The controversial pamphlets contained comments such as, “Throughout history individuals have tried many ways to gain or earn eternal life, but every attempt has been unsuccessful.” There were Bible verses, such as, “Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Titus 3:5a.”

What happened next has reopened a painful debate about so-called “no go zones,” areas that may as well be off limits to British citizens who do not heed Islamic laws.

According to a statement by the Rev. Arthur Cunningham, the “police community support officer” told him “you’re not allowed to preach … here. This is a Muslim area. He said, ‘You know, you guys are committing a hate crime here with what you’re doing. I’m going to have to call you in and take you in.’ Then he took his radio and he said something like, ‘There’s a hate crime in progress here. I need assistance.’ “

This occurred three months ago, but legal actions by Cunningham and the Rev. Joseph Abraham have created a wave of new coverage. Both men carry American passports, although Abraham was born a Muslim in Egypt and then converted to Christianity.

While declining to discuss details, West Midlands Police officials have released statements saying their investigation found that the officer acted “with the best of intentions” and that “the PCSO has been offered guidance about what constitutes a hate crime and advice on communication style.”

Another statement: “We would like to assure all communities that there are not any ‘no go’ areas in the West Midlands Police area and we will defend the rights of the individual to freedom of expression and religious faiths.”

The “no go zone” debate began in earnest when Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, who was raised in Pakistan in a family with Christian and Muslim roots, expressed fears that England is splintering into segregated communities of citizens living “parallel lives.”

“It is critically important to all that the freedom to discuss freely and perhaps to have our views changed, whether in politics, religion or science, be encouraged and not diminished,” wrote Nazir-Ali, in a newspaper essay that led to death threats against him.

Christianity and Islam are both evangelistic faiths, which creates sparks when their traditional, growing forms collide. However, Christian evangelism is banned in many Muslim lands and some Christian converts have faced death sentences as apostates.

In the Alum Rock case, the missionaries freely admit they were seeking converts. Abraham and Cunningham insist that they were told they would be physically attacked if they dared to return.

“The actions and words used by the officers were intimidating and were calculated to warn and-or frighten our clients and to have the effect of deterring our clients from lawfully expressing their opinions and manifesting their beliefs and to have a chilling effect on the exercise by them of their right to manifest their beliefs,” according to a document prepared for police by activists at the Christian Institute. “Our clients were left with the understanding that they could not express their religious beliefs in Alum Rock Road without committing a hate crime.”

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has reported that the officer involved in this incident is active in the local branch of the National Association of Muslim Police. The West Midlands police force also made recent headlines when it accused a BBC Dispatches program — entitled “Undercover Mosques” — of distorting Muslim statements about terrorism.

All of this has led to heightened tensions about how to balance Muslim concerns with British laws.

“Freedom is not, of course, absolute. It is only possible in the context of the Common Good, where the freedom of each has to be exercised with respect for the freedom of all,” according to a new essay by Nazir-Ali, in Standpoint magazine.

“Freedom of belief, of expression, and the freedom to change one’s belief are, however, vitally important for a free society, and the onus must be on those who wish to restrict these in any way to show why this is necessary. Nor can we say that such freedoms apply in some parts of the country and of the world and not in others.”

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That isn’t how the Internet Evangelism Day team sees things. It notes that “over 1 billion people use the Web,” the “Internet is changing the world” and “God is using the Web to transform lives.”

“The Internet has become a 21st century Roman road, marketplace, theater, backyard fence and office drinks machine,” proclaims the site’s webmasters. “Web evangelism gives believers opportunities to reach people with the Gospel right where they are, just as Jesus and Paul did.”

Tech guru George Gilder knows where the Web evangelists are coming from and offers a hearty “Amen.” He remains convinced that cyberspace is territory that religious leaders have to explore and, hopefully, master.

“The Internet is very good for building communities and, obviously, churches are communities. It allows a particularly charismatic, or brilliant, church leader to reach potential followers not only in his community or in his immediate locality, but all across the country and the world,” said Gilder, the author the trailblazing books “Microcosm” and “Telecosm.”

“This is the power of the Net,” he said. “It can free people from this sort of entrapment in a narrow locality and allow them to find support for their particular faith, wherever it may arise.”

But there’s a fly in the digital ointment. There’s a reason that Gilder’s online “Telecosm Forum” is for subscribers only — he needs to focus his time on serious questions raised by committed readers who are truly interested in the issues he wants to research. Gilder invests his time and energy in this one online flock.

That’s the bottom line: A decade or two down the digital information highway, people who are serious about the Web are learning to invest their time more wisely.

That includes religious leaders, who are as buried in digital junk as everyone else. Many ministers who once were anxious to think outside the local-church box have been stunned at the time commitment this kind of “online ministry” requires.

The good news is that ambitious religious leaders can do 24/7, online, multi-media, interactive ministry at the local, national and even global levels. And the bad news? Users will expect them to build and maintain these 24/7, online, multi-media, interactive ministries at the local, national and even global levels.

This is a mixed blessing for ministers who are already struggling to keep up with the fast-paced realities of life in the flesh-and-blood, analog world. Websites, blogs and email can become curses, as well as blessings.

The Net is, for better and for worse, a tool for interactive communications, stressed Gilder, who is an active churchman. Anything that amplifies speech has the potential to help evangelism and other crucial ministries in most churches, which are communities of believers that need to interact with the world around them in order to survive or thrive.

However, religious leaders need to ask serious questions about the size and shape of the online ministries they attempt, he said. Should forums about sensitive or controversial issues be open to all comers? If a congregation offers an interactive website for people who are asking religious and personal questions, is there anyone with the time and skills to maintain it? Will posting a minister’s online address produce contacts with people who truly need help? Who will screen all those emails?

There’s one more tricky issue that must be addressed. Many believers are highly skilled when it comes to talking to and arguing with other members of their own flocks, using a kind of “preaching to the choir” lingo that is mere gibberish to outsiders. The religious corners of the Web are packed with websites of this kind, which do much to promote insider debates, but little to reach people outside church doors.

“It’s crucial to break out of this kind of parochial language,” said Gilder. “If you are going to try to talk to people in the secular world, you have to have people who actually have the ability to do that kind of work online. …

“It’s quite exciting to actually go out into the wider world. But you have to have something to say and you have to know what you are doing.”

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Graham began addressing a wide range of social issues, including nuclear arms control. He focused less attention to America and said that the church’s future was in the Third World. Some long-time supporters began to grumble — literally — about his hair.

“People were worried that Billy was letting his hair get too long. We were getting telephone calls about it,” said one insider at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, years later.

Eventually, Graham’s wife heard about the mini-crisis and responded in her own way. Ruth Bell Graham quietly suggested that Billy should consider growing a mustache.

“That was,” the insider said, “her way of saying, ‘Leave my husband’s hair alone. For that matter, leave my husband alone.’ “

Anyone who has studied the career of the world’s most famous evangelist knows that Ruth Graham was much more than his wife or even his “soul mate,” the label many commentators adopted after her death on June 14, at the age of 87.

Historians will always ask how Graham evolved from a narrow Southern fundamentalist into the evangelical who preached to the world. Here’s one obvious answer: “He married Ruth Bell.” She was nothing less than the X-factor, the source of that sense of otherness that, when blended with her husband’s essential humanity and North Carolina sense of grace, added a note of mystery to his career. His instinct was to try to get along with everyone. Her instinct was to resist the people who wanted to own him, body and soul.

Graham kept saying, in that “ah, shucks” way of his, that Ruth was smarter than he was. Still, it was hard to determine her precise role.

The basic facts were amazing enough. She was the daughter of missionaries in China and as a girl yearned to be a martyr. She never planned to marry, yet raised five children in their unique North Carolina home (she hired mountain men to combine several abandoned log cabins) that she defended like a lioness.

On one memorable occasion, she kicked her husband under the table when President Lyndon Baines Johnson tried to lure him into political talk. When asked if she had ever considered divorce, Ruth passed along this wisecrack to Barbara Bush: “Divorce? No. Murder? Yes.”

It is no surprise that Ruth declined a thousand interview requests for every one she granted. When I left full-time reporting to start teaching, I included this item in my farewell Rocky Mountain News column: “Allowed to interview one living religious figure, I would choose Ruth Bell Graham, the media-shy Presbyterian poet who also happens to be married to the world’s best-known Southern Baptist preacher.”

I hoped to interview her in 1987, when I spent a day with Graham before a Denver crusade. But the timing was ironic. He was at home, while his wife was away — visiting a clinic due to her already fragile health. Graham offered a tour, but admitted that he was not the best guide.

“My wife runs all of this, to tell you the truth,” said Graham, mystified by a leather-bound copy of “History of the Reformation in Scotland” on a den table. Ruth, he stressed, was the theologian in the family, the one who could dig into Greek texts.

“She’s way over my head when it comes to the books. … She knows everything about everything in this house. She’s collected and read a lot of wonderful things and they’re all here somewhere,” said Graham, before settling into one of their twin rocking chairs on the back porch, facing the mountains.

“I just wish she were here.”

There were, of course, far more days when Ruth missed her globetrotting husband. She poured her emotions into poetry, offering glimpses into a private life behind the very public ministry. Here is one of her poems.

When

in the morning

I make our bed,

pulling his sheets

and covers tight,

I know the tears

I shouldn’t shed

will fall unbidden

as the rain:

and I would kneel,

praying again

words I mean

but cannot feel,

“Lord,

not my will

but Thine

be done.”

The doubts dissolving

one by one.

For I realize,

as I pray,

that’s why it happened

and this way.

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And what about Father’s Day? That can be a touchy subject for pastors in an era in which men who religiously avoid church outnumber active churchmen roughly three to one. Worship just doesn’t work for millions of ordinary guys.

“What churches are doing isn’t getting the job done. Mom is having to take the kids to church because Dad doesn’t want to go,” said Marc Carrier, co-author, with his Cynthia, of “The Values-Driven Family.”

“That leaves Mom in charge of the spiritual upbringing of the children, which means faith is a Mom thing and not a Dad thing. … So why is little Johnny — who is 25 and has his first child on the way, whether he’s married or not — never in church? The odds are that his father was never in church.”

Church attendance among men had already fallen to 43 percent in 1992, according to the Barna Group, which specializes in researching trends among Evangelicals. Then that number crashed to 28 percent in 1996, the year before the Promise Keepers movement held its “Stand in the Gap” rally that drew a million or more men to the National Mall — one of the largest gatherings of any kind in American history.

No one involved in national men’s ministries believes that those stats have improved. That’s one reason why a nondenominational coalition wants to hold a “Stand in the Gap 2007” rally on Oct. 6, hoping to gather 250,000 men at the Washington Monument and on the Ellipse, just south of the White House.

The American numbers are sobering, noted Carrier, but they are nowhere near as stunning as another set of statistics in an essay entitled “The Demographic Characteristics of the Linguistic and Religious Groups in Switzerland,” published in 2000 in a volume covering trends in several European nations. The numbers that trouble traditionalists came from a 1994 survey in which the Swiss government tried to determine how religious practices are carried down from generation to generation.

Apparently, if a father and mother were both faithful churchgoers, 33 percent of their children followed their example, with another 41 percent attending on an irregular basis and only a quarter shunning church altogether.

But what happened if the father had little or no faith? If the father was semi-active and the mother was a faithful worshipper, only 3 percent of their children became active church members and 59 percent were irregular in their worship attendance — with the rest lost to the church altogether.

If the father never went to church, while the mother was faithful, only 2 percent of the children became regular churchgoers and 37 percent were semi-active. Thus, more than 60 percent were lost.

This trend continued in other survey results, noted Carrier. The bottom line was clear. If a father didn’t go to church, only one child in 50 became a faithful churchgoer — no matter how strong the mother’s faith.

“These numbers are old and they are from Switzerland, but they’re the only numbers that anyone has,” said Carrier. “Someone needs to find a way to do similar research in America to see if the same thing is happening here. This is shocking stuff.”

At the height of the Promise Keepers movement, researchers did study one related trend in churches that began emphasizing ministry to men, said the Rev. Rick Kingham, president of the National Coalition of Men’s Ministries, a network of 110 regional and national groups.

Surveys found that if a father made a decision to become a Christian, the rest of the family followed his example 93 percent of the time. If a mother made a similar decision, the rest of the family embraced the faith 17 percent of the time, he said.

“It seems that when a man takes that kind of spiritual stand it usually affects everyone else in the whole constellation around him, including his family and even other men that he knows,” said Kingham, who is helping organize Stand in the Gap 2007.

No one wants to minimize the importance of faithful mothers, he said, but it’s clear that “fathers play a unique and special role in helping their children develop a living faith — especially their sons. … There’s no way to deny that.”

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“Young man,” said the priest, “I do not approve of your style of evangelism.”

“I’m sure that what I’m doing isn’t perfect,” replied Graham. “But I like the evangelism that I’m doing better than the evangelism that you’re not doing.”

Robert E. Webber knew that collision of styles inside out.

The theologian spent most of his career working with people on both sides of the cultural divide captured in that familiar anecdote about the world’s most famous evangelist. It helped that Webber — who died April 27, after an eight-month struggle with cancer — had lived and worshipped in both camps.

As a graduate of the proudly fundamentalist Bob Jones University, Webber knew all about the style of evangelism that many believers can condense into a single blunt question: “If you died tonight, do you know where you would spend eternity?” Yet, as a convert to the Episcopal Church, he also knew how to talk to those who are offended by any discussion of evangelism or, as unsophisticated folks call it, “saving souls.”

“The problem with evangelism is that churches either do it or they don’t,” Webber told me, before a Denver speaking engagement in the mid-1980s. This was about the time that he began to emerge as an influence on progressive evangelicals, in large part because of his strategic years teaching at Wheaton College, home of the Billy Graham Center.

“I think every church that is alive has within it people who are gifted at evangelism,” he added. “If a church doesn’t have these people, then there are some tough questions that have to be asked. … You may be dealing with a dead church.”

Media tributes to Webber this past week have focused on his trailblazing work encouraging evangelicals — through his writings, both popular and academic — to begin weaving strands of ancient rites and prayers into the fabric of contemporary Protestant worship. An ecumenical document rooted in his work, entitled “A Call to An Ancient Evangelical Future” (aefcall.org), challenged its readers to “strengthen their witness through a recovery of the faith articulated by the consensus of the ancient Church and its guardians in the traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, the Protestant Reformation and the Evangelical awakenings.”

Webber’s convictions can also be seen in the titles of his books, such as “Worship Is a Verb,” “Ancient-Future Faith,” “Worship Old and New” and the once-scandalous ” Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail.” In 1998, he founded the Institute for Worship Studies (now known as the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies), a high-tech global graduate school based at Grace Episcopal Church of Orange Park, Fla.

This liturgical approach was a hard sell, especially in the age of media-driven megachurches offering services tuned to fit the fast-paced lifestyles of suburbia.

“The truth is that we Americans are a-historical,” wrote Webber, in “The New Worship Awakening,” a book rereleased several times during the past dozen years. “Most of us know very little about history and probably care even less. What we are interested in is the now, the moment, the existential experience. Unfortunately, most churches in this country have the same mentality.”

However, there was a flip side to his tough message targeting evangelicals.

Webber was convinced that far too many liturgical Christians — Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and the Orthodox — have abandoned the task of evangelizing nonbelievers and those estranged from the faith. In their rush to reject what Webber called a “Lone Ranger,” “hit-and-run” style of evangelism, the leaders of these flocks have veered into apathy and silence.

There is also a chance that many of them no longer want to discuss sin, evil, repentance, grace, death and, horror of horrors, heaven and hell. These eternal concerns are not going to fade away, said Webber.

“What lies behind the views of people who see these doctrines as negative, as subjects to be avoided, is probably an embarrassment about the historic Christian faith,” he explained. “Until a church is ready to reckon with historic Christianity, it is not going to be interested in evangelism. … So I am probably not even talking to what you could call the average, mainline, liberal church.”

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That PG rating isn’t what has ticked off talk radio, Christian bloggers and some Capitol Hill conservatives. They want to know if the Motion Picture Association of America thinks the “P” in PG stands for ” proselytizing” and the “G” for “Gospel.”

The bottom line: Salvation can be as offensive as sex and swearing.

“We’re seeing something new with this movie,” said Kris Fuhr, vice president for marketing at Provident Films, which is owned by Sony BMG. “People who work in this business have always thought that the MPAA based its ratings on actions, on what people actually did in a movie. If you did certain things or said certain words, then you got a certain rating.

“Now it seems like the board is rating a movie on the basis of the ideas that are in it and whether it thinks those ideas are going to offend people.”

“Facing the Giants” tells the story of a depressed high-school coach named Grant Taylor whose life takes a miraculous turn for the better. It includes explicit scenes of prayer and Bible reading, along with several strategic acts of God on and off the football field. The producers have not challenged the PG rating.

The movie was created by Alex and Stephen Kendrick, two brothers who are “media pastors” at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga. Working with a $100,000 budget, they used volunteers as actors, extras and technicians, assisted by a few professionals behind the cameras. Provident plans to open the film in about 400 theaters nationwide this fall, with the help of Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Headlines about the PG rating for “Facing the Giants” created a buzz that quickly reached Washington, D.C.

“This incident raises the disquieting possibility that the MPAA considers exposure to Christian themes more dangerous to children that exposure to gratuitous sex and mindless violence,” said Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the third-ranking House Republican. He suggested that Congress might want to look into this issue, along with reports that “ratings creep” is increasing the amount of sex and violence in movies.

This drew a quick letter from MPAA chairman Glickman, a veteran Democrat who served in Congress and on President Bill Clinton’s cabinet.

“Any strong or mature discussion of any subject material results in at least a PG rating,” he said. “This movie had a mature discussion about pregnancy, for example. It also had other mature discussions that some parents might want to be aware of before taking their kids to this movie.

“Roy, I assure you that religion was not the reason this movie got a PG rating.”

This raised another question: What about those “other mature discussions” in the movie? What were they about?

The MPAA board works in total secrecy and, other than its leader, members are anonymous. However, chairwoman Joan Graves granted a rare interview to discuss the “Facing the Giants” case — after receiving thousands of calls and emails.

“If we see someone on the screen practicing their faith and indicating that they have a faith, that’s not something we PG,” she told the Los Angeles Times.

This was an interesting choice of words, since hardly anyone had claimed that the movie was rated PG simply because it contained religious characters and expressions of faith. The key issue was whether its evangelistic content was offensive. Instead of merely showing faith, “Facing the Giants” dared to include scenes that made a case for conversion to Christianity.

Thus, another MPAA official noted that — in addition to discussions of pregnancy and infertility — the movie included some proselytizing. “Parents might want to know” when a movie openly advocates one religion over other religions, John Feehery, the board’s executive vice president of external affairs, told The Hill newspaper.

So it is acceptable for movie characters to practice a religious faith, as long as they don’t try to convert others.

Proselytism is a bad idea.

“I guess it’s OK,” said Fuhr, “if the MPAA warns people about some of the ideas that they will run into at the movies. … The problem is that there are all kinds of ideas in movies that tend to offend different kinds of people. Will the board be consistent?”

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Eric Metaxas thinks that anyone who truly wants to understand the righteous and jealous God of the Bible should try meditating on a different image. Metaxas is thinking about Motown, rather than Vatican City.

“I admit that the Bible does not specifically mention Aretha Franklin,” said Metaxas, a humor writer and speaker best known for his work with the Manhattan-based “Socrates in the City” lecture series. “But when it comes to thinking about God, most people’s minds are full of all those familiar images and they just get stuck. … So why not Aretha? She’s big, she’s bold and you’re going to have to listen to what she’s saying.”

And everybody knows what the Queen of Soul is going to say: “What you want, baby I got it. What you need, do you know I got it? All I’m askin’ is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit). ? R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.”

Hold on to that image for a minute, because there is a method to his madness and it’s at the heart of his quirky book “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask).” Metaxas is a friend of mine and the best way I can explain where he’s coming from is to say that he’s a former editor of The Record at Yale University, America’s oldest college humor magazine, and he’s written for thinkers as diverse as Chuck Colson of Watergate fame and Bob the Tomato of VeggieTales.

The key is that Metaxas (www.ericmetaxas.com) thinks humor is serious stuff and that most religious leaders haven’t grasped this basic fact about modern life. He is convinced that Americans are not going to listen if theologians and clergy keep offering dense doctrinal arguments when making a case for a traditional faith. Instead of talking about how many angels can dance on a copy of the Summa Theologiae, modern missionaries and apologists need to consider the strategies they would use to talk to Comedy Central fans over a few beers and a bowl of mixed nuts.

Which brings us back to Aretha Franklin.

Many modern seekers, said Metaxas, are curious about God and they wish they could find some answers to their tough spiritual questions. But, at the same time, they have trouble accepting the traditional Christian belief that God is God and that there is only one way to find salvation. These claims sound petty and intolerant.

“Here’s a comparison that might make sense,” argues Metaxas, in a book chapter entitled “How Can Anyone Take the Bible Seriously?”

“If a guy is married and he tries to persuade his wife that he needs to have a few other women on the side, his wife will likely say, ‘Sorry, Romeo, but that’s not going to fly. If you want to be married to me, you have to forego those other women. Period.’ It’s just like that with God. He doesn’t force us to pick him, but he does force us to choose between him and the others. We can’t have both.”

In other words, God demands R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Metaxas has other skewed takes on big issues. He thinks that using sex for self-gratification makes as much sense as using Rembrandt paintings to line birdcages. He’s interested in life’s big questions, questions like how the universe — including all those Chevy Camaros in Queens and Staten Island — exploded out of something smaller than the period at the end of a sentence.

Is this theology? No, it isn’t the way that intellectuals talk in cathedral pulpits and faculty clubs, said Metaxas. But it is the way that ordinary people talk on Friday nights while hanging out with their friends.

“At some point Christians are going to have to use humor and parody because that’s the language of the culture,” he said. “That’s what people consider sharp and entertaining and real. ? You can keep serving up tea-and-crumpets moralism and logical arguments and it’s not going to matter because people aren’t going to listen.

“You may as well be speaking Ukrainian. That isn’t going to work, unless you happen to be speaking to Ukrainians.”

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People want to know how many dollars are coming in and where they are going and why. Hood is the man with the numbers, since he is the Salvation Army’s community relations officer. In the past year, about 3.5 million Army volunteers and about 70,000 employees have helped more than 34 million needy people.

“If you look at those numbers, we’re in good shape and it certainly seems like we’re going to keep getting stronger,” said Hood, hours before being buried in kick-off events for the 2005 red-kettle campaign. “We’re thankful for that.”

But there is another side of the equation, admitted Hood. As a charity, the Salvation Army is rolling with the punches — political, cultural and, in recent years, meteorological. But as a church, and as an evangelistic movement, the recent numbers are sobering.

The Army has about 3,500 ordained officers and 113,000 soldiers who have signed the statement of faith called “A Soldier’s Covenant,” with roughly 35,000 of those being “junior soldiers” under the age of 14.

On a typical Sunday, about 130,000 people attend services in 1316 corps community centers. Three decades ago the Army’s four seminaries were full. Today, there are active attempts to find more adults who are willing to serve and the average age of officers — old and new — is rising.

“Those numbers have been flat for a number of years and, frankly, that has people talking about our future,” said Hood. “Of course, it’s still a mystery to a lot of people that we are a church, so we have to keep reminding people of that. People say, ‘I had no idea that you’re a church, too.’ …

“Are we a church or are we a charity? People have been asking that for ages. The answer, of course, is that we’re both.”

Meanwhile, the Salvation Army’s status as a church has been linked to some nasty headlines in recent years. According to the conservative National Clergy Council, a boycott of the red kettles by gay-rights groups may have contributed to the decision by Target executives to enforce their ban on solicitations outside their stores. Army leaders have insisted that, as a church, they have a right to let their traditional Christian doctrines on sex and marriage shape some employee policies and benefits.

Of course, it’s also newsworthy that those bell-ringing volunteers keep greeting shoppers with the controversial words, “Merry Christmas!”

This year, stressed Hood, the Salvation Army has worked out a compromise with Target in which online customers can make some holiday purchases for the needy. However, a few conservative religious groups are targeting Target by reminding their members that the red kettles are alive and well at many other stores.

Hood confirmed that the two-year controversy has not hurt donations. The kettles took in $93 million in 2003, including $9 million at Target stores. After the 2004 Target ban, the kettles took in $103 million, including $17 million at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club locations.

It does appear, said Hood, that the Salvation Army is maintaining its niche in the American imagination. The public has responded well to its pledge to keep “doing the most good to the most people in the most need.” The question is whether people understand why the Salvation Army is doing the work that it does. After all, the word “salvation” is still in the brand name.

Army officers are trying new things. Some are working with Harley-Davidson motorcycle clubs to reach out to bikers. Some corps centers are starting “church on wheels” programs with buses that take worship services directly to needy neighborhoods. Others are trying to make Sunday services “more charismatic and more contemporary.”

Can the Salvation Army replace brass bands with rock bands?

“People admire what we do, but they would prefer to worship at a Baptist church or a Presbyterian church or that megachurch that’s in their neighborhood,” said Hood. “They’ll donate money to us and volunteer to help, but they don’t want to worship with us on Sunday mornings. …

“We still have people who think that all of our soldiers are off living in a barracks somewhere. People don’t understand who we are.”

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The New York Times offered a sigh of relief, noting that the closest he came to danger in the first sermon was when he said: “There’s a lot of discussion about the Ten Commandments being in a courtroom or in our country. We need to look at the Ten Commandments because they convict us of our sin.”

The key was that Graham remained silent on the “divisive issues of the day” such as — the newspaper offered this handy list — “stem cell research, or abortion, or gay marriage, or even homosexuality.”

Nevertheless, the world’s most famous evangelist did emphasize the Christian belief that Jesus is the only path to salvation. He also talked about “sin” and “repentance,” judgmental words that often attract ironic quotation marks.

“What causes lying, cheating, racial prejudice?” asked Graham, as he began the crusade last weekend in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. “The Bible says, ‘For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.’

“These are the things that defile a man and they defile a country. They defile our world today. … The Bible says that our problem is sin.”

To which legions of “values voters” would say, “Amen.”

That’s the problem these days. It’s hard to talk about “sins” that “defile” a country without people connecting the dots to Hollywood, courts, laws, schools and a host of other hot-button subjects.

It’s true that Graham did little during this historic crusade to embrace the Bush White House or its allies on the Religious Right, noted Rice University sociologist William Martin, author of “A Prophet With Honor: The Billy Graham Story.” Graham deflected questions about abortion, talked about poverty and noted that he remains a registered Democrat.

Graham didn’t need to dwell on social issues, said Martin, who attended the rallies in Queens. For example, the evangelist stressed that sex is a blessed gift, as long as people remember to follow “the Word of God.” That was all he needed to say.

“I am sure that he was not as explicit as he has been, especially on all the moral issues that he used to preach about so much,” said Martin. “But you don’t have to repeat yourself all the time. By now, I think most people know what Billy Graham believes.”

One of America’s most outspoken religion-news critics agreed. The 86-year-old Graham has become such a revered figure, noted writer Jeff Sharlet, that most Americans — journalists included — no longer recognize how his beliefs about culture have soaked into the images and themes in his preaching.

“There’s this idea that Billy Graham is no longer conservative or has somehow transcended politics,” said Sharlet, editor of TheRevealer.org, in a WNYC interview. “That’s a really shallow understanding of what conservative theology is about and what Billy Graham’s conservatism has always been about. He no longer needs to talk about politics because the alignment of evangelicalism and the kind of politics he’s always supported has become so neat at this moment that he no longer needs to exhort people in the direction he feels is the right way.”

The public and the press are paying especially close attention as Graham struggles through the final events of his 58-year career, which has included 417 crusades in 185 countries. The white-haired patriarch’s voice sounded stronger at the end of the New York crusade than at the beginning and he is considering an invitation to return to London in the fall.

This would complete what Martin called a 14-month “victory lap” of the locations of his most famous crusades — Los Angeles, New York City and London. The question is whether Graham has the strength to cross the Atlantic, due to his fight with Parkinson’s, fluid buildup on the brain and prostate cancer. The health of his wife, Ruth Bell Graham, is just as fragile.

But Graham sounded like he wants to go back to London.

“That sermon the other night just didn’t sound like the end,” said Martin. “It was classic Billy, with that emphasis on the Second Coming that we have heard him use for so long. There’s just something about hearing Billy Graham say, ‘Jesus is coming again. Are you ready?’ “

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Bishops also become experts at another intricate ritual — banquets.

So Metropolitan Philip, the Antiochian Orthodox archbishop of North America, was not surprised when he was asked to make a few remarks at the final banquet of the 2004 Clergy-Laity Congress of the Greek Orthodox Church in New York City. He was surprised when Greek Archbishop Demetrios indicated that this was more than a polite request.

“I reminded him that when I speak, I tell it like it is,” said Philip.

What happened next caused shock waves that reached all the way to Istanbul, even if the archbishop’s words would have seemed mild to outsiders who could not break the Byzantine code.

Philip addressed the delegates as Americans — not Greeks.

The Lebanese-born archbishop said it was time to challenge the ties that bind the new world to the old. He said what he has been saying since 1966, when he assumed control of a diocese that has grown from 66 to 250 parishes on his watch.

Philip brought greetings from Patriarch Ignatius IV in Damascus and his ancient church founded by Peter and Paul. Then he ventured into an ecclesiastical minefield, offering greetings from the 1000 Antiochian Orthodox delegates who, days earlier, had voted unanimously to approve what many Greek lay people have long demanded — a constitution granting them control of their own church in North America.

The delegates burst into applause. Philip plunged on.

“I told them that if I could sum up this new constitution, I would begin with the words, ‘We the people,’ ” he said. “The hall erupted again. I told them we cannot ignore this truth — Americans are infested with freedom. We cannot ignore that our churches are in America and we are here to stay.”

That was all Philip needed to say. Nikki Stephanopoulos, the veteran press officer for the Greek archdiocese, described the scene this way: “It would be accurate to say that he received an enthusiastic response.”

The response was different in Istanbul. According to the National Herald, the Greek-American daily newspaper, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew criticized Demetrios for allowing Philip to “spread his propaganda in favor of establishing an autocephalous,” or independent, “Orthodox Church in America!” When Demetrios said that Philip spoke as vice president of the Standing Council of Canonical Bishops in the Americas, Bartholomew reportedly exclaimed: “You should have stopped him!”

Months later, Metropolitan Philip continues to travel from altar to altar and banquet to banquet, offering his own people an even blunter version of the sermon he preached to the Greeks. This past week he was in West Palm Beach, Fla.

The archbishop continues to tell familiar stories about life in the Middle East. He still asks second- and third-generation Arab children if they can speak Arabic.

But Philip said Eastern Orthodox Christians must embrace Americans who seek ancient roots in the confusion of modern times. This will mean learning from converts who are not afraid to use words like “missions,” “tithing” and even “evangelism.” A symbolic sign of change: One of his newly consecrated bishops once taught biblical studies at Oral Roberts University.

Change will be difficult, but bishops must realize that they are called to spread their faith to others, not just to “to preserve it for ourselves,” he said. The heart of Orthodoxy must stay the same, but it is not enough to “put our faith into pickle jar and preserve it. We have enough pickles in America already.”

Orthodox leaders will find a way to save the traditions of their homelands, said Philip. But the clergy and laity must realize that their own children and grandchildren are Americans who need a faith that is stronger than old music, familiar foods, folk dancing and traces of an ancient language.

“I believe in Orthodox unity, with diversity,” he stressed. “We will not melt into the Greek archdiocese and the Greeks will not melt into our archdiocese. … But we must have a united synod that speaks to this country. We must speak to America, not as Arabs and Greeks and Russians and Romanians and Bulgarians. We need to speak with one Orthodox voice on the issues that affect our country and our country is America.”

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