Five days in Paris left me and the entire Marty-Party (five of us) refreshed, thanks to our attendance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, conducted by friend John Nelson at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We cannot profess expertise about what the “French” are thinking about our war, because these were days off from work and days on pilgrimage -- not a time for poll- or pulse-taking. Glamorous things don’t happen to us that happen to other brief visitors, such as ominous encounters with service personnel or rude Metro riders.

So our impressions came from reading Paris newspapers on their home soil. We frequently raided newsstands, news junkies that we are, to get French opinions and those of other “Old Europe” and milder British papers (e.g., The Independent remains very critical of the war “in” or “on” Iraq and debates the correct preposition). We also found some very critical-of-U.S. Canadian papers during layover time there. The politics of the Chiracs and Blairs were prime topics in all. We, of course, did our usual snooping and sighting of religion-in-public.

Some of the secular papers pointed out the obvious to anyone who visits Paris: there are up to six million Arabs in France, many of them active as Muslims and some of them able to be lured or provoked into militant movements. Often unspoken, but hinted at in editorials, is the theme that France does not want to, or dare not, engage in acts that will drive more Muslims into the Fundamentalist or Islamist extremist camps.

Of greatest interest were articles and editorials in popular outlets, e.g., Le Figaro Magazine (April 5), where Alain-Gerard Slama editorialized on “Laicite: la cote d’alerte.” He was trying to instruct his readers about the ways of Americans, or at least many Americans, in respect to religion in public life as voiced in presidential rhetoric. He showed how different the concept of the “laic” is in post-Christian France over against Islamic and Evangelical cultures. Like so many others, he did not seem to be disturbed -- maybe befuddled, amused, or slightly condescending -- that we Americans expect and cherish religious faith (at least of approved kinds) in our leaders. But the French are puzzled as to why, in our nation whose Constitution keeps religion at a distance, in practice, there is so much that is “fanatique” in public.

Such an outlook, he thinks, helps to inspire a good conscience about the spirit of crusades. Slama and his kind tend to see Arab-Islamic and American society as almost mirror images of each other. There are other ways to conceive of church-and-state relations than the two in his stereotype. His secular France and what he sees in Arab and American cultures do not exhaust the possibilities, but ever more we are confronted with those choices.

Author, Martin E. Marty, is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His biography, publications, and contact information can be found at www.memarty.com.