Waiting for the WHY shoe to drop

You're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You know the shoe I'm talking about -- the religion shoe. When the Virginia Tech University story broke, you began clicking from website to website, channel to channel, seeking information and, then, something more.

You've seen photos of mourners in pews, offering comfort and seeking solace. You know that believers will pray and that journalists will keep aiming cameras at them, because, that?s what Bible Belt people do. People in southwest Virginia put scriptures on big road signs and build huge crosses next to Interstate highways. They pray. It's a good photo, but it's just prayer. Right?

No, you're waiting for a real religion angle to surface, a crazy one linked to violence and power. After all, religion surfaces in so many bloody stories these days.

Plus, you know there are politicos here inside the Beltway who are sitting, TV remotes in their hands, waiting to grade the candidates. Will Barack Obama get the tone right, with the right mixture of scripture and concern? Will Hillary Clinton look chilly? Will anyone in the GOP herd look both presidential and pastoral?

You know the pope will say something and that -- no matter what he says about the mysteries of life and death, good and evil -- it will appear in news reports as a naive cry for peace and for an end to violence.

Then again, journalists know that the Jerry Falwell's Liberty University is up I-81 from Blacksburg. So maybe he'll come to Virginia Tech and talk about jealousy, broken hearts and the sexual revolution. Or maybe Pat Robertson will say -- something, anything. Then, on the other side, perhaps the atheist version of Robertson could call a press conference and say this tragedy is more evidence that life is random and without purpose. That would work.

You're waiting to find out what video game the shooter played all hours of the day and night. Did he go to see the movie "300" one too many times? Was he driven by Satan or too many "Left Behind" novels? People on both sides of the sacred vs. secular divide need to know.

You're waiting to see if he killed more women than men. You want to know if the big massacre started in the classroom of an evangelical professor who once witnessed to the shooter and made him mad. You heard reporters say the shooter was Asian and you immediately thought: Asia? What part of Asia? What religion was he?

You're waiting for something that points toward the source of this evil. Am I right? And if you remember the Columbine High School massacre, you may be thinking of that column that journalist Peggy Noonan -- a traditional Catholic -- wrote about the "culture of death" hours after that hellish day.

She wrote: "Your child is an intelligent little fish. He swims in deep water. Waves of sound and sight, of thought and fact, come invisibly through that water, like radar; they go through him again and again, from this direction and that. The sound from the television is a wave, and the sound from the radio. ... The waves contain words like this, which I'll limit to only one source, the news:

"... took the stand to say the killer was smiling the day the show aired ... said the procedure is, in fact, legal infanticide ... is thought to be connected to earlier sexual activity among teens ... court battle over who owns the frozen sperm ... contains songs that call for dominating and even imprisoning women ... died of lethal injection ... had threatened to kill her children. ... had asked Kevorkian for help in killing himself ... protested the game, which they said has gone beyond violence to sadism ... showed no remorse ... which is about a wager over whether he could sleep with another student ... which is about her attempts to balance three lovers and a watchful fiance...

"This is the ocean in which our children swim. This is the sound of our culture. It comes from all parts of our culture and reaches all parts of our culture, and all the people in it, which is everybody."

You're waiting for the other shoe to drop. You want to know the eternal "why" in "who, what, when, where, why and how."

I know that I do.

Nervous believers in Year 18

Religious folks sure get nervous when public officials talk about "fundamentalist" gunmen invading a school.

Consider what happened recently after a staged emergency at Burlington Township High School in New Jersey. The police script for the drill called for armed men to crash the front doors, shoot several students and barricade themselves in the library with hostages. This document, according to the Burlington County Times, described the intruders as part of "a right-wing fundamentalist group called the 'New Crusaders' who do not believe in the separation of church and state." The two gunmen attacked because a child had been expelled for praying.

For some reason, evangelical pastors became alarmed. Thus, local officials and educators released a statement saying they regretted "any insensitivity that might have been inferred" by this scenario, including any offense taken by those who "inferred" that the mock terrorists were Christians.

I have no idea why pastors "inferred" that organizers of this tax-funded drill had in any way suggested that "right-wing" fundamentalists in a "New Crusaders" army opposed to the "separation of church and state" and angry about a "school prayer" dispute might be conservative Christians.

No way. Why would anyone "infer" something like that?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Boredom is rarely a problem for journalists on the religion beat. That's why I mark this column's anniversary every year -- this is No. 18 -- by offering a grab-bag collection of strange stories that I didn't have the chutzpah or the time to cover during the previous 12 months. So hang on.

* During holiday seasons, I get all kinds of email and often it's hard to tell when people are joking. For example, I received an copy of "The Two-Minute Haggadah: A Passover service for the impatient." It condensed the rite's pivotal four questions to this:

(1) "What's up with the matzoh?" (2) "What's the deal with horseradish?" (3) "What's with the dipping of the herbs?" (4) "What's this whole slouching at the table business?" The answers? "(1) "When we left Egypt, we were in a hurry. There was no time for making decent bread." (2) "Life was bitter, like horseradish." (3) "It's called symbolism." (4) "Free people get to slouch."

* No joke. The KFC restaurant chain did ask Pope Benedict XVI to bless its new "Fish Snacker" product, which the company said would be "ideal for American Catholics who want to observe Lenten season traditions while still leading their busy, modern lifestyles." Apparently, the pope declined.

* Try to imagine the media response if President George W. Bush ended a United Nations address with a call for the second coming of his Messiah and pledged to help this apocalypse happen sooner rather than later.

Would this make headlines? Thus, I was surprised when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad drew little fire when he ended his fall U.N. speech by saying:

"I emphatically declare that today's world ... above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet. O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return."

* Candid religion quote of the year? Asked by Vanity Fair if she is a Christian, columnist Ann Coulter replied: "Yes, sort of a mean Christian."

* Church PR efforts are getting edgier. An Episcopal parish in New Jersey issued a "Message to Disaffected Roman Catholics" proclaiming that many "whose spiritual lives are grounded in the Mass and in the sacraments are, nevertheless, unable to concur with the Vatican's position on issues such as the role of women in the church, contraception, remarriage of divorced person, homosexual relationships, or abortion. ... If you are among them, you may find a comfortable spiritual home at Grace Church in Newark."

* In a list of 100 men and women who are "transforming our world," Time editors included 27 "artists and entertainers," 16 "scientists and thinkers" and many other powerful people. However, the list included only three religious leaders. This is the planet earth we are talking about, right?

One man comes home to Orthodoxy

When Peter Maris' father arrived from Greece the U.S. immigration officer couldn't understand his last name and "Margaris" became "Maris."

When his mother's Jewish parents arrived from Poland they added "ski" to their name because they thought "Rafalski" sounded Catholic and, thus, would be safer.

And when Kathleen Rafalski married Dennis Maris, she immediately joined the St. Demetrios Orthodox Church in Hammond, Ind.

"They were married in the Greek church," said Peter Maris, 42. "She learned to speak Greek. She learned to cook Greek. She did everything she could to show her commitment to the faith."

Then came the parish Christmas party when his mother brought a plate of Polish cookies. His father didn't tell this story often, because it was too painful.

"Some of the women got upset," said Peter Maris. "They told my mother, 'What are you doing, bringing those in here? We don't need you and we don't need your Polish cookies. We are Greek.' "

The family walked out and never returned.

Now, nearly four decades later, Maris has come home to Eastern Orthodoxy -- just in time for "Pascha" (Easter in the West).

This is one man's story, but it contains elements of stories told by thousands of converts in an era when this old-world faith is growing in a land already packed with Protestant and Catholic churches. In most communities, Orthodox parishes are known as the "Greek church" or the "Russian church" or carry some other ethnic label.

This is one man's story and it happens to be a story that I first overheard in the fellowship hall of my own Orthodox parish. What is different about this minister named Maris is that his story combines both the joy and pain experienced by "converts" and "cradles" -- those born into Orthodoxy -- who are learning to live and worship together in an ancient church that is quietly sinking its roots into modern America.

Maris has tasted the bitter and the sweet.

There are an estimated 250 million Orthodox believers worldwide -- the second largest Christian flock -- but only 1.2 million in the 22 ethnic jurisdictions in North America. While a few leaders have raised eyebrows by claiming a 6 percent annual growth rate, an accurate count would have to account for ethnic members who are drifting out of Orthodoxy as well as converts who are joining.

It's safer to count U.S. parishes and watch clergy trends. The convert-friendly Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese has, for example, grown from 66 parishes to 250 parishes and missions in four decades. Also, a recent survey found that 43 percent of today's seminarians are converts, a percentage that must be higher among the Antiochians and in the Orthodox Church in America, which sprang from Russian roots.

Maris is unusual, since he was baptized Orthodox before finding his way into evangelicalism. He met his Baptist wife at Chicago's Moody Bible Institute, did graduate degrees at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and worked in Korean Presbyterian and Chinese Christian churches before being ordained as a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church.

"For the longest time, I could only see Orthodoxy through the eyes of my childhood," he said. "For me, Orthodoxy was an ethnic ghetto. ... In many ways, I came back to the church kicking and screaming. But in the end I knew this was where I was supposed to be. There was no place else I could go."

Maris can still speak some Greek and he has been experiencing flashbacks to early memories of the taste of Communion wine, the smell of incense, echoes of Byzantine hymns and glimpses of an icon of Jesus, high in a sanctuary dome.

However, he also remembers his parents' conflicting emotions as their new American dreams clashed with old ethnic traditions. He witnessed similar dramas in Korean and Chinese churches.

"You want to keep the language and you want to keep the food and all of that, somehow, gets mixed in with the traditions of the church," he said. "Then the parents discover that they just can't communicate with their kids and the kids just can't appreciate what is happening in church because that's all wound up with the ethnicity thing. ...

"At some point you have to claim the faith as your own -- you can't inherit it. In the end, you have to believe."

Shadows of THE wardrobe

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- The tall wardrobe in the office of the Westmont College English department isn't much to look at, but visitors from near and far keep visiting to peek inside.

A previous owner described this piece of oak furniture as a "perfectly ordinary wardrobe," a big one of the "sort that has a looking glass in the door." It was big enough to hold "a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one," yet the threshold was low enough that a small child -- perhaps a girl playing hide and seek -- could step into it.

It helps to know that this previous owner was a scholar named C.S. Lewis and that he wrote this precise description of this wardrobe, or an imaginary armoire just like it, in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." This was the first book published in his classic fantasy series "The Chronicles of Narnia."

Naturally, legions of Lewis lovers want to see and touch the wardrobe.

"Day after day you see people coming through to pay homage," said Paul J. Willis, whose office is next to this doorway into the land of Aslan, the Christ figure in Narnia. "There is that part of me that wants to say to each and every one of them, 'Hey! It's just a wardrobe!' ... Yet part of me also thinks that it's funny, and significant, that we are so serious about our literary relics. Why is that?"

There is no sign of declining interest in the life and work of Lewis and this is especially true of the Narnia novels, with more than 100 million copies sold over the past half a century. Meanwhile, the film version of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" grossed $745 million worldwide and the first sequel, "Prince Caspian," is slated for a May 2008 release.

Willis has a unique perspective on this phenomenon and not just because he teaches at Westmont, a liberal arts college on the coast north of Los Angeles. The professor and novelist is also a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, which includes the Wade Center, a famous center for Lewis studies. This collection includes his desk, 2,400 books from his personal library, 2,300 of his letters and an ornate, double-door oak wardrobe handmade by Lewis' grandfather in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Wheaton obtained this item in 1973 and researchers stress that, according to the famous author's older brother Warren, this spectacular wardrobe was in their family home during the years that shaped their imaginations and childhood games.

Willis remembers the emotions stirred by the arrival of this wardrobe on campus. Some people seemed to think it was an object worthy of worship, because of its connection to the "unofficial patron saint of Wheaton College." Willis even wrote an editorial in the student newspaper, jokingly suggesting that administrators could cut slivers out of the back and sell them as relics.

It's crucial to remember that the Narnia wardrobe is the "threshold to fantasy," wrote Willis, in a 2005 book of essays entitled "Bright Shoots of Everlastingness." For many readers devoted to the novels, this physical wardrobe had become "a sacrament of the literary imagination. It was the closest thing we had to Narnia."

And then there were two, when Westmont obtained its wardrobe in 1975.

This was the last piece of furniture left in The Kilns, the house near Oxford in which the Lewis brothers lived while the Oxford don wrote his Narnia novels and many other books. This wardrobe was about to be destroyed because it was too big to be removed through a narrow doorway created by renovations Lewis had made to his bedroom.

Thus, Wheaton has a beautiful wardrobe linked to the childhood of Lewis, the time when he began telling his first tales about magic lands full of talking animals.

Westmont, meanwhile, has a Lewis wardrobe that fits the description of the one that the adult writer inserted into his most famous fantasy. It is an ordinary, everyday wardrobe like thousands of others in homes throughout England.

"Lewis, of course, would say that neither of these wardrobes are the real thing," said Willis. "They are merely copies. They are what Lewis would call shadows of the wardrobe. What really matters is the wardrobe in the story, because that is the doorway into the land beyond our own -- the true land of Aslan."

Opus Dei presses on after Da Vinci

NEW YORK -- At the height of Da Vinci Code mania there was sign at the door of the Murray Hill Conference Center asking visitors if they wanted to learn the truth about the "real Opus Dei."

Visitors received a cheery information pamphlet. Staffers also had answers ready for those asking edgier questions that usually sounded something like this: "Is this the world headquarters of Opus Dei, the place where that albino monk Silas lived who murdered all those people in Dan Brown's book?"

Actually, visitors were told, Opus Dei has no monks and its world headquarters is in Rome. The only local member named Silas is a Nigerian-born stockbroker who lives in Brooklyn -- with his wife.

The siege did include moments of humor, said spokesman Brian Finnerty. One visitor pointed at the 17-story Manhattan tower and asked, "Is it true you have a torture chamber up there?" The doorman quipped, "You don't know nothing. The torture chamber's in the basement."

Life goes on at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 34th Street. But for Opus Dei loyalists, life after "The Da Vinci Code" will never be the same and that is probably a good thing, said Monsignor Thomas Bohlin, the group's leader in America.

It's crucial, he said, that Opus Dei members were able to do dozens of media interviews during the uproar surrounding the book and the movie, he said. This gave Opus Dei a chance to open up and respond to its many critics.

"There are people who still say that we are like a fundamentalist sect," said Bohlin. "For some people we're the Masons, we're crypto-Fascists, we're who knows what. ... We know that it's going to take time for people to figure out who we are and what we are and what we can become here in America."

The story of Opus Dei ("Work of God") began in 1928, when a Spanish priest named Josemar

Lutherans in non-Roman Lent

Eric Phillips really likes soup at lunch.

One of his favorites is baked-potato soup, a filling option that, at first glance, appears to be meat-free. That's important because Phillips isn't eating meat during the 40 days of Lent preceding Easter. Alas, baked-potato soup almost always contains chicken fat, as do many vegetable or pasta soups.

"I gave up meat for Lent last year, which was a pain in the neck," said Phillips, who has a Catholic University of America doctorate in Patristics, the study of the early Church Fathers' writings.

"I decided that I didn't want to go through all of that this year, but then I realized this was actually a pretty good reason to try to do it again. ... The whole reason we fast is to do something that gets our attention, something that reminds us that we're sinners in need of redemption."

While all this Lent talk may sound Catholic, Phillips is a convert into the conservative Missouri-Synod Lutheran Church. He grew up "low church" evangelical and is still adapting to a denomination that includes both modern multimedia megachurches and congregations that embrace old hymns, "high church" liturgy and some ancient traditions.

Phillips attends Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Va., a small church near Washington, D.C., that includes many who are striving to embrace fasting, almsgiving, Vespers services and other Lenten disciplines. Some are avoiding meat, while others are surrendering one cherished pleasure -- such as desserts, soft drinks, pizza or candy. Phillips said a friend is "trying to give up sarcasm for Lent."

But Lutherans are Lutherans and these believers are not following a specific set of Lenten rules. They are not Roman Catholics or Orthodox Christians who, to one degree or another, follow ancient traditions that ask them to fast from meat or even from meat and all dairy products.

For traditional Lutherans the words of Augsburg Confession, article XXVI, are clear: "In former times men taught, preached, and wrote that distinctions among foods and similar traditions which had been instituted by men serve to earn grace and make satisfaction for sin. For this reason new fasts, new ceremonies, new orders, and the like were invented daily, and were ardently and urgently promoted, as if these were a necessary service of God by means of which grace would be earned if they were observed and a great sin committed if they were omitted."

The writings of Martin Luther make it clear that he was rebelling against practices common in the medieval Catholic churches and monasteries of his day, said Immanuel Pastor C.S. Esget.

Thus, it's easy to conclude that Luther rejected fasting and similar disciplines altogether, when what he rejected were mandatory rules. Instead, the Protestant reformer embraced voluntary fasting and almsgiving and argued that these disciplines were like weight lifting and running -- part of a spiritual exercise regime.

"The key is that anything that smacks of legalism will raise all kinds of red flags for Lutherans," stressed Esget, who has promoted Lenten disciplines in his own kitchen as well as his pulpit. "We want to be able to say that fasting, for example, is a good thing. But the minute it becomes a requirement, then there's going to be trouble."

For centuries, Lutherans in Europe chose to follow many fasting traditions found in Catholicism and other Western churches, such as the Church of England. But this gradually evolved into a minimalist tradition that Esget said he has never been able to find in Luther or any other church traditions -- the popular modern practice of giving up "one thing" during Lent.

"What has happened over the centuries is that many Lutherans -- especially after the move to America -- have tried to blend in with all of the Protestants that surround us in this culture," he said. "So most of our traditions have faded over time into a kind of vague idea that it's Lent, but we're not really sure what that is supposed to mean."

The pastor paused, struggling to define the safe middle ground between laziness and legalism, between apathy and dead ritualism.

"I wouldn't want to see my people doing all of these things during Lent just because I laid down the law," said Esget. "Yet, I have to admit that really wish they would do them. Does that make sense?"

Sinners on the counterattack

The panic may strike in the shelter of a Starbucks, when a customer realizes that a quote from evangelical superstar Rick "The Purpose Driven Life" Warren is printed on some of coffee cups.

This would cause any latte-sipping liberal to mutter "Oh my goddess" and worry about legions of Focus on the Family donors invading Wiccan book clubs in Unitarian sanctuaries from sea to shining sea.

Does thinking about this give you sweaty palms? If so, writer Robert Lanham of New York City believes you may be suffering from "Evangophobia."

"It's a healthy fear. ... The evangelical right isn't the new counterculture. It's the new mainstream culture," notes Lanham, in his book "The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right."

"Worst of all, many evangelicals aren't content watching The 700 Club and attending laser-light projections of the crucifixion at the local megachurch. They want to transform the culture you consume to fit their standards. ... And compounded by the fact that evangelicals often share similar goals with conservative Jews, Catholics and Bill O'Reilly, we may soon witness a ratings' sweeps plotline where Will marries Grace after attending a gay deprogramming class."

Lanham realizes that evangelical politicos haven't won many national victories on the hot-button issues that worry him the most -- gay rights and abortion. Nevertheless, he is convinced that alliances between conservative believers and secular conservatives have resulted in "trickle down" policies on taxes, health care, environmental laws and strategies in the Middle East.

"Fundamentalists of every kind," he said, "keep clinging to beliefs that can be very destructive. They are advocating religious teachings that divide people, rather than bind them together. ... They are always on the attack and if we don't buckle down, the next thing you know, they will be running the country -- again."

It helps to understand that Lanham grew up in a non-dancing Southern Baptist home in Richmond, Va. Things got even worse, he said, when he was a teen-ager and his parents joined the kind of Pentecostal flock that "used live camels in the Easter pageant."

Virginia Commonwealth University beckoned, where Lanham majored in English and religion and soon discovered that his activities on Fridays and Saturdays were trumping beliefs he had been taught on Sundays. Before long he was writing "The Hipster Handbook" and his fiction trilogy "Pre-Coitus," "Coitus" and "Aftermath."

The new book on evangelicals contains more of what Publisher's Weekly called his unique brand of "caricature assassination." Thus, there are angry mini-profiles of alpha males like Dr. James Dobson ("The Evangelical Pope"), Tim LaHaye ("The Evangelical Stephen King") and the young Joel Osteen ("The Evangelical P. Diddy"). Along the way, he mocks the doctrine of the Trinity, rips into the Gospel of John and, with a note of sadness, confesses that liberal mainline churches have become fading enclaves for

"old people and pansies" who use hymnals.

Lanham stressed that he really doesn't hate evangelicals, conservative Catholics, Orthodox Jews and other traditionalists. He does, however, believe that most evangelicals are guilty of "dumbing down the faith" and consuming shoddy Christian consumer goods that deserve ridicule. Thus, his list of modern evangelical commandments includes statements such as:

* "Thou shalt live in the suburbs, eat at the Olive Garden and wear clothes made from polyblend fabrics."

* "Thou shalt become aware of pop culture trends eight years after the fact and co-opt these trends for Christian culture."

* "Thou shalt own a support the troops car magnet, a fish bumper sticker and/or an embroidered flag sweater."

* "Thou shalt not speak ill of they neighbor, unless thy neighbor is gay. Then it's okay."

The key, said Lanham, is that he -- along with many others on the religious left -- cannot accept the ancient belief that the Christian Gospel is the unique pathway to salvation. This is the kind of doctrine

that he believes creates fear and division.

Also, in the wake of the Sexual Revolution, there is one issue that towers over all others today.

"It does seem that the evangelical right has set out to repeal the values of the Woodstock generation," he said. "The key issue is gay rights. I decided that I couldn't stand back and let the James Dobsons of this world continue to attack gay people. That's the issue that has made people like me want to take the gloves off and fight back."

What Wilberforce would do

It's rare to hear political leaders speak with candor when it comes to religion.

Imagine the angry newspaper headlines if a world-famous legislator dared to say: "I fear for the future of authentic faith in our country. We live in a time when the common man ... is thoroughly influenced by the current climate in which the cultural and educational elite propagates an anti-Christian message. We should take a look at what has happened in France and learn a lesson from it."

How would pundits respond if the same politico then said: "Is it any wonder ... that the spiritual condition of our country is of little concern to those who don't even educate their own children about true Christianity?"

Of course, a modern politician didn't air these blunt words on "Meet the Press." An 18th-century Member of Parliament named William Wilberforce published them in a British bestseller entitled "A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity."

"The first time I read that book, I thought, 'It's hard to work through some of the old language, but what the man is saying could have been written yesterday,' " said the Rev. Bob Beltz, an evangelical Presbyterian who oversees special media projects for billionaire investor Philip Anschutz.

"I kept writing '1797' over and over in the page margins, with exclamation marks. His words are so relevant that it's shocking."

The question is whether modern Americans will admire Wilberforce as much as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and others admired him in the past and, perhaps, go see his life story on a movie screen.

Modern Wilberforce disciples are doing what they can, producing new books, educational projects and political activism (www.theamazingchange.com) tied to his legacy. For example, Beltz set out to translate the heart of Wilberforce's book into modern language, a slim volume now called "Real Christianity." Proceeds will go to the Dalit Freedom Network that is active in India.

At the same time, Beltz was involved with Bristol Bay Productions to produce the new movie "Amazing Grace," released on the 200th anniversary of Wilberforce's greatest victory. It was on Feb. 23, 1807, that the slave trade was abolished throughout the British Empire after years of struggle that taxed the abolitionist's faith, will and health.

"Amazing Grace" opened on a modest 791 screens and grossed $4 million its first weekend, a $5,442-per-screen average that matched the top releases. The studio hopes to increase its promotional budget and reach more screens in upcoming weeks.

"We know that this isn't the ordinary kind of movie that makes people rush to the theater," said Beltz. "Then again, Wilberforce wasn't your ordinary kind of man."

Born in a successful merchant family, Wilberforce won a seat in the House of Commons in 1780, shortly after graduating from Cambridge University and celebrating his 21st birthday. Before long he was both a radical social reformer and a radical evangelist who -- after two years of intellectual and spiritual turmoil -- came to see no conflict between his twin callings in the public square.

Thus, Wilberforce on Oct. 28, 1787, wrote in his diary that, "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners." In that era, pledging to reform "manners" meant supporting public efforts to promote moral virtue and oppose vice.

As if these passions were not enough, Wilberforce was also a spectacular orator, writer, singer, publisher, art lover, amateur scientist and social activist who helped build hospitals, fight cruelty to animals, reform prisons, improve schools and promote better factory working conditions.

It's crucial to realize, said Beltz, that for Wilberforce all of these causes were woven into the fabric of his life and faith. He saw no conflict between his head and his heart, between evangelism and social justice. What he opposed most of all was "nominal," culturally compromised faith laced with apathy.

"You have people who believe that if you are born in America and go to church on Sunday then that means that you are a Christian," said Beltz. "That is precisely the attitude that William Wilberforce was fighting in the England of his day. He believed that you couldn't defeat a great evil like slavery with a weak, watered-down faith. You needed the real thing."

That Episcopal status quo

When it comes to same-sex unions, the Episcopal Church has been using a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The church's General Convention has never authorized an official rite to bless homosexual relationships. Bishops have, however, been allowed to approve blessings at the local level or simply look the other way.

The national church didn't ask and local bishops didn't have to tell.

The big question is whether this tactic will work after the latest meeting of the world's Anglican primates, which ended early this week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In a blunt communiqu