Religion: What They Believe

For historians who put philosophical labels on epochs in man's history—Age of Faith, Age of Reason, Age of the Enlightenment—the mid-century in U.S. history may go down as the Age of Tolerance, in the sense that strong feelings, about religion at least, are in bad taste. A good text for such an age is a book published this week called This I Believe (Simon & Schuster; $3). Written for CBS Newscaster Edward R. Murrow, This I Believe is a series of doggedly non-controversial statements by representative Americans about the faiths they live by.

As a five-minute radio show, This I Believe has...