Next year in Jerusalem?

Germany has the world's fastest-growing Jewish population.

One of Judaism's hottest schools of spiritual renewal has its roots in Argentina.

Jews in Atlanta set out to raise $25 million and ended up with $50 million, including nearly $5 million poured into the project by Coca-Cola -- a corporate pillar of the old Protestant South.

These are snapshots of modern Judaism. Get used to it.

"Obviously, when people think of Judaism they think of Israel and that's as it should be," said journalist Larry Tye, author of a provocative travelogue entitled "Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora."

"But right now, anyone who wants to see what is happening in Judaism needs to look outside of Israel. If you just focus on Israel, you can't see the big picture."

When Tye talks about the diaspora, he is referring to Jewish communities that exist and often thrive outside of Israel. While Israel remains the unique homeland, the Boston Globe veteran is convinced most Jews increasingly feel at home in a wide variety of lands. In fact, the diaspora Jewish communities have "more in common with each other than with the Jewish state as they search for spiritual and religious meaning in a largely non-Jewish world."

Nevertheless, the Passover Seders that start next week -- the season begins Wednesday at sundown -- will end with Jewish believers reciting this vow: "Next year in Jerusalem!"

"The words will stay the same, but the meaning is changing," said Tye. "Most Jews don't want to move to Jerusalem. They are doing just fine where they are."

If Tye sounds upbeat about modern Judaism, that's because he is. While researching his book, he traveled from Germany to Ukraine, from Argentina to Ireland, and from France to the United States -- the Bible-Belt South as well as the urban Northeast.

But he knows many do not share his optimism. Debates about the health of Judaism have been driven by two statistics -- soaring intermarriage rates and the falling numbers of Jews in pews. There are 20 percent fewer Jews today than when the Holocaust began. Then again, notes Tye, there are three times as many Jews right now than there were a century before the Holocaust.

"Everything I heard said that these numbers were going way down and that they would keep going down," he said, during a South Florida pilgrimage. "Yet I kept visiting Jewish communities around the world and what I was seeing with my own eyes was not jibing with what I was hearing. ... I know that the bad news stories are real. But there is good news out there, too."

Yes, an infamous 1990 survey of American Jews found that the rate of Jews marrying non-Jews had topped 50 percent. Then again, researchers found that the intermarriage rate had actually fallen 10 percent among those who openly claimed and practiced their Jewish faith.

Here's another Tye snapshot. Half of Atlanta's Jews have no ties that bind them to any Jewish institution. That's bad. But the other half of the Jewish community is so active in worship and educational activities that it seems everyone is building a new synagogue. That's good.

"Where does that leave us? The overall number of Jews probably will continue to decline, while many of those at the periphery will continue drifting away to atheism, Buddhism or nothing at all," according to Tye. Yet wherever he traveled, Jewish leaders rejoiced at the growth of their cultural and, yes, even their religious programs. When asked about the future, Jewish leaders around the world recited variations on this mantra: "Fewer Jews, but better Jews."

Tye is convinced this surge in diaspora energy and innovation will eventually lead to changes in Israel. After all, there are four times as many Israelis living in America as there are American Jews living in Israel. New ideas flow both ways, now.

"Again we see the role of the diaspora in Judaism today," he said. "Israel is increasingly looking to the diaspora to learn how to have a healthy, pluralistic Jewish community. ... For many modern Jews, Israel has come to represent hierarchy and law. Meanwhile, life in the diaspora has come to represent the freedom of the individual and a kind of creative chaos."

Fathers, mothers & Catholic sons, Part II

Few Catholic boys grow up to be men of the cloth without drawing inspiration from their parish priests and receiving the blessing of their mothers.

Both halves of that equation have to work or the church suffers.

"When you talk about how young men enter the priesthood, you are talking about the future of the church," said Father Donald B. Cozzens, former vicar for clergy in the Diocese of Cleveland and then rector of a graduate seminary in Ohio. "At some point, it becomes terribly important what Catholic parents -- especially mothers -- think of their priests."

Find a young priest and you will almost always find a find a mother who wanted him to be a priest, like the priests she has known and trusted.

That's how it's supposed to work. Several decades worth of sex scandals involving clergy and children -- usually teen-aged boys -- have not helped. But there are other tensions, as well. In his influential 2000 book, "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," Cozzens pleads for frank talk about other painful issues, as well as the sexual abuse of young males.

Priests face skyrocketing demands on their time as church membership rises and the number of priests declines. Priests live and work under the microscope, yet they also report feeling isolated from their flocks and from each other. Lately, Cozzens has been hearing about priests who -- lashed by scandal and suspicion -- have stopped wearing clerical clothing while not "at work." The stares and whispers are too painful.

And there is another sexual secret that is making these issues harder to discuss, he said. In his book's most quoted chapter, Cozzens cites reports claiming 50 percent of U.S. Catholic priests are gay, with the numbers higher among those under 40 years of age. This "gay subculture" grew in the past three decades, as 20,000 or more priests left their altars to get married.

Cozzens is not opposed to celibate gays being ordained and he thinks most priests -- gay and straight -- are serving the church faithfully and keeping their vows. Nevertheless, he is convinced this gay subculture is affecting who is becoming a priest and who is not. Why is this?

In previous generations it was homosexuals who often felt alone and out of place in Catholic seminaries, living in a shadow culture. Today, discreet networks of gay priests thrive in seminaries and dioceses from coast to coast, said Cozzens. It's common for heterosexuals to feel confused, misunderstood and left out. Many question their calling and flee.

Meanwhile, he said, it's "likely that gay priests will be encouraging, consciously or unconsciously, more homosexually oriented men than straight men to consider a vocation to the priesthood. Conversely, homosexually oriented men considering a priestly vocation will be especially drawn to a parish priest who happens to be gay."

Cozzens said the "likelihood exists that like will be drawn to like." Once again, he said he does not believe gay priests are more likely to break celibacy vows than are straight priests.

It's also past time, he said, for Catholic leaders to start talking about how the changing face of the priesthood is affecting relationships between priests and parents. It would help to stop and consider a mother's point of view.

"Perceptive mothers may sense that something is different about the pastor ... who happens to be gay," Cozzens noted. "They may indeed like and respect the priest, but find they are not comfortable in encouraging their son to consider the priesthood."

This attitude shift is especially significant when combined with a major statistical change in Catholic life. In the past, when large families were the norm, it was a matter of pride to have a son enter religious life. But what if most Catholic families contain only one son?

"When it has become normal to have two children or less, you are not going to find many parents who are encouraging a son -- especially an only son -- to become a priest," said Cozzens. "They want him to get married, to have grandchildren and carry on the family name. ...

"So there are fewer sons and there are more mothers who are asking hard questions."

Fathers, mothers & Catholic sons, Part I

The Chicago news was full of sex, children and Roman collars.

This wasn't part of the first national "Sins of the Fathers" furor in the mid-1980s. This was the early 1990s and the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago eventually opened its files on all 2,252 priests who had served in the previous four decades. The powers that be hunted for pedophiles and they found one.

The key word is "one." One priest had been accused of assaulting a prepubescent child. The other allegations involved priests and sexually mature, but under-age, adolescents -- mostly boys.

"Those Chicago numbers are not unusual. This is, in fact, part of a pattern we see in diocese after diocese," said Father Donald B. Cozzens, former vicar for clergy in Cleveland and then rector of a graduate seminary in Ohio.

"Of course, any abuse of children is horrifying and it is just as wrong -- morally and legally -- when sexual abuse occurs with teen-agers. But it isn't helping matters, right now, for people to keep blurring the lines between these two conditions. This isn't just about pedophilia."

Debates about sexuality and the priesthood will only heat up, if that is possible, now that a crucial Vatican voice has spoken. A close aide to Pope John Paul II told the New York Times that it's time to slow or even stop the flow of gays into the priesthood. "People with these inclinations just cannot be ordained," said psychiatrist Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

Cozzens stressed that he agrees with researchers who believe sexual orientation is irrelevant in discussions of pedophilia. But what if pedophilia is not the issue?

By definition, pedophiles are sexually attracted to boys and girls who have not reached puberty. But Cozzens said reports he has studied, and his own experience as a counselor, indicate the more common problem among Catholic clergy is "ephebophilia." This is recurrent, intense sexual interest in post-pubescent young people -- teen-agers.

The term "ephebophilia" is rarely used in church debates and the press. Yet, Cozzens said that whenever clergy vicars held conferences 90 percent of the sex-abuse cases they discussed fell into this category. Church authorities are reluctant to investigate this reality.

Why this conspicuous silence?

"Perhaps it is feared that it will call attention to the disproportionate number of gay priests," wrote Cozzens, in his influential "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," published in 2000. "While homosexually oriented people are no more likely to be drawn to misconduct with minors than straight people, our own experiences was clear and, I believe, significant. Most priest offenders, we vicars agreed, acted out against teenage boys."

In his most controversial chapter, Cozzens quotes reports claiming about 50 percent of U.S. Catholic priests are gay, with the numbers higher among priests younger than 40. Talk of a "gay subculture" grew in recent decades as 20,000 men left the priesthood to get married.

The seminary climate changed - radically. Cozzens cited a survey in which 60 percent of one seminary's students identified themselves as gay, 20 percent were "confused about their sexual identity" and 20 percent said they were heterosexual.

Cozzens concluded: "Should our seminaries become significantly gay, and many seasoned observers find them to be precisely that, the priesthood of the 21st century will likely be perceived as a predominantly gay profession."

This is the proverbial elephant in the sanctuary that few bishops want to discuss.

Cozzens said that, along with many other researchers, he does not see a direct link between homosexual orientation and sexual abuse. Yet the cloud of secrecy and denial that swirls around the gay subculture makes it hard to discuss urgent issues -- such as ephebophilia.

"Pedophilia is a totally different kind of sickness and it can't really be treated," he said. "You simply have to do what you can to help the abuser and then make sure all future contact with children is cut off. There is no other way. ...

"But there are many bishops out there who, for a variety of reasons, have been convinced that priests can be successfully treated and reassigned to other parishes if the sexual contact was with teen-agers. Now, that belief is being shaken."

Pat Summerall's new life

As the final seconds tick off the game clock, players stream off the sidelines until the two waves of team jerseys meet at midfield.

Football fans watch this colorful scene Sunday after Sunday on television. Many combatants trudge together to the locker rooms, while others rush to embrace former teammates. Soon, a circle forms as players from both teams kneel in prayer.

"That's when we pull back to that wide shot of the stadium and cut away as quick as we can to the studio in New York," noted Pat Summerall, who recently called his last Super Bowl with John Madden, his professional partner of 21 years. "For years, I've been trying to tell people up in the booth that something interesting was going on down there and we ought to show it. ...

"Those players praying together on the field stand for something. This is one of the uncovered stories in sports today."

Summerall knows what is happening in that circle because he has lived it.

It would have been unthinkable, said the 71-year-old broadcaster, for his old New York Giants teammates to exchange friendly greetings with their opponents before the game and they sure wouldn't have been seen praying with them afterwards. There were unwritten rules about that sort of thing 40 or 50 years ago in the National Football League.

Today, there are prayer groups inside and outside locker rooms. More players are openly talking about their faith and they don't care who listens. This has caused tension in some teams, while creating unique bonds of unity in others. Meanwhile, there are -- as always -- scores of professional athletes who abuse alcohol and drugs and whose private lives are, at best, confused.

Summerall has seen it all. He almost drowned in alcohol before drying out in 1992 at the Betty Ford Center. Then, at age 66, he found new life in the waters of baptism. Now, as he enters a new stage of his media career, Summerall is trying to figure out how to tell both sides of this story.

"You don't stay in the business he has been in as long as he's been in it without being able to grow and change and learn. That's just part of being somebody like Pat Summerall," said the Rev. Claude Thomas of the First Baptist Church of Euless, outside Dallas. "But as his pastor, I think it will be fascinating to see how his growth as a professional is going to fit in with the continuing growth in his faith. ...

"I know one thing: God has a purpose for Pat's life and his talents."

In the weeks since Super Bowl XXXVI, Summerall said he has spent most of his time responding to the hundreds of letters and telephone calls that followed his graceful swan song with Madden and Fox Sports. It's too soon to start talking about contacts with other networks, but it isn't too soon to start thinking about options.

It would be easy to spend months doing nothing but public speaking, said Summerall. But even this part of his life is changing. In the past, groups asked him to come tell a few funny stories, share a few touching memories and serve up some insider sound-bites about sports and television. Now, Summerall is being asked to focus on something totally different -- the very personal story of his battle with alcohol. That will mean talking about his faith.

"I know that I have a story to tell," he said. "What I'm discovering is that quite a few people actually want to hear about the baptism part, too. I can't be silent about that."

Summerall said it helps that he no longer feels helpless and alone. Wherever he travels, he has been able to find athletes and coaches who are on the same path. Sometimes they even have to meet in football stadiums. It's getting easier to spot them.

"It's like an alcoholic looking for a drink. If he wants it bad enough, he can find it -- no matter what," he said. "I'm like that when it comes to finding prayer services and Bible studies. No matter where I am working, I know that they're out there and I can find them."

A Hollywood movie to remember

No one was surprised when "A Walk to Remember" opened on Jan. 25th and drew flocks of teen-aged girls to the suburban super-cinemas that circle America's biggest cities.

This was, after all, a multi-hanky "chick flick" staring pop diva Mandy Moore. After a week, it was the No. 3 movie and had pulled in $12.2 million, which raised some Hollywood eyebrows because it only cost about $10 million to make.

Then the plot thickened. In weeks two and three, ticket sales hit $23.3 and then $30.3 million. "A Walk to Remember" was doing OK in major cities, but soaring in smaller cities and towns across the heartland. Was the quiet little romance about a chaste preacher's daughter and a brooding troublemaker reaching a new demographic?

"We don't want to go out to theater lobbies and ask people, 'Are you a born-again Christian? Are you going to recommend this movie to people at your church?' But it seems clear this movie is attracting people who normally don't dash out to movie theaters," said veteran producer Denise Di Novi. "We must be getting good word-of-mouth support from people who are saying, 'This is not a typical Hollywood teen movie. You can trust this one.' "

"A Walk to Remember" began with a novel by Nicholas Sparks, an active Catholic. The movie tells the story of Jamie Sullivan, the devout but spunky daughter of a small-town Baptist pastor, and Landon Carter, a handsome jerk in need of redemption. Jamie carries a Bible, helps poor children, dresses modestly, obeys her widower father and does not compromise when taken on a stargazing date that involves one blanket.

Landon tells her father: "Jamie has faith in me. She makes me want to be different -- better."

The screenplay is not as overtly religious as the book. Nevertheless, reluctant Warner Bros. executives pressed Di Novi for hard evidence that an audience existed for such a clean, pro-faith story. The studio eventually sponsored promotional materials for Christian viewers, including 10,000 youth-pastor packets containing a Bible study about issues in the movie.

Now, Di Novi is predicting the film will hit $50 million in theaters, with a bright future in video. This has obvious implications for other films, if there are quality scripts available with a similar blend of morality and storytelling.

"It was hard getting this movie made. I don't mind saying there was spiritual warfare involved," said Di Novi, who is best known for making films such as "Heathers," "Edward Scissorhands" and "Message in a Bottle," based on another Sparks novel.

"This isn't a blockbuster. But it is a bona fide hit movie. People should sit up and pay attention. I think we have shown that there is an audience for a teen movie that isn't just about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. You don't have to be prurient."

Christian critics have not been silent or unanimous in their praise. Some powerful voices have insisted that "A Walk to Remember" is too vague. The film does not include one very dangerous word -- "Jesus" -- and the rebel never articulates his faith. Di Novi said the movie was screened in advance for secular and religious audiences and she had no intention of running either crowd out of theaters.

The bottom line is that this is not a "Christian movie" that preaches at viewers. Instead, she said her goal was to produce something more daring -- a Hollywood movie that revolves around a Christian character that is compassionate and attractive, as opposed to being a phony, angry, hypocritical, judgmental zealot.

At the same time, the movie makes a subtle comment about modern churches and the young people in their pews. It shows the rebellious Landon sitting in church and, later, a confrontation with the preacher makes it clear the kid was paying some attention week after week.

"Lots of kids go to church, but you never see that reflected in TV and at the movies," said Di Novi. "And there are all kinds of kids at church -- good kids and mixed-up kids. The book says Landon had already been baptized. Sometimes the faith gets through to kids like that and sometimes it doesn't."

Latter-day Saints and that C-word

Science fiction novelist Orson Scott Card is tired of hearing outsiders whispering about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- especially the dreaded C-word.

The word in question is not "Christian." It's "cult."

"I daresay that the Mormon church is less cult-like than many of the religions that delight in calling us one," argued Card. "Indeed, calling Mormonism a cult is usually an attempt to get people to behave like robots, blindly obeying the command that they reject Mormonism without any independent thought. Kettles, as they say, calling the pot black."

Debates about Mormonism and public life always heat up when Utah is in the spotlight and the XIX Winter Olympics certainly qualify as that. Journalists have focused on the church's vow not to proselytize visitors and, of course, whether Mormon morality could stick a cork in the hot party scene that surrounds the games. News is news.

While avoiding deadly overkill, LDS leaders cranked up public-relations efforts to portray their faith as part of mainline Christianity. This strategy is sure to catch the attention of other faiths that send missionaries to the games, such as the 1,000 Southern Baptist volunteers in Utah for Global Outreach 2002.

Tensions are inevitable. Thus, Card launched a preemptive strike in a Beliefnet.com column entitled "Hey, Who Are You Calling a Cult?" It's ludicrous, he said, to smear Mormons with the same word that defined the Jim Jones flock in Guyana and the "sneaker-wearing folks who killed themselves to join aliens ... behind a comet."

It's true, he said, that Mormon prophet Joseph Smith was a charismatic leader with fiercely loyal followers. But this is true of almost all new religious movements. Card defied anyone to argue that modern Mormons are "automatons" who yank converts out of their homes and brainwash them.

"If Mormonism were a cult, I would know it, and I would not be in it," he said.

Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist Convention's web site on "Cults, Sects and New Religious Movements" includes page after page of materials dissecting LDS beliefs and practices. It uses this definition: "A cult ... is a group of people polarized around someone's interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ."

Hardly anyone still calls the Latter-day Saints a "cult" in terms of a "psychological or sociological definition" of that term, stressed the Rev. Tal Davis, of the SBC's North American Mission Board. But traditional Christians must insist that they can use a "theological definition" of the word "cult."

"This may not be the best word and we admit that," said Davis. "We're using it in a technical way, trying to make it clear that we're describing a faith that is -- according to its own teachings -- far outside the borders of traditional Christianity. ...

"We're not trying to be mean-spirited. We want to be very precise. We take doctrine very seriously and we know that the Mormons do, too."

The doctrinal conflicts are many and sincere, stressed scholar Jan Shipps, a United Methodist who is author of "Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons." Traditional Christians and the Latter-day Saints are not just arguing about issues of interpretation. These disputes are about pivotal additions to the earlier stream of faith.

The clashes start at the very beginning, with the nature of God. Christians worship one God, yet known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Saints have a radically different approach, said Shipps, believing God and Jesus to be separate beings -- each with a literal body and parts. They say Jesus was sired by God, with a divine Mother in Heaven.

"The Trinity, the Trinity, the Trinity, there is no way around the Trinity," said Shipps. "But you know, it would also help if Christians -- if they are going to use the word 'cult' -- would admit that Christianity changed the very nature of the Jewish God. Christianity then grew up to become a new religious tradition.

"Mormonism is a new religious tradition that has grown out of Christianity. It is an entity unto itself. It is what it is."

W Bush, classic Methodist?

CRAWFORD, Texas -- Don Elrod was spending another hard day on another production line when one of his buddies threw up his hands and keeled over, killed by a heart attack.

As a farm hand turned teacher turned carpenter turned asphalt expert, Elrod didn't know the proper theological lingo to describe what happened in his own heart that day. But this layman knew that something changed. Before long, he became a Methodist preacher.

"At some point in life everybody faces a bad situation, some kind of really big mountain, and there's no way around it," he said. "That's when we have to decide whether we're going to turn to God or not. ... It may be getting sick, or losing your job, or it may be the bottle. But it's gonna happen."

It's like that night on Aldersgate Street, when John Wesley -- racked by doubt and despair -- took a leap of faith and felt his heart was "strangely warmed." That experience on May 24, 1738, led to the Methodist movement that spread piety, evangelism and social reform throughout England and the world.

Find a flock of true Methodists and you'll find people who believe changed hearts can change the world. That's what Elrod was thinking after he stepped into his pulpit at First United Methodist in Crawford and faced a flock that included his neighbor, President George W. Bush.

Elrod thinks he knows a Methodist when he sees one.

So he wasn't surprised when he heard Bush had been named Layman of the Year by Good News, a network of United Methodist evangelicals based in Wilmore, Ky. While this honor will raise eyebrows in United Methodist sanctuaries in the Rust Belt and the West, it will draw respectful "amens" in heartland towns like Crawford, the capital of Bush country in Central Texas.

To find Elrod's church, you drive past Covered Wagon Trail, past Cattle Drive Road, over the railroad tracks, through the blinking traffic light, past the town's now famous restaurant/gas station and turn left at the First Baptist Church sign that says "Let's Roll." The Methodists are on the next corner.

In these parts, said Elrod, people even think it's fitting that Bush says God helped him win his showdown with alcohol. After all, there was a time when Methodists were known for asking rowdy people to repent of the sins of the flesh.

"I think President Bush knows what that's all about," said Elrod. "He got to the point with his drinking where it was life or death and, you know, the Lord isn't going to wait forever on you to make up your mind."

Good News magazine cited several reasons for the award, including Bush's defense of all religious believers, including "peace-loving Muslims and Arab-Americans," after Sept. 11. Most of all, the editorial said he "understands the great chasm between right and wrong and has been unflinching in calling evildoers by their proper name. He has relentlessly used this historic nightmare as an ethical tutorial for generations raised on a steady diet of moral relativism."

Some of the president's terrorism speeches have even veered into language that sounds like Wesley's sermons condemning slavery and child-labor abuses, said Good News editor Steve Beard. There is a dash of Methodist fire in Bush phrases such as: "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war. And we know that God is not neutral between them."

Meanwhile, the United Methodist hierarchy has consistently advocated diplomacy over Bush's military strategy. It's Board of Church and Society condemned terrorism, but opposed any "use of indiscriminate military force." Bishop C. Joseph Sprague said he doubted the Afghanistan campaign could accurately be called a "just war."

"Bishops have to say things like that," said Elrod. "Now your common man reads the Bible and he sees that even Jesus felt righteous anger when he went in there and cleaned out the temple. You can take it and take it and take it, but there comes a time when you have to stand up to the bully. Sometimes you have to act.

"I think old Joe Blow and his wife Jane out here understand that. They know what President Bush is talking about."

U2 bedevils the modern church

It happened at the moment in U2's Zoo TV show where Bono did his "Elvis-devil dance," decked out in a glittering gold Las Vegas lounge suit and tacky red horns.

As usual, the charismatic singer pulled some girl out of the crowd to cavort with Mister MacPhisto, this devilish alter ego. On this night in Wales, his dance partner had her own agenda, Bono told the Irish Times.

"Are you still a believer?", she asked. "If so, what are you doing dressed up as the devil?"

Bono gave her a serious answer, as the music roared on. "Have you read 'The Screwtape Letters,' a book by C.S. Lewis that a lot of intense Christians are plugged into? They are letters from the devil. That's where I got the whole philosophy of mock-the-devil-and-he-will-flee-from-you," replied Bono, referring to U2's ironic, video-drenched tours in the 1990s.

Yes, the girl said, she had read "The Screwtape Letters." She understood that Lewis had turned sin inside out in order to make a case for faith.

"Then you know what I am doing," said Bono.

It's highly unlikely Mister MacPhisto will make an appearance when U2 rocks the Super Bowl XXXVI halftime show. During their recent "Elevation" tour, U2 performed on a stage shaped like a heart and Bono opened the shows by kneeling in prayer. He began the anthem "Where the Streets Have No Name" by quoting from Psalm 116 and shows ended with shouts of "Praise! Unto the Almighty!"

But whatever happens Sunday in New Orleans, U2's presence almost guarantees that people will dissect it in church coffee hours as well as at watercoolers. Plenty of believers remain convinced Bono's devil suit was more than symbolic.

"I think they have been clear -- for nearly 25 years now -- about the role that Christian faith plays in their music. They're not hiding anything,"said the Rev. Steve Stockman, the Presbyterian chaplain at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is the author of "Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2" and hosts BBC's "Rhythm and Soul" radio program.

"At the same time, they have always left big spiritual questions hanging out there -- unanswered. That is an interesting way to talk about art and that's an interesting way to live out your faith, especially when you're trying to do it in front of millions of people."

Stockman has never met the band. Still, there is no shortage of source material since Bono, in particular, has never been able to keep his mouth shut when it comes to sin, grace, temptation, damnation, salvation, revelation or the general state of the universe. Two others -- drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., and guitarist Dave "The Edge" Evans -- have long identified themselves as Christians. Bassist Adam Clayton remains a spiritual free agent.

The key, said Stockman, is that U2 emerged in Dublin, Ireland, in a culturally Catholic land in which it was impossible to be sucked into an evangelical subculture of "Christian news," "Christian radio" and "Christian music." The tiny number of Protestants prevented the creation of a "Christian" marketplace.

Thus, U2 plunged into real rock 'n' roll because that was the only game in town. U2 didn't collide with the world of "Contemporary Christian Music" until its first American tours. Then all hell broke loose.

While the secular press rarely ridicules the band's faith, noted Stockman, the "Christian press and Christians in general have been the doubters" who were keen to "denounce the band's Christian members as lost." Many have heaped "condemnation on their lifestyles, which include smoking cigars, drinking Jack Daniels and using language that is not common currency at Southern Baptist conventions."

It's crucial that most U2 controversies center on lifestyle issues. But Stockman is convinced that deeper divisions center on what Bono and company are saying -- in word and deed -- about the church's retreat from art, media and popular culture.

The contemporary church "has put a spiritual hierarchy on jobs," said Stockman. "Ministers and missionaries are on top, then perhaps doctors and nurses come next and so on to the bottom, where artists appear. Artists of whatever kind have to compromise everything to entertain. Art is fluffy froth that is no good in the Kingdom of God. What nonsense."

The Rock For Life pledge

WASHINGTON -- The music was angry and ragged, sounding something like a chainsaw gashing a concrete block -- only with a beat that bounced the teens up and down.

But this was not the usual mosh scene. This was a Rock For Life concert.

"It seems too easy unwanted baby, it could just be thrown away," chanted Mike Middleton of a Wisconsin band called Hangnail. "A life so helpless counted as useless, another victim of mankind. ... Did you even have a name or could you've been like me the same? I was wondering, do they think of you or try to keep you from their minds."

Not far from the stage was a table lined with stacks of black sweatshirts and T-shirts that are guaranteed to stand out among the Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie & Fitch clones in school hallways. The slogans are printed in large white letters and are easy to read, even from a distance.

Some people like that. Some people don't.

"ABORTION IS HOMICIDE," says one sweatshirt. "ABORTION IS MEAN," says another. On the back is a pledge that proclaims: "You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation." The Rock For Life logo is a cartoon image of an unborn child playing an electric guitar.

The American Life League reported selling 15,000 of the shirts at rallies last summer and at least another 500 during concerts supporting the annual March For Life on Tuesday, the 29th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.

These shirts will be coming soon to a public school near you, if Rock For Life has its way.

"People will probably think that we're weird or something, but we're used to that," said 16-year-old Katie Hammond of Frederick (MD) High School, not far outside the Washington beltway. "Sometimes we end up in arguments at lunch about stuff like this. People keep saying, 'It's wrong to believe what you believe' and blah, blah, blah. Maybe it'll be OK."

Then again, there's always a chance someone will freak out and call a counselor. Rock For Life has received a dozen or more complaints about students being sent home for wearing the "ABORTION IS HOMICIDE" shirt. Few have dared to fight these bans. These are tense times on the free-speech front.

"I know some of the schools have a zero-tolerance policy on language about death, so people are saying that the word 'homicide' violates that," said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition. "But that just doesn't wash, since you have all kinds of kids walking the halls in T-shirts for rock groups like Slayer, Megadeth and who knows what all. There was even an anti-gun campaign a few years ago with the slogan, 'Stop the killing.' I didn't hear anything about schools banning those shirts.

"So from my point of view, this isn't about the word 'homicide.' What this is about is the word 'abortion.' "

Then there is that dangerous word "God."

In Malone, N.Y., a school attorney claimed the sweatshirt pledge proved that "the student's objective is to proselytize." But such a ban would appear to clash with 1999 Clinton White House guidelines that were backed by a broad coalition ranging from the National Association of Evangelicals to the American Civil Liberties Union. That letter said: "Schools may not single out religious attire in general, or attire of a particular religion, for prohibition or regulation."

Apparently, many Americas are tense and hypersensitive right now about anything that has to do with strong faith or claims of religious truth, said Erik Whittington of Rock For Life. Thus, some want to nip conflict in the bud, even if that means undercutting free speech.

"We had our largest cluster of complaints about the sweatshirts right after Sept. 11 -- just a few days or a week after that," he said, moments before one of the Capitol Hill concerts. "There has to be a connection. ... I think the logic goes like this: pro-life equals right wing, Christian, fanatic, the enemy. Some people think we're the American Taliban."