During the past 35-years the United States has become the world's most religiously diverse nation. During that short period Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians, and varieties of Jews and Christians have flocked to our shores. Children from all these religions attend our public schools together while the parents work side by side in a variety of occupations. Why did this religious phenomenon suddenly occur? Can the United States remain the world's most secular government and at the same time be the most religiously diverse? These questions may be the most important challenges we face in the twenty-first century. Diana L. Eck, professor of Comparative Religion at Harvard, offers some stimulating and provocative answers in her new book, A New Religious America, recently published by Harper Collins.

--Flo Wineriter