Saint Paul struggled to bridge the tension between Jews and Gentiles in the early days of the Christian faith, this Sunday's selection from the Letter to the Romans shows. Religious strife is still a problem today, with religion-linked violence and abuse rising around the world between 2006 and 2009, according to a study released Tuesday.

Christians and Muslims are the most common targets of violence. "Over the three-year period studied, incidents of either government or social harassment were reported against Christians in 130 countries and against Muslims in 117 countries," said the study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life.

As of 2009 more than 2.2 billion people, or nearly a third of the world’s population, lived in countries where religious restrictions had risen substantially since 2006, the study said. That same year, governments in 101 nations--more than half the nations of the world--used at least some measure of force against religious groups.

In regional terms the Middle East and North Africa had the highest proportion of countries in which government-imposed restrictions hampered people's freedom to practice their faith. Egypt, under now-deposed leader Hosni Mubarak, stood out, earning itself a ranking in the top five percent of all countries in 2009 for government-imposed restrictions such as a long-standing ban on the Muslim Brotherhood and for social hostilities based on religion, including attacks against Christians.

The country with the highest rate of religious-linked social hostilities was Iraq, followed by India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Israel, and Egypt. Although no European countries made it into the top 10, five of the 10 countries in the world that saw a substantial increase in religion-related social conflict were in Europe: Britain, Bulgaria, Denmark, Russia, and Sweden.

Religion-related terrorist violence was included under social hostilities, and terrorist groups with ties to religion were found to be active in more than a third of the 198 countries included in the study.

Source: An article by Karin Zeitvogel for Agence France Presse