Religion '07: Huck's Christmas story

It was a simple commercial, with Mike Huckabee posed in front of a set of scandalously empty white bookshelves that, when framed just right beside a Christmas tree, formed a glowing cross behind the candidate.

And, lo, the former Southern Baptist pastor told the voters: "Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? I don't blame you. At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is a celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and our friends. I hope that you and your family will have a magnificent Christmas season. And on behalf of all of us, God bless and merry Christmas."

This caused a firestorm among the political elites that symbolized the year's biggest trend in religion news -- the revenge of the infamous "values voters" who, apparently, remain alive and well in church pews across the heartland.

But will the Republican Party win this "pew gap" contest again? That was the question that dominated the Religion Newswriters Association poll to determine the top 10 religion news stories in 2007. There were plenty of new signs that the so-called religious right exists, but that it isn't a monolith after all.

Here's how America's religion-beat specialists described the year's top story: "Evangelical voters ponder whether they will be able to support the eventual Republican candidate, as they did in 2004, because of questions about the leaders' faith and-or platform. Many say they would be reluctant to vote for Mormon Mitt Romney."

Then, in the number-two slot, was the flip side of that political coin: "Leading Democratic presidential candidates make conscious efforts to woo faith-based voters after admitting failure to do so in 2004."

The rise of Huckabee was the strongest sign that the "values voters" are still out there, but that they are not meshing well with the Republican Party establishment. The latest Southern Baptist from Hope, Ark., has been preaching a blend of conservative morality and populist economics that made him sound like an old-fashioned Bible Belt Democrat from the days before Roe v. Wade.

"The Huckabee surge represents a break with what has been standard operating procedure within the GOP for more than a generation," argued columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post, an outspoken Catholic who remains a Democrat. "The former Arkansas governor has exposed a fault line within the Republican coalition. The old religious right is dying because it subordinated the views of its followers to short-term political calculations. The white evangelical electorate is tired of taking orders from politicians who care more about protecting the wealthy than ending abortion, more about deregulation than family values."

Here is the rest of the RNA top 10 list:

(3) The Anglican wars continued, as an Episcopal Church promise to exercise restraint on homosexual issues failed to bring peace in the global Anglican Communion. Doctrinal debates about marriage and sex continued to cause tensions in other flocks as well, both Christian and Jewish.

(4) Debates about global warming increased in importance, with many oldline Protestant leaders giving the topic a high priority. Meanwhile, some evangelical leaders argued about its importance in comparison with other social and moral issues.

(5) Religious leaders on both sides of the aisle questioned what to do about illegal immigration, with some clergy daring to shelter undocumented immigrants.

(6) Thousands of Buddhist monks led a pro-democracy movement in Myanmar, which was then crushed by the government.

(7) Conservative Episcopalians kept leaving the U.S. church in order to align with traditionalist Anglican bishops in Africa and elsewhere in the global South, initiating yet another round of legal disputes about church endowment funds and property.

(8) In another round of 5-4 votes, the U.S. Supreme Court took conservative stands on three cases with religious implications: upholding a ban on partial-birth abortions, allowing public schools to establish some limits on free speech and rejecting a challenge to the government's Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.

(9) Transitions continued at the top of major Evangelical Protestant institutions, as symbolized by the deaths of Jerry Falwell, Rex Humbard, Ruth Bell Graham, D. James Kennedy and Tammy Faye Messner, the ex-wife of Jim Bakker.

(10) Roman Catholic leaders in the United States wrestled with the high cost of settling legal cases linked to decades of clergy sexual abuse of children and teen-agers. The price tag reached $2.1 billion, with a record $660 million settlement in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The 30-something days of Xmas

There was a time when Christians did not celebrate a season that could be called the 30-something days of Christmas.

In the year of our Lord 1939, the National Retail Dry Goods Association asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving to the next-to-last Thursday in November. This was strategic, since President Abraham Lincoln had proclaimed the last Thursday of the month as the official holiday. This meant that Thanksgiving was occasionally delayed until a fifth Thursday -- a cruel blow to merchants.

Confusion reigned until Congress reached a compromise and, since 1942, Thanksgiving has been observed on the fourth Thursday in November.

And thus was born America's most powerful and all-consuming season. This later evolved into the shopping festival called "The Holidays," which in the past generation has started creeping into stores days or weeks before Turkey Day.

"None of this, of course, has anything to do with the Christmas traditions that Christians have been observing through the ages," said Teresa Berger, professor of liturgical studies at Yale Divinity School.

To be candid, she said, it does "help to remember that celebrations of Christmas and other holy seasons have always been affected by what happens in the marketplace and the surrounding culture. ... But that isn't what we are seeing, today. The question now is whether or not the shopping mall will define what is Christmas for most Christians."

Here's the bottom line. For centuries, Christmas was a 12-day season that began on Dec. 25th and ended on Jan. 6th with the celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany. Thus, the season of Christmas followed Christmas Day, with most people preparing for the holy day in a festive blitz during the final days or even hours, with many stores staying open until midnight on Christmas Eve.

Today, everything has been flipped around, with the Christmas or Holiday season preceding Dec. 25.

For most Americans, this season begins with an explosion of shopping on Black Friday after Thanksgiving, followed by a flurry of office parties and school events packed into early December. The goal is to hold as many of these events as possible long before the onset of the complicated travel schedules that shape the lives of many individuals and families.

Meanwhile, television networks, radio stations and newspapers have created their own versions of the "12 days of Christmas," inserting them before -- often long before -- Dec. 25 as a secular framework for advertising campaigns, civic charity projects, holiday music marathons, parades, house-decorating competitions and waves of mushy movies, old and new.

Needless to say, this is not the Christmas that Berger knew as she grew up in Germany in the post-World War II era. As a Catholic, the days between Christmas and Epiphany were marked by a series of events -- such as the feasts of St. Stephen and St. John the Evangelist -- that were accompanied by their own rites and customs. Lutherans and other Christians had their own traditions for marking this time.

"When people talk about a season called the 'Twelve Days of Christmas,' they are primarily talking about something that was much more common in England," said Berger. "There are many reasons for that, not the least of which was the popularity of the song by that name."

While these traditions took various forms, the key was that the religious elements of the season remained intact. Christians celebrated Christmas during Christmas.

Berger said that it still makes her a bit uncomfortable when she sees families putting up and decorating their Christmas trees before they are even finished using the candles and green wreathes associated with the penitential season of Advent, which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. There are many more people, of course, who do not observe Advent, which is called Nativity Lent in Orthodox churches.

"Today, people believe they can have whatever they want, when they want it, and Christmas becomes whatever the culture says that it is," she said. "We can, however, revolt against this. We can choose, for example, not to send out 1,000 mindless Christmas cards. We can sit down and write our own cards and even breathe a prayer for the people we love while we do that.

"No one can force us to live according to the laws of the new Christmas. We can make our own choices."

FM radio reality in church

The clock is ticking and soon Jeff Crandall while face the challenge of selecting the right music for the Christmas services at High Desert Church.

This will be tricky, because Christmas is what the 70-member staff at this megachurch calls a "federal" event. This means that these services will unite worshippers from the three radically different services that are held week after week at this booming congregation in Victorville, Calif., about 90 miles outside of Los Angeles.

"Christmas may be the only time when people want to hear traditional music, no matter what age they are," said Crandall, the church's 46-year-old "worship pastor" and the former drummer in a rock band called the Altar Boys. "Even kids who are totally into hard rock what to hear a few carols, which makes it easier to put together a service that pleases everybody. ... We try to do the same thing during Holy Week and Easter."

In recent decades, many churches have been shattered by the intergenerational strife that researchers call the "worship wars." If you want to split a national church, change its teachings about sexuality or salvation. But if you want to split a local church, you toss the hymnal, hire a drummer, unleash the teen-agers or make some other musical change that rocks the pews.

But High Desert Church is the kind of church that has turned this equation around. Its goal is to build a multi-flock ministry that unapologetically offers all rock, all the time, but with bands that appeal to different packs of young people, as well as bands for believers from an earlier g-g-g-generation or two.

Now, this nondenominational flock is poised to become the poster church for this FM-radio-dial approach to worship, after being dissected in the hallowed pages of the New York Times.

"When you start a church, you don't decide who you're going to reach and then pick a music style," senior pastor Tom Mercer told America's newspaper of record. "You pick a music style, and that determines who's going to come."

On one level, the music divides this church. But on another level, the music is at the heart of worship services that create zones of comfort for people who have been raised in a culture in which consumers define themselves by their musical choices.

Thus, High Desert Church offers a "Classic" service for Baby Boomers and others who came of age during the "Jesus rock" explosion in the '60s and '70s. This service offers a softer brand of acoustic rock -- think Byrds or the Eagles -- that is easier on the delicate and even damaged ears of older worshippers, said Crandall.

Meanwhile, other musicians focus on the "Harbor" service for people between the ages of 30 and 50. It features the kind of soaring, inspiring rock that most people would associate with U2 and classic bands from the 1980s. Then the "Seven" service cranks things up another notch, with what Crandall described as a "dark" and "moody" mix of postmodern music for the young.

The bottom line: Church leaders use different technology to create different music for different generations who choose to attend different services.

The music unites and the music divides. The challenge for church leadership, Crandall said, is to unite these flocks around a common vision when doing evangelism and missions -- primarily through 18-person cell groups that focus on fellowship and prayer. Then there are those "federal" events that take place several times a year.

There are still Protestant and even Roman Catholic churches that are trying to create "blended" worship services that appeal to all ages at the same time. "Blended" is the term used to describe a mix of traditional hymns and rock music, switching back and forth between a pipe organ and those electric guitars.

Their intentions are good, said Crandall, but the results are guaranteed to offend people whose musical tastes are simply not compatible. Thus, he believes that "blended" services drive people away rather than pulling them together.

"This is reality," he said. "Everything is about the music. When you go to the mall, you can even tell what kind of people are supposed to be shopping in the different stores just by listening to the music that is playing. Can you imagine kids wanting to shop in a store that is playing the music that their parents listen to? No way."

Hitting the 500-year wall

Every half a millennium or so, waves of change rock Christianity until they cause the kind of earthquake that forces historians to start using capital letters.

"What happened before the Great Reformation, we all know," said Phyllis Tickle, author of "God Talk in America" and two dozen books on faith and culture. "We know, for instance, that some sucker sailed west and west and west and didn't fall off the dad gum thing. That was a serious blow."

So Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and then a flat, neatly stacked universe flipped upside down. Soon, people were talking about nation states, the decline of landed gentry, the rise of a middle class and the invention of a printing press with movable type. Toss in a monk named Martin Luther and you're talking Reformation -- with a big "R" -- followed by a Counter-Reformation.

Back up 500 years to 1054 and you have the Great Schism that separated Rome and from Eastern Orthodoxy. Back up another 500 years or so and you find the Fall of the Roman Empire. The transformative events of the first century A.D. speak for themselves.

Church leaders who can do the math should be looking over their shoulders about now, argued Tickle, speaking to clergy, educators and lay leaders at the recent National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta.

After all, seismic changes have been rolling through Western culture for a century or more -- from Charles Darwin to the World Wide Web and all points in between. The result is a whirlwind of spiritual trends and blends, with churches splintering into a dizzying variety of networks and affinity groups to create what scholars call the post-denominational age.

Tickle is ready to call this the "Great Emergence," with a tip of her hat to the edgy flocks in the postmodern "emerging church movement."

"Emerging or emergent Christianity is the new form of Christianity that will serve the whole of the Great Emergence in the same way that Protestantism served the Great Reformation," she said, in a speech that mixed doses of academic content with the wit of a proud Episcopalian from the deeply Southern culture of Western Tennessee.

However, anyone who studies history knows that the birth of something new doesn't mean the death of older forms of faith. The Vatican didn't disappear after the Protestant Reformation.

This kind of revolution, said Tickle, doesn't mean "any one of those forms of earlier Christianity ever ceases to be. It simply means that every time we have one of these great upheavals ... whatever was the dominant form of Christianity loses its pride of place and gives way to something new. What's giving way, right now, is Protestantism as you and I have always known it."

It helps to think of dividing American Christianity, she said, into four basic streams -- liturgical, Evangelical, Pentecostal-charismatic and old, mainline Protestant. The problem, of course, is that there are now charismatic Episcopalians and Catholics, as well as plenty of Evangelicals who are interested in liturgical worship and social justice. Conservative megachurches are being forced to compromise because of sobering changes in marriage and family life, while many progressive flocks are being blasted apart by conflicts over the same issues.

In other words, the lines are blurring between once distinct approaches to faith. Tickle is convinced that 60 percent of American Christians are worshipping in pews that have, to one degree or another, been touched by what is happening in all four camps. At the same time, each of the quadrants includes churches -- perhaps 40 percent of this picture -- that are determined to defend their unique traditions no matter what.

The truly "emerging churches" are the ones that are opening their doors at the heart of this changing matrix, she said. Their leaders are determined not to be sucked into what they call "inherited church" life and the institutional ties that bind. They are willing to shed dogma and rethink doctrine, in an attempt to tell the Christian story in a new way.

"These emergent folks are enthusiastically steering toward the middle and embracing the whole post-denominational world," said Tickle. "We could end up with something like a new form of Pan-Protestantism. ... It's all kind of exciting and scary at the same time, but we can take some comfort in knowing that Christianity has been through this before."

Giving and thanksgiving

It was the kind of cryptic theological statement that is often found stuck on automobile bumpers.

This sticker said: "Don't let my car fool you. My treasure is in heaven." This echoed the Bible passage in which Jesus urged believers to, "lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. ... For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

This sticker's creator probably intended it to be displayed on the battered bumper of a maintenance-challenged car, noted sociologist Christian Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Thus, the sticker suggests that the driver knows his car is a wreck, but that he has "other commitments and priorities" that matter more.

But Smith was puzzled when he saw this sticker on a $42,000 SUV parked at a bank.

"Let's be clear. I have no problem with abundance. I have no problem with capitalism," he said, speaking at Gordon College, his alma mater near Boston. "The person driving this car may give away 40 percent of their income. I have no idea. I'm not trying to nail people who drive SUVs or whatever.

"But it seems to me that the meaning of this bumper sticker has changed from what I thought was the original meaning to, 'Well, Jesus didn't quite get it right, because I have a lot here and I also have it in heaven, too. So I have all the bases covered.' "

After years of digging in the data, Smith has reached some sobering conclusions about believers and their checkbooks.

It's true that Americans give away lots of money, in comparison with people in other modern societies. It's also true that religious Americans are much more generous than non-religious Americans. But here's the bottom line: The top 10 percent of America's givers are very generous, while 80 percent or more rarely, if ever, make charitable donations of any kind.

"This is the glass half-full perspective," said Smith. "We're not doing too bad. We're doing pretty good. However, most American Christians turn out to be stingy financial givers -- most, but not all."

Stingy? Smith believes that the vast majority of affluent American Christians will see they are guilty as charged, if they candidly contrast the amount of money they give away with the doctrines that are proclaimed in the pulpits of all traditional churches.

The result is a laugh-to-keep-from-crying paradox. In fact, Smith considered using another title for his chapel address: "Why does $30 seem like so much to give in church and so little to spend in the restaurant after church?"

The stakes are high in this spiritual struggle. Recent research indicates the combined incomes of active U.S. Christians -- people who frequently go to church -- reached about two trillion dollars in 2005.

The Bible's minimum standard for giving is the "tithe," Smith noted, and it asks believers to give away at least 10 percent of their income. Do the math: 10 percent of two trillion dollars is a lot of money.

"When you study American religion," said Smith, "it quickly becomes clear how important having material resources is if you want to get anything accomplished. ... There are all kinds of things that church leaders say that they are supposed to be doing, yet they struggle to do them because they do not have the resources to act."

Ministers are often afraid to talk about this issue openly, in large part because they "feel like they're in a compromised position," he noted. "They don't want people to think that they are standing up there in the pulpit trying to raise their own salaries."

Truth is, people in the pews would probably prefer to hear a clear, unapologetic message about stewardship from someone who is not ordained. But Smith stressed that anyone who talks about faith and money has to be able to "communicate a spiritual vision that is larger than trying to pay the light bill at the end of the month."

When it comes to tithes and offerings, parents are even more important than pastors.

"People who give generously," said Smith, "almost always say, 'This is just the way my parents raised me. This is part of who I am and what I believe. My parents taught me to be thankful and to help others.' "

Pullman vs. the Magisterium

Those values viewers in the heartland are at it again, clicking "forward" on yet another wave of hot emails about sin, evil, magic and Hollywood.

Here's the news, as harvested on the Internet by experts at Snopes.com, a giant website dedicated to researching urban legends.

"Hi! I just wanted to inform you what I just learned about a movie that is coming out December 7, during the Christmas season, which is entitled 'The Golden Compass.' ... What is disturbing to me is that this movie is based on the first of a trilogy of books for children called 'His Dark Materials' written by Philip Pullman of England.

"He's an atheist and his objective is to bash Christianity and promote atheism. I heard that he has made remarks that he wants to kill God in the minds of children, and that's what his books are about."

Snopes.com researched the many issues raised in this message -- concluding that these emails are (you may want to sit down) essentially true.

It's even true that Pullman devotees have accused New Line executives of editing out some of the book's juicier heresies in an attempt to offend fewer Christian consumers. After all, the studio has about $180 million invested in this project and would like to make two more movies based on the award-winning trilogy.

"What's really amazing is that all of those evangelical and Catholic critics have been aiming their heavy artillery at J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books, when they could have been firing at Pullman, whose books came out first," said Sandra Miesel, co-author of the upcoming book "Pied Piper of Atheism: Philip Pullman and Children's Fantasy Literature."

"Pullman is brilliant at hiding what he's really saying," she added. "Also, his books were marketed for people with more elite tastes. Once they started winning awards, they became more popular. And now, here come the movies, so people are really starting to pay attention."

Pullman has, however, never been soft spoken. In one famous interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he expressed amazement that Rowling's Potter books took more flak in Bible Belt America than his own.

"I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God," he explained. As for his own beliefs, he added: "If we're talking on the scale of human life and the things we see around us, I'm an atheist. There's no God here. There never was. But if you go out into the vastness of space, well, I'm not so sure."

As a writer, Pullman greatly admires Milton's 17th-century classic "Paradise Lost," with its battles between good and evil to determine who will rule heaven. The "His Dark Materials" trilogy covers similar territory and tries to turn the tables through the triumph of two young adventurers, Lyra and Will. The goal is for this couple -- a new Eve and Adam -- to eat forbidden fruit and, this time around, destroy God.

Along the way, Pullman serves up clergy who kidnap and torture children, visitations from gay angels, fickle witches patrolling the skies, a wise shaman, warrior polar bears, a brilliant ex-nun and plenty of opportunities for children to get in touch with their inner "daemons," the talking-animal spirits who represent their souls.

At the heart of the story is a substance called "Dust," which may or may not be Original Sin in a physical form. Then again, Pullman recently told Atlantic Monthly that "Dust" is evidence of a godlike energy unleashed when people gain wisdom, explore their emotions, challenge authority and -- especially for adolescents -- explore their sexuality.

Meanwhile, evil incarnate has a name in Pullman's books -- the "Church." Its bishops wear purple, its cardinals wear red and there is a Vatican with fancy guards. By the end of the trilogy, the ultimate villain has been identified as, "The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonai, the King, the Father, the Almighty."

In the movie, however, "Magisterium" is always used instead of "Church." These forces of evil are, however, fond of Orthodox Christian iconography and Bible verses written in Latin.

"I guess it helps to know that the word 'Magisterium' is the term used to describe the teaching office of the Catholic Church," said Miesel. "That's really subtle. ... Actually, it's not very subtle at all."

Westboro Baptist hates America

The Rev. Billy Graham is a Baptist and so is Bill Clinton.

The Rev. Rick "Purpose Driven Life" Warren is a Baptist and so is the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The Rev. Bob Jones III of Greenville, S.C., is a Baptist and so is the Rev. Al Sharpton, Jr., of New York. The Rev. Bill Moyers is a Baptist, or used to be, and that's also true for the Rev. Pat Robertson.

There are all kinds of Baptists, so saying people are "Baptists" may do little to clarify what they actually believe.

But two things are clear. The first is that the Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., is a Baptist. The second is that millions of other Baptists wish Phelps and his infamous flock would stop calling themselves "Baptists."

"It does make you cringe when you read about Phelps and Westboro, because you rarely see anyone stress that these people have no connections to Southern Baptists or to American Baptists or to anybody else," said Greg Warner, editor of the Associated Baptist Press, one of two news agencies that cover Baptist life.

"This is just some of the baggage that comes with being Baptist. It goes with the territory."

Phelps and his followers make keep making headlines because of their protests at military funerals, featuring signs with shocking slogans -- such as "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers." The church has about 60 members, most of them related to Phelps, and teaches that God is punishing America because of this culture's growing acceptance of homosexuality. A jury in Baltimore recently handed down a $10.9 million verdict against Westboro because of its ugly protests at the March 2006 funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, who died in Iraq.

At its website -- GodhatesAmerica.com -- the church offers this history: "Established in 1955 by Pastor Fred Phelps, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas still exists today as an Old School (or, Primitive) Baptist Church. ... We adhere to the teachings of the Bible, preach against all form of sin (e.g., fornication, adultery, sodomy), and insist that the doctrines of grace be taught publicly to all men. These doctrines of grace were well summed up by John Calvin in his 5 points of Calvinism: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. Although these doctrines are almost universally hated today, they were once loved and believed."

The church does not, however, appear to be part of the National Primitive Baptist Convention of the U.S.A. Then again, it isn't linked to the Southern Baptist Convention, the American Baptist Churches, the National Baptist Convention U.S.A., the Conservative Baptist Association of America, the American Baptist Association (Landmark Baptists), the Regular Baptist Churches, Reformed Baptist Churches, Free Will Baptist Churches, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the National Baptist Evangelical Life and Soul Saving Assembly of the U.S.A., the Independent, Fundamental Baptist Churches or any other known Baptist group.

Obviously, it's hard for Baptists to agree on a common definition of what "Baptist" means. One online definition states: "A member of an evangelical Protestant church of congregational polity, following the reformed tradition in worship and believing in individual freedom, in the separation of church and state, and in baptism of voluntary, conscious believers."

However, various streams of Baptist life predate the birth of the modern "evangelical" movement. And would Baptists agree they are "reformed" churches or "Reformed," as in rooted in Calvinist teachings? Do Baptists today share a common understanding of the "separation of church and state"? Of course not.

All Baptists would, however, stress a congregational approach to church government and the autonomy of each local congregation. This means that it's all but impossible for any Baptist flock to tell another flock what to do -- unless they're part of a larger voluntarily association or convention.

"Just about anyone can get themselves ordained and then say that they've started a church," said Will Hall, head of the 16.4-million-member Southern Baptist Convention's official Baptist Press news agency.

But in the case of Westboro Baptist, he said, it isn't even enough "to call them an independent Baptist church, because they're not typical of the many independent Baptist churches and missionary Baptist churches out there across America. This is a tiny church that's out there all by itself and that's the way they want it."

'God-o-Meter' Democrats

It wasn't easy being the token evangelical in the Howard Dean office during the 2004 White House race.

Other staffers called Mara Vanderslice the "church lady" and reminded her that the loudest cheers at Dean rallies followed attacks on the Religious Right. But what really stung were her candidate's answers to religious questions.

Round one: Dean confessed that he left the Episcopal Church when his parish blocked the construction of a bike path. Round two: He names the Book of Job as his favorite New Testament book. Round three: Asked about his plans to woo religious believers, Dean said he was waiting until the campaign hit the Deep South.

Ouch. That was business as usual until the "values voters" carried President George W. Bush back into office, said author Dan Gilgoff, who dissected the trials of Vanderslice in "The Jesus Machine," his book on James Dobson and the Christian right. That election shook the Democrats and helped them realize that they needed some candidates who were not afraid of faith.

Meet dyed-in-the-wool United Methodist Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who openly testifies about making his profession of faith at a United Church of Christ altar. God talk is back, for the Democrats, while key Republicans face unique faith challenges.

"Part of it is the candidates in the field this time," said Gilgoff, politics editor at the Beliefnet.com website. "In particular, with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton you have two people who have been very vocal about their faith and don't mind talking about it. For Democrats, you could say this was just the luck of the draw."

Meanwhile, in the Republican pews, Rudy Giuliani has a troubled Catholic past, Mitt Romney is struggling to answer Mormon questions and various GOP kingmakers -- sacred and secular -- have questions about Fred Thompson, John McCain and the Rev. Mike Huckabee. The Republicans are trying to preach to a powerful, but troubled, choir.

Everyone knows the stakes are high. Voters who reported attending services more than once a week supported Bush over John Kerry by a margin of 64 to 35 percent and, for those attending once a week, the gap was 58 to 41 percent. Americans who never attended services backed Kerry, 62 to 36 percent.

It's hard for outsiders to follow all of this, which is why Gilgoff and editors at Beliefnet.com and Time have created a digital guide for politicos who want to follow this contest to win the hearts of religious voters. The result is the "God-o-Meter" (blog.beliefnet.com/godometer), which, according to its creators, is pronounced "Gah-DOM-meter." If readers click on the head of a Democratic or Republican candidate, the site delivers his or her ranking on a 10-point scale between "secularist" and "theocrat."

"Our definition of 'secularist' is someone who sees no role for religion in public life and policy," said Gilgoff. "The 'theocratic' position is pretty much the opposite of that."

But there's a theological twist here. The "God-o-Meter" applies this "theocrat" label to liberals who want to see their religious convictions shape public policy (think global warning and health care) to the same degree that it does to conservatives (think abortion and the redefinition of marriage). Thus, at mid-week, theocrat Clinton had a seven rating, the same as Giuliani, and Obama's rating had soared to nine. Romney, meanwhile, was edging close to "secularist" territory, with a five rating.

The key is that the "God-o-Meter" tracks 20 criteria drawn from campaign tactics, such as whether a candidate "frames issues in religious or spiritual terms," "delivers a speech ... in an overtly religious setting" or openly "discusses his/her personal faith and how it would influence his/her presidency." A candidate would lose points, for example, by making "a remark offensive to an important religious constituency" or by declining to "discuss his/her personal faith life when asked, e.g. by a debate moderator."

Right now, words and symbolic actions are enough.

"There is going to be a test later, in terms of whether the Democrats are willing to compromise on any of the hot social issues in terms of actual laws and policy positions," said Gilgoff. "But all of that is a long way down the road. Right now, the Democrats simply have to find a way to start talking to the evangelicals and listening to what they have to say. ... What do they have to lose?"

Young, cosmopolitan evangelicals

WASHINGTON -- Jim Wallis and Richard Land were preaching to the same flock, but their sermons at the recent "Values Voters Summit" reached very different conclusions.

"I am an evangelical Christian who tries to live under biblical authority. A fundamental is the dignity of human life. We are all created in the image of God," said Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine and author of "God's Politics."

But it's time for new strategies, he said. Evangelicals should try to "dramatically reduce the number of abortions in America" through adoption and education, while striving to find "common ground to actually save unborn lives."

The message between the lines: Think about voting for Democrats.

But Land insisted that evangelicals must continue to demand legal protections for the unborn.

"I want to put together a coalition that will work and do what we can to save individual babies one at a time," said Land, leader of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "But the fact is, if we didn't have laws against segregation, we would still have it. If we didn't have laws against slavery, we would still have it."

The message between the lines: Stay the course with the GOP.

Both of these preachers knew that evangelical Christians -- especially young ones -- have yet to embrace a 2008 presidential candidate. That's why Republicans are sweating and Democrats are praying, even in public.

Wallis and Land were arguing for a reason. Young evangelicals are losing faith in the current occupant of the White House, according to new numbers from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Many would be willing to listen to a Democrat who risked blending progressive politics with traditional moral values. But is that heresy?

Here's the big news. Five years ago, President Bush's approval rating with white evangelicals between the ages of 18 and 30 was 87 percent -- a number that has fallen to 45 percent. Meanwhile, 52 percent of older evangelicals continue to back the president.

Back in 2001, 55 percent of the young who called themselves "evangelicals" or "born-again" said they were Republicans, as opposed to 16 percent who were Democrats and 26 percent independents. This time around, it was 40 percent Republican, 19 percent Democrat and 32 percent independent.

"It isn't 100 percent clear why this has occurred," said John C. Green of the University of Akron, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum. "The young evangelicals remain quite conservative on moral and social issues. That just isn't changing or it isn't changing very much. ...

"There is a real sense that they are afraid of being seen as being judgmental, but if you push further you find out that they are still not backing away from traditional Christian beliefs."

On abortion, 70 percent of young evangelicals said it should be "more difficult for a woman to get an abortion" -- a stance claimed by 55 percent of older evangelicals and 39 percent of young Americans in general.

Nevertheless, it's possible that subtle changes are happening behind the political headlines, according to sociologist Michael Lindsay, author of "Faith in the Halls of Power." The "populist evangelicalism" of the past is evolving into a "cosmopolitan evangelicalism" that seeks success in Hollywood, on Wall Street and in the Ivy League, as well as on Capitol Hill.

Some of these young evangelicals don't want to hang Thomas Kinkade paintings on their walls, fill their bookshelves with "Left Behind" novels or sing pseudo-romantic praise choruses in sprawling megachurches. And when it comes to politics, they also care about the environment, health care and social justice.

Eventually, these changes will affect their politics. The young evangelicals want to keep their conservative approach to faith, but apply it to a wider spectrum of issues, while using a different style of activism.

"The edges have been softened," said Lindsay, at a forum dissecting the Pew Forum research. Thus, while "populist evangelicals want to take back America" or contribute to the "Christianization of this country, cosmopolitan evangelicals have a more modest goal.

"They simply want their faith to be seen as legitimate, authentic, and -- they hope in the end -- attractive and winsome. In the same way, they do want their faith to draw others, but they use different forms of mobilization that are far more subtle, more nuanced, and because of that, more significant."