Religious violence around the world has become so routine, so expected, that a suicide bombing Sunday that killed 85 people at a Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan, was obscured by the massacre in the Nairobi, Kenya shopping mall.

In recent months, Coptic Christians and their churches in Egypt have been attacked by Islamic extremists, as was the case in Pakistan. The Syrian civil war, which began as a secular dispute over national leadership, has reflected elements of the ancient Sunni-Shiite divide in Islam.

And violence is only the most obvious manifestation of religious discrimination that continues to grow more common around the world.

Due to the broad discrimination and violence even before radical Islamists carried out the attacks in Kenya and Pakistan, the U.S. House on Sept. 18 passed a bill to establish a special envoy to promote religious freedom for religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia.

Although an envoy cannot solve the deep cultural problems at the root of the appalling discrimination and violence, the position at least signals a focus on the problem.

Creation of the post also illuminated the failure of successive administrations to make religious freedom a top priority, despite passage of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. That law established, within the State Department, an ambassador at large for religious freedom.

But successive presidents have been slow to appoint ambassadors and fully use tools provided by the law to promote religious freedom.

Promotion of religious freedom is in the nation's philosophical and practical interests. It is a bedrock of American freedom, as enshrined in the First Amendment. And countries that establish religious freedom rarely go to war with one another.

Appointment of a special envoy is a good step to raise those issues and use religion as a tool for peace rather than violence.