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The time away was very good, but getting home even better. That’s the way it always is for me.

Part of our time included two weeks in Morocco traveling with friends, one of whom is a native Moroccan. They live and teach in our community, but met when she was a Peace Corps volunteer. Because they go to Morocco every year to visit family, they now own a home there where we stayed. That allowed us to see the country in a way we never would have had we been with a tour group. We experienced the way people actually live and work as Moroccan citizens on a daily basis.

Morocco is a culture that could not be more different from the U.S., not better or worse, just different, not least because it is a nation where religion and culture are virtually one. Public calls to prayer five times daily (including nights), religious dress by both women and men, the king ordering clocks turned back an hour just for Ramadan, and cafes full at sundown when the daily Ramadan fast was broken, all of these things made religion visible every day.

Not something we are used to as Americans, what with our separation of church and state. While I appreciated the devotion of the Moroccan people to their faith, I came home very grateful for the wisdom of our nation’s founders who insured both freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

It is easy to understate or miss altogether how brilliant that simple principle is, not least among Christians who have convinced themselves that people of faith are under siege in this country.

The only serious violation of religious freedom in the U. S. would have to take the form of the government either forbidding worship in sacred places or requiring it.

Let’s be clear. Policies that have eliminated prayer in public schools, Christian manger scenes on public properties, Ten Commandment displays in court houses, and business policies that want employees to wish people “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” are all examples of Christians making mountains out of mole hills in claiming religious persecution.

Make no mistake, Muslims in countries like Morocco enjoy more freedom from religious coercion than many Americans realize or understand. Their culture and their faith have been blended for centuries to the point where it is not easy to know where one ends and the other begins, but within that context individuals decide how they want to dress, how often they attend Mosque, whether they pray five times a day or not, and how they teach their children about life and faith.

Even then, though, for westerners like us the context for such personal freedom is still a radical departure from the near absolute religious freedom we have in this country.

The real world of living here in the U.S. is that religion and culture are not one and the same intentionally, and that is a very good thing, so good, in fact, that all of us should be ready to reject any attempts in any form by any individual or group to blur that distinction.

Our founders were wise beyond their years in seeing that the way to ensure religious freedom was to make sure the government was neutral on the matter while allowing its citizens to decide for themselves how much or little religious practice they engage in.

So we returned home proud to be Americans, not because our nation is better than others, but because it is different, especially when it comes to the practice of religion.