Religion: A Missing Component of Professional Military Education PKSOI Paper | Page 22

Global Religious Growth
It is well known that in polite company it is rarely
a good idea to discuss politics and religion. Advice
aside, politics and religion continue to animate much
of the global scene. And, as R. Scott Appleby points
out in The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence,
and Reconciliation, not everyone believes in separating
religion from public life. The West makes up less than
one-sixth of the world’s population. It is an arrogance
for Western actors to presume that religion is marginal to people’s lives, or that western leaders know
what is best for the other five-sixths of the populace.
More than 85% of the world’s population, approximately 5.8 billion adults and children, believe in some
sort of religion.33 Following Odierno’s observation,
it is necessary to understand the global religious environment and its continuing growth.34 Not to do so
will leave a significant hole in our understanding of
a world growing more, not less, religious.35 Clearly,
“religions continue to play an important role even in
liberal societies.”36
Religion today is being defied by the Global South.
An increasing number of conflicts occupy the space
along the 10th Parallel where 700 million Muslims and
1.2 billion Christians often collide like tectonic plates.37
Religion Endures
The discourse regarding state and religion often
swings between two poles, one advocating for religion
as a legitimate aspect of statecraft, the other opposing
the presence of religion in politics in any manifestation. Rarely is religion engaged positively to address
the wicked problems that face us today.38 As a way

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