I walk into a bookstore and I become like a person whose eyes are bigger than my stomach. So, like a great many of you, I acquire more books than I have time to read.

I decided that on my vacation this summer I would take along a couple of books that had been sitting on my bookshelf unread. I chose two historical novels that for some reason had gone ignored for years. The first was Trinity, Leon Uris's novel about Ireland at the turn of the century. The second was The Agony and the Ecstasy, the Irving Stone novel about the life of Michelangelo. Both were wonderful reads.

I couldn't help but walk away from both novels with a profound sense of the role religion plays in the lives of people, and perhaps more important, in the history of the world. Both novels reveal the power that religion has played, in both positive and negative ways. In the case of western civilization, most of us are very familiar with the history. Initially, the Catholic Church and subsequently Protestantism (as well as the tensions between them over the centuries) have shaped the history of the world we live in as much as any other force.

On the positive side, some of the world's great art, music and literature are the direct, and indirect. result of the two Christian faiths which have dominated western civilization. On the negative side, some of the world's worst warring, oppression and bigotry have flowed from the same two faiths.

To the credit of the 20th century, giant strides were made in interfaith relations in the years following World War II. Cherishing one's own religion without the need to denigrate someone else's religion is one of the values that grew out of that conflict. But alas, it seems that value has waned to some degree. Despite the many efforts that continue to promote people of all faiths not only working together but respecting each other, recent literature indicates that religious prejudice and bigotry are on the rise in this country. No doubt this change is closely linked to 9/11, which has caused people to become suspicious of Muslims.

So we have a challenge before us: to maintain our mutual respect for each other's faith in a time when there are some who would (ab)use faith to destroy us. The negative force of religion is well known. The results of allowing religious hatred to rule are written all over history. Let's not allow that force to overtake us as a nation.