hash had an operation for prostate cancer was a reminder of the role played by the former Anglican primate and most South African church leaders in the struggle against apartheid.
It is easy for the people of the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America to accept the impact of religion on political life. It is less acceptable in Northern Europe and North America. And yet, ironically, church leaders have refused to accept this position, and in many countries are becoming a more effective voice calling for social justice and political change.
Bishop Peter Nott of Norwich told the House of Lords this week how a senior Tory peer had warned him to "steer clear of political issues". One wonders what role that peer envisaged for a bishop of the Established Church in the House of Lords apart from engaging in political debate. I doubt the good lord, if the peer can be called that, was contemplating disestablishment. Perhaps he was more concerned that in recent weeks bishops have been the harshest political critics of the present level of morality in British politics.
Bishop Nott defended the right of the Church to speak out on moral issues, the quality of human life and the integrity of the family, saying: "Homelessness and poor housing, from whatever cause it originates, negatively affects people's moral and spiritual well-being and development." And, as he pointed out, these are areas in which the churches "speak with some knowledge and expertise".
Tories had been angered already when Bishop Richard Holloway of Edinburgh argued in the Church Times that Britain needed a transformation and Labour was the party to do it: "Socialism has always sought to transform reality; Conservatism has usually been content to justify it."
Earlier this month, Bishop Richard Harries of Oxford used the front page of the Guardian to attack the government, saying: "The Tory Party emphasises personal morality because it wishes to resist the economic and political changes that threaten the privileged position of its supporters." Four of his episcopal colleagues joined the criticism of John Major's government: the bishops of Liverpool, Durham, Coventry and Birmingham.
In France, the Protestant churches have provided strong resistance to racism and have united in calling for action to combat the rise of the National Front.
Internationally, the Churches are increasingly vocal in calling for the protection of refugees and of the environment and for a phased process to end Third World indebtedness. During a recent visit to Chicago, Archbishop Tutu said: "Now that we have accomplished this extraordinary business of ridding the world of the spread of apartheid, the next moral campaign, the next most urgent moral issue, ought surely to be this international debt."
The murders that marked the opening days of Ramadan in Algeria help reinforce western prejudices against mixing religion and politics. But so far this year, religious leaders have provided some of the best criticism of political life in this part of Europe.
The Dean of Harvard Divinity School, the Rev Dr Ronald Thiemann, argues against understanding religious conviction as a force that cannot tolerate opposing positions.
Dr Thiemann, author of Religion in American Public Life: A Dilemma for Democracy, says people of faith are particularly suited to serve as "connected critics" of society, not only because they share the fundamental values of democratic society, but "because their commitment to democracy remains penultimate ... they can appeal to transcendent ideals to critique current practice and to elevate the understanding of democratic values themselves".