Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s troubles vis a vis Reverend Jeremiah Wright have brought to mind a conversation with a favorite server at Schneithorst Kaffee Haus a couple of years ago. Susan had just read Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life and she was inspired to return to church, but which one.?

“The Lutheran church,” said her mother. “You’re German.”

So there you have it: religion as a means of shoring up one’s cultural identity. Good idea? In the short term, perhaps, but in the long term?

One of the most successful stories is, or was, Anglicanism. English national identity certainly benefited from the break from Roman Catholicism, or so it seemed at first. Now, centuries later, having finally backed off of colonialism and imperialism, Anglican England is far less religious than heretofore — hmmm — and full of “redundant” churches, so many that the weekly magazine CountryLife (March 20, 2008) held a contest to…