Soaring candidates in '08

If Mike Huckabee has said it once, he has said it a thousand times during his bid to reach the White House.

"I have a great respect for Barack Obama," noted Huckabee, during a "Tonight Show" visit. "I think he's a person who is trying to do in many ways what I hope I'm trying to do and that is to say, 'Let's quit what I call horizontal politics.'

"Everything in this country is not left, right, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican. I think the country is looking for somebody who is vertical, who is thinking, 'Let's take America up and not down.' "

This is how the Southern Baptist pastor tweaked his "vertical" credo on "Meet the Press," facing journalist Tim Russert: "There has been a huge cultural shift in this country, Tim. And I think that's why many Americans are seeking leadership that has a positive and optimistic spirit. ... I think the American people are hungry for vertical politics, where we have leaders who lift us up rather than those who tear us down."

The former Arkansas governor has used the word "vertical" so many times that enquiring politicos want to know: What's "up" with this guy? Some worry that, as critic Josh Marshall put it, Huckabee is sending a "clever dog whistle call out to Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals that his politics are God?s politics."

This kind of uplifting, vaguely spiritual language may make some people uncomfortable, but there is nothing unusual about it, according to former White House insider Michael Gerson, the evangelical scribe who helped craft the early speeches of President George W. Bush.

"Making use of these kinds of non-sectarian religious references is, itself, the great tradition of American political speechmaking," said Gerson, who is now a Washington Post opinion columnist. "As a speechwriter, when I hear this kind of language it tells me that someone is trying to describe a politics of idealism and aspiration. It's a kind of bringing-America-together language and there is certainly nothing new about political leaders trying to do that."

In fact, there is another candidate in the race who has been using large doses of religious imagery. As Huckabee has noted, Sen. Barack Obama has created some non-horizontal language of his own during his quest to find a truly "post-partisan" politics.

"We are up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House," said Obama, after his primary victory in South Carolina. "But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose -- a higher purpose. ? This election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again."

Clearly, Gerson noted, Obama feels comfortable talking about his Christian faith as he discusses his own political goals and beliefs.

It's hard to fake this. Obama feels comfortable enough to use biblical images in a wide variety of settings, whether he is making a high-profile speech or chatting with voters after Sunday services.

"I don't believe, in his case, that this is someone who is unfamiliar with religious language, but trying to adapt it all of a sudden for political reasons," said Gerson.

This is also true for Bill Clinton, a Southern Baptist who uses his deep knowledge of Bible Belt language as a way to connect with conservative believers -- especially African-Americans -- as well as with religious and political progressives. And Hillary Clinton is very comfortable talking about her United Methodist faith, noted Gerson. However, her "sincere liberal mainline Protestant beliefs" may not connect with as many people who worship in other pews.

Meanwhile, Obama and Huckabee will continue trying to find faith-based words that unite, rather than divide.

When it comes to language, "they are the soaring candidates," said Gerson. "They are trying to claim the higher ground that says they are above the vicious partisanship of the whole Clinton-Bush era."

They are not the first to blaze this trail. As an articulate idealist once put it: "I suggest to you there is no left or right, only an up or down."

That was Ronald Reagan, in the 1964 speech that launched him into national politics. He went on to win his share of votes in church pews.

'Juno' and pro-life Hollywood

Every year or so, a Cinderella movie leaps into the ultimate Hollywood A-list -- the Academy Award nominees for best picture.

The sleeper this time around was "Juno," the sweet but edgy story of Juno MacGuff, a geeky teen who gets pregnant after a sort-of-bored sexual encounter with a friend. The movie also drew Oscar nominations for Canadian Ellen Page, 20, as best actress, for director Jason Reitman, 30, and former stripper turned screenwriter Diablo Cody, 29.

Now it's time for the winner-take-all round of campaigning, which often includes behind-the-scenes maneuvers in the tradition of Niccolo Machiavelli. Do not be surprised if rival studios try to hurt "Juno" by circulating shocking rumors that many religious conservatives who oppose abortion have praised this movie.

It helps that the rumors are true.

Take former Republican Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, for example. He has listed "Juno" among recent hits -- including "Knocked Up" and "Waitress" -- that suggest American popular culture is "awaking to the reality of life in the womb."

While these films come from the heart of the "bawdy mainstream," they include images and themes that will surprise traditionalists, argued Santorum, in an essay written as a senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

"Ultrasound images awakened characters and audiences to the humanity of the unborn. Having a baby, even in the most challenging circumstances, became the compelling 'choice,' " noted Santorum, a devout Catholic and author of the book "It Takes a Family," written during his unsuccessful 2006 bid to stay in the U.S. Senate.

"Adoption was held up as a positive alternative to abortion. And, unlike the news media's portrayal of pro-lifers, protesters outside abortion clinics were authentically depicted as warm and concerned. This stood in contrast to the indifference of the staff within."

In a pivotal scene, Juno calls the "Women Now" clinic -- a parent's signature is not required -- and bluntly tells the switchboard operator she needs to "procure a hasty abortion." But when she approaches the facility, Juno discovers that a high school friend is staging a solo protest outside.

This scene is played for nervous laughs, with the Asian girl chanting, "All babies want to get borned!" But when she realizes that Juno is headed inside, the friend urgently adds, "Your baby has a beating heart! Your baby can feel pain! Your baby has fingernails!"

This last line sticks and, in the waiting room, Juno is haunted by the sound of the other patients around her tapping, clicking and chewing their fingernails. As she flees the clinic, her friend calls out, "God appreciates your miracle!" The pregnant teen chooses -- with strong support from her loving father and stepmother -- to endure the public ordeal of her pregnancy, surrender the baby through adoption and then move on with her life.

The key is that "Juno" is about people struggling to make real decisions in the real world, according to screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi of Act One, a group that trains Christians to work in the Hollywood mainstream. This isn't a connect-the-dots sermon targeting true believers. The movie doesn't preach, because it wasn't created by preachers.

But "Juno" can be called "pro-life, in the way that just about every Gen-X movie about pregnancy is pro-life," wrote the former Catholic nun, at her "Church of the Masses" website. "I would say 'Juno' is a cultural message movie without being a political one. Certainly, that will be an inscrutable nuance in contemporary Christendom in which almost everything is politics. ...

"The movie is also anti-divorce in the way that just about every Gen-X movie about family is anti-divorce. And people with faith are here too, in a decent and gritty way that shows mere secularism to be selfish and shallow."

The bottom line, said Santorum, is that a mainstream movie like "Juno" has a chance to connect with mainstream audiences. Secular critics have, so far, even responded with "thumbs up" reviews.

The most hopeful possibility, he added, is that these movies symbolize a kind of power shift as one Hollywood generation is exposed to the hopes and fears of the next.

"They are ... chronicles from the children of our divorce- and abortion-oriented culture," Santorum added. "There is lived experience, emotional understanding, hard-earned authenticity at the heart of these scripts. And pain."

God words vs. actions

When it comes to religion, modern Americans think religious beliefs are good, but they tend to worry about beliefs that affect other people.

As a rule, religious words are safer than religious actions.

Consider these numbers from a new Ellison Research study that shows surprising support -- on the left and right, among believers and skeptics -- for freedom of expression when it comes to words and symbols.

An overwhelming 90 percent of adults agreed that faith groups should be allowed to rent public property, such as a school gyms, if laws gave non-religious groups the same right. Asked about allowing a moment of silence in public schools, 89 percent said that was fine. Another 88 percent said teachers should have the right to wear jewelry, such as a cross or a Star of David, in public-school classes.

"There is a lot of unity out there about these kinds of issues," said Ron Sellers, president of the research firm in Phoenix. "But the specifics do matter. Wearing a cross on your lapel is not the same thing as showing up a school wearing a t-shirt with a big cross on it and the words, 'Believe in Jesus or you're going to hell.'

"There's no way to say that approving one thing is the same as approving another, even though the same principle is at stake."

The key is that religion is bad if it makes large numbers of people uncomfortable.

For example, 83 percent of the survey participants said it should be legal to put nativity scenes on public property, such as city hall lawns, and 79 percent supported the posting of the Ten Commandments in court buildings. But that number fell to 60 percent when they were asked about Muslim displays on public property during Ramadan.

This study asked another crucial question linked to a religious liberty issue that is affecting a wide variety of faith groups, especially in higher education.

The researchers asked if respondents agreed that it "should be legal for a religious club in a high school or university to determine for itself who can be in their membership, even if certain types of people are excluded." The result was a stark divide, with only 52 percent agreeing that religious groups should be able to enforce their own doctrines among their own members.

"People might respond differently if you asked the same question, but were more specific," said Sellers. "I think most Americans believe that a Jewish student union should have the right to say, 'No, you're Muslim. You cannot join our group.' But what if it's a conservative Christian group that says, 'No, you cannot join our group because you're gay'? American aren't sure what they think about that, right now."

The trend is clear. Vague talk is safer than clear action. Personal beliefs are good, but not if these doctrines lead to actions that indicate that some beliefs are right and others wrong.

Seeking is good, but finding is bad.

Judging is even worse.

For example, a new survey by the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWay Research team found that 72 percent of "unchurched" Americans who rarely if ever attend worship services believe that "God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists." However, 61 percent agreed or strongly agreed that the God of the Bible is "no different from the gods or spiritual beings depicted by world religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc."

The researchers found that 78 percent of the respondents claimed that they would be "willing to listen" if a Christian wanted to share talk about their beliefs. Then again, 44 percent agreed that "Christians get on my nerves."

"There is a sense in our culture that is acceptable to believe in anything spiritual, as long as it makes you a better person and helps you find peace," said Ed Stetzer, leader of the LifeWay Research team. "One's faith only becomes a problem when that belief actually makes claims that contradicts the faith of others."

In an age of "I'm OK, You're OK" spirituality, he added, "American spirituality has glorified 'searching' for spiritual meaning, but de-emphasized 'finding.' In other words, it is good to be looking for spirituality, but it is intolerant to actually believe you have found a right faith. ... Intolerance is defined to mean actually believing that your faith is the correct one."

Invading Anglican closets

The historic Trinity Episcopal Church offers clear online guidance to those seeking a Blessing of Holy Union in its sanctuary on Boston's Copley Square.

The services are based on "A Rite for the Celebration of Commitment to a Life Together" which is used in the Diocese of Massachusetts.

"A priest may bless a same-sex civil marriage or preside at and bless a same-sex union. ... The same liturgical rite is used," say the guidelines. "In the presence of God and the couple's Christian community, the rite includes a declaration of the couple's intent to join their lives together and a celebration of their commitment to a life together."

This is precisely the kind of rite that has infuriated so many conservatives in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

But the sound that Anglican insiders heard the other day was nervous coughing in England. U.S. Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori has decided not to let gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the mother church sit safely on the sidelines while traditionalists take shots at her flock.

What about those same-sex union rites?

"Those services are happening in various places, including in the Church of England, where my understanding is that there are far more of them happening than there are in the Episcopal Church," she recently told the BBC.

What about New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, a gay man who is living in a same-sex relationship? According to Jefferts Schori, Robinson is under attack for being honest.

Bishop Robison, she said, is "certainly not alone in being a gay bishop, he's certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop. He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who's open about that status. ... There's certainly a double standard."

What we have here is an attempt to pull British bishops out and into open combat with conservatives in Africa, South America, Asia and other parts of the 70-million-member Anglican Communion. The presiding bishop has played the England card in a high-stakes game of ecclesiastical poker inside the Church of England.

The tensions were already rising, as Canterbury prepares for its once-a-decade global Lambeth Conference of bishops, this coming July 20-Aug. 3. Conservatives are planning their own Global Anglican Future Conference, June 15-22 in Jerusalem.

Thus, it was symbolic that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams recently presided at a closed-door Eucharist in London for the Clergy Consultation, a support network for gay Anglican clergy, seminarians, monks and nuns. The Times of London offered this detail: "Secrecy was so tight that a list of names attending was sent to Lambeth Palace with orders that it be shredded as soon as Dr. Williams had read it."

Meanwhile, a few liberal activists have focused on the leader of the one U.S. diocese that has -- so far -- voted to cut its ties to the national church.

Citing a disputed interview from more than a decade ago, backed with hostile testimonies, blogger Lisa Fox of Jefferson City, Mo., claims that San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield has repeatedly "outed" himself as an ex-homosexual.

Yes, it's time to publish names, Fox said.

"When a cleric uses his closet as a sniper's nest, he deserves to have a light directed upon his deceit and duplicity," wrote Fox, at her "My Manner of Life" weblog. "For the life of me, I still do not know how those gay-lesbian bishops -- especially the ones on the 'progressive' side of the spectrum -- can look themselves in the mirror each day."

Schofield, meanwhile, insists that he has been misquoted. The 69-year-old bishop does have an unusual background, since he has both taken a monastic vow of celibacy and been a leader in the charismatic renewal movement, with its emphasis on spiritual gifts such as healing and prophecy. He also supports ministries for those who struggle with sexual-orientation issues.

"I always thought I would be married," the bishop told Virtueonline.org. "In my early days of the priesthood, I was an Oblate of Mount Calvary that required annual vows be renewed. By 1966, I was convinced that married life was for me. On November 17, 1966, however, in a life-changing encounter with the Lord, I responded to his request to live a single life for Him."

Schofield also answered the question that others will soon face.

"I am not a homosexual," he said. "I have never been in the homosexual lifestyle."

God and the NFL giants (again)

One of the big questions during last year's National Football League playoffs was whether Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts and Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears would make it to the final game.

It was the stuff of headlines. After all, it would make history if two African-American head coaches reached the Super Bowl. However, both men went out of their way to stress that it was also symbolic that two devout Christians were poised to compete, as friends, on their sport's biggest stage.

"I?m so happy for Lovie, who does things the right way, without cursing and shows that things can be done differently," said Dungy, in a pre-game report by Baptist Press. "We give God all the credit."

Dungy and Smith talked the talk and tried to walk the walk, while armies of mainstream journalists responded by ignoring most of the Godtalk.

Sportswriters never know quite what to do when athletes and coaches turn into preachers and evangelists. It's an old tension, one that been around since the birth of what historians call "muscular Christianity" in mid-19th century Victorian England.

Then, in the early 20th century, the "flying Scotsman" Eric Liddell proved that -- with the right blend of skill and charisma -- a superstar athlete could hold his own in the pulpit. The Olympic champion, whose story was later told in the Academy Award winning movie "Chariots of Fire," inspired legions of athletes to dare to be evangelists, especially in youth rallies organized by Athletes in Action, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and similar groups.

So what are journalists supposed to do when gridiron giants start holding hands and forming prayer circles at midfield? It's one thing to point in thanksgiving toward heaven after a touchdown. Most journalists think it's something else to mention Jesus Christ a dozen times a minute on live television.

Take, for example, Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow of Florida. The first words he uttered in his nervous acceptance speech was: "I'd just like to first start off by thanking my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who gave me the ability to play football."

This quotation didn't appear in any mainstream news reports, wrote sportswriter Kathy Orton at WashingtonPost.com. Her "On Faith" column ran with this blunt headline: "Tebow Talks God, Media Ignores Him."

Orton noted that columnist Michael Wilbon offered this explanation for why journalists ignored Tebow's testimony.

"People are entitled to express their religious beliefs whenever and wherever," said Wilbon, known for his work with the Post and ESPN. "But a newspaper (or network) has an obligation to serve a community of people that have all kinds of religious beliefs. ... There are times when we explore the relationship of competition and spirituality ... but I know I'm not going to be hijacked by those feelings, to let someone preach their beliefs when they're not important to what's going on."

In other words, one person's bold "evangelism" is another's pushy "proselytizing."

There are also political implications lurking in the background, in an age in which recent U.S. elections -- decided by razor-thin margins -- have pivoted on moral and religious issues. Thus, it was controversial when the late Rev. Reggie White and other black superstars began speaking out on issues of marriage, family and sexuality. Dungy has made similar, but more graceful, remarks rejecting same-sex unions.

Finally, any mixture of rhetoric and hypocrisy is sure to repel many sportswriters who study locker room realities year after year. After all, it was quarterback Michael Vick who -- when facing jail time -- suddenly announced that "through this situation I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God. ... I will redeem myself. I have to."

Nevertheless, Orton has decided that her colleagues need to realize that faith is a crucial element in many dramas and, thus, it's wrong to edit that out of the new. It's appropriate to ask an athlete like Tebow hard questions and then quote his answers.

"I've also seen plenty of athletes who say one thing and do another, and it's hard for me to be anything but skeptical," she said. "Maybe that is why so many sportswriters shy away from writing about religion. Because the moment we do, it comes back to haunt us when that athlete is discovered to be less than a man (or woman) of God."

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."