The modern rites of courtship

The theory behind "speed dating" is simple, even if the logistics sound complex. At many such events, young women sit in a circle surrounded by a circle of young men. For eight minutes participants ask the person in front of them some personal questions, hopefully adding new details to questionnaires they filled out beforehand.

The circles keep rotating one chair at a time, creating a series of face-to-face encounters. Organizers then round up the data and look for signs that something clicked for somebody.

"You don't waste a lot of time on one person, there is a large pool of people, they are pre-selected and they are not drunk. So there are some big advantages over the club scene," noted Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.

The very existence of "speed dating" is evidence that many single adults and their parents believe something has gone terribly wrong in the world of love and courtship, she said, during a recent Emory University conference on sex, marriage, family and faith.

This raises a serious question: Would it help if religious congregations started holding "speed dating" events of their own?

Whitehead thinks it is significant that some Catholics, Evangelicals and other highly committed religious believers are already starting Internet dating services. And then there is the network called JMOMS -- Jewish Mothers Organizing Matches. Sometimes a concept can be timely and timeless at the same time.

But these efforts are not the norm. Most religious institutions appear to have conceded love and romance to the secular powers that be.

"So many faith communities are totally oriented to married couples and those with children and they can't seem to catch up with the demographic realities that single people face today," said Whitehead. "Meanwhile, in the sexual free-for-all of our age, it is the conservative, the more traditional singles -- especially the women --who are going to get ditched. They are in the most vulnerable position, because the whole club and bar dating scene is just not going to work for them. The last thing they need is for churches to abandon them."

This void is a modern phenomenon. For centuries, said Whitehead, the rites of courtship took place in the context of three great institutions -- the extended family, the school and the church.

Religious leaders played a vital role in shaping the relationships that were later blessed at their altars.

"But today, all three institutions are increasingly remote from where people are in their adult life course when they begin to seriously look for a mate," she said. Most singles are "living independently, often far from home. They are also emotionally far from home. They are not going to pick up the phone and call mommy and daddy to talk about their dating prospects."

While writing her most recent book, "Why There Are No Good Men Left," Whitehead interviewed scores of single adults, especially young women. She also studied personal ads and shelves of bestsellers about dating.

What she found was confusion and conflicting values.

Modern singles are looking for "soul mates" and they fear divorce. But most also want mates who work out, eat right and have "some edge." What seems to matter the most, she said, is "competitive physical excellence." Love is defined in terms of chemistry, emotion and sex. The hard work of "testing the relationship" comes later.

Few seem concerned about faith. Most young singles that mention religion, she noted, want this religious affiliation to be as "diluted, mild and inoffensive as possible." They describe themselves with phrases such as "Jewish, but not very," "realistic Catholic," "Protestant, but not a Bible thumper" or "very spiritual, in a nondenominational way."

Thus, modern dating rites are defined by "The Bachelor," Maxim, "Friends," Self Magazine and other forces that focus more on perfect abdominals than moral absolutes.

If clergy and parents care, then they need to act, said Whitehead.

"What we have is an absence of places where serious, marriage-minded people can find each other," she said. "Our churches are not helping. Our colleges are not helping. The religious centers at our colleges and the alumni offices are not helping. ... It's like we have suddenly decided that young men and women are supposed to do this totally on their own."

Father John, DC evangelist

WASHINGTON -- In a matter of days, Father C. John McCloskey III will quietly perform rites in which two more converts enter the Roman Catholic Church.

This latest ceremony at Catholic Information Center will not draw the attention of the Washington Post. But that happened last year when Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas entered the fold. Some of McCloskey's earlier converts also caused chatter inside the Beltway -- columnist Robert Novak, economist Lawrence Kudlow and former abortion activist Bernard Nathanson.

"All I am doing is what Catholic priests must do," said McCloskey. "I'm sharing the Gospel of Christ, offering people spiritual direction and, when they are ready, bringing them into the church. ... It's a matter of always proposing, never imposing, never coercing and merely proclaiming that we have something to offer to all Christians and to all people.

"Call it evangelism. Call it evangelization. It's just what we're supposed to do."

But words like "conversion" and "evangelism" draw attention when a priest's pulpit is located on K Street, only two blocks from the White House. The flock that flows into the center's 100-seat chapel for daily Mass includes scores of lobbyists, politicians, journalists, activists and executives.

So it's no surprise that McCloskey's views have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today and elsewhere. His feisty defense of Catholic orthodoxy has landed him on broadcasts with Tim Russert, Bill O'Reilly, Paula Zahn, Greta Van Susteren and others.

This is a classic case of location, location, location.

McCloskey feels right at home. The 49-year-old priest is a native of the nation's capital, has an Ivy League education and worked for Merrill Lynch and Citibank on Wall Street before seeking the priesthood through the often-controversial Opus Dei movement. He arrived at the Washington center in 1998.

In addition to winning prominent converts, McCloskey has bluntly criticized the American Catholic establishment's powerful progressive wing, tossing out quotations like this zinger: "A liberal Catholic is oxymoronic. The definition of a person who disagrees with what the Catholic church is teaching is called a Protestant."

Many disagree. Slate.com commentator Chris Suellentrop bluntly said that while the urbane priest's style appeals to many Washingtonians, ultimately he is offering "an anti-intellectual approach. All members of the church take a leap of faith, but McCloskey wants them to do it with their eyes closed and their hands over their ears."

It is also crucial that McCloskey openly embraces evangelism and theconversion of adults from Judaism, Islam and other world religions. Formany modern Catholics this implies coercion, manipulation, mind controland, thus, a kind of "proselytism" that preys on the weak. In recentdiscussions of overseas missionary work many Catholics have suggestedthat they no longer see the need to share the faith with others andinvite them to become Christians.

The bottom line: Protestants do evangelism. Protestants try to convertothers. In the wake of Vatican II, Catholics have outgrown this kind ofwork.

"That's pure trash. That's a false ecumenism," said McCloskey. "That'ssimply not Catholic teaching. The Catholic church makes exclusivetruth claims about itself and cannot deny them. It doesn't deny thatthere are other forms of religion. It doesn't deny that these otherforms of religion have some elements of truth in them. ..."But we are proclaiming Jesus Christ and where we believe he can bemost fully found and that's the Catholic church. We cannot denythat." This issue will become even more controversial as America growsmore diverse.

Meanwhile, the number of nominally Christian adults who have not beenbaptized is rising. The children and grandchildren of what McCloskey calls the "bourgeoisie Catholics" are poised to leave the church. Soon,their fading ethnic ties will not be enough. Their love of old schoolsand sanctuaries will not be enough.

"This country is turning into Europe," he said. "People have gotten to the point where they are saying, 'Why bother even being baptized? We don't believe any of this stuff anymore.' I am encountering more people that I need to baptize, because their parent's didn't bother to do that, even though they were nominal Christians.

"In Europe that is normal and this is what is headed our way."

God-talk after The Matrix, part II

Predicting the future is dangerous, especially when a world-be prophet puts her thoughts in writing.

But that's what author Phyllis Tickle did two decades ago when she wrote: "Books are about to become the portable pastors of America." That turned out to be true. Now, in light of "The Matrix," she is updating that prophecy about how Americans talk about faith.

It helps to flashback to a statistical earthquake that rattled the book business.

In 1992 the company that dominates sales to libraries saw a stunning 92 percent rise in its religious trade. Then in 1994 religious sales by the giant Ingram Book Group soared 246 percent. In a few years this niche grew 500 percent, said Tickle, who has covered this trend for Publishers Weekly and in several of her two-dozen books.

The growth "was malignant," she said. "Bookstore owners kept telling me people would vanish into that back corner where the religious shelves were and stay for hours. When they did that, you just knew they should have been going to see their pastors. But they weren't doing that."

These seekers didn't buy into doctrines and denominations. They didn't want "theology." They wanted new ideas, images and spiritual stories. They wanted what Tickle began calling "God-talk" and millions started finding it with the help of cappuccino and Oprah.

And in 1999 everything changed again.

"When 'The Matrix' came out, it became the best treatise on God-talk that has ever been made," said Tickle. "It could not have been done with a book. It could not have been done with words. ... The primacy of place in creative, cutting-edge God-talk has shifted from non-fiction in the 1980s to fiction in the 1990s and now it is shifting again to the world of the visual, especially to the kinds of myths and stories we see in movies such as 'The Matrix.' We're talking about the manipulation of theological fantasies and this is a natural fit for visual media."

"Theology," she said, is found in the world of doctrine, history, academic credentials and ecclesiastical authority. But "God-talk" thrives far from most pulpits. Its standards are flexible, evolving, user-defined and rooted in small communities. This is a true "democratization of theology," she said, and can been seen as an extension of Protestantism's division into thousands and thousands of independent denominations, movements and churches.

But God-talk leaders are more likely to work in popular media than in religious institutions. As creators of "The Matrix" trilogy, Andy and Larry Wachowski are touching millions of lives. The first film grossed $460 million worldwide and shaped countless movies, computer games, music videos and commercials. Now, "The Matrix Reloaded" -- on a record 8,517 screens -- topped $130 million at the box office in its first four days. "The Matrix Revolutions" hits in November.

Writing in the Journal of Religion and Film, James L. Ford of Wake Forest University argues that these films offer a powerful fusion of themes from Buddhism, clashing brands of Christianity, Greek mythology, cyber-culture and legions of other sources.

"It is impossible to know what narratives will become the foundation myths of our culture," noted Ford, in his "Buddhism, Christianity and The Matrix" essay. "But epic films like The Matrix are the modern-day equivalent of The Iliad-Odyssey ... or various biblical myths. Indeed, one might well argue that popular films like 'The Matrix' and 'Star Wars' carry more influence among young adults than the traditional religious myths of our culture."

Tickle can trace this trend for decades, from the generic God of Alcoholics Anonymous to the nearly generic God of "Touched By An Angel," from the rise of the self-help publishing industry to waves of immigration that brought the mysteries of Eastern religion to Hollywood.

Mainstream religious leaders can argue about the ultimate meaning of all this, she said. But they cannot ignore it.

"The Matrix" has "posited a new theological framework," she said. "Now we have to find out the details. What is the primal cause for this world? Where is God? Who is God? Does what is going on in these films support or oppose a basic Judeo-Christian approach to morality? We don't know the answers to these questions yet"

God-talk and The Matrix I

The words of the scripture are clear: everything changes when someone is born again.

"Before his first or physical birth man was in the world of the matrix. He had no knowledge of this world; his eyes could not see; his ears could not hear. When he was born from the world of the matrix, he beheld another world," wrote Abdul Baha, son of the Bahai prophet Baha'ullah, nearly a century ago. Truth is, "the majority of people are captives in the matrix of nature, submerged in the sea of materiality."

When freed they gain a "transcendent power" and ascend to a higher kingdom.

Perhaps even to Zion.

Wait a minute. Does this mean that millions of moviegoers lining up at 8,400-plus theaters to see "The Matrix Reloaded" will witness the Bahai version of a Billy Graham movie? Or is this trilogy a door into a kung fu vigilante Buddhism?

Or is it some kind of neo-Christian parable?

The World Wide Web is jammed with sites offering precisely that spin. Isn't Keanu Reeves playing a super-hacker called Neo, a messiah whose coming was foreseen by the prophets, a Christ figure that is reborn, baptized, murdered and resurrected? Isn't his real name Thomas Anderson (Greek "andras" for man, thus "son of man")? Doesn't a character named Trinity save him?

Acolytes have compiled pages of similar references. Isn't Neo's teacher Morpheus a John the Baptist figure? Why is their ship called the Nebuchadnezzar? And it's a "Mark III, no. 11." Perhaps that is Mark 3:11, which says of Jesus: "Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, 'You are the Son of God!' "

There will be plenty of fresh clues in "The Matrix Reloaded" and the upcoming "The Matrix Revolutions." When it comes to spiritual goodies, this franchise that critics call the "R-rated Star Wars" has something to intrigue or infuriate everyone -- from Hollywood to the Bible belt.

No one questions the impact of "The Matrix," which grossed $170 million in the United States, $460 million worldwide and influenced countless movies, computer games, music videos and commercials. But the devotion of its true believers is revealed in another statistic. It was the first DVD to sell more than 1 million copies.

Meanwhile, Andy and Larry Wachowski have religiously avoided doing interviews that might dilute the mystery surrounding their movie.

But a fan in a Warner Home Video online chat session did mange to ask: "Your movie has many and varied connections to myths and philosophies, Judeo-Christian, Egyptian, Arthurian and Platonic, just to name those I've noticed. How much of that was intentional?"

To which the brothers replied: "All of it." While calling their beliefs "nondenominational," they did confirm that Buddhism plays a major role in "The Matrix." When asked if their work was shaped by the ancient Christian heresy called Gnosticism, they cryptically replied: "Do you consider that to be a good thing?"

While the first film draws images and details from many conflicting traditions, its worldview is deeply rooted in Eastern religions, especially Buddhism and Gnosticism, according to Frances Flannery-Dailey of Hendrix College and Rachel Wagner of the University of Iowa. Clearly, the big idea is that humanity's main problem is that it is "sleeping in ignorance in a dreamworld" and the solution is "waking to knowledge and enlightenment."

Writing in the Journal of Religion and Film, they note that the Gnostic messiah brings salvation through a secret truth that lets believers wake up and escape the shabby reality that surrounds them. Through training in the discipline of "stillness," this savior learns that what appears to be the real world is an illusion he can manipulate with his will. It's a gospel of esoteric knowledge, not repentance and grace.

But Wagner and Flannery-Daily ask: Where are the Gnostic gods in "The Matrix"?

"Divinity may ... play a role in Neo's past incarnation and his coming again as the One. If, however, there is some implied divinity in the film, in remains transcendent, like the divinity of the ineffable, invisible supreme god of Gnosticism, except where it is immanent in the form of the divine spark in humans."

Touched by an urban legend

Did you know NASA scientists proved that God really made the sun stand still just like it says in the book of Joshua?

Have you responded to the urgent prayer appeal from Mrs. Fatima Abass Yakubu Idris, the wealthy Nigerian widow cancer victim who wants to donate $7.2 million to your church?

Did you hear about the upcoming movie in which Jesus and his disciples are gay?

Surely you've seen this email bulletin: "CBS will be forced to discontinue 'Touched by an Angel' for using the word God in every program." Now, the disciples of atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair have "been granted a federal hearing on the same subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington D.C. Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of America."

It's hard to believe that after 30 years and 30 million letters to the FCC, this false report continues to haunt pulpits, pews and the Internet.

Believe it. The O'Hair, FCC and "Touched by an Angel" email is back in the top 10 at the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society's sprawling "urban legends" site (www.snopes.com). And with the Angels era ending at CBS, Cathy Holden is bracing herself for more right-wing email blaming the show's demise on a vast left-wing conspiracy.

This will all end up in a revised entry at www.TruthMiners.com, her website that strives to convince other conservative Christians that passing along half-truths, scams and urban legends is not a doctrinally sound thing to do. Her niche-audience page includes 100 of the most common emails and links to larger secular research sites.

"This story will not die. I mean, 'Touched by an Angel' has been on for nine years," she said. "Anybody who reads a newspaper knows that everybody who's involved says it's time to end the show. But people who send these emails don't read newspapers. Then they get an email about that atheist O'Hair lady and they say, 'That's it!'

"You just want to tell them, 'Get over it. Go on with your life.' "

Holden became fascinated with urban legends when she helped a Baptist church outside Orlando start its website. The minute she signed on the junk emails rolled in, including a new incarnation of the O'Hair report. It took five minutes online to dig up the truth.

The church lady who forwarded the rumor said she did it for fun. What's the harm?

"I said, 'Wait just a minute. I just told you this is a lie and you don't care?' ... Ever since, I've been trying to get people to realize that a lie is a lie. This is not harmless. People get hurt. Christians have to believe truth matters," said Holden.

The O'Hair story originally was read in pulpits, shared at prayer meetings and printed on church mimeograph machines. Now people simply click "forward" and their email goes global.

Most of these messages take two forms -- outrage and inspiration. A major theme is that mainstream media hide the truth, said Holden.

"There's that vast conspiracy out there ... and it's keeping us from hearing all of the really bad stuff that our enemies are doing. The media also keep us from hearing any inspiring stories about good things that are happening. All that gets covered up, too. So we have to pass on these stories by email in order to beat the conspiracy. You see?"

So untraceable stories spread about President Bush leaving a reception line to evangelize a teen-ager, a pastor's wife preaching to passengers on the doomed Alaskan Airlines Flight 261 and a little girl's testimony converting actor John Wayne. The list goes on and on.

"The bigger the story the more we like it," said Holden. "We can be really syrupy, sappy people and we tend to fall for things that grab our heartstrings. It's all about our feelings. ... My ultimate hope is that if we can get people to care about what is going on in their Internet lives, then this new concern about truth may actually spread into other parts of their lives at home and at work and at church. Wouldn't that be interesting?"

God, man & the U.S. Senate

During one of his shifts wielding the U.S. Senate gavel, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas found himself reflecting on faith, politics and some of the most famous words in the Gospel According to St. John.

Looking down from the dais, he thought: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."

It was the second half of the passage -- especially the word "condemn" -- that hit him as he watched his colleagues slog through another day of business, said Brownback, speaking at the first annual Robert Casey Lecture on Faith and Public Life at the John Paul II Center in Denver.

As controversial as it may sound, Brownback began to think less about the senators' votes and more about their souls. He started to study each of those famous faces.

"What do you see," he asked, "when you see Ted Kennedy walk into the room? What do you see when you see Ben Nighthorse Campbell walk into the room? ... I had to confess and admit that what I saw -- what my mind was immediately doing -- was categorizing and judging people."

The conservative Republican also realized that when he rushed to judge these senators, he was making it easy for them to return the favor. Yes, they had undeniable political differences. But this cycle of judgment was not helping anyone, he said. "When I saw these individuals -- my colleagues -- walk into the room, I was immediately sorting them and judging them into friend or foe, liberal or conservative. ... It was something I was doing subconsciously."

What was the point of this political parable?

Brownback said he believes that lawmakers who are believers cannot afford to separate faith and work. Since converting to Catholicism a year ago, he has become even more convinced that public life cannot be disconnected from morality. But politicians must remember that faith must shape how they relate to people as well as policies, he said.

The bottom line: Hypocrisy is a sin.

It's risky to talk openly about these issues. This is an age in which activists, politicians and journalists dissect political speech looking for telltale signs that saints or sinners have veered out of bounds in church-state territory.

Catholics lawmakers, for example, know Rome is watching. But so is the New York Times.

Ask Sen. Tom Daschle, who has long clashed with Catholic doctrine on abortion and scores of other moral issues. Now, there are news reports that Sioux Falls Bishop Robert Carlson has told the South Dakota Democrat to stop calling himself a Catholic.

After all, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently stated: "A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals."

Ask Sen. Rick Santorum, who is caught in a media acid bath after bluntly stating -- among other things -- his belief that homosexual acts, adultery and bigamy are "antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family." This conviction is not surprising since he is a traditional Catholic.

Or ask Brownback himself, since he has recently taken fire because he has an apartment in a Capitol Hill home subsidized by the "Fellowship," a non-profit group that organizes the National Prayer Breakfast. He shares the house with five other Christian lawmakers -- two Democrats and three Republicans. There have been no accusations of improper lobbying or access.

The shocking news: The lawmakers dine together once a week for Bible study.

The crucial issue, said Brownback, is that believers -- whether doctors, lawyers, teachers, carpenters or politicians -- are supposed to let their faith shape their beliefs and actions. They are called to find this "unity of life" on Mondays as well as on Sundays.

"That call involves our cooperation with God in the transformation of our hearts, our entire lives, our families and in the conversion of our culture," he said. This includes "the culture we create around us and the culture in our nation."

Mission? Filling hole in Hollywood

Look up "mission" in a dictionary and it's clear why the word makes Hollywood nervous.

A "mission" can be "an aim in life, arising from a conviction or sense of calling." That's nice and secular. But what if "mission" means a group set apart "by a church or other religious organization to make conversions"?

So film insiders flinch when a studio's mission statement proclaims: "Walden Media believes that quality entertainment is inherently educational. We believe that by providing children, parents and educators with a wide range of great entertainment ... we can recapture young imaginations, rekindle curiosity and demonstrate the rewards of knowledge and virtue."

Say what? When a studio starts combining words such as "parents" and "virtue," Hollywood folks assume all its movies will start with a roar from Dr. James Dobson, instead of a lion. Wait, isn't that William "Book of Virtues" Bennett atop the Walden advisory committee?

"Our goal is wholesome, uplifting, family-friendly entertainment that is still competitive in the marketplace," said the Rev. Bob Beltz, director of special media projects for billionaire investor Philip Anschutz. "I'm not going to say that all of our films will be faith-based. But I can say that we hope they will all be faith-friendly. ...

"We want to be a positive influence in Hollywood. But we have to sell tickets to do that."

Take "Holes," for example, which features Louis Sachar's screenplay based on his Newbery-medal winning novel. The movie opened on 2,331 screens last weekend and soared towards $20 million at the box office.

"In a time when mainstream action is rigidly contained within formulas," noted critic Roger Ebert, "maybe there's more freedom to be found in a young people's adventure. 'Holes' jumps the rails, leaves all expectations behind and tells a story that's not funny ha-ha but funny peculiar."

Amen, said Beltz. This story does have a strange, edgy "parable-like feel to it," he said. But it is the movie's serious themes of good and evil, hope and despair, grace and judgment that are catching viewers off guard. Still, while "Holes" contains many religious themes and symbols, it never resorts to preaching. That made it perfect for this new studio.

"When you have a story like that, you don't want to add anything to it or take anything away," he said. "You just want the story to speak for itself."

Millions of American students already know about Stanley Yelnats IV, a good kid who ends up in the wrong place at the right time and is sentenced to dig holes at the hellish Camp Green Lake in West Texas. The lake is dry and the lovely town on the shore is long dead. But there are serpents, scorpions, killer lizards, bitter memories, buried secrets and enough shame to cover everybody. The sins of the fathers are literally being visited upon the sons.

On one level, "Holes" revolves around a gypsy fortuneteller's curse on Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather." But the emotional heart of this multi-generational tale is the divine judgment that hangs over Green Lake. The town's elite once killed an innocent black onion-picker for the crime of falling in love with a white schoolteacher.

The book spells out what the movie acts out: "That all happened 110 years ago. Since then, not one drop of rain has fallen on Green Lake. You make the decision: Whom did God punish?"

In the end the guilty are brought to justice, the innocent go free and the curses are lifted. Stanley and his friends dance as life-giving water pours from the sky onto the parched earth. The big question: Who can make it rain?

Viewers can make up their own minds about that, said educator Michael Flaherty, the president of Walden Media. But if movies are good enough, many will want to dig deeper.

"Many companies that set out to produce family entertainment make the mistake of defining themselves in terms of what they are not going to do," he said. "They say, 'Don't worry. We're not going to have any bad language in our movies.' Or they say, 'Don't worry. Our stories won't have all those bad parts.'

"We think we can do better than that. We think we can make high-quality films and still be true to our mission."

Arabs! Jews! Lighten up!

At the end of their shows, the unlikely duo of Rabbi Robert Alper and Muslim comic Ahmed Ahmed let the laughter die down so they can get serious.

It doesn't matter if the gig is in a synagogue, yet backed by an alliance of Jews and Muslims, or in a community center, with a smattering of Christians in the crowd. The duo has even performed one show in a mosque.

"We know what people are thinking. They've been laughing together all night, but things are still a little tense," said Alper, who has been a professional comedian and part-time rabbi for 17 years. "So we talk to them in very serious tones for few minutes. We say that we know terrible, tragic issues divide our people. We say that we're not politicians or social psychologists. We don't have the answers.

"But there is hope. We have found one thing that can bring us together."

The room falls silent. Then the Celtic "Riverdance" music blasts out of the sound system. The gray-haired Reform rabbi from Vermont and the edgy Arab funnyman from Hollywood start dancing. The result is kind of Irish, kind of Arab, kind of Jewish and totally goofy.

"It works," said Alper. "I think people come out to see us because they expect some kind of healing experience, and that's what it is. It's a start."

They call the act "One Arab, One Jew, One Stage." But sometimes the post-Sept. 11 duo gets a more daring billing: "Arabs! Jews! Lighten Up!"

Easier said than done. At a recent South Florida show, people were more concerned about the local history with Mohammed Atta and his al-Qaeda cell than Jerry Seinfeld and company. The audience filed past three Boca Raton police cars and the concrete planters that block the synagogue driveway. It didn't help that this was a day when Al-Jazeera was airing forced interviews with American POWs and images of dead GIs.

One Orange County, Calif., show was sponsored by an alliance of Jews and Arabs. Bantering with Muslims in the audience, Ahmed noted that security guards frisked him beforehand and he assumed other Arabs got the same treatment. A Jewish man a few rows back called out: "Hey! They patted us down, too." Oh great, cracked Ahmed. Now they frisk the Jews as they enter the synagogue. That's progress.

Nervous laughter is a given, once the Egyptian-born comic starts sharing what life is like for a young, bearded, Muslim frequent flier. He goes to airports a month and a half early. His in-flight meals are pre-cut, since no one will give him a knife. When jittery travelers ask his destination, he says he has a "one-way ticket to paradise." He pauses and adds, "Hawaii."

Nevertheless, Ahmed says Jews and Muslims have a lot in common. They don't eat pork or celebrate Christmas. They use that throaty "CCCCHHHHH sound" a lot, as in l'chaim. "We're both hairy creatures of God," he added. "The major difference is that Jews don't like to spend any money and Muslims never have any money to spend. ... So let's all get along and share, people."

Actually, anyone who pays attention can find other common elements in the routines. The comics could swap scores of jokes about ethnic traditions and family life without missing a beat. It's clear that Muslim and Jewish mothers have much in common. Many urban and suburban Muslims feel more at home in modern America than their elders. When Ahmed announced that he wanted to be an actor, his father shouted, "But God does not live in Hollywood!"

Once upon a time, said Alper, Jewish immigrants faced this painful assimilation process and they struggle with it still. Yes, the two comics steer clear of politics and it's hard to joke about their faiths. But these are not the only taboo topics. Take the issue of intermarriage. Please.

"We can't make people too uncomfortable," said the rabbi. "You use a joke that takes them down low and their minds go off to some place that's really painful and you can't get them back. We can't do that, yet. It's too personal. We're just getting started talking about these kinds of issues and we have a long way to go."

Irony abounds -- Year 15

One of the great challenges of being a minister is finding something fresh and inspiring to say every year during holiday seasons.

The challenge must be especially daunting for liberal clerics who walk a tightrope between ancient doctrines and their own postmodern beliefs. They must say something innovative and daring -- Christmas after Christmas, Easter after Easter, Earth Day after Earth Day.

Which brings us to a recent epistle by Bishop Charles E. Bennison, Jr., of Philadelphia, an ultra-candid voice in the Episcopal Church establishment. In "The Challenge of Easter" he claims that the ministry of Jesus was rooted in irony and transcended imperialistic laws, codes and creeds. He worked by trial and error. He bent the rules.

"This is what causes fear -- Jesus forgives sins," wrote Bennison. "He claims the authority of God in doing so. ... He acknowledges his own sin. He knows himself to be forgiven."

Wait a minute, said many careful readers. Jesus was a sinner? Says who?

Bennison quickly issued a statement saying he didn't mean to contradict scripture and centuries of doctrine. But he stopped short of a clear retraction.

And so it goes on the religion beat. Year after year readers send me bizarre items from all kinds of sources, from church bulletins to the World Wide Web. Some of this stuff is too good to throw away. Thus, I always mark this column's anniversary -- this is No. 15 -- by sharing out-takes.

It helps to read between the doctrinal lines.

* According to a survey by the Barna Research Group, non-Christian Americans rank "evangelicals" 10th out of 11 categories of people. Evangelicals, for example, were viewed less kindly than real-estate agents, movie stars and lawyers. They placed just ahead of prostitutes.

* Media stereotypes are hard to defeat. Carl Rosen of New York Magazine notes: "When VeggieTales first came out, my office received promo copies of the first three videos. I saw the word 'Christian' and threw them away. Then my wife bought one without reading the fine print and we watched it with our son and we all thought it was great."

* For a decade or two, social activist Tony Campolo has been firing up audiences by asking if it's a sin for Christians to drive BMWs. Now, saints and sinners alike are pondering the significance of last year's "Chevrolet Presents: Come Together and Worship" concert tour. Inquiring minds want to know: What would Jesus drive?

* Catholic prelates in Germany have expressed dismay that the Langnese company is marketing ice creams named after the seven deadly sins of envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth and wrath. "Gluttony" ice cream I can grasp. What would "sloth" taste like?

* Does anyone know why the anti-war anarchists -- www.actagainstwar.org -- who are trying to paralyze the streets of San Francisco keep meeting at the St. Boniface Catholic Church? Just asking.

* The most popular satire site in cyberspace is www.theonion.com. Now, some Eastern Orthodox Christians with too much time on their hands have created its Byzantine counterpart -- www.theoniondome.com. Anyone seeking evangelical satire should visit www.larknews.com. Meanwhile, I can't decide if www.yourgoingtohell.com is satire or not.

* Someone needs to check the urban legends files. Wire services report that a 30-year-old Dutch student named Jennifer Hoes has set her wedding date. On May 28 she plans a civil ceremony in which she plans to marry herself.

* This was a wild year for Patricia Heaton, the outspoken star of the hit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond." In addition to walking out of the raunchy American Music Awards, she continued to speak out against abortion. Is she feeling the heat in Hollywood? "When my final judgment comes," Heaton replied, "I don't think I'll be answering to Barbra Streisand."

* Need an unofficial "Harry Potter" school tie? It turns out that the maroon-and-gold ties sold in the Calvin College bookstore are dead ringers for the tie in the young wizard's school uniform. Was this predestined?

* And finally, Canadian newspapers reported that Anglican bishops are complaining about Father Dorian Baxter's popular "Elvis Priestly" ministry, in which he performs weddings and funerals in a velvet Elvis suit.

The bishops believe this is in poor taste. Perhaps the priest is merely being ironic.