News Cut Category Archive: Religion

Raising Hell House

Posted at 2:44 PM on October 21, 2009 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

When it first started 19 years ago, Hell House, a "haunted house" put on by a church in Texas was nothing if not shocking. Tour guides take visitors through rooms depicting botched abortions, or a mom who left her family for someone she met on the Internet (apparently, it happened to a church member).

Now? Less shocking, less sermon, more theatrical:

About seven years ago, a documentary about the church's Halloween effort was released. Here's NPR's Steve Inskeep's interview with the director:

"Despite our guffawing," he says, "these are very nice people. The people at this church needed this church, and they needed this community. If they were in New York, they would need therapy. But they don't have therapy."

Ira Glass also picks up the story as part of This American Life's theme on Saturday -- Devil on My Shoulder.

Comment on this post

Lutherans step back from the edge

Posted at 3:10 PM on September 26, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

We got a fair amount of e-mail on Friday from Lutherans who weren't happy that we characterized a threatened split in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as a "backlash" against last month's vote at its convention in Minneapolis to allow non-celibate homosexuals to serve as clergy. Many of the letter writers described widespread acceptance of gays in their church and the relatively few people -- 1,200 -- who were to gather on Saturday to decide whether to sever ties with the church.

They did meet today and decided to give it a year.

It would be impossible to have attended last month's sessions at the Minneapolis Convention Center and still not realize that a split in the church -- any kind of split in the church -- worried most delegates on both sides of the issue.

Comment on this post

What in creation?

Posted at 4:26 PM on September 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Religion, Science

What happens to child stars? Sometimes, they grow up to lead a movement to subvert Charles Darwin Day. Take Kirk Cameron, for example, who starred in the '80s sitcom, "Growing Pains."

Cameron and other activists plan to deliver to schools 50,000 altered copies of Darwin's Origin of Species on November 21st, Huffington Post reported.



In his video, Cameron says young people can no longer pray in public or open a Bible in school, neither of which is true. He also says a survey said 61% of professors in biology and psychology are atheist or agnostic. "No wonder atheism has doubled in the last 20 years among 19 to 25 year olds," he says.

Maybe. Maybe not. A 2007 survey of all institutions and all professors, found , most believe in God. At "elite" schools, the number of atheists was only 37 percent.

Coincidentally, Trinity College released a survey today showing 22 percent of 18-29 year olds "claim the nonreligious label, a jump from 11 percent in 1990." But that doesn't mean they don't believe in God:

Nones may best be described as skeptics. Twenty-seven percent of Nones believe in a personal God. Hard and soft agnostics make up 35 percent of the None population and atheists account for only 7 percent of Nones. Contrary to what many believe, Nones are not particularly superstitious or partial to New Age beliefs. They are, however, more accepting of human evolution than the general U.S. population.

This week, "Creation" opens in the UK.



The movie, however, is not being distributed in the U.S. Science Blog has the review:

"The film has many historical inaccuracies, but that's to be expected when filmmakers condense a life into a few hours. Creation's larger problem stems from the decision to focus on a narrow slice of Darwin's life, arguably one of the least interesting. ... Instead of dramatizing how Darwin traveled the world and arrived at the most explosive idea in history, Creation is ultimately about the world's biggest case of writer's block."

There's little evidence to supportCameron's concerns that evolution might take root in America. A Gallup poll last February indicated only 39% of those surveyed believe in the theory.

In a University of Minnesota biology professor's class survey of incoming freshmen last year, one out of 4 students was taught creationism. "Most students want to know more about evolution," Randy Moore told MPR's Perry Finelli last winter. "They know almost nothing about it when they get here.

Comment on this post

The right way to pray?

Posted at 1:35 PM on September 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

If you pay a computer to say your prayers for you, are you still praying?

The question came up earlier this year when a company started a Web site in which a computer would -- using a synthesized speech system -- say three prayers a day for anyone willing to pay the $4.95 monthly fee. The price, however, depends on the length of the prayer.

If the computer is our vehicle of prayer, it might give new meaning to the dreaded "blue screen of death."

Is prayer by computer still prayer? And, if not, does that mean there's a right way to pray?

The New York Times (online) Magazine takes up that topic today.

"Prayer is like other activities," the Rev. Daniel Henderson said. "You learn from people who are already good at it." Henderson is the former senior pastor at Grace Church in Eden Prairie, one of several mega-churches in the Twin Cities. He's one of several members of the clergy who talked to writer Zev Chafets.

Chafets doesn't answer his own question, but the anecdotes are priceless:

Evangelical Christians, Pentecostals, they go to church to pray," (Rabbi Marc) Gellman went on to say. "Why else would they be there? But Jews are different. People come to temple to identify with other Jews, or socialize. The writer Harry Golden once asked his father, who was an atheist, why he went to services every Saturday. The old man told him, 'My friend Garfinkle goes to talk to God, and I go to talk to Garfinkle.' There's a lot of that."

Comment on this post

The God-tornado storm

Posted at 1:01 PM on August 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (36 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

A Baptist preacher in Minneapolis is causing a stir today by claiming the tornado that took part of a steeple off a Lutheran church near the Minneapolis Convention Center (near where the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was holdings its Assembly) was God's message to the Lutherans who were about to take up the issue of gays in the pulpit.

Said John Piper:

The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.

As part of his proof, Piper noted the significance of the occurrence...

On a day when no severe weather was predicted or expected...a tornado forms, baffling the weather experts--most saying they've never seen anything like it.

True, perhaps, that there was no expectation that a tornado -- a pretty darned small one -- would hit Minneapolis, but severe weather was not surprising. Here's Paul Huttner's note from his Updraft blog on Wednesday morning:

The overnight rain was just round one of a slow-moving weather system that will bring waves of showers and thunderstorms through Thursday. The system will set up shop over the state, bringing more rainfall to some of the drought parched areas. It will not rain all the time, but expect periods of rain into Friday morning before the system pulls out.

That said, I'm not qualified to say what God's message is based on the weather provided on the day such an issue is discussed. When the Northwest Minnesota Synod discussed this last spring, the weather was clear and seasonable, high of 68. Low of 34.

Pastor Piper pointed out that the tornado struck as the Assembly began discussions on the issue, according to its published agenda. But, technically, they hadn't started yet and one attendee "tweeted" that the biggest groan at the Convention Center came when it was announced the tornado had forced the closure of the pub.

But Piper wasn't the first to tie the two events together. Lutherans were.

"We trust that the weather is not a commentary on our work," said Steven Loy, chairman of the committee overseeing the pastoral statement being considered.

Some thought it was, according to Christianity Today:

But WordAlone, a renewal group within the ELCA, reported that both sides sought to find commentary in the weather: "A supporter of the social statement typified the storm as a mighty wind of the Holy Spirit and as a positive message. Some WordAlone Network members heard a different message, a warning of God's anger at the ELCA in the wind."

Far above my pay grade is the answer to another question: Why do we think God speaks only through the weather?

Comment on this post

The church dilemma

Posted at 5:51 PM on August 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

Take an issue like gays in the church. Add the industry known as "talk radio." Stir, and you probably know what usually comes out.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case on MPR's Midmorning on Tuesday during a program on the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's consideration of what to do about sexually active gay clergy.

It was an interesting hour about whether theology follows church change, or church change follows theology.

But it hit intellectual paydirt when Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, a finalist for bishop of the diocese of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota, called in to challenge Kendall Harmon, a priest of the Episcopal Church USA and Canon Theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

Here's the exchange:

Budde: Change rarely happens in any societal organization through intellectual argument. Change happens... kind of from the ground up, and it's very rare that those who have an established world view based on argument, change their mind on intellect alone. It's lived practice that changes hearts that ultimately lends itself to a new interpretation of what God is doing in the world.

It seems to me a very naive understanding of how change really does occur to say that we all need to get together in a room and argue this out because it's by lived experience and seeing how people that we thought are very different from us just as the early Christians who were Jewish tried to grabbed reality that Gentiles were being accepted into the communion called the church. That didn't happen because they thought it out; it happened because they saw lives transformed and people that they thought so different from them coming to know Christ in the same way that they did...

Harmon: Let me say this: First of all she's very gutsy to call into the program given the position she occupies so good for her; I sense some courage there. I don't disagree. I'm one of the so-called traditionalists who agrees that this is an important question that has to be wrestled with and I certainly agree that it's a theological question that has to be wrestled through in people's own lives and people's own experiences.

But I don't want the experience to drive the theology in such a way that the primary sources and their meaning is compromised.

Buddie: I'm not disagreeing with that, either, except that I think it is very dangerous to take our understanding of marriage and fidelity in relationships and try to imagine that even what Jesus was saying when he spoke the words that you quoted earlier because understandings of marriage in that time and that eras is very different from how people may experience marriage today. And to imagine that Jesus was speaking to the kind of realities that we are addressing now in same-gender, lifelong, committed relationships is just a huge distortion of the Palestinian world view that he was addressing.

He was addressing property issues. He was addressing men treating women like property and disposing of them at will and calling for a more egalitarian and respectful way that -- and loving way -- that men and women were to deal with one another. This is a time when women were treated like chattel and to have that idea of marriage held up to the standard that God calls us to now is, I think, is trying to take any view of order which was true in the Biblical era and make that standard for us now. It flies in the face of everything we know about now about how the Holy Spirit moves and works with us over time.

Harmon: This is exactly the kind of argument I think we need to have, by the way. The difficult here is the context that becomes the trump card, notice in her remarks, is the modern context. And so the Biblical context in the ancient world gets derated and we somehow suddenly know better how the Holy Spirit works in this modern era.

What's so crucial to point out is there is such a thing as the history of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit works through the church, especially the church globally and the church historically through time. And the church historically through time that has always understood that this kind of behavior is out of bounds and marriage is the context and what's the height of the arrogance is that you impose this new understanding on the shoulders of the all the Christians we now understand, all the Christians around the world who haven't been persuaded by these arguments.

Buddie: We don't have to persuade every one... this is not an argument to have everyone see the world as we see it, or everyone to practice the faith as we practice it. To allow for a way of inclusion and a way for those people in our communities and in our churches who hunger for Christian community. Who hunger to live out their life-long vows to each other in the context of the church, and not prohibit them from doing that when they feel deep in their bones that this is who God has created them to be, and it just seems to me you can allow for that kind of generosity of spirit, which is exactly what the General Convention asks for -- generosity of spirit, and to let the Holy Spirit sort this out. If it's of God, it will thrive. If it's not, it will die away, but to undercut that process and deny so many people to live as Christians, seems to me an unnecessarily restrictive and cruel thing to do.

Harmon: It's amazing how the desires that people have seem to trump things. And the problem is Christianity is about taking desires -- some of which are good but some of which are really out of whack because we're created in God's image, but we're fallen -- and channeling them in the right way. See, that's the question: Is this the proper place for these desires to be channeled or not, and historically and globally the church has said "no" and the church in America unilaterally and the church in Canada to a lesser extent, is simply imposing the practice of this theology without making the case for it.

It was a short but riveting moment in a broader discussion that excellently captured the difficulty of agreement, and presented the obvious dilemma facing the church as a whole: There seems little chance of settling the question while keeping the church intact.

Perhaps that's one reason why one attendee "tweeted" this on Tuesday:

"I can't help but to think what the #CWA09 would be like if debate opened up about the wisdom of the Vikings signing Favre."

Comment on this post

Religious life in the Obama era

Posted at 7:49 PM on May 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

Joshua DuBois, President Obama's "pastor-in-chief" (he was director of religious affairs for the campaign) and Speaking of Faith host Krista Tippett held a discussion at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul on Wednesday evening about religious life in the Obama era.

Julia Duin, religious editor of the Washington Times, complained a couple of weeks ago that she was having a hard time getting an interview with DuBois. But, then again, she's not Krista Tippett.

6:58 p.m. - The Fitz is pulling in a pretty hefty audience for a sweltering May evening. We're almost ready to go.

7:03 p.m. - It'll be interesting to see to what extent discussion of inclusivity when it comes to right and left religious entities comes up this evening. DuBois was the one who pushed for Rick Warren to be invited to be part of the Inauguration. He also set up a meeting in the White House early on with religious leaders who the left does not consider acceptable. It's hard to bring warring groups together.

7:12 p.m. - We're underway. Speaking of Faith managing editor/producer Kate Moos (my first boss when I moved to Minnesota) is noting the show is trying to engage the online audience tonight. Tweeting is being done via @softweets. It will be interesting to see how many people nationally are tuning in this evening. They're taking online questions via the Twitter side of things, though it still makes me chuckle when people giggle whenever the word "twitter" is uttered in public.

Here on News Cut, it's just you and me.

7:17 p.m. - Krista: The campaign brought faith out of the closet in the Democratic Party.

7:21 p.m. - DuBois says he found his religious life about the same time he found his political life. An extensive bio is here.

7:23 p.m. - Asked by Krista, DuBois says he's reached the first level of ordination. How he became aware of Obama: He was wrapping up grad school and was trying to figure out how to combine faith and public policy. He was at a restaurant and looked up and saw Obama at the Democratic National Convention (I assume this in the '04 convention in Boston). He tried to join the campaign and got a rejection letter.

7:27 p.m. - Talking about the 2006 Obama speech on religion. "He wasn't trying to chart a new course," DuBois says, "but he was trying to be true to who he was ... rather than trying to change the conversation in the party."

7:28 p.m. - On his role and message in the campaign as director of religious affairs. He organized community faith forums. "We had some in Manchester, New Hampshire that were some secular humanists and some evangelicals. South Carolina was a little difference. It was striking to see the difference in the conversations you see on television on religion and the ones we were having. On TV, you'd think we can't stand each other."

7:30 p.m. - What he learned about religion and politics. "We're all told our differences are so broad and wide, there's no bridge than can span them. But churches in Montana and temples in New York, there's so many things we agree upon. I was expecting more pushback."

7:32 p.m. - Interesting point on how people get along. "It's easy to disagree with people on issues, but it's hard to disagree with someone's story," DuBois said. Is that a problem in discourse these days, not only in politics and religion, and everything. Are we not listening to people's stories?

7:33 p.m. - We're onto the speech in Philadelphia. Yeah, you know the one:

7:35 p.m. -- and the Saddleback Forum, when Obama was asked by Rick Warren about abortion and he said "it's above my pay grade." "We live in a news cycle that demands winners and losers," DuBois said, saying the short sound bite did not capture the nuance of his message on abortion. This blog didn't think so.

This (and by the way, this is Bob talking now) was a tremendous issue in the campaign -- religion and politics -- probably more so than ever got covered in the mainstream media, at least meaningfully. At the Democratic National Convention, I wrote a bit about it in a post called The Jesus Factor. It was -- and is -- tremendously divisive within the Catholic Church (as we saw in the Notre Dame speech). I'm not sure that's going to get addressed significantly tonight. We'll see.

7:42 p.m. - Discussing the office of faith-based initiatives: Reducing need for abortion, reducing teen pregnancy, recovering from the poor economy, renewed focus on outreach to different religious and non-religious backgrounds. The council has secular organization represented, too. Insists that Obama has said that prostheletyzing is not the mission.

7:45 p.m. - From the vantage point of the balcony, I can see people on the floor playing on their iPhones and cellphones. They're either tweeting, submitting questions to the chat, or checking the Twins score. Prayer may be involved in the latter activity.

7:47 p.m. - Should faith-based groups that get government money be allowed to only hire people of their own faith? "We'll explore these issues on a case-by-case issue," DuBois says.

"How's that changed from the Bush administration," Tippett asks.

"It increases the profile of that exploratory process," DuBois says. "The president believes we need to understand the legal terrain and environment before making a decision." That doesn't answer the question which, to me, is the gorilla in the room -- if Obama talks faith, do people react differently than when Bush talked faith, and why?

7:55 p.m. - "Fighting can leave one tired," DuBois says of the culture wars. "Not among the pundits for whom these battles are a living, but people are tired of hearing people yell at one another. Folks don't want to fight anymore; they want to find some common purpose."

Nice joke by DuBois. He tells people to raise both hands, then move them. "Thank-you, I promised the president I'd shake every hand in St. Paul tonight."

(Musical interlude precedes questions from the audience)

QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE

Nice to see Larry Jacobs getting some exposure for a change. He's moderating the Q&A session.

Q: Where is Scripture in the president's talk of faith?

A: He's never been afraid to talk about faith. But he thinks because we're a pluralistic society, people have to know they have a place in his work. It's a balance. He's been outfront on what faith means to him.

Q: Colin Powell said there's nothing wrong with being a Muslim in America, what initiatives can your office take?

A: The president has sent phenomenal signals with his Inaugural speech and his speech in Turkey. It's an ongoing process. (Not too impressed with answers so far. Very Washingtonian.)

Q: How can we balance the issue, making sure children have a religious life with no religion in public schools?

A: Families are balancing those challenges every day. It's up to parents to strike that balance.

Q: The Pew Forum released a report showing 50% of Americans have become unaffiliated because they think of them as being "hypocritical." Why do you think people feel this way about unaffiliated people?

A: I'm not sure. The president is speaking for all Americans. (Bob: Here's the survey. The question could have and should have been asked in a less-Minnesotan way. Like "do you believe religious people are hypocrites?")

Q: What was behind the Notre Dame speech? How did it happen?

A: There wasn't much evolution. The president thinks when there's a challenging issue, it's best to confront it head on. (applause). Americans can handle it. There's going to be points of disagreement.

Q: Have you been surprised by the level of scrutiny and criticism by the faith-based initiative?

A: There will be bumps in the road. In the 24-hour news cycle, any time there's a conflict it will be scrutinized.

Q: When it comes to Washington, the president has made efforts to reach out to Republicans, is there a same dynamic to break down barriers of faith?

A: There can always be one point of concurrence with people. We have conservatives and Evangelicals who are engaging with us, who disagree with us 60 percent of the time.

Q: In his inaugural address, President Obama said: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth." But how do you meet the challenge of bringing them all together?

A: Cancer does not recognize a belief. We have common areas of agreement. We can connect people across those lines. But we're not asking people to check their religion at the door.

//End//

Continue reading "Religious life in the Obama era"

Prisoners of the Catholic Church

Posted at 11:16 AM on May 20, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Religion

(Photo: Kevin Flannagan, brother of a victim of child abuse in Catholid-run schools in Ireland, shouts at members of a commission which issued a report on the abuse. He was not allowed to attend a news conference where the report was released on Wednesday.)

Few news stories will lead reasonable people to shake their head more so than the bomb dropped by a commission in Ireland today. A 2,600 page report said thousands of children sent to state-sponsored schools were subjected to "beatings, rapes and humiliation" in the schools run by the Catholic church in, perhaps, the most devout Catholic country. And, it says, the government did nothing to stop it until the schools were closed in the '80s.

Says the New York Times:

"The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care," the commission found. "At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely."

There are no names of the accused, many of whom are long dead. But it says the kids, sent to the schools by their families for such things as being pregnant or truant, became virtual prisoners.

"The commission dismissed as implausible a central defence of the religious orders - that, in bygone days, people did not recognise the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offence, but rather as a sin that required repentance," the Australian reported.

"If they took a liking to a person then you became a danger, then you became a target. And there was no way of avoiding it... I mean they had access to you 24 hours a day," Thomas Wall told the BBC.

"Your cell door was locked every night when you went in and you had a bucket and an iron bed and you couldn't look out the window. It was all bars," another former student prisoner said.

(The report is available here, but the server has crashed repeatedly today.)

Comment on this post

Gays in the pulpit

Posted at 3:23 PM on May 18, 2009 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does not appear to be moving toward endorsing the role of homosexuals in relationships as pastors. Under the current rules, homosexuals can be ministers in the church if they promise to be celibate.

In August, ELCA's national convention in Minneapolis will consider whether to leave that up to each of the 65 synods nationwide.

On Sunday, the Northwest Minnesota Synod approved a resolution rejecting a proposal that non-celibate gays be allowed to serve as clergy members. The resolution rejecting the proposal passed by just two votes (See resolution).

"I'm not surprised that it was close," Bishop Larry Wohlrabe told the Worthington Daily News (registration required). "I'm a little amazed that it was that close."

Before passing the resolution, however, delegates struck a provision that declared "a majority of ELCA members and most Christian churches -- including most in the Lutheran World Federation -- believe that marriage is a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman."

At the same time, the synod voted against a resolution that would have rejected ELCA's social statement, "Human Sexuality Gift and Trust. " (See report), which says after "many years of study and conversation, this church does not have consensus regarding loving and committed same-gender relationships." But the draft says the church "supports legislation and policies to protect civil rights and to prohibit discrimination in housing, employment and public services. It has called upon congregations and members to welcome, care for, and support same-gender couples and their families, and to advocate for their legal protection."

The ELCA social statement rejected by the synod was drafted by a task force headed by Rev. Peter Strommen, of Shepherd of the Lake Lutheran Church in Prior Lake.

By way of background, City Pages profiled four people last summer who have a particular interest in the question.

Comment on this post

Obama at Notre Dame

Posted at 7:39 PM on May 17, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Religion

He came. He spoke. He got heckled. Months of controversy over Notre Dame's decision to invite Barack Obama as its commencement speaker ended today with a small group of hecklers interrupting the president.

He then asked a good question.

Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

For the most, we don't. But that's beside the point of the protest, according to John Kass of the Chicago Tribune, for the problem wasn't that Obama was asked to speak, it was that he was given an honorary degree, he says.

Comment on this post

Should priests be celibate?

Posted at 10:00 AM on May 11, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

What should the Church do now with Padre Alberto, dubbed "Pastor Oprah," in his role as a TV priest. He was "caught" by photographers with a woman on a beach, and says he should -- and all priests should -- be allowed to marry.

"There are plenty of good, practical and faithful reasons why the Church asks its priests to remain celibate: the priest is married to the church; priests have lifestyles that are incompatible with family life; priests (who also take poverty vows) don't make enough money to allow them to support families; celibacy frees them to focus on their priestly duties," writes the Washington Post's On Faith blog, while pointing out that Protestant pastors who are married and convert to Catholicism are allowed to stay married. So if some priests can be married and married to the church, why can't others?

In 2004, a Minnesota Franciscan sister surveyed seminaries about celibacy and found "that some seminary faculty members lack confidence to make appropriate interventions and recommendations, and some are uncertain how to deal with 'cross-cultural dynamics relative to sexuality' -- especially when dealing with formation of the foreign-born seminarians who now make up about one-fourth of the theology-level students in U.S. seminaries."

One presumes it's coming up in discussions today.

Comment on this post

On Muslim integration

Posted at 12:43 PM on May 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

Two unrelated items on a related subject: How we get along with different religious cultures.

Item #1: Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, spoke yesterday in Minneapolis at the Westminster Town Hall Forum. On the rebroadcast today on MPR's Midday (or you can hear the uninterrupted version here), he told the story of Jersey City, NJ, which has a large Egyptian community. For years the Christian and Muslim members of the community got along, until an Egyptian Christian family was killed execution style.

"As a result of this, these two communities split apart," he said, noting that the value of diversity isn't in the number of people who are different, but in the positive relations they have with each other.

He contends it's not "natural" for two different communities to split apart when a moment of crisis occurs; it takes some person or force. In this case, he says, it took a gentleman who said on "the footsteps of his church, 'this looks like something Muslims would do.'"

"The first person who defined reality... chose to portray Christians and Muslims in inherent conflict. What if a different kind of leader emerged in that situation?" he said, giving us something to think about today. "What if someone stood up and said, 'we in Jersey City stand together tall and proud as a community of pluralism against whatever extremists might violate that ethic'?"

Item #2: A study of 30,000 people in 27 countries released today by Gallup, shows that joblessness and poverty are a more potent source of tension between Muslims and wider European and U.S. society than religious differences. It's portrayed as the one of the first major studies of Muslim integration since Sept. 11.

The AP reports...

These Muslims are more patriotic, more tolerant and more likely to reject violence than the rest of Western society believes they are, the study claims. It suggests most European Muslims, for example, are as happy as other Europeans to live alongside people of other faiths and ethnic backgrounds, and share broadly similar views with their neighbors.

The findings appear to contradict the impression created by angry protests across Europe following the 2005 publication in Denmark of 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and recent rallies in which small groups of British Muslims have disrupted homecoming parades for soldiers returning from Iraq.

It's an interesting study that focuses mostly on Europeans. Does the conclusion really translate to the United States? Writing on Huffington Post, author Kamran Pasha has his doubts:

As an American Muslim, one of the greatest things I treasure about the United States is that economic opportunity is largely available to everyone, regardless of race or religion. The kind of overt class system that appears to still be very much in place in Britain is anathema to American notions of entrepreneurialism and social mobility.

Most Muslims I know are quite well educated and prosperous, with the usual joke being that American Muslims won't settle for anything less than high-paying jobs as doctors, engineers and lawyers. I myself am a former attorney with three graduate degrees and have become a Hollywood screenwriter and producer for networks such as NBC and Showtime. Being a Muslim does not automatically create a glass ceiling in this society, and it is for that reason that most American Muslims are much better integrated than their European counterparts.

I'm hoping this comes up to some degree later this month when Speaking of Faith's Krista Tippett hosts a session with Joshua DuBois, on religious life in the Obama administration.

Comment on this post

Religious landscape survey

Posted at 2:49 PM on April 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

Can you believe in Christ and not believe in God? The Pew Research Center is out with a survey that says 5 percent of Americans do not believe in God, but only 24 percent of those people call themselves atheists.

Fourteen percent of those who say they do not believe in the existence of God identify themselves as Christians, the survey said.

For the most part, Minnesotans responding to the survey tracked along the same lines as the national results. One of the exceptions was "frequency of answers to prayers." Thirty-one percent of Americans surveyed say they pray and receive answer to those prayers. But in Minnesota, that percentage is only 23 percent.

Comment on this post

The nature of forgiveness

Posted at 2:40 PM on March 16, 2009 by Bob Collins (13 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Religion

Two stories in the nation bring up the question of the nature of forgiveness. One is the reaction of the wife of the pastor, who was gunned down last week as he delivered a sermon. The other is the return to Minnesota of Kathleen Soliah, who hid out in St. Paul as Sara Jane Olson.

On the CBS Early Show this morning, Cindy Winters granted forgiveness to Terry Sedlacek, who shot her husband, Pastor Fred Winters, to death in the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill.

"I do not have any hatred, or even hard feelings towards him," she said. "We have been praying for him. One of the first things that my daughter said to me after this happened was, 'You know, I hope that he comes to learn to love Jesus through all of this.' We are not angry at all, and we really firmly believe that he can find hope and forgiveness and peace through this, by coming to know Jesus. And we hope that that happens for him."

It was impossible for many to watch the interview without thinking, "could I forgive the person who just killed my spouse?" How long would it take to reach that point?

The same question is being asked in St. Paul with the pending release of Olson, who was a 1970s radical with the Symbionese Liberation Army, attempted the pipe-bombings of Los Angeles police officers, and took part in a bank robbery near Sacramento in which a woman died.

She's served seven years in prison, and wants to return to Minnesota -- where her family still lives -- to serve her parole.

Today, the Minnesota Senate debated bringing a resolution to the floor -- as an emergency measure -- that would ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to reconsider sending Olson back to Minnesota.

"What do we stand for as people? Law and order, certainly. The notion that we would easily forgive someone who ... yes, 25 years ago... decided it might be a good idea to blow up some police officers and maybe in the process, perhaps, involve kids. That is something terribly troubling," Sen. Dave Senjem, the Senate Minority Leader, said.

The attempt to bring the resolution to the Senate floor failed.

Former Los Angeles police officer John Hall, a target of Olson's, recalled a young girl waving at him from a restaurant as he drove away. A pipe bomb under his cruiser did not go off.

"That little girl was waving at us as we drove off. If that bomb would have gone off, she would have been killed along with her family," said Hall, who served 31 years with the department. "I haven't forgiven her (Olson) in the least for what she's done and what she could have done to many more innocent people."

Comment on this post

Live-blogging: 'The God Delusion"

Posted at 8:58 AM on March 4, 2009 by Bob Collins (133 Comments)
Filed under: Religion, Science

Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," is on Midmorning this morning. I'm thinking people are going to need an outlet to react to what he has to say, so News Cut will step into the line of fire. Dawkins says atheists should be just as forthright in their views as those who believe God is real.

I'm not in the studio so please don't use the blog to get questions to Dawkins. Use the comments section to discuss his assertions.

9:08 a.m. - Dawkins and Miller mix it up over her assertion that he's recruiting people to become atheists. "In the preface I was stating my wildest dreams, but I hadn't realized the extent to which atheists are in the closet waiting to be called out." By the way, here's his Web site.

9:11 a.m. - "Why is it so important?" Miller asks. "Truth matters," Dawkins says, which brings up a constant struggle for me in matters of religion. Both sides of this equation say it's "the truth." But how we do know?

9:12 - Why does Dawkins choose to describe God as people's "imaginary friend?" He says the claim of a universal power "who put things in motion" is an impingement on science.

Miller says the description of "imaginary friend" makes it sound "infantile." Dawkins says it should.

9:17 a.m. "It's not up to me to provide the evidence," Dawkins says.
He says the idea that Jesus died for our sins is "obvious nonsense." OK, where does this conversation go after that?

9:22 a.m. - Dawkins says believers mix doubt and belief inconsistently. "You have just suggested that somebody who begins by saying 'I don't know,' then says 'and I know Jesus was raised by the dead and born to a version.... It's the Christians who say 'beyond a doubt...'"

9:25 a.m. - "Why do you bother to call yourself a Christian instead of saying you believe in a higher power. He suggests it's more intellectually honest to say one believes in a higher power but can't be sure," he says to a caller.

9:27 a.m. - A caller rejects the notion that beautiful things are a sign of God. "Why can't they just be beautiful in and of themselves?" she says.

9:29 a.m. - There is growing evidence for a kind of universal morality which transcends different religious traditions.Things like The Golden Rule, are -- if not universal -- extremely widespread. There's increasing evidence they're part of our brain heritage.

9:30 a.m. - Caller: "We don't all believe that there was a virgin birth etc., but those things aren't required to believe in the message. You can't lump all believers of God into the Christian fundamentalist camp."

Dawkins, however, says mystery is something to be solved, not something to revel in.

9:33 a.m. - Says some mysteries will never be solved. Pressed on the question of what is "truth," he says he's criticizing the attitude that "I love mystery. You're spoiling it for us."

"Might it be an insolvable mystery?" Kerri asks.

9:35 a.m. -"I believe it's worth working on," he says. He says the answers may come from neuroscience and computers. "Computers are capable of feats of mimicry of mental process. We will have man-made computers that are conscious in the same way we are."

9:41 a.m. Caller: "I'm sick of this nonsense called religion." But says people who declare "God doesn't exist" are as arrogant as those who say "God exists."

"I am not certain there is no God," Dawkins replies. "No scientist should say categorically, 'there is no anything.' You have to doubt everything and be open to evidence. There could be a supernatural being -- I bet there is a superhuman being somewhere in the universe."

9:46 a.m. Relays the story of the night P.Z. Myers got expelled from the Minneapolis screening of Expelled, a film about Creationism.

Here's the NY Times version.

9:49 a.m. - Caller: What came before the Big Bang. Also relays a story about a near-death experience by a relative.

"I'm not a physicist so I can't answer the question," he said about the Big Bang. He says whatever came before is a big mystery and it's not going to be helped "by postulating divine intelligence."

9:51 a.m. - Kerri asks if Dawkins believes his convictions will be as strong on the day he dies?

I'm not convinced of anything. I can't say categorically that there is no life after death. It seems implausible. Brains don't survive death and they evolve over millions of years. He says it is implausible to say that when your brain dies, your spirit goes on.

Dawkins is speaking tonight at Northrup Auditorium at the University of Minnesota.

Audio of today's interview will be available shortly.

Comment on this post

The mysterious disappearance of V. Gene Robinson

Posted at 10:22 AM on January 19, 2009 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

A controversy is brewing over HBO's decision not to air the invocation by Bishop V. Gene Robinson at Sunday's big concert at the Lincoln Memorial. The openly gay bishop called on God to "bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people," the Boston Globe's religion blog reported.

Media critic Aaron Barnhart says the apparent snub of Robinson appears more widespread than HBO:

Nor did Robinson's picture find its way into NPR's gallery of images from the concert. Admittedly, the news division did not cover the event -- NPR Music did -- but the website certainly is the domain of NPR News. A search of Getty Images, NYTimes.com and WaPo slide shows turned up nothing. In short, I found no visual evidence that an invocation was ever said.

Suddenly, Barack Obama's minister friends aren't news?

Robinson, a supporter of Obama, was given the concert role after criticism mounted against Obama's choice of pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration on Tuesday. The two will never be confused for one another.

A "technical glitch," is reponsible, according to Religious Intelligence, which doesn't appear to buy the explanation:

Concert-goers reported that while Bishop Robinson could be seen on the "Jumbotron" viewer, he could not be heard by the crowd --- estimated at 750,000 by organizers. One person present told ReligiousIntelligence.com that the HBO logo did not appear on the jumbotron until after Bishop Robinson's prayer was concluded --- apparently indicating the prayer as a pre-concert event. Those close to the front of the podium, including a reporter for Christianity Today, reported the sound system was working around the stage --- and privately recorded videos of the invocation were taken, showing that Bishop Robinson did indeed appear that day.

Messages to NPR's ombudsman have not yet been returned. NPR.org, coincidentally, is currently featuring a profile of Rick Warren.

Update: Robinson was on NPR's Talk of the Nation on Monday.

Comment on this post

The church and tough times

Posted at 9:14 PM on December 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

Do me a favor, will you? When you head to church on Sunday, check to see if there are more people there than usual.

The New York Times has a story that says the bad times are good ... for evangelical churches.

Like evangelical churches around the country, the three churches have enjoyed steady growth over the last decade. But since September, pastors nationwide say they have seen such a burst of new interest that they find themselves contending with powerful conflicting emotions -- deep empathy and quiet excitement -- as they re-encounter an old piece of religious lore:

Bad times are good for evangelical churches.

"It's a wonderful time, a great evangelistic opportunity for us," said the Rev. A. R. Bernard, founder and senior pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York's largest evangelical congregation, where regulars are arriving earlier to get a seat. "When people are shaken to the core, it can open doors."

The story says attendance is also up at some of the mainstream churches, but nowhere near what it is at evangelical churches. Some studies suggest evangelical churches always find an upsurge during recessions.

The "why" of that is puzzling.

Msgr. Thomas McSweeney, who writes columns for Catholic publications and appears on MSNBC as a religion consultant, said the growth is fed by evangelicals' flexibility: "Their tradition allows them to do things from the pulpit we don't do -- like 'Hey! I need somebody to take Mrs. McSweeney to the doctor on Tuesday,' or 'We need volunteers at the soup kitchen tomorrow.' "

I come from a mainstream religion. We never had a problem hollering for help for the Mrs. McSweeneys. The trouble with my old-time church was that there was nobody but Mrs. McSweeneys in the pews, which were mostly empty. The church in which my wife and I were married some 26 years ago, closed its doors for good a few weeks ago.

Church is one of the few places I can still go, and have people tell me it's nice to see me, because it's "good to see young people in the church." I'm 54.

We'll see if things are different tomorrow.

Comment on this post

Spraycan religion

Posted at 3:30 PM on October 22, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

The assaults on the Washington delegation to Congress overnight all looked pretty much like that on the garage of Sen. Norm Coleman.

The reference to Psalm 2 is perplexing:

1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. 7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. 10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Fox 9 quotes the University of St. Thomas' Theology Department:

... the university says there are many parts that can easily be taken out of context. The most likely in this instance would be the rulers, or politicians in the vandalism cases, trying to go above their "pay grade," so to speak.

There are few examples of the passage being quoted in other quasi-political ways.

A cartoonist in the Christian Post referred to it in an editorial cartoon to prove that God believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Another site . But various discussions online about the Psalm focus on whether it refers to Jesus, or King David.

Comment on this post

Should pastors be allowed to preach politics?

Posted at 12:22 PM on September 29, 2008 by Bob Collins (22 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Religion

Some preachers around the country spent yesterday endorsing John McCain for president, apparently in violation of IRS rules that do not allow non-profit organizations who have a tax-exempt status from actively engaging in campaigning for an individual candidate.

Pastor Gus Booth of Warroad Community Church was one of them. So was George Marin at Grace Christian Church in Albert Lea.

"I'd like to see that the IRS is not in the business of prohibiting religious speech, that's for sure," Booth told me this afternoon. "They have made a statute that is in competition with the Constitution. I feel like the Constitution has given me a First Amendment right to say what I want to say and I don't lose that when I step behind my pulpit."Listen

This isn't the first time Booth has challenged the law. In May he delivered a sermon about the Democratic candidates for president.

"If you are a Christian, you cannot support Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama....Both Hillary and Barack favor the shedding of innocent blood (abortion) and the legalization of the abomination of homosexual marriage."

Has he heard anything from the IRS yet?

"That's the only question I cannot answer, because of my attorney's advice," Booth said.

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, called Booth's actions last May "a flagrant violation of federal tax law."

"Booth is free to endorse anyone he wants to as a private citizen," Lynn said in a press release announcing the filing of a complaint with the IRS. "But when he is standing in his tax-exempt pulpit as the top official of a tax-exempt religious organization, he must lay partisanship aside. The IRS needs to look into this apparent violation of federal tax law."

"I don't have to pay for free speech. We're a non-profit organization and we're by nature not even taxable. So we don't even have to be a 501-C3 to not pay taxes. We're not taxable. We're non profit so you can't tax us," Booth says.

He won't be preaching politics again anytime soon. "I've already done it twice, so I doubt that I'm going to preach again this election year on it simply because when you preach on the same subject over and over again, you're not being a good pastor... it's irrelevant after a few Sundays." Listen

Booth says his congregation has been supportive of his challenge to the law. But he also acknowledges he hasn't seen any cars in the church's parking lot sporting Barack Obama bumper stickers.

Religious scholar Martin Marty, sees no legitimate debate about religious freedom in the "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" protest...

No doubt myriad violations occur in pulpits and church bulletins, but most of them tend to be casual or subtle or only semi-substantial. The Pulpit Freedom Sunday of the Alliance Defense Fund does not want to be casual or subtle or less than substantially substantial. The preachers it backs and propels want to make this a law-defying act of "freedom." We can be sure that opponents of this generally right-wing political cause will be provoked into counter-testing, asking the IRS and the feds to insist on support of law. Is this a real "pulpit freedom" issue? Some want to compare it to Martin Luther King and conscientious objectors and any who appeal to a "higher law." But King and the objectors know that they are vulnerable to arrest or penalties, and have often paid them by sitting in jails. The Pulpit Freedom advocates appeal to no "higher law;" they simply want the freedom to break existing laws.

A call to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has not been returned.

Booth is appearing appeared on the second hour of NPR's Talk of the Nation.

Comment on this post

The Jesus factor

Posted at 8:12 PM on August 28, 2008 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)
Filed under: Religion, The political conventions

Away from the glitter and goofy hats of a political convention, you can usually catch a whiff of the things that keep Democrat insiders up at night.

In Denver on Thursday, the "faith caucus" held its first meeting ever, an attempt to bridge a divide within the party over abortion, and prepare for a Republican strategy that markets faith as a GOP virtue.

"It's hard for people to talk about religion," Party Chair Howard Dean told a three-quarters-empty Denver Convention Center ballroom. "We've been people of faith for a long time. We just don't like to talk about it. It matters how you live your values, not what you say on Sunday."

That shot at Republicans was the easy part. When Dean left, the rift within the party over abortion was more apparent.

"I'm a pro-life Democrat and I like to think I'm in a party that has room for me," said Rev. Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, former director of the Congressional Black Caucus. "Nobody should be left outside a party that's called a Democratic Party. I'm proud to stand beside a pro-choice Democrat, but I want you to hear what I have to say. It's saying 'my values matter and you have room for my values that my Bible tells me about.'"

The issue has driven millions of Catholics into the arms of the Republican Party. "The Catholic vote is an important vote," said Dr. Douglas Kmiec of Pepperdine University, a Catholic legal scholar who wrote a Slate Magazine article claiming Obama is a natural choice for Catholics. "It's 25% of the electorate. Catholics have voted for the winning candidate in the last nine presidential elections. They know how to pick a winner."

Kmiec told a Catholic newspaper earlier this week that Barack Obama's position on abortion is "morally unacceptable." But he's still voting for him. "I, too, am pro-life, but that label ... has to be a commitment to all of life, from the moment of conception to the moment of death," he said. His church responded by denying him communion.

Wooing conservative Catholics to the Democratic Party may be a tough sell. It's no coincidence that Obama picked a Catholic -- Joe Biden -- as a running mate. Biden, however, supports legalized abortion in defiance of his church.

An even tougher sell for a party trying to learn how to talk religion is evangelical Christians, a solid Republican voting bloc.

"Younger evangelicals are morally conservative but more socially compassionate than previous generations of evangelicals," according to Cameron Strang, of Relevant Magazine. "They're very pro-life, but this generation has a more holistic view of what it means -- the defense of innocent lives. Not just the unborn, but it includes genocide, unnecessary war, slavery, and abortion."

Strang identified some common ground on the issue of abortion -- adoption reform. "If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, what happens to all of these unwanted children?" he asked. "It costs $25,000 for an adoption. It costs $500 for an abortion. That's messed up."

But Strang this week showed why it will be difficult for Democrats to stand side-by-side with evangelicals. He was to give the benediction at the convention on Monday, but pulled out, citing fears his bridge-building gesture would be misinterpreted.

Little known to outsiders, the Strang name carries weight with evangelicals, especially in the fast-growing charismatic and Pentecostal branches, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Comment on this post

The power of the pulpit

Posted at 7:21 AM on June 12, 2008 by Bob Collins (22 Comments)
Filed under: Politics, Religion

The Star Tribune carries the story today about Rev. Gus Booth of Warroad Community Church who is urging his flock not to support Barack Obama for president because of his position on abortion. Booth is a delegate to the RNC convention in St. Paul later this year.

It's not a freedom of speech issue. It's a tax issue. There's nothing to prevent any church leader from speaking politics. You just can't get into endorsing candidates from the pulpit while claiming non-profit status from the IRS.

I know what some of you are thinking? Isn't that what Obama's former pastor did? Why isn't the IRS investigating that church. It is.

Take the poll and leave a comment.

Comment on this post

Theology vs. trivia

Posted at 9:29 AM on April 17, 2008 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)
Filed under: Religion

Pope Benedict XVI is celebrating mass in Washington today and a nation that walks a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning, as the Rev. Jimmy Buffet once said, is struggling when it comes to discussions about the visit.

Last night, for example, the pontiff told bishops, the Boston Globe said, "to do better communicating with the public, connecting with priests, and educating children; he also exhorted them to demonstrate unfettered support for immigrants. And he offered an analysis of the role of religion in America, suggesting that the freedom here has at the same time allowed faith to flourish but also can 'subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator.'"

OK, let's talk about that.

"The pontiff doesn't like to drink wine with dinner, and at dinner last night he was seen with a can of orange Fanta, and some Cracker Jack was also seen," the commentator on CNN noted during live coverage of the mass this morning. That was a few minutes after noted theologian Mike Piazza, who conducted services for years behind the plate at Shea Stadium, described the differences between Pope Benedict and his predecessors.

So what are viewers left with? Here's a review of the coverage so far from Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times:

Cable news channels and the networks interrupted their regular programming to provide live coverage of the pope at the White House as he read his speech precisely and evenly in a slight German accent. He graciously shook hands with cabinet members and elected officials (Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, kissed his ring). The pope, who turned 81 on Wednesday, smiled winningly when the crowd broke out in a ragged version of "Happy Birthday." He looked pleased -- he smiled and stretched out his arms to well-wishers -- when the soprano Kathleen Battle led a more expert rendition of the song. But it provided, at best, a fleeting look at the pope. TV commentators tried to compensate, extolling the excitement of the crowds and the geniality of the guest of honor. One anchor declared that the pope looked "thoroughly overjoyed."

The challenge in covering a papal visit, then, is fairly enormous: don't make it an infomercial for the Vatican, explore the issues -- good and bad -- that have challenged the church and its followers, and don't come off looking anti-Catholic.

Consider this letter today in the Star Tribune:

The Star Tribune covers it by running an Associated Press article with 35 column inches of written copy (plus some pictures). The first 28 of those 35 inches deal with sexual abuse by Catholic clergy over the past half-century. Only the last 7 inches refer to other aspects of the pope's visit.

Some Americans feel the media are anti-Catholic. Where in the world might they ever get such an idea?

Peter Steinfels, a religion columnist for the Times and professor at Fordham University provided one of the more insightful comments on the visit last night on... of all places ... The Daily Show (Video here):

"I think he'll probably deliver messages that are complicated and deserve analysis and parsing, but he'll leave the country and we'll never pay any attention again to those complicated messages," he said

So maybe the visit is about us. Steinfels says we only discuss religion when it intersects with the culture wars. "We have a hard time dealing with genuine, religious, profound messages, and I think that this pope really does think that religion is not a set of propositions that you believe in some fundamental orientation toward the universe which he thinks is love, and we've got to find a political thing on page 82 when he writes an encyclical."

If you'd like to discuss the papal visit, be sure to listen to Midday today at 11.

(Photo: Mandal Ngan, AFP/Getty Images)

Comment on this post