National Review Online disses laicite

Is it really true, as Joseph Loconte claims, that "it's no coincidence that the most religious nation in the West is also the friendliest state to Jews outside of Israel"?

NRO has picked up the fact that France--and Western Europe in general--separates church and state more than America does, and that anti-Semitism is, it is fair to say, more of a problem over there than it is over here. So the obvious conclusion, using NRO's extra-special logic, is that Christianity, though it has been behind anti-Semitism at about a gazillion points in history, is, on the whole, a much-needed force against hatred of Jews.

Loconte writes: "Jacques Chirac's recent speech condemning anti-Semitism, delivered in the southern village of Le Chambon, typifies the problem. The French leader praised the bravery of the Chambonnais, who sheltered more than 5,000 Jews during the Nazi occupation, even as the Vichy government actively collaborated with Germany to deport thousands to concentration camps. Chirac called the inhabitants of Le Chambon the embodiment of the nation's conscience, but then cited France's "humanist" principles — tolerance, solidarity, and fraternity — as their inspiration. He went on to extol the nation's commitment to "laicite" (secularity) as the best guarantee of preserving French values. No incident during the Second World War, however, illustrates more powerfully the moral vigor of Christian ideals than what occurred at Le Chambon."

While Loconte is technically correct that both bigotry and tolerance have fallen under the massive umbrella that is Christianity, he is way off if he thinks that Christian tolerance has, historically, been a far more significant force than has Christian intolerance. But, at NRO, Christianity and "Judeo-Christianity" are considered absolute goods, and those Europeans are all nasty leftwingers, anyway, so why not just assume that laicite is somehow responsible for anti-Semitic incidents in France?

Here's why not: just as the members of religious right may be pro-Israel but are not necessarily American Jews' best allies (especially those American Jews, myself included, who like all the God- and Christ-talk kept out of political speech), Europeans may have helped Jews on the basis of Christian principles at various moments in history, but an all-out Christian revival in Europe just doesn't strike me as "good for the Jews."

More on this later, but "Blackadder" is on BBC America. I will now virtually return to Christian Europe, saving contemporary Europe the trouble...