When former quarterback Kurt Warner became an overnight sensation for the St. Louis Rams in the late 1990s, he rubbed a few people the wrong way for his outspoken Christian faith. He says he learned the hard way that he should've been more sparing with his religious rhetoric, and that he should've simply let his actions do most of the talking.

Now he's got the same advice for Tim Tebow, the rising star QB for the Denver Broncos who is also outspoken about his Christian faith. In an interview with the Arizona Republic, Warner said that Tebow should tone it down a bit -- maybe even on the "Tebowing."

"You can't help but cheer for a guy like that," Warner told the newspaper. "But I'd tell him, 'Put down the boldness in regards to the words, and keep living the way you're living. Let your teammates do the talking for you. Let them cheer on your testimony.'

"I know what he's going through, and I know what he wants to accomplish, but I don't want anybody to become calloused toward Tim because they don't understand him, or are not fully aware of who he is. And you're starting to see that a little bit."

Tebow is getting more attention than usual since he became the Broncos' starting quarterback last month. Denver was 1-4 when Tebow became the starter, and they've won five of six games since with him at the helm. With that, though, has come more scrutiny -- and not just about his football skills. Former Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer said recently that he wished Tebow would "just shut up after a game. . . . I think that when he accepts the fact that we know that he loves Jesus Christ, then I think I’ll like him a little better. I don’t hate him because of that, I just would rather not have to hear that every time he takes a good snap or makes a good handoff.”

Warner was more diplomatic, but essentially had the same message: Chill out on the God talk. And he speaks from experience: After leading the Rams to a Super Bowl victory, Warner thanked Jesus on national TV, and kept doing so for some time afterward. Till he learned his own lesson, which he now imparts to Tebow.

"There's almost a faith cliche, where (athletes) come out and say, 'I want to thank my Lord and savior,' " Warner told The Republic. "As soon as you say that, the guard goes up, the walls go up, and I came to realize you have to be more strategic.

"The greatest impact you can have on people is never what you say, but how you live. When you speak and represent the person of Jesus Christ in all actions of your life, people are drawn to that. You set the standard with your actions. The words can come after."

(photo by Jeffrey Beall)

Posted by Mark Moring at November 30, 2011 6:01PM | Comments (68)

George Gallup Jr.’s family name was to opinion polls what iPod is to mp3 players. Gallup died this week at age 81, and merited obituaries in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. George Jr., as he was known professionally, was noted not only for his careful work in polling, but also for expanding and applying that methodology to the study of American religion.

Former Christianity Today associate editor Timothy K. Jones collaborated with Gallup on two books: The Saints Among Us and The Next American Spirituality. Here he remembers the George Gallup he came to know.

We have updated this post with additional comments from D. Michael Lindsay and Ed Stetzer, as well as information on an upcoming memorial service at Princeton University, after the jump. --David Neff

* * *

This week the world of trend watching and election forecasting lost a pioneer. For readers of newspapers and political blogs, he owned one of the most recognizable names in America. But there was more to him than the research firm that so captured the attention of pundits and politicians.

Through my years as a CT editor, I got to know the person behind the public opinion polling. I saw not only his fascination with cultural currents, but also his even deeper running love of the historic Christian faith.

I first met George Gallup, Jr., when I interviewed him for the magazine. A calendar milestone was approaching, and we knew he was a key person to consult on the coming decade, especially since he had been shifting some research focus to religion, having founded the Princeton Religion Research Project with sociologist and Catholic nun Miriam Murphy in 1977.

During the interview, I learned that he had just completed a research project on what Americans believed and the potential impact of that faith on how they behaved. He wanted to do more than chart the percentages of people who subscribed to certain doctrinal norms. He wondered how faith affected their actions: Did people who profess strong convictions about Christ and the Bible act more generously, for instance?

I eventually signed on as his cowriter for the book project that emerged. At one point we considered titling the book America’s Hidden Saints, but we ended up calling it The Saints Among Us.

I wouldn’t have guessed from George’s manner that he had grown up in privileged circumstances. His father, George Gallup, Sr., founded the institution that made its name by predicting Franklin D. Roosevelt’s lopsided victory over Alf Landon in 1936.

The son expanded on his father’s efforts, and the Gallup organization created branches around the world. His base in Princeton, New Jersey, placed him at another spot on the cultural map. One of the times we conferred on a book project we met, at his invitation, at the Princeton Club of New York, a mid-Manhattan club (with squash courts and an inn and restaurant) for alums of the prestigious school. It breathed heady notes of affluence and achievement.

I was a bit awed during our first interview, and when I listened to the tape, I realized I ummed and aahed in getting out my questions more than I would have liked. But George was unfailingly gracious, just as he was when, later, I sent stressed and urgent faxes asking for the data I needed for the next batch of our writing. He never relented in his kindness. I have known few people more gentle and genuinely humble, all the more striking given his big-boned frame and square-jawed profile.

Gentle though he was, he was never shy about his Christian convictions. His faith was evangelical at the core, and he regularly attended an Episcopal congregation. He loved to speak at churches and Christian conferences, telling of heartening signs of a “groundswell” of spiritual interest in America. And he told me of how as a young man he thought for a while that he would be an Episcopal priest, even though he eventually returned, after a stint as a lay youth minister, to the family business.

I think of him today not so much as a household name, but rather as a man of quiet conviction who longed to live out his faith. I consider him, to echo the titles we considered for our book, a hidden saint. A saint among us.

Timothy Jones is senior associate rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and the director of St. George's Institute of Church and Cultural Life and its annual C3 Conference. He is the author of several books, including The Art of Prayer.

* * *

D. Michael Lindsay: Gave journalists empirical data on the rise of religion in political life

Sociologist D. Michael Lindsay also wrote two books with George Gallup Jr. : Surveying the Religious Landscape and The Gallup Guide: Reality Check for 21st-Century Churches.

Now president of Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, Lindsay is known for his sociological studies of leadership. But earlier in his career, he served as a consultant for religion and culture to the George H. Gallup International Institute, where he directed several national surveys.

Christianity Today’s Sarah Bailey talked with Lindsay by telephone just before he boarded a plane the day before Thanksgiving.

“George was a tremendous mentor to me,” said Lindsay. “I don’t think I would be where I am if it weren’t for George. He introduced me to ... my adviser at Princeton.” He said the Gallups “were like second parents to us. He was an incredibly warm and generous guy.”

Lindsay said George Jr. was “the most religious member of his family.” His interest in studying religion “can be traced back to early conversations George had with his family around the kitchen table. He was a religion major at Princeton when that was not a popular major.” In pre-Civil Rights days, Lindsay reported, Gallup went to an African American church in Texas.

George Gallup Jr. was “an early advocate... [of] shaping interest in religion in the national media, “ Lindsay said. Gallup’s organization “provided material that journalists were eager to use. Religion is an inherently fuzzy matter. He was able to provide empirical data to them, especially on the rise of religion in political life.”

“George created the context in which religion and public life could be seen as a legitimate topic for the media and the academy,” Lindsay said. “After Gallup gave more attention to that part of the business, … it percolated out in the mainstream media.”

Lindsay argued that “the modern megachurch movement,” with its sensitivity to the values and perceptions of the unchurched, “would not have taken place in the same way without Gallup’s influence.”

Campus Crusade for Christ’s Bill Bright was also influenced by Gallup, Lindsay said. These movements “can be traced to looking closer to the ground at what people really believed,” Lindsay said.

* * *

Ed Stetzer: Gave pastors a whole new toolbox of facts

Sarah Bailey was also able to interview Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research, and a prolific blogger, speaker, and missiologist.

Stetzer called George Gallup Jr “the pioneer in religion research. … In a lot of ways, he created the field that others are [now] involved in.” Gallup “set a standard,” Stetzer said, “but I don’t think everyone necessarily follows [that standard].” Gallup’s team “brought the methods of quantitative research into the religion field” and used “widely accepted methodology.”

“Gallup was everywhere,” Stetzer said. “There was a widespread affirmation of his work.”

Before Gallup brought quantitative research techniques to religion, “everybody would have [only] anecdotal information,” Stetzer said. But Gallup’s numbers gave pastors “credible evidence that a fact or trend existed.”

“People could quote Gallup,” said Stetzer. His was the “first widely used research in evangelical culture.” Pastors used it as “a credible evidence that a fact or trend existed.,” Stetzer told CT. “They used it to bolster their case when they could find information from Gallup.”

Stetzer said that Gallup made it possible for him to do his work, by making polling “accessible and credible.” “He not only responded to a need, but he also created the desire to have that kind of research,” Stetzer said. “One of the reasons people quote Lifeway is because two decades ago, people said ‘this makes sense.’

“George Gallup gave pastors a whole new toolbox of facts,” Stetzer concluded. “I wish many of the stats pastors would use were as credible as Gallup’s.”

* * *

Update on memorial service for George Gallup Jr. (h/t Robert Hill Durham via Facebook): The memorial service for Mr. Gallup will be at 11 A.M., Saturday, January 14, 2012 in Princeton University Chapel.

Posted by David Neff at November 23, 2011 3:23PM | Comments (5)

Yesterday, November 3, Christianity Today’s board of directors had the privilege of meeting with the magazine’s founder and honorary chairman, Dr. Billy Graham, who turns 93 on Monday.

In his new book on aging (excerpted here), Graham has been forthright about the health challenges he has faced. "All my life I was taught how to die as a Christian,” he wrote, “but no one ever taught me how I ought to live in my latter years.”

Despite reports of Graham’s great physical difficulties, the wheelchair-bound evangelist spoke in a clear and deliberate manner. He recognized friends and praised those who were caring for him.

But Graham focused most of his words on the magazine he founded. “I am so grateful for Christianity Today,” he said, “because it has stayed true to the Scriptures and to the gospel from that day to this.”

He then urged the staff who were present never to waver on these two things: the inspiration of Scripture and the centrality of Jesus Christ. And if you do stray on these things, he told them, “you’re likely to get a letter from me!”

Graham then reminisced about his relationships with the magazine’s early editors, Carl F. H. Henry and Harold Lindsell. He also praised the work of his father-in-law, L. Nelson Bell, for establishing the magazine’s commitment to news coverage.

When he spoke of the board’s first chair, Harold John Ockenga, he remembered the prominent Boston pastor introducing him when he was to speak to students at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. Afraid that he didn’t have the educational credentials to be convincing to these students, Graham told Ockenga to use lots of big words in his introduction. Not only did Ockenga use big words, Graham remembers, but he used so many words Graham didn’t understand that when Ockenga sat down, he wasn’t sure that he had actually been introduced.

In an e-mail, current board chair John Huffman told me that he had been present for this event as a 10-year-old and remembered it just the same way. That Graham told the story to CT’s board of directors demonstrates that he has retained his humility and self-deprecating sense of humor.

The staff of Christianity Today joins millions of others around the world in wishing Billy Graham a happy 93rd birthday. We are grateful both for his vision and his support through the years.

Posted by David Neff at November 4, 2011 8:52AM | Comments (8)

In ongoing disputes between national Catholic groups and the federal government, victims of sex trafficking might suffer the most damage.

The Washington Post reported this week on mounting friction between the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS decided in late September to end a contract underwriting the conference's service to trafficking victims. The $19 million contract, awarded to USCCB since 2006 under President Bush's faith-based funding initiative, helped provide housing and counseling to trafficking victims.

Following church teaching, USCCB had refused to refer victims to contraceptives or abortion services. HHS officials decided to award the grant to three other groups, despite some HHS staff's protests that the USCCB should continue to get funding based on its score from an independent review board. The Post reports the review board scored two of the competing groups significantly lower than USCCB.

Citing anti-Catholic discrimination, USCCB is now threatening legal action, and recently formed an Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty. Mary Ann Walsh, USCCB's leading spokesperson, wrote on its media blog:

. . . [A]t least until now, the U.S. government sought to sincerely address the issue [of human trafficking]. It asked USCCB for help when regional programs weren’t reaching victims outside the usual hotspots for trafficking. USCCB created an extraordinary program in conjunction with several partners, Christian and secular, including Lutheran Family Services, Jewish Family Services, Salvation Army, YMCA affiliates, domestic violence shelters, World Relief and others. Only one-third of its subcontractors were Catholic-affiliated, but with the USCCB infrastructure they reached virtually everywhere in the USA. . . .
Apparently HHS rules about the benefits of experience and cost effectiveness can be waived. So can rules about being fully operational by a certain date. What can’t be waived is the new, albeit unwritten rule of HHS, the ABC rule – Anybody But Catholics.

The recent dispute is not the first between national Catholic bodies and HHS, most notably its August mandate requiring all private health insurers to cover abortion and contraceptives with no out-of-pocket charges or co-payments. At a heated House subcommittee meeting today on the rule, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo wrote that Catholic groups "will have no choice but to stop providing health care and other services to the needy who are not Catholic, or to stop providing health coverage to their own employees." DiNardo wrote,

Is the drive to maximize contraceptive coverage, even among those who do not want it, such an urgent national priority that it transcends concerns about religious liberty, our nation’s ‘First Freedom,’ as well as concerns about women’s health and about access to basic health care for men and women alike?

In a National Review Online op-ed today, Steven Wagner charges that HHS's recent decisions will only hurt sex trafficking victims more. The HHS human trafficking program director from 2003-2006, Wagner noted:

The provision of abortions is banned by the Hyde Amendment and the provision of contraceptives is banned by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, so HHS is demanding that service providers do things which HHS cannot pay for.
Worst of all, the provision of abortions or contraception to victims of human trafficking who have not yet been rescued is tantamount to aiding and abetting the crime of exploitation. Current victims cannot, by definition, provide informed consent, so the only beneficiary is the trafficker/pimp.

For more on how U.S. Christians are helping victims of sex trafficking, visit This Is Our City, which is spotlighting trafficking all week.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at November 2, 2011 2:41PM | Comments (5)

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand lower court decision ordering the removal of 13 roadside crosses in Utah. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a rare dissenting opinion on the Court’s Monday decision to not hear two cases involving memorials for fallen state police officers. For Thomas—and several Christian legal organizations—the case was a missed opportunity for the court to clarify the standards for judging public display of religious symbols.

The Supreme Court denied the case without comment. With thousands of appeals to consider, the Court rarely offers an opinion or explain its reasoning when it denies a case. A justice offers a dissent in a denial in only a handful of cases.

Thomas said the Court should have taken up the case to help clear up the standards for judging whether a public or governmental display religious symbol is constitutional. Lower courts use different standards. In 2005, the Court ruled on two cases involving the display of the Ten Commandments. On the same day, the Court decided that one display in Texas was constitutional; another display in Kentucky was declared unconstitutional. Thomas noted the various standards used by lower courts due to the lack of a clear guidance from the high Court.

“Today the Court rejects an opportunity to provide clarity to an Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles,” Thomas wrote.

In previous court cases, Thomas has advocated the position that the First Amendment's ban on the establishment of religion applies to the federal government only. State and local governments are not restricted in the same way, according to Thomas.

The Court, however, has recently used the so-called endorsement test for religious symbols. A religious symbol can be displayed on public property as long as 1) it is not an endorsement of a religion or 2) a reasonable person could not interpret the symbol as an endorsement. The Utah Highway Patrol did not pay for the crosses, and it is on record as not endorsing the crosses as religious symbols. The question is whether the crosses could still be interpreted as being endorsements of Christianity.

In a decision last year, the Court gave a cross memorial as an example of acceptable religious symbols on government property. “A cross by the side of a public highway marking, for instance, the place where a state trooper perished need not be taken as a statement of governmental support for sectarian beliefs,” wrote Justice Kennedy in the majority opinion. (More CT coverage of cross decisions.)

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Byron Babione said, “The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear this case is baffling in light of its comments just last year that individualized memorial crosses honoring fallen troopers do not amount to a government establishment of religion.” Babione and the ADF helped represent those who paid for and maintained the crosses.

The Utah crosses are not plain white crosses on the roadside. Each cross stands 12 feet high with a six foot wide crossbeam. They each feature the name and rank of the officer, a picture of the officer, and a plaque listing details about the officer and his death. The crosses also include the symbol of the Utah Highway Patrol and some of the crosses are placed on Utah Highway Patrol property, not by a highway. The lower court concluded that a person could reasonably interpret the crosses as endorsements of Christianity.

The decision was criticized by some evangelical legal groups who believe that the endorsement test should be abandoned. The establishment clause, they argue, should allow government endorsement so long as it does not involve coercion.

"Freedom of religion means, in part, that no government should discriminate against those who, using their own funds, wish to erect a non-invasive religious display on public property,” said Family Research Council's Ken Klukowski.

Even if the endorsement test was adopted, the ADF argued that the crosses could not be interpreted as religious symbols. American Atheists national legal director Edwin Kagin said this argument should be “repugnant” to Christians.

“The attitude that the cross is not a Christian symbol should be repugnant to all of those believers who believe it to be a sign of the son of god [sic] having died on a cross to save everyone who believed in him and that, as he conquered death, so will those who believe this story conquer death. That is what the crosses are to them,” Kagin said.

According to the ADF's brief, that the crosses were memorials and symbols of sacrifice; they did not represent Christianity.

"The [Utah Highway Patrol Association] chose the cross shape because it is the only symbol, given its historical use, that could simultaneously communicate messages of roadside death, commemoration, and highway safety," the ADF brief said.

Image used with permission from the Alliance Defense Fund.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 1, 2011 11:22AM | Comments (2)