Happy Hanukkah, no matter what

When Sabina Dener was a child in the Bronx, she knew it was Hanukkah when everyone started singing Christmas carols.

"When I was in school, we had to learn Christmas carols and we had to stand up and sing them, too," she said, describing the World War II era. "That's just the way things were. Hanukkah was a minor holiday we celebrated at home. It was about treats and games and that was that.

"Now everything has changed. Just look at this."

It was a glorious evening to light the first candle of the eight-day "festival of lights," as about 3,000 Jews gathered under the palm trees at CityPlace, a $550-million development in the heart of West Palm Beach, Fla. If celebrants stood in the right place on the balcony last Sunday night, they could see the whole panorama of Macy's, the New York Pretzel stand, a nonsectarian holiday tree and the eight-foot-tall menorah.

On the map, this is a long way from the boroughs of New York City. But the two regions are connected by tradition, statistics and what can only be called the Seinfeldian ties that bind. Research in 2000 found that 230,000 people live in Jewish households in Palm Beach County -- America's sixth-largest Jewish community.

The mood at this celebration seemed to be, "Happy Hanukkah, no matter what." Rabbis offered meditations about sacrifice and justice. The local congressman loudly praised the military and attacked the enemy.

Hanukkah traditions include a note of defiance. The holiday centers on events in 165 B.C., when Jewish rebels, led by the Maccabees, defeated their Greek oppressors. The rite of lighting candles -- one on the first night, increasing to eight -- began with a miracle linked to this victory. When it came time to purify the recaptured temple, only one container of ritually pure oil could be found for its eternal flame. Tradition says this one-day supply burned for eight days.

For centuries, Hanukkah has symbolized the need for Jews to defend the purity of their faith, when asked to assimilate. Today, many insist that the holiday is a celebration of religious liberty and pluralism -- period.

"In every generation, there are Maccabees," shouted Rabbi Isaac Jarett of Temple Emanu-El, one of nine participating rabbis from the various branches of Judaism. "In every generation, there are people who seek to destroy us -- as unbelievable as that seems.

"Right now, we have Maccabees in Afghanistan fighting to preserve Western Civilization. ... So why did you come here? You came here tonight, not because you wanted to be here. You came because you needed to be here."

It was hard to find anyone present who was not from the New York City area or somehow connected -- through family ties -- with the events of Sept. 11. It was impossible to find anyone who didn't connect recent events in Israel and in the United States. When the music played, even the most frail and elderly people in the courtyard rose to their feet to sing "The Hope," the national anthem of Israel, and then "The Star Spangled Banner."

When the anthems were over, Baby Boomer Gregg Lerman kept bouncing 9-month-old Hope in his arms. Her sparkling ear studs matched her father's and her tiny t-shirt proclaimed: "My First Chanukah."

"What's this all about? It's about rebirth and freedom," said Lerman, who grew up in Long Island, N.Y. "That's what Hanukkah is supposed to be about and that is certainly what it means to me right now. It's about survival in the face of adversity, both here in America and, as always, in Israel."

After an hour or so, the sermons ended and the partying began. People shopped, danced, sang traditional songs and made pilgrimages to Starbucks and The Cheesecake Factory. Children lobbied for more presents and parents headed to the parking deck with their heavy shopping bags.

But this was one year when everyone knew Hanukkah was about something else.

"It's about the triumph of good over evil," said Dener. "After Sept. 11, this holiday is suddenly very relevant. The concept of a life and death struggle between good and evil is not theoretical right now. It's real."

United we kneel?

God only knows how many clergy have been asked to write prayers for the spiritually fragile days since Sept. 11.

Offering a prayer for Ground Zero, the Rev. Charles T.A. Flood of Philadelphia began by praising the saints "who have made us holy from times past. ... God has sent them to us in times of loss and confusion."

It helps to name names and the Episcopal priest did that. "The Saints were not those who were perfect," said the prayer, as posted on Episcopal and Anglican Web sites. "They were parts of God's creation who struggled and often failed and yet managed to raise up our faith in God and in one another.

"Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Sarah, Hannah, Joshua, David, Moses, Mary the Mother of Jesus. Buddha and Mohammad. ... They led God's people to God's Light."

This was not exactly a traditional litany. Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said the inclusion of Buddha and Mohammed was "very unfortunate. ... It's not Church of England practice to refer to Buddha or Mohammed in prayers."

The Rev. George Curry of the evangelical Church Union told the Daily Telegraph: "It is blasphemous. It is appalling. Any self-respecting Christian will be horrified."

The bottom line is that it's easier to stand together than to kneel together. Statements of faith that have brought comfort to many have caused distress for others. The question is whether believers must blur the doctrinal lines that divide them, while striving to find any ties that bind.

Evangelist Franklin Graham, for example, set off a media firestorm when he said: "The God of Islam is not the same God. He's not the God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion."

Later, Billy Graham's heir noted that his Samaritan's Purse relief agency has poured millions of dollars into Muslim communities in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan. Christians are called to love their neighbors, regardless of creed. But there is no way, he argued, to avoid the words of Jesus: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."

It is also unlikely that Muslim clerics will edit the inscription on the face of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, which stresses that Allah is, "One, God, the Everlasting, who has not begotten and has not been begotten. ... Praise to God who has not taken a son." In other words, a cornerstone of Islam is the rejection of the Trinitarian God of Christianity.

True Christianity is a missionary faith. So is Islam.

The Archbishop of Canterbury confronted that reality in an address -- entitled "How Far Can We Travel Together?" at the Beit Al-Quran, an Islamic cultural center in Bahrain. He spoke only days after 18 Anglicans in the Church of Pakistan were killed during Sunday worship. Carey called for tolerance that did not require believers to hide or shred their core beliefs.

Muslims are thriving in the West, building waves of new mosques and winning converts, he said. The question is whether believers in other faiths will have the same freedom to build, to preach and to convert others -- in Islamic lands.

"All minority religions, which expect the freedom to express themselves in worship and in the nurture of their young, and to be able to make converts must, as a matter of human justice, encourage the same freedoms to be exercised in those parts of the world where they are in a majority," said Carey. "I must express the deep worries of many Christians in our country who see their Christian brothers and sisters in many parts of the world unable to practice their faith with the same freedom that peoples of other faiths enjoy in the West."

"Clearly this will always be a tension between two missionary faiths such as our own, both of which see their beliefs more in absolute rather than relativistic terms."

The archbishop ended with a poignant detail from the massacre in Pakistan. A Muslim man was guarding the church door that Sunday and he died, struggling to "protect people whose faith he did not share."

A mere ripple in the pews

Sometimes the number is 38 percent and sometimes it's something like 41.

For decades, Gallup Poll researchers have asked people if they attended worship services in the previous week. On rare occasions the percentage may soar to 48. It has been known to dip to 35. But that's about it. There are seasonal ripples in the pews, but few big waves.

Then came the events of Sept. 11.

"Everybody started hearing all kinds of things from people all over the country," said Mike Vlach of Church Initiative, based in Wake Forest, N.C. This evangelical support network (www.churchinitiative.org) has about 5,000 churches on its mailing list.

"It seemed like we were talking about sizable changes in the spiritual landscape of the country. ... We immediately started calling churches and asking, 'What are you seeing out there? What are people asking? What are you doing in response?' "

Media reports joined the chorus, citing this return to faith as a ray of light in the darkness. Then the late September Gallup Poll (www.gallup.com) came out and the number was 47 percent, up from 41 in May. That was a rise, but not shockingly higher than the normal post-summer lift.

Vlach kept placing his calls and the news was good. Pastors said they were seeing larger crowds, including many inquisitive visitors. The atmosphere of uncertainty was lingering. "People have a heightened sense of alertness," said a pastor in Indianapolis. A Chicago-area contact reported: "We have noticed a heightened desire in people to put their spiritual lives in order."

The anecdotes were wonderful, but Vlach said he could not find strong evidence of lasting impact. Most church leaders were comforting their anxious flocks and welcoming any visitors who happened to walk in on their own. But few churches had tried to reach out to the un-churched.

Pastors preached one or two sermons linked to Sept. 11 and, perhaps, organized a memorial service. But that was about it, said Vlach. Few churches made sustained attempts to talk about life and death, heaven and hell, sin and repentance.

"I'm not sure that many churches even saw this as an opportunity to deal with these kinds of issues," he said. "I'm not sure many church leaders are trained to think like that."

By mid-November, the Gallup number was back to 42 percent.

Yes, 74 percent of Americans said they were praying more than usual, 70 percent said they had wept and 77 percent said they were being affectionate with loved ones. As the Gallup team said, Americans were seeking "spiritual solace." But the data suggested that they were flying solo.

The evangelical market analysts at the Barna Research Group (www.barna.org) did a wave of national polling starting in late October, looking for statistical signs of revival. They found that worship statistics were following familiar patterns. Participation in prayer circles and Bible study groups "remained static." Even among born-again Christians, they found a slight decrease in the number of believers who were sharing their faith with non-believers.

"After the attack," said George Barna, "millions of nominally churched or generally irreligious Americans were desperately seeking something that would restore stability and a sense of meaning to life. Fortunately, many of them turned to the church. Unfortunately, few of them experienced anything that was sufficiently life-changing to capture their attention."

These seekers found comfort, but were not motivated to change their beliefs and lifestyles. The most stunning statistic was that the percentage of Americans saying they believe in "moral truths or principles that are absolute," meaning truths that don't change with the circumstances, actually declined -- from 38 to 22 percent. In fact, only 32 percent of born-again Christians said they still believe in the existence of absolute moral truth.

"Our assessment," said Barna, "is that churches succeeded at putting on a friendly face but failed at motivating the vast majority of spiritual explorers to connect with Christ in a more intimate or intense manner." The Sept. 11th tragedy offered congregations a unique chance to "be the healing and transforming presence of God in people's lives, but that ... has now come and gone, with little to show for it."

The Devil and Harry Potter

There's nothing like a hot quote about Satan to grab a reader's attention.

"I think it's absolute rubbish to protest children's books on the grounds that they are luring children to Satan," said Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, according to an email message that keeps circling the globe. "People should be praising them for that! These books guide children to an understanding that the weak, idiotic Son Of God is a living hoax who will be humiliated when the rain of fire comes ... while we, his faithful servants, laugh and cavort in victory."

Truth is, Rowling never said that. This email alert -- with its YOU MIGHT WANT TO SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FLOCK headline -- claims that Rowling bared her soul in a London Times interview. Actually, this bogus quotation is a cleaned-up snippet from a satire published by the wicked pranksters at TheOnion.com.

So stop and think about the Zen-like nature of this cautionary tale. What we have here is a case of humor-impaired Harry Potter critics circulating -- as fact -- bites of a satire making fun of how humor-impaired many Harry Potter critics are getting these days. Got that?

Life will only get more complicated for culture warriors now that "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" has rolled into 3,672 motion-picture sanctuaries.

"Christians are now spreading this parody on the Internet with their own scriptural commentaries on how we need to stand for truth," said youth pastor Connie Neal, author of "What's a Christian to Do with Harry Potter?" Naturally, journalists are howling because the "people who are spreading it haven't checked it out to even make sure it's true!"

Meanwhile, believers who are using Potter-mania as a chance to rip into each other should get out their Bibles, said Neal, in a BreakPoint.org interview. They should turn to St. Paul's letter to the Galatians, in which a passage that condemns sorcery also condemns strife, anger, selfishness, enmity and jealousy. And lying remains a sin, as well.

It's time to lighten up, she said. There are anti-Potter mothers who have stopped talking to pro-Potter mothers.

"It is one thing to say, 'I personally choose not to read Harry Potter because to me, this equates to real witchcraft and therefore I want nothing to do with it,' " said Neal. "But we step over the line when we say, 'Because I think the Potter books equate to real world witchcraft, I insist that everyone else adopt my interpretation -- even though the author has made it clear that she did not mean it as real-world witchcraft.' "

Meanwhile, Rowling remains a member of the Church of Scotland and keeps saying, "I believe in God, not magic." She also has stated that the magical elements in her books come from her studies in British folklore. This means she is trying to tap some of the same wellsprings as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and even Charles Dickens.

Last year, Rowling told a Canadian reporter that she is a Christian and that this "seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said, 'yes,' because I do. But no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that and, I have to say that does suit me. ... If I talk too freely about that, I think the intelligent reader -- whether 10 or 60 -- will be able to guess what is coming in the books."

Scores of believers -- on the left and right -- unapologetically adore Rowling's work. Others have offered cautious praise, even as they worry about witchcraft's rise as a force in popular culture. There are a few who consistently attack all works of myth and fantasy.

There are valid issues to debate. But things are getting nasty, as issues of power, fundraising and institutional survival take over.

If this debate must continue, noted Douglas LeBlanc of Christianity Today, "We should argue honorably, neither caricaturing each other's interpretations nor ignoring Rowling's treatment of the occult. And if advocates on either side grow frustrated they should try something truly daring: Writing better stories."

Songs for souls in hard times

The powers that be made sure the Country Music Association Awards started with fireworks, red-white-and-blue streamers and star-spangled guitars.

But it was Alan Jackson who stopped the show with a post-Sept. 11 anthem that had the faithful drying their eyes. "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" jumped from pangs of doubt to hugs in pews, from tuning out Hollywood trash to dusting off the family Bible.

The man in the white hat wrapped his grief and grit around a chorus that would turn an MTV programmer into a pillar of salt.

"I'm just a singer of simple songs. I'm not a real political man. I watch CNN, but I'm not really sure I can tell you the difference in Iraq and Iran," sang Jackson. "But I know Jesus and I talk to God and I remember this from when I was young. Faith, hope and love are some good things he gave us, and the greatest of these is love."

No one really needed to prove that real country music could handle hard times. After all, the year's hot song was a 1913 flashback that opens with the cry: "I am a man of constant sorrow, I have seen trouble all my days."

"Country music goes through cycles like everything else and we've seen lot of sanitized music in recent years," said Gene Edward Veith of Concordia University-Wisconsin, co-author of "Honky-Tonk Gospel."

"Right now the pendulum is swinging back toward the traditional side of things. That means we're hearing more music that -- one way or another -- says suffering is a part of real life. This is music about living and dying and joy and sorrow. When you start talking about things like that out in normal America, you have to use the language of faith."

Some people say traditional folk music kept the flame of old-time music alive, while others credit the late Bill Monroe and his bluegrass believers. There's blues, tin-pan jazz and English balladry in there, too. But most of all, said Veith, there is the gospel music that serves as a backdrop to everything else.

Country music is about people messing up and then trying to make things right -- sin and salvation. American popular culture knows how to handle the sin part, said Veith. But most of the people who rule Hollywood and the pop charts haven't got a clue about how to handle repentance, grace and salvation.

At its best, country music delivers both sides of this sobering equation.

"Christianity is not a matter of moralism or positive messages," wrote Veith and Thomas Wilmeth. "Rather, it is about the salvation of people who need salvation. Country music, unlike other popular art forms, has a way of acknowledging the sinfulness of sin. And though it sometimes goes too far in wallowing in that sin, at some point it has a way of acknowledging the power of the Gospel."

Country music does do its share of wallowing as well as worshiping. Anyone who has punched more than two jukebox buttons knows that country musicians have always had as much to say about Saturday night as Sunday morning. But even those "cheatin' and drinkin'" songs tend to reveal some moral roots, said Veith.

Many a barstool classic has included a big role for a real Satan who tempts real people with real sin that leads to a real hell. Also, country songs often portray alcohol as a futile way of dealing with moral failure. One thing this music almost never does is deny that the pain and brokenness is real. Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine many rock 'n' roll divas singing songs about adultery, because the institution of marriage is irrelevant in that context.

Country music isn't perfect, said Veith. Neither is real life.

Perhaps Johnny Cash put it best, when he described his taste in music: "I love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And mother. And God."

That covers most of the big issues -- from Genesis to Revelation.

Finster -- hip, hick & holy

It's hard to miss the Big Idea when an artist puts it right on a painting in bold letters.

"He That Believeth Not Shall Be Damned. Not A Crown But Hellfire And Brimstone," wrote Howard Finster, using his unorthodox spelling and grammar. "If You Only Had One Sweet Son And You Gave His Life To Save Ten Wicked Men. And They Returned And Denied That You Gave Your Only Son For Them And Said You Child Never Exist No One Died For Us."

There's more, written on the centerpiece of a 1990 exhibit in Washington, D.C. "Please Go Right Now And Call You Child To You. And Measure You Love For Him And Turn And Look At The Most Sinful Man You Know And Think If You Would Trade Your Presus Son For Him. God Is Love."

That seems clear. Nevertheless, the curators posted a sign to reassure troubled patrons. Thus saith the Smithsonian: "The historical, popular and biblical subjects of Finster's portraits embody his concept of the inventor as someone whose creative process will provide the world's salvation."

Funny, the preacher from northwest Georgia thought he was saying, "Repent!"

"Probably some people mean different kinds of salvation. I'm talking about the salvation of Jesus Christ. That's what you gotta have," Finster once told author Frederica Mathewes-Green.

"My vision right now is to lead the world to the Bible," he said. Many are not "looking for a piece of art, they're looking for a message."

So that's what Finster offered -- a message. He spent four decades as a revival preacher and jack-of-all-trades repairman. Then, at age 60, he had one of his visions. He was fixing a bicycle when a blob of white paint on his hand formed a face that said: "Paint sacred art."

This didn't make much sense, but Finster did it. By the time of his death on Oct. 22nd, the 84-year-old evangelist had produced 47,000-plus signed works.

This folk-art phenomenon shocked all kinds of people. To the modern-art elite, he was a force of nature. Yet no one could deny that Finster had a knack for touching tired, jaded souls. Meanwhile, some Christians couldn't figure out what he was doing playing banjo on the Tonight Show and painting album covers for rock superstars. He was guilty by association.

"Finster was always a showman and the world of serious art considered him a kind of naive clown," said painter Ed Knippers. "But under that show, there was a very wise man. ... What he was doing was putting little artistic time bombs out in the living rooms of the very people who tend to be the most critical of Christianity."

Over time, Finster let his art do the talking. Some of his messages were, after all, offensive to the people he wanted to reach as customers and converts. One Washington art gallery reportedly dropped him when the owners got tired of being called "infidels."

So Finster learned some manners and mastered the art of being colorful on cue. But he never changed his message. The artist's fundamentalist style was "so in-your-face it was almost campy," said Knippers. His sermons in paint also intimidated the many Christian artists who insist that the key to mainstream acceptance is avoiding explicitly religious symbols and themes.

"Finster's art was a two-edged sword. The art world didn't know what to do with him and neither did the Christian world," Knippers said. "His work cut both ways. ... That is always a sign of a true prophet who is managing to get a message across out in the real world."

What was that message? Here is Finster, once again, working with words instead of paint.

"We all have the image of God in us and we belong to him, even if we're sinners," he said. "Like the Bible says, 'God is love.' It means, if Hitler went to hell, God still loves him, and the way he got to hell was going over God's love. And if you die today and go to hell, even if you're in hell he still loves you. His love never stops, but you've got to do something about his love. When you get saved and accept Him, you're alright."

America -- a 'Christian' nation?

Any researcher who comes to the United States of America to study how people talk will find plenty of people who speak languages other than English.

Some don't speak English at all. Many speak English and another language. Many others -- computer-software pros, for example -- speak dialects blending English with various unknown tongues. But statistically, the U.S. is an English-speaking nation.

"OK, that is true," said Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First Things, a journal of religion and public life. "This is not to say that most Americans speak English very well. But when they are speaking a language very poorly, it is English that they are speaking."

What about religion? Anyone who offers a parallel analysis of religion in America will hear howls of protest.

Want to start a fight? Call America a "Christian nation."

But do the math, said Neuhaus. Surveys show that 90 percent of Americans call themselves "Christians" and 80 percent claim some link to a specific church. Even backsliding Baptists and Christmas-Eve Catholics feel some of the ties that bind.

Thus, Neuhaus dares to speak the words "Christian America."

It is a "matter of extraordinary significance how people think about themselves," said Neuhaus, speaking an ecumenical conference at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala. "It's not for us to say, 'Oh, you think you're a Christian, but let me judge you -- you're really not.'

"We may find someone to be a very imperfect Christian, a very muddled Christian, a very confused Christian, an inwardly contradictory Christian. But, in their minds, they think they are Christians."

Yes, most Americans do an inadequate job of practicing their religion, he said. Yet it is also true that when they are "practicing a religion very inadequately, it is Christianity that they are practicing -- overwhelmingly."

Neuhaus has a knack for punchy statements that make academic and media elites nervous. He emerged as a major voice in church-state debates in 1984 with his book, "The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America." As a Lutheran pastor he marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, he is a Roman Catholic priest. Anyone who wants to understand the views of culturally conservative Christians -- such as the current occupant of the White House --- pays attention to this witty New Yorker.

One reason it's hard to speak the words "Christian America" in public is that so many people use these words in such radically different ways. Osama bin Laden says America is a "Christian nation." Then again, so does the Rev. Pat Robertson. This is the kind of synergy that makes people nervous.

Neuhaus said many scholars admit that America can be called "Christian" if this is understood in cultural, not doctrinal, terms. Even then, most would insist that this language is too dangerous to use in public life.

"There are troubles in talking about a 'Christian America,' " he said. "You can say, 'Well! America, even in moments of patriotic fervor, such as we have witnessed and continue to witness does not deserve to be called 'Christian.' "

There are other problems. Many Catholics resist using "Christian America" because this term has historically been so popular with Protestants. Also, there remain small pockets of believers who -- if they had the power -- would gladly replace "One nation, under God" with "One nation, under God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit" or even "One nation, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ."

Meanwhile, some critics -- on left and right -- now believe that "we live in a 'post-Christian' America. At one time it was Christian, but now ... it is essentially a pagan America," said Neuhaus. Some leaders on the religious left insist that it's time to joyfully embrace the fact that America can be described as "One nation, under many gods."

Lots of people wish the subject would go away.

Perhaps many Christians have a reason to ignore the complex and disturbing statistics that define the paradoxes of faith and public life in America, said Neuhaus. Perhaps, just perhaps, "We Christians don't want to take responsibility for what a overwhelmingly Christian society would look like. It looks an awful lot like this one -- filled with sinners."

England -- an alien culture

It is strange for a British shepherd to return home and confess that he feels like an alien.

Yet whenever Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor finishes the flight from Peru to Great Britain, he feels confused. During numerous trips to South America, he has visited priests and their flocks who live simple lives as they struggle with poverty, disease and hunger. Yet most seem remarkably joyful.

That is not what the cardinal sees at home, where there exists a "surplus of all that glitters." In fact, the leader of the Catholic Church in England is no longer sure that he understands the soul of his homeland.

"The unease, even anguish, of our Western world is there for all to see," said Murphy-O'Connor, in a recent address to the National Conference of Priests. "I could go on about this, and talk also about the rise in New Age and occult practices and the search being made by young people for something in which, or someone in whom, they can put their complete trust. ...

"We in the West become richer, able to possess what we want when we want, and yet in doing so we do not necessarily become happier. Why is it that so many in our society seek transient happiness through alcohol, drugs, pornography and recreational sex?"

These are blunt words, especially coming from a cardinal. Under normal conditions, they might have started a lengthy debate about the spiritual identity of a proud land. That was not the case this time -- since this sermon was preached only days before Sept. 11th.

Nevertheless, the cardinal's words remain relevant in the wake of the attacks, which pundits keep describing as a "clash of cultures." Britain is a symbolic player in these events.

According to Murphy-O'Connor, British culture has changed. It is no longer what it used to be. The cardinal even began with a provocative biblical lament from Psalm 137: "How shall we sing a song of the Lord on alien soil? "The most stinging passage did not appear in the published text. According to the Times, the cardinal added this statement: "It does seem in our countries in Britain today ... that Christianity, as a sort of backdrop to people's lives and moral decisions -- and to the government, the social life of the country -- has now almost been vanquished."

The church must face this fact, he said. The years ahead will require both compassion and tough realism.

It has been easy to see this trend in statistics. A survey in 2000 found that 48 percent of adults in the United Kingdom claim a specific religious tradition, compared with 86 percent of Americans and 92 percent of Italians. Among the young in Britain, two-thirds of those between 18-24 claimed no specific faith as their own.

The profile of Roman Catholicism has risen in England during the past decade, even though Mass attendance is down 20 percent. In part, this is because statistics have been even bleaker in the Church of England, with only a quarter of the population now identifying with the state church. In the late 1990s, Anglican attendance figures slipped under the 1 million mark.

But the cardinal did not focus on statistical decline. The key, he said, is that modern England worships at the altar of moral consumerism and absolute personal freedom.

This has been devastating in family life. He noted that the land's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has openly stated his belief that the "extraordinary institution, marriage, which brought together sexuality, emotional kinship and the creation of new life and wove them into a moral partnership suffused by love, has been exploded as effectively as if someone had planted a bomb in the center of our moral life."

There is no sign that matters will change anytime soon, the cardinal said.

"There is an indifference to Christian values and to the church among many young people and, indeed, not only the young," he said. "You see a quite demoralized society -- one where the only good is what I want, the only rights are my own and the only life with any meaning or value is the life I want for myself."

Digging deeper than 'Where was God?'

Time is passing, but that stack of newspapers in the corner is growing.

Time is passing, but those images of passenger jets, flaming skies and twisted steel are still buried over there under the new layers of rubber-suited health warriors fighting a tide of sickening white powder.

Time is passing, but preachers know people are still asking: Where was God? They can see people flinch when they hear a Psalm that says: "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. ... You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday."

"Right now, people who aren't even believers are going to stop you and ask: 'Where was God?' It's a serious question and we have to take it seriously," said Haddon Robinson, one of the world's most celebrated teachers of preaching. "People who are asking this question are sincere. But still, it does kind of make you want to say, 'You never took evil all that seriously, did you? You thought evil was something up on a movie screen, but you never really thought it was real.' "

"Where was God?" is the kind of question people ask during a crisis. In the months ahead, said Robinson, preachers will almost certainly have dig deeper than this one ancient mystery. They will need to wrestle with other questions linked to fear and hope, joy and pain, human freedom and supernatural evil, twisted souls and eternal justice.

Millions of people are searching for God. Millions are angry with God. Many are searching and angry at the same time.

Welcome to the complex and dramatic world of the Bible and real faith. These are the kinds of issues Robinson has helped preachers face in Dallas and Denver and, today, as a distinguished professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary outside Boston. A few years ago, a national poll named him as one of the top 12 preachers in the English-speaking world.

"People are watching a drama unfold, these days, but they're not sure what's happening," he said. "They want to know if someone is really in charge. They want to know what part they're supposed to be playing in this story. Everyone is shook up. The stereotype is to say that everything has changed, but what's really true is that everything has been challenged.

"Right now, even people who don't go to church are asking about the end of the world. They're asking where God is, but they're also asking who God is. One thing is sure -- God doesn't seem to be the happy, white-haired man sitting up in a cloud somewhere."

Many of the questions preachers will face in an era of terror and strife, he said, are linked to suffering, repentance and, ultimately, redemption. Thus, it's time to note that the biblical drama includes scenes of unspeakable tragedy, as well as triumph. The villains win many victories, while the people of God often wander lost in the wilderness. The Bible has as much to say about "evil" as about "good."

Most of all, this drama is full of saints who rejoice in the midst of suffering. Modern believers may ask: What was that all about? The saints also focused on God's call for them to repent of their own sins, instead of assigning blame to others. They kept the faith, even when confronting painful mysteries.

These great themes were easy to ignore, during an era when many Americans were meditating on their stock portfolios and Day-Timers.

"We've been telling ourselves that we're normal, while all of those saints must have been strange people who brought all that suffering on themselves, somehow," said Robinson. "But the atmosphere that surrounds our preaching has changed. Six months ago, if you preached a sermon about suffering and the possibility that life could take a real turn for the worse, it would have seemed like you were trying to whip up some gloom and doom. People would have written you off.

"I think people are ready to listen, now."