In the first Republican presidential debate, candidates were asked if they did not believe in evolution. Sam Brownback, along with several others, raised his hand. Now he wants to clarify that. In today's New York Times he writes

If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.

Brownback says that he believes "that the process of creation ... is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him." It is not anti-science to "question the philosophical presuppositions" that scientists offer to support their theories that exclude "the possibility of design or purpose." These sceintists "venture far beyond their realm of empirical science."

He adds, "Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."

One hopes the NYT editors would take this message to heart in their coverage of creationism or Intelligent Design.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 31, 2007 8:52AM | Comments (13)

Hanna Rosin writes in Slate,

Teenagers who identify as "evangelical" or "born again" are highly likely to sound like the girl at the bar; 80 percent think sex should be saved for marriage. But thinking is not the same as doing. Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. They tend to lose their virginity at a slightly younger age—16.3, compared with 16.7 for the other two faiths. And they are much more likely to have had three or more sexual partners by age 17.

In her review of Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers , Rosin writes about how evangelicals are more sexually active than any other religious group. But--surprise--it turns out that highly committed evangelicals are serious prudes. "Among the mass of typically promiscuous teenagers in the book, one group stands out: the 16 percent of American teens who describe religion as "extremely important" in their lives. When these guys pledge, they mean it."

So much for this stereotype overturning book.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 31, 2007 8:33AM | Comments (23)

For all of the debate surrounding the Senate immigration bill, pro and con, you might think the bill had some chance of solving America's illegal immigration issue. Not so much, says an editorial in this week's edition of The Economist.

Among other problems, The Economist points out, rightly, that no one outside of the airline industry benefits from the bill's "tortuous and vindictive" stipulation that would require illegal immigrants to return home for an interview as part of the legalization process. Combine that with a points system that favors highly skilled immigrants and a guest worker program scaled down to 200,000 annually, and you have a new system guaranteed to get little buy-in from the illegal immigrants it seeks to bring out of the shadows.

Of course, the bill does include a host of security initiatives. This is likely to please many evangelicals, who have polled consistently higher than the general population in opposing a path to legalization. Personally, I suspect we're on the wrong side on this issue -- I agree with The Economist's leader, which says that deporting 12 million illegal immigrants is "impossible, economically illiterate, and morally wrong." But that's beside the point. The real problem is that in the midst of the compromise and give-and-take that all legislation must endure in order to get passed, America may get stuck with a bill that accomplishes nothing.

Christians will continue to disagree on immigration, no doubt. But perhaps we can agree on the need to rework the current Senate bill into something that has stands a chance of success.

Posted by Madison Trammel at May 30, 2007 4:45PM | Comments (13)

Sticks and carrots:

At the White House this morning, President Bush ran out of patience with the genocidal regime ruling Sudan. He announced a collection of sanctions against the nation-state of Sudan and individuals associated with the sickening killing and rape still going on in the Darfur region at the western border with Chad.

See this video clip:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2007/05/29/VI2007052900512.html

Here's a link to the Washington Post online article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/29/AR2007052900462.html

The Save Darfur Coalition includes many evangelical groups that should be encouraged by this move. China especially is likely to resist the imposition of sanctions.

We Christians must understand how the situation in Darfur ripples throughout the region and globally. Until there is real peace in Sudan, this region of Africa will remain violent and unstable.

The carrot and the stick are now on the table, Omar Bashir.

Prayer for the persecuted church in Sudan in the south should just be the beginning of our commitment. I agree with President Bush that we cannot "avert our eyes" from this suffering.

Posted by Tim Morgan at May 29, 2007 11:30AM | Comments (4)

The long-simmering battle between the former Christian Coalition of Alabama (now Christian Action Alabama) and the new Christian Coalition of Alabama (started by the national Christian Coalition) has gone where such battles predictably go: to the courts.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 29, 2007 11:15AM | Comments (2)

The Daily Herald, a paper of the western suburbs of Chicago, features this story about a young woman:

Kristen Anderson’s world was shattered after the deaths of four friends and her grandmother. As she was grieving those losses, she was raped. Feeling she had no way to cope, she tried to kill herself. She survived, and now shares her story with others, to reach out to those who feel hopeless.

Just another story of God's inscrutably redeeming ways. Both predictable (for we've seen him do this time and again) and wonderful (miracles, no matter how generic, are amazing to behold).

Then again, no miracle is generic, and the problem here is likely a problem of journalism: this is narrative arc that makes sense to a typical 21st century journalist. I'm guessing a deeper look at Kristen's life would suggest something both miraculous and utterly unique.

Posted by Mark Galli at May 29, 2007 9:04AM | Comments (0)

This week I attended the inaugural one-day conference of the Gospel Coalition. This consortium of more than 50 evangelical pastors have united around a common confessional statement and theological vision of ministry. Organizers hope this short conference, hosted by Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and attended by 500+ pastors and other ministry leaders, will propel a long-term effort to renew and reform evangelical thought and practice. D.A. Carson, a New Testament scholar at TEDS, and Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, organized the group, which has met privately for three years now. Other speakers and workshop presenters included Crawford Loritts, Phil Ryken, Mark Driscoll, and John Piper.

I thought a couple statements stood out in the Gospel Coalition's founding document:

From the preamble: "On the one hand, we are troubled by the idolatry of personal consumerism and the politicization of the faith; on the other hand, we are distressed by the unchallenged acceptance of theological and moral relativism."

From the theological vision of ministry: "If we seek service rather than power, we may have significant cultural impact. But if we seek direct power and social control, we will, ironically, be assimilated into the very idolatries of wealth, status, and power we seek to change."

The Gospel Coalition's core group of pastors plans to meet yearly. Leaders have tentatively planned a national conference for April 2009. A website, www.thegospelcoalition.org, will be forthcoming in June with video of all the conference sessions and loads of links to resources that promote the Gospel Coalition vision.

As Carson told me today, this group could not have come together five years ago. Make of that what you will, but something's stirring in the evangelical movement. The Gospel Coalition seeks nothing less than a return to the theological consensus enjoyed in the days of neo-evangelicalism, led by Billy Graham, Carl Henry, Harold John Ockenga, and many others. That might be a goal more difficult to achieve than pioneering evangelicalism in the post-war Protestant scene, split as it was between fundamentalism and liberalism.

Posted by Collin Hansen at May 25, 2007 4:33PM | Comments (7)

"It's nice to note--for a change--Christians coming together," CT's managing editor, Mark Galli, wrote about the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Writing in today's Wall Street Journal, Nadia Kizenko isn't so sure.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 25, 2007 2:32PM | Comments (1)

According to an opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal, by Tawfik Hamid (tantalizingly described as "a onetime member of Jemaah Islamiya, an Islamist terrorist group, is a medical doctor and Muslim reformer living in the West"), the assimilation of Muslims into American society is (to borrow a phrase from Jimmy Carter) an "incomplete success." Here's a portion:

"According to a recent Pew Global Attitudes survey, "younger Muslims in the U.S. are much more likely than older Muslim Americans to say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes justified." About one out of every four American Muslims under 30 think suicide bombing in defense of Islam is justified in at least some circumstances. Twenty-eight percent believe that Muslims did not carry out the 9/11 attacks and 32% declined to answer that question.

"While the survey has been represented in the media as proof of moderation among American Muslims, the actual results should yield the opposite conclusion. If, as the Pew study estimates, there are 2.35 million Muslims in America, that means there are a substantial number of people in the U.S. who think suicide bombing is sometimes justified. Similarly, if 5% of American Muslims support al Qaeda, that's more than 100,000 people."

Still, it's good to know of the existence of passionate Muslim reformers such as this author, though sad that he feels the need to shield his location for safety reasons.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 25, 2007 11:00AM | Comments (5)

As I noted in my last post, when it comes to end of life issues, Christians are quick to talk about ethics. But advances in medicine have not just turned the end of life into an ethical minefield. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent front page story today on the increasing number of children caring from afar for their elderly parents. And they're doing so for extended periods of time.

When a parent is dying, the rest of life waits. Now, it often waits longer. As medical science gets better at pulling terminally ill patients from the brink of death, a loved one's final weeks can stretch into months or years. With families often spread across the country or globe, far-flung relatives face heart-rending choices as they wait for the end.

Reporter Susan Warren writes that one woman "took eight trips to her parents' home in Columbus, Ohio, staying weeks at a time. She used up all her vacation and sick time, and then took a family leave. She ran up more than $5,000 in airfare and estimates she lost $15,000 in salary."

For the family of Valliere Wilson, her death was emotionally exhausting, and not simply because their mother died. Wilson had cancer for 15 years. During that time, her children moved, one away from Wilson's home and one back. Two children lived in California and alternated weeks caring for their mother. Their brother's marriage was in tatters after he moved back to Dallas to be with his mother. They faced job pressures and the threat of being fired for taking so much time off to be with their mom.

Then, when Wilson's cancer spread to her lungs, the travelling, caring, and grieving shifted into high gear.

On Feb. 20, Cheryl was with her mother in Dallas, missing a staff meeting in Chicago. She grew worried about rumored layoffs at work. For the first time in her 26 years at the company, she'd gotten a poor annual review, based on low productivity. She'd asked for more work, but her supervisor had noted that it was probably better that she not be stretched while she was dealing with her mom. Cheryl acknowledged, "Actually, I couldn't handle any more."

Meanwhile, Charlotte had just been told that her company's Los Angeles office was closing at the end of the year and she would be out of a job. Cracks had begun surfacing in her longtime relationship with her boyfriend. "Everything was kind of falling to pieces," she said.

15 years after she was diagnosed with colon cancer, Wilson died in her Dallas home with her daughter beside her. It was worth the stress, all of her children agreed, in order to care for their mom as she died. "I always told Mom that I would be there for her when she needs me, and I was," Cheryl said.

But the stress is enormous. And more and more Americans are feeling it. Perhaps this is a topic even greater than bioethics for Christians to pay attention to. What sort of pressures does this put on a family? In what ways can we practice faithful dying while our family is spread across the country? How does this stress affect the medical treatment we want for our parents or they chose for themselves? (Being far away can cause some people to beg their parents to do anything to hang on until they have a chance to visit. On the other hand, a major reason people chose assisted suicide is because they feel they're a burden to their caregivers.)

There is a lot here to think about and which Christians are only beginning to talk about. If you're dealing with this, I am interested in hearing from you. Write me.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 24, 2007 3:00PM | Comments (2)

Our end-of-life rhetoric is typically limited, as Atul Gawande complains in The New York Times, to gaining more control over death. For some, this means passing legislation to allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs that would prematurely kill a terminally ill patient. For many Christian groups, it means opposing physician-assisted-suicide or the withdrawl of life support from people who can't speak for themselves. For some people it means signing statements that ask doctors to do everything possible to keep them alive.

But, as Gawande points out, there is a lot of life to live between our active years and our dying days. "We don’t like thinking about it, but after retirement age, about half of us eventually move into a nursing home, usually around age 80. ... But we don’t much talk about getting more control over our lives in such places. "

The priority of a nursing home is to keep residents safe, Gawande says. Describing one woman who recently entered a nursing home, he writes, "Basic matters, like when she goes to bed, wakes up, dresses, and eats were put under the rigid schedule of institutional life. Her main activities have become bingo, movies, and other forms of group entertainment."

This kind of living, he argues, takes the meaning out of life. "Surveys of nursing home residents reveal chronic boredom, loneliness, and lack of meaning—results not fundamentally different from prisoners, actually."

It doesn't have to be this way. Some nursing homes are rethinking institutional life for the disabled elderly, and they are doing it within the confines of what the government will help pay for--an achievement indeed. Life can have meaning an purpose even when many of the things that provided fulfilment are no longer possible for us to do.

Certainly, being in a nursing home does not prohibit a meaningful life. One geriatrician told me he always tells his patients upon retirement, "Wake up knowing what you will do that day, and go to bed knowing someone was helped by what you did." Such a thing is possible, he points out, in a nursing home.

Yet, there is also a place here for the church. How can we better care for our widows, our widowers, our frail elderly. How can we give their lives meaning and keep them integrated into a church community?

This is a question baby boomers, who have already changed so much of the American church, are just begining to face.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 24, 2007 2:00PM | Comments (1)

One of the most frequent reader responses to David Neff's article on Knocking, the PBS documentary on Jehovah's Witnesses, is that it did not address the allegations against church officials of abuse and coverups.

It really wasn't relevant to a discussion of this particular documentary, but yes, we are aware of the cases. In fact, we covered them before the rest of the media.

And now there's a big development: silentlambs, a Jehovah's Witness-focused victims rights organization similar to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), discovered that the Jehovah's Witnesses recently settled 16 abuse lawsuits. The organization says other abuse suits are still pending, but doesn't know how many.

One odd personal anecdote:

A couple of weeks ago, I answered a knock at the door and found two eager young evangelists. I was watching my young son at the time, and was unable to invite them in, but I let them ask their lead-in question: "Do you think that the scandals in the various churches have affected their ability to minister effectively?" (I'm paraphrasing here; knowing a bit of JW theology, it's possible--even likely--that their question may have ended in a slightly different phrase than "minister effectively" and they might have had another word for "churches".)

"I'm not sure what you mean by the scandals," I said, thinking at the time that they were from evangelical and evangelistic church down the street. (They were dressed too casually to be Mormons.)

"You know, like pedophile priests," said the woman evangelist, the only one who talked during our brief conversation.

"Well, if you mean those particular priests, then yes, of course it's going to affect their ability to minister," I said. "If you mean the churches' witness or the witness of the larger body of Christ, I guess my view is that God always works amid man's massive sinfulness, and that when Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against the church, he was talking about the hell of sin in the church as much as he was talking about anything. There are always consequences for sin, and I think we're seeing a lot of that right now, but the church is the Body of Christ and he's bigger than these scandals."

She smiled. "Sounds like you know your Bible," she said, and handed me her literature. "Here are just some items to help you as you read your Bible and look for answers..."

It was then that I saw the Watchtower Society name on the material. I handed it back. "No thanks," I said. They smiled and thanked me for my time, and were starting to turn around when I decided it wouldn't hurt to ask my question. I was curious about whether they had actually planned to use the Jehovah's Witness abuse scandal as an evangelistic tool. If so, that would have made quite an article.

"Um, you do know that one of the biggest abuse scandals right now is in the Jehovah's Witnesses, right?" I asked. It was immediately clear from the woman's expression -- a grimace, then the smile again -- that they had not intended to use their own scandal in their pitch.

"Oh," she said, "you mean that one case where a man followed a boy into the bathroom...?"

"No, actually, not just that. Massive numbers of accusations," I said.

"Well, the difference in our church is that we kick those people out as soon as we learn about the situation," she said.

"Actually, I work for a magazine that has done some reporting on this," I said, "and the big issue for me was that people making the accusations were saying they got kicked out because they didn't have 'two or three witnesses' to the abuse."

I can't remember exactly what she replied, but she said she was sure that I wasn't quite right about that. And by now she was eager to take me up on my earlier goodbye. She had already moved a step or two back.

"Well, anyway," I said, "I'm not interested in arguing about abuse cases. That's my day job and I'm watching my son right now, happily not talking about this kind of thing. But really. You might want to think about another lead-in question."

I'm curious: Did anyone else get a JW visit lately with this opening line? Does anyone know if these opening lines come from a central office, or are they the responsibility of the individual missionaries?

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 24, 2007 12:51PM | Comments (95)

No one in Washington or in mainstream media outlets seems to be coming right out and saying it, but the implication from much of the reporting and commentary regarding yesterday's House Judiciary Committee testimony of former Justice Department official Monica Goodling seems to be that Christian college graduates shouldn't be permitted in high government positions.

Try to find a news story today that doesn't mention that Goodling is a graduate of Regent University's law school, that the school was founded by Pat Robertson, and that it has a distinctly Christian mission. (Several reports also note that she did her undergraduate work at Messiah College, another distinctly Christian school.)

In fact, Rep. Stephen Cohen (D-Tenn.) spent most of his questions on Goodling's Christian education. Here's the transcript:

COHEN: Miss Goodling, I've read your vitae, and it says that you grew up and you mostly went -- you went to public schools. Was that K through 12?

GOODLING: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative.) Yes.

COHEN: And it says you went -- chose Christian universities in part because they -- value they placed on service. What as the other part that you chose Christian universities?

GOODLING: I chose them because I had a faith system, and in some cases -- I went to American University for my first year of law school and then I transferred. And I enjoyed studying with people that shared the similar belief system that I did. It didn't mean that there wasn't a lot of diversity of discussion, because in some cases I actually found that the debate at Regent was much more vigorous than it was at American University my first year of law school. But I enjoyed being surrounded by people that had the same belief system.

COHEN: The mission of the law school you attended, Regent, is to bring bear -- "is to bring to bear upon legal education and the legal profession the will of Almighty God, our Creator." What is "the will of Almighty God, our Creator" on the legal profession?

GOODLING: I'm not sure that I could define that question for you.

COHEN: Did you ask people who applied for jobs as AUSAs anything about their religion?

GOODLING: No, I certainly did not --

COHEN: Never had religion discussions come up?

GOODLING: Not to the best of my recollection.

COHEN: Is there a type of student, a type of person that you thought was -- embodied that philosophy of Regent University that you sought out as AUSAs?

GOODLING: In most cases, the people at Regent are good people trying to do the right thing, who wanted to make a difference in the world. If the question is, were I looking -- if I was looking for people like that, the answer is yes. I wasn't necessarily looking for people who shared a particular faith system. I don't have any recollection that that entered into my mind at any point. But certainly there are a lot of people who applied to work for this president because they share his same faith system, and they did apply for jobs.

COHEN: Are there a lot of -- an inordinate number of people from Regent University Law School that were hired by the Department of Justice while you were there?

GOODLING: I think we have a lot more people from Harvard and Yale.

COHEN: Well, that's refreshing. Is it a fact -- are you aware of the fact that in your graduating class 50 to 60 percent of the students failed the bar the first time?

GOODLING: I'm not -- I don't remember the statistics, but I know it wasn't good. I was happy I passed the first time.

COHEN: Thank you. That's good.

National Review Online's Byron York noted that Cohen's questioning came shortly after another discussion of higher education:

Earlier, Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was very concerned that Goodling had asked about the political leanings of a job seeker named Seth Adam Meinero, “a graduate of Howard University, one of the top, outstanding law schools in the nation.” (Rep. Cohen did not protest, even though Howard’s bar-passing statistics don’t measure up to Regent’s.) Goodling said she regretted making a “snap judgment” about Meinero’s supposed political leanings, although she stressed that Meinero ultimately got the job he was seeking.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 24, 2007 10:32AM | Comments (21)

Doug Lockhart is stepping down as president and CEO of Zondervan. A press release from the company quotes him saying,

“I consider it a great privilege to have served in this role and to have been a part of the tremendous Zondervan family, which is truly the most dedicated, loyal and mission-minded team of people I have ever worked with. I look forward to a smooth transition and will pray for the continued success of the organization as it strives to achieve its mission and continue its leadership in Christian publishing.”

PW Daily unsuccessfully asked why:

Erin Crum, spokesperson for HarperCollins, parent company of Zondervan, declined to elaborate on the reason for Lockhart's departure. "We don't usually discuss personnel matters," she said. Lockhart was not available for comment. Zondervan's sales declined after the enormous success of The Purpose-Driven Life several years ago, but HC CEO Jane Friedman had said that the company was "recovering" in the third quarter.

Longtime Zondervan leader Bruce Ryskamp, who worked at Zondervan from 1983 to 2005 and served as its president for the last 12 years of his tenure, will return from retirement to serve as interim president and CEO.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 23, 2007 2:31PM | Comments (1)

Scientists have discovered that sharks can reproduce asexually. "Scientists began their investigation after a female hammerhead shark was mysteriously born at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo in December 2001, in a tank that held three adult, female hammerheads but no males," reports the Washington Post. "Yes, indeed this is a virgin birth," said one of the scientists who studied the birth.

Ted Olsen interjects:

If you want to read the actual study from Biology Letters, it's available for free. I'll also just note that we're talking about bonnetheads rather than great hammerheads, though bonnetheads are considered a type of hammerhead shark.

Parthenogenesis isn't all that rare. Birds do it. Bees do it. But there is an important question here, as the Biology Letters article puts it, regarding "possible negative effects of this form of asexual reproduction on the genetic diversity in small natural or captive populations." Bonnetheads are an abundant species, but if this further research indicates that other, more endangered sharks also reproduce asexually, then there could be consequences for human-aided conservation efforts.

That's one "Green Christian" angle on this. But let's not dismiss the "virgin birth" angle of this as just a joke. Earlier generations of Christians saw in the animal world many echoes of theological reality. They didn't always (or often) get their animal behavior right, but that's no reason that actual animal behavior can't serve as reminders of biblical truth.

But then some of the differences between the Virgin Birth and its "echo" in parthenogenesis is fascinating to me, too. In parthenogenesis, you're basically talking about natural cloning. In the case of Christ's Virgin Birth, you're clearing talking about something radically different. Jesus, after all, was not Mary's genetic equivalent. (For starters, consider the chromosomes.) And any time I start thinking about Jesus' DNA, I marvel at how much mystery there really is in the Incarnation.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 23, 2007 9:31AM | Comments (5)

A Pew study finds that American Muslims are largely assimilating into the country.

Some findings, as reported by the Washington Post:

* 78 percent say that suicide bombings of civilians is never justified in order to defend Islam, which is not all that high.

* 65 percent of American Muslims are foreign born.

* "They believe that Muslims coming to the United States should adopt American customs, rather than trying to remain distinct."

* Socioeconomically, they are on par with average Americans.

* U.S. Muslims oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

* Pew estimates there are 2.35 million Muslims in the United States.

As someone who often shops alongside Muslims (there seems to be no Muslims in my neighborhood but plenty at the mall and the grocery store, at least those who wear headscarves), this is both encouraging and confirming of my own experience. I wonder if Muslims see their assimilation as a good thing, or a capitulation to American customs.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 23, 2007 9:20AM | Comments (10)

Local officials in Guangxi province are using brutal methods to crack down on those families that did not pay fines for breaking China's one-child policy. The Washington Post reports

birth control bureaucrats showed up in a half-dozen towns with sledgehammers and threatened to knock holes in the homes of people who had failed to pay fines imposed for having more than one child. Other family planning officials, backed by hired toughs, pushed their way into businesses owned by parents of more than one child and confiscated everything from sacks of rice to color televisions.

The residents fought back. "Thousands of peasants and townspeople encircled government and birth control centers across surrounding Bobai County, residents here said, stoning riot police brought in to quell the unrest and, in some places, trashing local offices."

It seems the culture wars in China are taken a bit more literally than here.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 23, 2007 8:51AM | Comments (1)

A movement to pass legislation that would give birth certificates to women who deliver stillborn babies is provoking opposition from pro-choice groups.

The New York Times reports,

The birth-certificate laws, often referred to as “Missing Angels” bills, occupy uncertain territory, skirting the abortion debate while implicitly raising the question of fetal personhood.

Many antiabortion groups say the laws fill a need for parents. But some abortion rights supporters see the push for these laws as a barely disguised political move to undermine abortion rights.

In some states, local chapters of abortion rights groups have opposed the legislation. But at the national level, some abortion rights groups are comfortable with the laws, if they are drafted carefully to cover naturally occurring fetal death and not late-term abortion.

One woman recounted receiving a death certificate after her daughter was stillborn. "When I called and asked for my daughter’s birth certificate, the woman asked how she died, and when I told her, she said I didn’t have a baby, I had a fetus, and I couldn’t get a birth certificate.”

Posted by Rob Moll at May 22, 2007 9:57AM | Comments (2)

A bumper sticker on my car, which posted next to several others gives anyone driving behind me ample reason to keep their eyes off the road (and once got me out of ticket), repeats those words above: Pro-Woman, Pro-Life. It's from the group Feminists for Life, which was the focus of attention during Justice John Roberts's confirmation hearings because his wife had been affiliated with the group.

It seems the group's strategy, opposing abortion by focusing on the needs of women, is gaining a wider audience. The New York Times reports,

last month’s Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act marked a milestone for a different argument advanced by anti-abortion leaders, one they are increasingly making in state legislatures around the country. They say that abortion, as a rule, is not in the best interest of the woman; that women are often misled or ill-informed about its risks to their own physical or emotional health; and that the interests of the pregnant woman and the fetus are, in fact, the same.

Justice Kennedy mentioned the view that women's health is endagered by abortion in his argument supporting the partial-birth abortion ban. "While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.”

"Many, on both sides, viewed that as an invitation from a newly conservative court to pass tough new counseling and informed-consent laws intended for women seeking abortions," writes The Times. It seems that the next battle over a woman's "right to choose" will be her right to hear or refuse to hear the possible ill effects of an abortion.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 22, 2007 9:46AM | Comments (9)

Today's memorial service for the Rev. Jerry Falwell brings to a close one of the most interesting chapters of recent American political and religious history. Falwell, a recovering fundamentalist, made evangelical political involvement the norm, no matter how many toes he stepped on both inside and outside the camp. At times a bombastic publicity seeker who was known to develop embarrassing cases of hoof-in-mouth disease, Falwell was a devoted pastor, broadcaster, evangelist, and provider of ministries to the poor, unwed mothers, and other down-and-outers.

Yes, he sometimes made evangelicals out to be just another political interest group in the service of the Republican Party. But those megapastors who have followed him into the public arena, such as Rick Warren, testify to his godly example. Even his political enemies, such as Jesse Jackson and Larry Flynt, agree that Falwell was a good man, full of warmth and good cheer.

As someone who has made my own fair share of dumb public statements, I can only hope to leave that kind of a legacy. I don't know whether history will judge Jerry Falwell very kindly. But I have a feeling that his gracious Lord will.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 22, 2007 9:00AM | Comments (14)

Al Gore, in his new book The Assault on Reason, shows he is again half a step slow. According to a book description on Amazon.com, AR is "A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degration of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason." Gore is a step behind because Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and other advocates of "reason" have been bashing religious belief and believers for a long time. Some visionary. Someone please tell me why the advocates of sweet "reason" usually seem to be the most unreasonable.

Gore's complaint, assuming the rest of the book goes on in this vein, sounds suspiciously like some of the warnings pouring out of leftish opinion leaders following the 2004 presidential election, to wit:

1. Normally level-headed Times columnist Tom Friedman said he was “deeply troubled.” “[W]hat troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support by people who don’t just favor different policies than I do–they favor a whole different kind of America. We don’t just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.”

2. “The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule,” wrote fellow Times columnist Maureen Dowd. “… W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq–drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals … by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.” (On stem cells, Bush has actually taken a moderate approach, opposing federal funding for research on new embryonic stem cells lines–which involves the destruction of innocent human life–while placing no restrictions on the more promising research based on stem cells from adults and umbilical cords.)

3. Historian Garry Wills linked the results with the 1925 Scopes trial, in which fundamentalist Christians, led by William Jennings Bryan, were discredited for their simplistic opposition to evolution, causing many to withdraw from the larger society. Wills called the vote “Bryan’s revenge,” asking, “Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an enlightened nation?”

So if Gore is seeking to accuse those with whom he disagrees of being intolerant bigots, then he'd better take a number. To me, however, it looks like he's still just mad that he lost the 2000 election (i.e. "Those who refused to vote for me are kooks") and frustrated that his overhyped book and documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, hasn't won over the skeptics as well as it has the mainstream media.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 21, 2007 4:20PM | Comments (21)

With the death of Jerry Falwell, The New York Times reports that old-school political activism has also died among evangelicals. The piece says that evangelicals are getting more interested in issues with widespread appeal, like AIDS and the environment, and losing their bombast when it comes to hot-button issues like abortion. See Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and Rich Cizik.

It's nothing new really. The story's been written dozens of times. But, some stats may be new to readers. The Times reports,

John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life ... placed evangelicals into three camps — traditionalist, centrist and modernist — based on the how rigidly they adhered to their beliefs and their willingness to adapt them to a changing world. The traditionalists are evangelicals who are usually labeled as the Christian right, while the centrists might be represented by the newer breed of evangelical leaders, who remain socially and theologically quite conservative but have mostly sought to avoid politics. The two camps are roughly the same size, each representing 40 to 50 percent of the total.

Experts agree, though, that the centrist camp is growing

If it's true that centrist evangelicals are a growing group, what do we make Ohio's patriot pastors, Dobson's increased political activity, and the Family Research Council's new position as evangelicals' main lobbying group?

Posted by Rob Moll at May 21, 2007 1:53PM | Comments (1)

"Abortion rights supporters ... have had to grapple with the reality that the right to choose may well be used selectively to abort fetuses deemed genetically undesirable," reports The New York Times for the second time in the last two weeks. "And many are finding that, while they support a woman’s right to have an abortion if she does not want to have a baby, they are less comfortable when abortion is used by women who don’t want to have a particular baby."

Public opinon seems to be on the side of those who chose to abort genetically disabled babies. 70 percent of Americans agree with such a choice. Where should America draw the line between a legitmate reason for aborting a baby and an illegitimate one?

Kirsten Moore, president of the pro-choice Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said that when members of her staff recently discussed whether to recommend that any prenatal tests be banned, they found it impossible to draw a line — even at sex selection, which almost all found morally repugnant. “We all had our own zones of discomfort but still couldn’t quite bring ourselves to say, ‘Here’s the line, firm and clear’ because that is the core of the pro-choice philosophy,” she said. “You can never make that decision for someone else.”

Unless you say that that decision to is not theirs to make.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 21, 2007 1:21PM | Comments (12)

Krista Tippett interviews Shane Claiborne on her public radio program Speaking of Faith. For those who were interested in CT's coverage of the New Monasticism Tippett's interview gives more background information on what drew Claiborne into the life that he and others model in the new monasticism.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 21, 2007 11:44AM | Comments (2)

According to LifeNews.com, Catholic politicians are deeply offended that Pope Benedict wants the church to be the church. Benedict recently said that Catholic politicians who vote for policies that support abortion automatically excommunicate themselves. In response, a group of these politicians said, the penalty of excommunication "offend(s) the very nature of the American experiment and do(es) a great disservice to the centuries of good work the church has done."

God forbid that the church would do anything to question the American experiment.

Posted by Mark Galli at May 21, 2007 8:55AM | Comments (2)

When I saw that Shane Claiborne's book The Irresistible Revolution was being released on audio, I wasn't surprised. It was a good read; Shane's an interesting character. But I was surprised when I saw the catalog's ad copy that read something like "The revolution continues, and now it's available on MP3." How can these guys continue their critique of consumer Christianity when they're hawking their goods like this? I thought.

I was relieved then, when I saw The Wittenburg Door's interview with Claiborne in its May/June issue.

DOOR: What do you do with the royalties from your book?

CLAIBORNE: In the back of the book, I list ordinary radicals and local revolutions. We're spreading that money out to a lot of other groups that are doing beautiful work. To me, that's the only logical way that I would know to have integrity with that.

The rest of the interview is Shane being Shane. Here's his response to his being on the cover of CT.

When people want to talk about the new monasticism I'm like, "No, no. I'm not really interested in that. I want to talk about community, church history, and things like that." I feel like it's one thing to say life happens like we're doing here, talking in a diner. It's another thing to say, "Let's have a conference about talking in diners." Now we have book deals and stuff, so it gets really complicated.

Also, from reading a lot of the buzz around all of this, you get the sense that God is very, very hard at work among male white evangelicals. That puts a tremendous responsibility on those of us who find ourselves in places where we're more visible because there is a whole lot happening in the Church all over the world that doesn't make the magazine covers.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 17, 2007 9:03AM | Comments (1)

Last night I attended (and played the organ for) Bob Webber’s memorial service. (You can read Bob’s Christianity Today obit here.)

The memorial service was wonderful in many ways, but I want to point to one thing in particular. It wasn’t about Bob.

Well, yes, it was about Bob, it couldn’t help being about Bob, but as someone who has written a multitude of pages and taught innumerable students about worship, Bob insisted that his service focus on the great saving acts of God.

Here is part of what he wrote for the worship leaflet:

As a Christian I have always believed in Christ as the Victor over sin and death. I believe that Christ was the Second Adam, sent to this earth as God Incarnate, suffered death, was buried and rose from the dead to restore the entire creation. I believe that it is God who narrates the entire world and creation, from start to finish. Consequently I have no fear of death although I do fear the process.

Today, there are literally hundreds of different styles one can follow ... for a funeral. However, historic Christian funerals were always about God. I ... truly want [my own funeral] to be about God who created this world, defeated Satan at the cross and rose victorious over death and the grave.

Today we begin with several eulogies, then when those are done, the real funeral begins and it’s all about God. I want my funeral to be a testimony to the God who raises us from hopelessness and blesses us with new life in Him. ...

And that is the way it was last night. As a large crowd of mourners packed into Christ Church of Oak Brook, we heard the eulogies first, and then we focused on God, remembering Christ’s death and resurrection and looking forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This is the way it should be, because there is no greater comfort than the gospel. Too often funerals play down the reality of death with sentimental poetry such as these lines from Shelley: “he is not dead, he doth not sleep -/ He hath awakened from the dream of life.” We don’t need romanticism, but redemption—especially at funerals.

Posted by David Neff at May 17, 2007 8:53AM | Comments (3)

Journalist Studs Terkel (Working) turns 95 today. Studs is a liberal in the old-fashioned populist sense: committed to labor and the working person.

Terkel's journalism was based on interviews. Listening to real people talk about their lives. As an outsider to religion, he would nevertheless pay attention to religion on occasion because it was part of the working class landscape and a vital part of people's lives. One of my favorite Studs Terkel radio shows was his classic interview with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Chicago's WFMT used to replay it every Good Friday. And you could hear the pained longing in Terkel's voice as he listened to her talk about Christ's sacrifice and sing "Were You There?"

Here's a snapshot of Studs and me from September 2002. Christianity Today hosted Studs for some in-service education with our editors and writers. What a storyteller!

Sorry the photo doesn't show Terkel's signature red socks. The red-and-white checked shirt is just as much a part of his trademark, though.

Posted by David Neff at May 17, 2007 8:47AM | Comments (2)

A long-standing and bitter division in Russian Orthodoxy has ended. An Associated Press article reports on how the the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia can now share pulpits and, more importantly, the Eucharist. The division occurred in the 1920, the church abroad accusing the national church of betrayal when it announced its loyalty to the communist government. Anyone who has followed Russian Orthodoxy knows how deeply divided these groups have been. It's nice to note--for a change--Christians coming together.

Posted by Mark Galli at May 17, 2007 8:20AM | Comments (10)

Michael Gerson has launched his semi-weekly Washington Post column with a piece on the Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola's recent Virginia trip and the Anglican dispute.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 16, 2007 3:23PM | Comments (0)

From a press release:

The Board of Trustees of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary has appointed Dr. Haddon W. Robinson as Interim President, effective July 1, 2007. Dr. Robinson succeeds Dr. James Emery White, who has resigned, effective June 30, 2007, due to family considerations which resulted in his unanticipated inability to relocate as planned from North Carolina to Massachusetts. Dr. White will continue to teach as Professor of Theology and Culture at the Charlotte Campus.

White has been president since July 1, 2006. CT's original report to follow shortly.

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 16, 2007 2:41PM | Comments (0)

The passing of one of America's most prominent Southern Baptist pastors is prompting many comparisons to another, Rick Warren. A Dallas Morning News editorial is one example:

[By 9/11/01,] Mr. Falwell's brand of political Christianity was beginning to lose its luster within evangelicalism. New leaders were rising, pushing issues like care for the environment and compassion for Africans suffering from AIDS. Younger pastors like Rick Warren ... have become voices of a less partisan movement that engages the wider world but is not as closely tied to the Republican Party. Mr. Falwell's death marks not only the passing of a man, but the passing of an era.

(Warren's response after the jump.)

The Washington Post's Hanna Rosin similarly writes:

The new breed of evangelical leader does not have the temperament of a protester. He is a consummate professional who speaks in modulated terms and knows his way around Washington. ... If they took a political poll on the usual culture war issues, Falwell and Warren would end up in exactly the same place -- antiabortion, against gay rights. Both have written books saying that Jesus is the only way to salvation. But Warren's public style is entirely different.

For the most part, Warren keeps a low political profile. When asked which presidential candidate he supports, he praises both Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a Democrat, and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican and religious conservative. Warren donated the proceeds from his book to help combat AIDS in Africa. He associates himself with "creation care," a movement of evangelical environmentalists. To ensure wide distribution, Warren makes sure he goes down easy: "You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense," reads a quote from him printed on millions of Starbucks cups. ... Warren is an obvious leader but he shuns the political spotlight.

Rosin calls evangelicalism's "Falwell generation" -- she names James Dobson as a cohort -- as "a little too extreme for mainstream politics." Wake Forest's Bill Leonard made a similar comment to CT's reporter: "With some exceptions, the new generation of megachurch pastors are just not as interested in politicizing their ministries as Falwell did." But when one thinks of his other evangelical leaders born in the 1920s and 1930s, the names that spring to my mind at least are either anything but too extreme for mainstream politics (Jimmy Carter, Mark Hatfield, Chuck Colson, Rep. Frank Wolf, Millard Fuller, Tony Campolo, Al Quie, John Perkins) or those hardly associated with politics (Chuck Swindoll, Bill Bright, R.C. Sproul, Robert Schuller, Lew Smedes, John Wimber, David Wilkerson, Adrian Rogers, Tom Oden, Stan Mooneyham, Stephen V. Monsma, Josh McDowell, Haddon Robinson, Eugene Peterson, Clayton Bell). Want to note that Robertson is of the same "generation"? Sure, but he can do AIDS, environment, and folksy inspiration as well as anyone.

Time's Nancy Gibbs gets it: "It will be tempting to call Falwell's passing the end of an era, but that risks missing the larger point. The movement he helped lead was never monolithic, or as tidy as its critics imagine — or obedient to earthly powers."

Anyway, back to Warren. His press release on Falwell's death is revealing for what it says about both men:

“Jerry Falwell was one of the giant figures who towered over the 20th Century American church. While most people knew him as the founder of the Moral Majority, the face of the Religious Right, and by some of his more controversial statements, many saw only his opponent’s caricature of the real man.

The story was never told about his compassionate heart, his gentle spirit, his enormous sense of humor, and the millions he invested in helping the underprivileged. Jerry founded the Elim Home for alcoholics, the Center for tutoring inner city children, the Hope Aglow ministry to prisoners, Liberty Godparent Home for unwed mothers, and literally dozens of other compassion projects to help the poor, the sick, and others in desperate need.

I believe Jerry Falwell’s primary legacy will not be his political leadership, but the church he pastored for 50 years; the university he founded that has produced two generations of leaders; the millions who heard him preach the Good News; the innovations in ministry he introduced; and the thousands of young pastors, like myself, whom he constantly encouraged, even when we did it differently.“

A focus on his church, encouraging other pastors, and dozens of compassion projects. That's what Warren thinks Falwell's legacy is. The headline on Rosin's article says Falwell was "old news" to evangelical leaders like Warren. Sounds like Warren disagrees. (Update: The Ocala Star-Banner reports that Falwell liked Warren, too.)

Posted by Ted Olsen at May 16, 2007 2:01PM | Comments (3)

Wiccans seem to feel discriminated against, despite the fact that in my local bookstore carries as many shelves of books on the subject as it has shelves for mainstream religions. But, The New York Times reports that Wiccans are afraid of even telling their families about their religious beliefs.

Among the most popular religions to have flowered since the 1960s, Wicca — a form of paganism — still faces a struggle for acceptance, experts on the religion and Wiccans themselves said. In April, Wiccans won an important victory when the Department of Veterans Affairs settled a lawsuit and agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.

But Wicca in the civilian world is largely a religion in hiding. Wiccans fear losing their friends and jobs if people find out about their faith.

Interestingly, it seems that one of the fears of those who opposed children reading the Harry Potter books were well founded. "Wiccans face less backlash now than in the past. The Internet provides information about Wicca, and the popularity of the Harry Potter novels has made magic seem a force for good, scholars and Wiccans say. "

Posted by Rob Moll at May 16, 2007 9:18AM | Comments (27)

The Billy Graham evangelistic association has issued this statement from evangelist Rev. Dr. Billy Graham concerning the death of Jerry Falwell:

"Jerry Falwell was a close personal friend for many years. We did not always agree on everything, but I knew him to be a man of God. His accomplishments went beyond most clergy of his generation. Some of my grandchildren have attended and currently attend Liberty University. He leaves a gigantic vacuum in the evangelical world. I am praying for his family, and especially the university that he headed."

Posted by Tim Morgan at May 15, 2007 3:05PM | Comments (14)

Jerry Falwell, an accomplished evangelist, pastor, educator, and political leader, has died. He was 73. Falwell had a history of heart problems, but officials have not yet confirmed the cause of death.

Posted by Collin Hansen at May 15, 2007 12:45PM | Comments (3)

The local newspaper in Lynchburg, Virginia, reports that Jerry Falwell has been taken to the hospital. According to a Liberty University official, Falwell missed a morning meeting and was discovered unconscious in his office.

Posted by Collin Hansen at May 15, 2007 12:10PM | Comments (0)

BusinessWeek reports

In recent years, a range of businesses have made financing more readily available to even the riskiest of borrowers. Greater access to credit has put cars, computers, credit cards, and even homes within reach for many more of the working poor. But this remaking of the marketplace for low-income consumers has a dark side: Innovative and zealous firms have lured unsophisticated shoppers by the hundreds of thousands into a thicket of debt from which many never emerge.

There may be money to be made lending to the poor. It may make business sense, though the recent sub-prime lending collapse shows the risks in lending to the poor. And it may allow the poor to buy things they couldn't otherwise afford. But is it right?

Posted by Rob Moll at May 14, 2007 2:57PM | Comments (13)

There’s been a legitimate debate about President Bush’s faith-based initiative and the wisdom of ministries seeking government funds to carry out the “secular” aspect of their social ministries—helping the homeless, the unemployed, the drug addicted, the victims of spousal abuse. Will such ministries over-secularize their efforts just to keep government inspectors happy—or their own consciences clean? Should the church do such ministry without an appropriate spiritual component?

Those are all legitimate areas for debate. But a New York Times story posted this past weekend raises a related and still more problematic issue. Religious Groups Reap Federal Aid for Pet Projects reports that a number of religious institutions and ministries have now hired lobbyists to seek earmarks for their special projects. Unlike grants made through the usual welfare programs, earmark funding carries little or no accountability. No regulators. No inspectors. And earmarks are a multifaceted problem for our federal budget. (See Chuck Colson’s CT column, "The Earmark Epidemic" from October 2006.)

The article quotes NAE vice president for governmental affairs Rich Cizik thus:

The Rev. Richard Cizik ... said that while religious organizations should be able to compete for federal money, such groups “shouldn’t do that through earmarks.” He explained, “As good stewards of the public trust, we have to be transparent and above board — and earmarks are not transparent or above board.”

Time for a new debate.

Posted by David Neff at May 14, 2007 7:58AM | Comments (3)

While running my errands this weekend, I listened to the first three disks of the audiobook, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul. The author is Tony Hendra, a great satirist who was a university chum of John Cleese and Graham Chapman and who went on to become the editor-in-chief of Spy.

It is wonderfully comic for a spiritual memoir, but when the author gets serious, he is full of insight. After the stern and aloof husband of the woman he didn't quite seduce dragged the 14-year-old Tony to a monastery to be admonished and shriven, Hendra had a religious experience in which all the mumbo jumbo he'd been taught as a Catholic child suddenly came alive for him--became real! His description of that almost sounds like the classic evangelical conversion story.

But to my point ...

His conversion turned him on to history. Read these few graphs and think of Bob Webber--or even Tom Oden. This is ancient future stuff transplanted into the life of an English Catholic teen.

... [T]his new grasp of the realness of things ... lit up unexpected areas of my life--areas I'd preferred to ignore or endure up till then. History, once my most and then my least favorite subject, resumed center stage. It had become a tedium to study, a forgettable rat's next of dates and places and people, every one of them stone-cold dead and of no relevance to the here and now. Just as Latin was a dead language, history was a dead subject. I asked Mum once why we had to belong to such an incredibly old religion--weren't there any new ones? (She didn't agree or disagree, but she did give me a lurid pamphlet the Jehovah's Witnesses had left behind.)

Now, driven by the need to dig farther and--just as urgently--to experience the actuality of everything I could, history became my new frontier, the past became my future, a vast terra incognita, every discovery of which was another chunk of virgin territory I could claim, bringing with it the glow of ownership, the anticipatory thrill of further exploration.

What if we gave every new convert a subscription to Christian History & Biography? What if we plied them with the great lovers of God--with Pascal and Augustine and Theresa? What if we taught them that they were part of a very, very old religion--taught them to take seriously the communion of the saints?

It seemed to work for the editor of Spy.

Posted by David Neff at May 14, 2007 6:36AM | Comments (3)

Jay Swartzendruber, editor of CCM, says, "We’re going to start mixing indie and general market Christians such as The Fray, Mary J. Blige and Sufjan Stevens in with artists with traditional Christian label affiliation. Rather than define ‘Christian music’ just by its label or distribution, we’re now defining it as Christian worldview music."

As if the genre weren't confused enough, this is going to clarify things?

Next, the press release touting the new CCM says:

As the grassroots contemporary Christian music scene mushroomed into a billion dollar industry, “Christian music” became widely regarded as an actual genre, even though it included rock, pop, hip-hop, punk, hardcore metal and other styles of music. As a result, many artists of faith who are reluctant to have their music defined by the Christian market have chosen to bypass it altogether. With this expanded view of “Christian music,” CCM Magazine now celebrates the full spectrum of faith-fueled music and musicians.

I always thought that bands avoided the CCM label because some people think most CCM music is not worth listening to. With this expanded view of CCM, won't bands made of Christians who want to avoid the CCM scene only work harder to avoid it?

Posted by Rob Moll at May 10, 2007 9:55AM | Comments (15)

The New York Times reports that former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani will offer an explanation of his views on abortion.

The shift in emphasis comes as the Giuliani campaign has struggled to deal with the fallout from the first Republican presidential candidate debate, in which he gave halting and apparently contradictory responses to questions about his support for abortion rights. ...

The campaign’s approach would be a sharp departure from the traditional route to the Republican nomination in the last 20 years, in which Republicans have highlighted their antiabortion views.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 10, 2007 9:28AM | Comments (0)

The headlines were so predictable I almost didn't read the stories: "Pope Opens Trip with Remarks Against Abortion" (New York Times) and "Pope Stresses Opposition to Abortion" (Associated Press).

Is the Pope Catholic?

But there seems to be some news here. On his flight to Brazil, the Pope made some remarks that seemed to condemn not only women who have abortions and the doctors who provide them, but also the polticians who vote for legalization of abortion--as they did recently in Mexico, providing for legal abortions up to 12 weeks gestation.

Papal spokesman (when it's the Vatican, you can use the gender-specific term) Federico Lombardi immediately tried to soften the possible implication of the Pope's words. But then, well, I'll let the New York Times tell the story:

The pope’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, quickly issued a clarification that played down his words, but then issued a statement approved by the pope that seemed to confirm a new gravity on politicians who allow abortion.

“Legislative action in favor of abortion is incompatible with participation in the Eucharist,” the statement said, and politicians who vote that way should “exclude themselves from communion.”

So, this turns the clock back to the 2004 election controversy over St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke telling pro-choice Catholic presidential candidate John Kerry that he should not receive communion when campaigning on Burke's turf. If memory serves, Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick tried to soften the potential impact of Burke's statements. But now that Benedict has spoken, it looks like Burke may have been right.

The automatic self-excommunication that applies to women who have abortions and their doctors also applies to legislators. This doesn't mean that priests are supposed to become the Communion police, but it does mean that the Church considers it a pretty grievous thing for a Catholic politician who has voted to legalize abortion to present him or herself to receive Communion.

Christianity Today's June 2004 editorial on the dispute between Burke and Kerry can be read in the CT Library (paid archive).

Posted by David Neff at May 10, 2007 7:14AM | Comments (9)

Last year, just before the students returned to the campus of the Roman Catholic Georgetown University, the school's Protestant chaplain informed six evangelical student ministries that they were being "disafilliated." That is, they could not use campus facilities for their events, could not advertise their events on campus, and could not use the Georgetown name or logo.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was one of the affected ministries, and the irony could not have been sharper: the daughter of IVCF president Alec Hill was a Georgetown student.

InterVarsity has been fighting legal battles at public campuses defending students' right to join voluntary associations on campus that could hold to the standards of Christian belief and behavior. There have been some very positive results from these legal actions at, for example, Rutgers (2002) and the University of Wisconsin-Superior (2007).

Georgetown, though, is a private, church-related university, and it had the legal right to ban any non-Catholic group from its campus. But that's no way to run a university. As Alec Hill said at the time, "As a parent, I am surprised Georgetown as a major university would close down freedom of association for their students. That seems contrary to Georgetown's ethos. It's an open marketplace of ideas."

Well, today I received a news release from IVCF announcing that Georgetown had completely restructured things, clearing the way for IVCF and other similar ministries to reaffiliate. Read InterVarsity's news release here.

While IVCF had to bring legal pressure elsewhere, genuine dialogue and listening seemed to work in this case. A university open the free exchange of ideas! What a blast from the past!

Posted by David Neff at May 9, 2007 4:39PM | Comments (3)

If the debate on this website between Doug Wilson, a a pastor and educator, and atheist pundit Christopher Hitchens has whetted your appetite for more, you'll want to check out "Nightline" tonight. Evangelist Ray Comfort and actor Kirk Cameron will debate two members of the so-called "Rational Response Squad."

The RRS, as you may know, has organized the Web-based "Blasphemy Challenge" to encourage people to blaspheme the Holy Spirit as a way to declare their freedom from and lack of fear over all religious beliefs. The founder of the movement, Brian Sapient, equates theism with belief in the tooth fairy, saying, "There isn't any good reason to believe in God."

This debate, which will be available online at 1 p.m. Central today on ABC News Now, promises to be interesting. I've heard Comfort, a bold street evangelist, speak, and I expect him to do well. I am concerned, however, over the parameters of this debate. Comfort promises to "prove" God's existence scientifically and without reference to the Bible or faith. First, while faith in God is eminently reasonable (the world's greatest minds, including everyone from C.S. Lewis to Isaac Newton to Francis Collins, have affirmed Christian faith), faith is still required, for "without faith it is impossible to please God." Second, while Christian faith made scientific discovery possible and many of the world's first and greatest scientists have been Christians, restricting the debate to things scientific unfortunately plays into the current prejudice that the only "facts" that are real or valiid are based in science. But there are many fields of inquiry that are not open to the scientific method (history being one of them). Thus, the terms of the debate will only take us so far.

I remember the time my wife and I sat down with a friend who had lots of questions about Christianity. At the onset I asked him if he would become a Christian if we answered all his questions. He said yes. Then we talked and we answered his questions, one by one. But he still declined to become a Christian. It was not for a lack of facts. It was a lack of will. As the Bible says, "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" I don't think a debate restricted to scientific facts, however it goes, will change that.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at May 9, 2007 9:01AM | Comments (15)

Another good read on the need for Westerners to become more spiritually educated (especially Western politicians) is in this week's Weekly Standard. John J. DiIulio Jr. writes

what I hereby baptize as spiritualpolitique is a soft-power perspective on politics that emphasizes religion's domestic and international significance, accounts for religion's present and potential power to shape politics within and among nations, and understands religion not as some abstract force measured by its resiliency vis-à-vis "modernity" and not by its supporting role in "civilizations" that cooperate or clash. Rather, a perspective steeped in spiritualpolitique requires attention to the particularities that render this or that actual religion as preached and practiced by present-day peoples so fascinating to ethnographers (who can spend lifetimes immersed in single sects) and so puzzling to most of the social scientists who seek, often in vain, to characterize and quantify religions, or to track religion-related social and political trends.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 8, 2007 3:13PM | Comments (0)

Updates: Francis Beckwith, who rejoined the Roman Catholic Church and resigned over the weekend as president of the Evangelical Theological Society, has also withdrawn his membership. And moments ago the ETS executive committee released the following statement:

Statement of the ETS Executive Committee regarding
Dr. Frank Beckwith’s Resignation as ETS President
May 8, 2007

On May 5, 2007, Dr. Frank Beckwith resigned as President of the Evangelical Theological Society. This resignation has come as a result of his decision to be received into full communion in the Roman Catholic Church, which he did on April 29, 2007. Dr. Beckwith has informed the Executive Committee that this was a decision he came to “after much prayer, counsel, and consideration.” Subsequently, after further prayer and reflection, Dr. Beckwith has voluntarily withdrawn his membership from the Society as well.

The members of the Executive Committee wish Dr. Beckwith well in his ongoing professional work. We have come to appreciate him as a scholar and a friend. On behalf of the Society, we want to express our gratitude for his work organizing and coordinating the 2006 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., with the theme, “Evangelicals in the Public Square.” No one, perhaps, appreciates how much labor is involved in such a task, except those who have undertaken it in the past, as is the case with most of the members of the Executive Committee. And so, we thank Dr. Beckwith for his service to the Society.

At the same time, the Executive Committee recognizes Dr. Beckwith’s resignation as President and subsequent withdrawal from membership as appropriate in light of the purpose and doctrinal basis of the Evangelical Theological Society and in light of the requirements of wholehearted confessional agreement with the Roman Catholic Church.

The work of the Evangelical Theological Society as a scholarly forum proceeds on the basis that “the Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.” This affirmation, together with the statement on the Trinity, forms the basis for membership in the ETS to which all members annually subscribe in writing. Confessional Catholicism, as defined by the Roman Catholic Church’s declarations from the Council of Trent to Vatican II, sets forth a more expansive view of verbal, infallible revelation.

Specifically, it posits a larger canon of Scripture than that recognized by evangelical Protestants, including in its canon several writings from the Apocrypha. It also extends the quality of infallibility to certain expressions of church dogma issued by the Magisterium (the teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church), as well as certain pronouncements of the pope, which are delivered ex cathedra, such as doctrines about the immaculate conception and assumption of Mary.

We recognize the right of Roman Catholic theologians to do their theological work on the basis of all the authorities they consider to be revelatory and infallible, even as we wholeheartedly affirm the distinctive contribution and convictional necessity of the work of the Evangelical Theological Society on the basis of the “Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety” as “the Word of God written and . . . inerrant.”

In recent years, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics have often labored together in common cause addressing some of the critical social and moral issues of our contemporary culture. We welcome this and fully expect it to continue. A number of publications have appeared comparing Evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism. Certainly, the two traditions share many common Christian doctrines. However there are important theological differences as well. We expect that the events of these days will bring a renewed discussion of these matters. We welcome and encourage this as well.

Finally, regarding the Presidency of ETS, Dr. Hassell Bullock, President-elect will also serve as acting President until the annual meeting at which time elections for the officers for 2008 will take place.

We are grateful for Dr. Beckwith's past association with ETS, and we pray that God will continue to use his considerable gifts.

C. Hassell Bullock, President-Elect
(Wheaton College)

Bruce A. Ware, Vice-President
(The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)

Edwin M. Yamauchi, At-large member
(Miami University)

Craig A. Blaising, At-large member
(Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary)

Gregory K. Beale, At-large member
(Wheaton College)

David M. Howard, Jr., At-large member
(Bethel Seminary)

James A. Borland, Secretary-Treasurer
(Liberty University)

Andreas J. Köstenberger, JETS Editor
(Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary)

Posted by Collin Hansen at May 8, 2007 10:36AM | Comments (12)

Slate reports on the potential return of the Latin Mass to the Roman church. "Traditionalists prefer the power of Latin to what they see as the banality of the liturgy in English. And many Catholics associate the Latin Mass with the church's glorious heritage of ancient music and solemnity in worship—a heritage some say has been lost in the liturgical changes that have been enacted over the last few decades."
So will Protestants pick up the "hocus pocus" jeers of the Reformation? Or, perhaps the jeers were never dropped.

Posted by Rob Moll at May 8, 2007 10:11AM | Comments (1)

Now that Hebrew University archaeologist has held his Tuesday press conference, the newspaper Haaretez has updated its coverage of the discovery of King Herod's tomb.

It turns out that Herod's limestone sarcophagus was raided and smashed shortly after his death. Netzer's team discovered no bones, but they are sure the tomb is Herod's given its ornate decoration and other unusual characteristics.

The Herod news has paled, however, as Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has survived three attempts at a no-confidencde vote in the Knesset. Sixteen members of his party either voted against him, abstained, or absented themselves. Remarkably, Olmert, unlike Herod, is still politically alive.

Posted by David Neff at May 8, 2007 7:22AM | Comments (0)

How many “base communities” are there in Brazil? And how healthy is the liberation theology that spawned them?

The New York Times run-up story to Pope Benedict’s visit to Brazil wants you to believe that reports of liberation theology’s demise are greatly exaggerated. Despite official attempts to suppress this Marxist version of politicized Catholicism, says the Times, there are 80,000 active base communities in Brazil’s vast territory.

The Associated Press is more conservative. It estimates the number that have been active in the past at about 60,000.

Neither the Times nor the AP sources its numbers.

The Economist, a news magazine that is supposed to be good with numbers, does not offer an estimate. It only reports that the notably pro-liberation 1968 Medellin conference of bishops “spawned innumerable ‘base communities,’” and reports that their numbers are now in decline.

The numbers the Economist does cite show an overall decline in the Roman Catholic market share in Brazil, a point also made in the AP report.

In Brazil, the world's largest Catholic country, the church has lost adherents at a rate of 1% a year since 1991, mainly to Pentecostal churches. Fewer than three-quarters of Brazilians are now Catholics while 15% are Protestants (known locally as “evangelicals”).

For the sake of comparison, the World Christian Database estimates more than 80% of the overall population of Latin American is Roman Catholic.

The shifts are not only in the direction of Pentecostal Protestantism, says the Economist, but also in the direction of charismatic-style Catholicism. At least half of active Catholics in Brazil have gravitated toward the charismatic movement. “The Catholic response to the Pentecostal challenge is to imitate it.”

Posted by David Neff at May 7, 2007 9:42PM | Comments (2)

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz broke the news Monday night of a stunning archaeological discovery, scooping the press conference Hebrew University had planned for Tuesday.

Ehud Netzer, a Hebrew University professor, has discovered the tomb of King Herod the Great—the same Herod that according to Matthew 2 tried to kill the infant Jesus by massacring all the male children under two in the region of Bethlehem. Herod’s cruelty to his own family was so well known that even Augustus Caesar said he would rather be Herod’s dog than his son.

Netzer has been looking for Herod's grave at the site known as Herodium, some 12 km miles south of Jerusalem, since 1972. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus had named Herodium as the site of Herod’s burial, but until now, the grave had escaped detection.

Herodium was a fortified palace, refuge, and mausoleum. The site was destroyed by the Romans in AD 71.

The Haaretz story is at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/856784.html. More details will be released at Tuesday’s press conference. Archaeology buffs should watch the Haaretz web site and that of Hebrew University.

Posted by David Neff at May 7, 2007 8:50PM | Comments (0)

I've seen more surprising news, but Francis Beckwith's decision rejoin the Roman Catholic Church will send some kind of tremors through the Evangelical Theological Society, which he served as president. Beckwith, associate professor of church-state studies at Baylor University, has resigned as ETS president but said he will maintain his membership. Anyone reading the comments on Beckwith's blog can attest: No, the Reformation is not over.

Posted by Collin Hansen at May 7, 2007 9:27AM | Comments (18)

Last week, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post looked into the political theater surrounding the National Day of Prayer. Milbank offers "behind the scenes" access that you don't hear about from press releases.

Posted by Collin Hansen at May 7, 2007 9:14AM | Comments (0)

Newsweek had Rick Warren vs. Sam Harris.

Beliefnet had Harris vs. Andrew Sullivan.

Next week, ABC’s Nightline has Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort vs. the BlasphemyChallenge.com guys.

No. Really. Nightline has tapped Kirk Cameron to be fidei defensor.

I suppose we could have asked Cameron, too. Or maybe Lisa Whelchel, Mr. T, Willie Aames, Justine Bateman, or Gavin McLeod.

Instead, we’d rather hear from Douglas Wilson, author of the new book, Letter from a Christian Citizen (American Vision). Wilson is senior fellow of theology at New Saint Andrews College and minister at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. He is also the editor of Credenda/Agenda magazine and has written (among other things) Reforming Marriage and