Anglican beat goes on

The career of Bishop Catherine Roskam of the Diocese of New York has been built on her skills as a cross-cultural ambassador for the modern Episcopal Church.

She led the International Concerns Committee of her denomination's executive council, helped create her diocese's Global Women's Fund and has worked as a consultant on issues of cultural sensitivity. In some circles, she is known as the bishop who dared to rap during a "Hip Hop Mass" a few years ago in the Bronx.

"My sistas and brothas, all my homies and peeps, stay up -- keep your head up, holla back and go forth and tell it like it is," proclaimed the bishop, in her benediction.

Thus, the diminutive, white-haired assistant bishop was an unlikely figure to inspire bold, angry headlines during the recent Lambeth Conference of bishops from the global Anglican Communion. This 20-day gathering had been carefully planned by the archbishop of Canterbury and his staff to focus on prayer, Bible study and small-group sessions called "Indabas" -- a Zulu term for tribal meetings -- in private settings that did not include journalists.

It was especially important not to inflame already painful disputes between Third World traditionalists and liberals in the United States, Canada, England and elsewhere.

Then, during planned discussions of domestic violence, Roskam spoke out on an unlikely topic -- bishops who beat their wives.

"We have 700 men here. Do you think any of them beat their wives? Chances are they do," argued Roskam, in The Lambeth Witness, a daily newsletter for gay-rights supporters in the 77-million-member Anglican Communion. "The most devout Christians beat their wives. ... Many of our bishops come from places where it is culturally accepted to beat your wife. In that regard, it makes conversation quite difficult."

The key, she added, is that, "Violence against women, and violence against children for that matter, is violence against the defenseless. With women, it goes hand-in-hand with misogyny."

The New York bishop's accusations rocked the conference, which was already tense due to the absence of about 280 conservative bishops -- many from Nigeria and Uganda -- who declined to attend due to the presence of U.S. leaders who backed the 2003 consecration of the openly gay and noncelibate Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Only 617 Anglican bishops pre-registered and some of those failed to attend, according to a report in The Living Church magazine. Thus, nearly a quarter of the bishops in attendance came from the small, but wealthy, U.S. Episcopal Church.

The most damaging part of Roskam's pronouncement was her tone of moral and cultural superiority, noted commentator Riazat Butt. It was easy for bishops from the Global South to read between the lines and find painful traces of colonialism.

"What bishops should be ... concerned about is her insinuation that a non-white culture leads to domestic violence and that white, western culture is too civilized and too advanced to allow such atrocities to occur," argued Butt, in The Guardian. "Roskam fails to recognize that domestic violence affects people regardless of their class, ethnicity, religion, gender or geography."

The whole episode brought back memories of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, when a rising tide of African and Asian votes helped produce a pivotal resolution -- the vote was 526 in favor, with 70 opposed and 45 abstentions -- stating that sex outside of marriage, including gay sex, is "incompatible with scripture."

The Anglican primate of Scotland said that particular resolution left him feeling "lynched" and was the result of Third World bishops trying to "Islamify Christianity, making it more severe, Protestant and legalistic." One outspoken American bishop complained that many Africans have "moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity."

Now, a decade later, a female bishop from a liberal diocese in America provided new evidence that these kinds of cultural stereotypes are hard to bury.

This kind of guilt-by-association game is not going to ease tensions in the Anglican Communion, noted Archbishop of York John Sentamu.

"I have never beaten my wife, although I can't talk about other people," Sentamu told the London Times. "There is a danger of stereotyping people because of the culture they come from and assuming they must surely be doing it. ... I hope Bishop Catherine has got figures and numbers and people. Because if not, she is in danger of causing an unnecessary rumpus."

The monster was not hiding in church

For a dozen years, they hunted Europe's most notorious war criminal.

Investigators knew exactly where they thought they would find former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, the man accused of masterminding the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.

After his July 21 arrest, most media reports echoed vague statements in The New York Times in which unidentified voices said Karadzic "eluded arrest so long by shaving his swoopy gray hair and disguising himself as a Serbian Orthodox priest. He reportedly hid out in caves in the mountains of eastern Bosnia and in monasteries."

"Of course they were wrong," said Metropolitan Christopher, leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church in North and South America. "It was not true, to say that the Serbian church was hiding him. It appears that he was living right there in clear view, practicing alternative forms of medicine in front of everybody."

The Times updated its first report, adding that for "some of those years" the fugitive lived under an assumed name in Belgrade. A second-day report conceded that Karadzic "was not in a distant monastery or a dark cave when caught at last, but living in Serbia's capital."

Instead of shaving his photogenic silver hair and pretending to be a priest, the former president of the Bosnian Serb mini-state had built a new identity based on his career as a psychologist -- becoming Dr. Dragan David Dabic, expert on meditation, unorthodox therapy techniques and herbal treatments from the East. He was, observers said, a self-made guru with dashes of Freud, a Bohemian poet who resembled Santa Claus, complete with a bushy white beard and long hair, including a ponytail. He published journal articles, gave public lectures and lived with a young mistress.

Blend all that together and, according to ABC News, what you get is an "Orthodox mystic."

"It's like that old saying that you can't fight city hall," said Metropolitan Christopher, in frustration. Journalists and outsiders "want to link all of this to the Serbian Orthodox Church. And they want to say that all Serbs, everywhere, are guilty of the actions of these violent men and that, most of all, the Serbs are the only people who have ever done these terrible things to their neighbors. ...

"They forget that men like Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic were enemies of the church and used violence against the Orthodox, too. Our bishops were jailed and beaten for opposing the regime behind this violence."

As the Serbian Orthodox bishops proclaimed, at one of the worst moments in the fighting, the "way of non-violence and cooperation is the only way blessed by God in agreement with human and divine moral law and experience."

There was also an interfaith appeal for peace in 1999, signed by Orthodox Patriarch Pavle, Catholic Archbishop Franc Perko, Mufti Hamdija Jusufspahic and Rabbi Isak Asiel. It called for a total ceasefire and the return of all refuges -- Serbs, Albanians and Croats -- to their homes.

"Even as evil cannot be overcome by evil, so peace and harmony cannot be attained by war," said that statement from Belgrade. "To be a peacemaker is the greatest duty and most noble obligation of every man. That is why we are not afraid to be the first to extend the hand of peace to one another."

Hardly anyone was listening.

Truth is, Orthodox Christianity does play a major role in defining the history and identity of the Serbs. It is also true that Orthodox leaders have opposed the break up of their homeland and, in particular, the loss of Kosovo -- a state containing more than 1,000 historic churches and monasteries. Serbs have pled with Western officials to intervene and stop the destruction of many priceless sanctuaries.

The lines between faith and ethnicity are often blurred in the Balkans. In this violent, splintered and ravaged region, Karadzic -- who remains a hero to Serb radicals -- may have found refuge for some period of time with the help of some priests or monks, acting on their own.

"We hear accusations against Orthodox people, but we never seem to hear who, what, when and where," said Metropolitan Christopher. "If it's true, we need to know facts. But it is wrong for the media to keep making vague accusations against our whole church in this way, which only makes things worse for those who have endured so much."

Preaching to a tempting choir

The YouTube era has produced a few Catholic stars, priests whose performances have inspired scores of web surfers to pass along emails full of grief or glee.

Who can forget "The Barney Blessing," with the priest who traded his vestments for a purple dinosaur suit before the final prayer of a Halloween Mass? Then there was the trendy priest whose loopy dance to the altar, accompanied by trumpets and drums, inspired comparisons to Prince Ali's arrival in the Disney classic "Aladdin."

But these were tiny tremors compared with the online earthquake that followed Father Michael Pfleger's sermon in which he pretended to be Hillary Clinton, sobbing because of her losses to Sen. Barack Obama.

"She just always thought that, 'This is mine. I'm Bill's wife. I'm white,' " said the priest, speaking at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. "Then out of nowhere came, 'Hey, I'm Barack Obama.' And she said, 'Oh damn, where did you come from? I'm white. I'm entitled. There's a black man stealing my show.' ''

It's natural to watch these cyber spectacles while muttering, "What were they thinking?" The answer is quite simple, according to Father John F. Kavanaugh of St. Louis University. Like many preachers before them, they fell for the temptation to "preach to the choir," their listeners who already agreed with them.

"You're supposed to be a messenger. You're supposed to be the person who brings people the Good News," said the Jesuit, author of "Following Christ in a Consumer Culture" and other books on faith and ethics. "But instead of being the mediator, you can end up putting the focus on yourself. You can become the message and, before you know it, people can start basing their faith on you instead of God."

Catholic priests, of course, are not alone in this temptation. There are plenty of other preachers, in this media-saturated age, who act like stand-up comedians or performers in their own faith-based reality shows. Many big churches have been known to tremble when a skilled communicator leaves the pulpit.

The Pfleger case, said Kavanaugh, is particularly sad after his decades of service at St. Sabina's on Chicago's South Side.

The sandy-haired, blue-eyed priest has helped build a thriving, predominately black parish and parochial school. Pfleger has clashed with gang leaders as well as bishops, while adopting two African-American sons and leading campaigns against alcohol, cocaine, cigarettes and other addictions. He has been hailed as a spectacular preacher, especially on the sin of racism, in an era in which Catholics are not known for their pulpit skills.

The problem is that success leads to unique temptations.

Father Pfleger and clergy who make similar mistakes are not "crazy persons. But they do have problems of their own," stressed Kavanaugh, writing in America, a Catholic weekly. "They are the problems of the preacher. ... I know there are few moments to compare with the affection and approval of parishioners after Mass, especially if you have been helpful in strengthening their faith. But the most distressing moment for me was the one homily I gave that evoked applause. Of course, it was gratifying; but it was disturbing. What was the applause for?"

It's easy for preachers to keep telling the faithful what they want to hear, he said. Preachers must be self-critical and become aware of when they avoid some tough subjects or choose to soften a message, in order not to offend. The flip side of this is when preachers decide to pound away on popular subjects and easy targets, seeking to please people who are already in the pews.

One way for priests to regain perspective, said the Jesuit, would be reading -- in the pulpit -- classic sermons by the saints or popular Christian writers that focus on timeless issues. Another way to keep from "defanging the Gospel" is to confront a congregation with the undiluted words of a sermon by Jesus, as written in scripture.

"Whether you are preaching to liberals or conservatives, it's hard to tell people truths that they don't want to hear," said Kavanaugh. "It's hard to tell people to love their enemies. It's hard to tell people to repent of their sins and to forgive others. ... If your people are smiling and applauding all of the time -- all of the time -- that's when warning flags need to go up."

Faith and Tony Snow's grace

Few things in life cause more shame than encounters with con artists, those old-fashioned predators who know how to massage egos while selling snake oil by the barrel.

But painful experiences can lead to big questions and critical insights into the state of one's soul, said White House spokesman Tony Snow, giving the commencement address at the Catholic University of America in 2007. The key is to take a long look in the mirror, to stop making excuses and then to move forward with wide-open eyes.

"Once you've gotten past the mirror phase, then things begin to get really interesting," said Snow, in a speech that focused on faith more than news and politics. "You begin to confront the truly overwhelming question: Why am I here? And that begins to open up the whole universe, because it impels you to think like the child staring out at the starry night: Who put the lights in the sky? Who put me here? Why?"

And one more thing. It's hard to ask ultimate, eternal, life-and-death questions without thinking about God, he said. That scares some people, but they need to lose that hang up.

"Don't shrink from pondering God's role in the universe or Christ's," said Snow. "You see, it's trendy to reject religious reflection as a grave offense against decency. That's not only cowardly. That's false. Faith and reason are knitted together in the human soul. So don't leave home without either one."

It was easy for Snow's audience to read between the lines on that graduation day.

The witty commentator's 17-month tenure as President Bush's spokesman had been shaped by a series of battles in his war against colon cancer that, eventually, spread to his liver. Snow was urging his listeners to ask, "Why am I here?" But in his own life, he had long ago decided not to be crushed by the unanswerable question, "Why do I have to leave?"

The former newspaper columnist and Fox News superstar kept growing thinner and his hair greyer, even though his one-liners remained sharp as he handled the kinds of tough media questions haunt a president with declining approval ratings. Then he walked away from the White House pressroom last fall, saying that he needed a higher salary -- working for CNN -- to provide for his wife and three children.

Snow's quiet death at age 53 sent new shock waves through the clannish community of politicos and pundits at the heart of life in Washington, D.C., especially since it came so soon after the shocking heart attack that claimed NBC's Tim Russert. Both were dedicated family men and devout Catholics. Both were known for their ability to be friendly and fair, while mixing with activists in both political parties.

The key was that Snow shunned the kind of gloomy pessimism that haunts many conservatives, argued Jewish conservative William Kristol in the New York Times. Instead, his "deep Christian faith combined with his natural exuberance to give him an upbeat world view. ... I came to wonder: Could it be that a stance of faith-grounded optimism is in fact superior to one of worldly pessimism or sophisticated fatalism?"

In his Catholic University speech, Snow urged the graduates to take risks and to always strive to serve others -- confident that they would learn from their mistakes and keep growing. Religious faith, he insisted, was "not an opiate" that helped people avoid hard questions and big challenges. Instead, the ups and downs that accompany the life of faith should be seen as part of "the ultimate extreme sport."

In his case, Snow argued that his calling to live life to the fullest included the challenge to fight cancer. He learned his optimism the hard way.

"I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care," wrote Snow, in a Christianity Today essay entitled "Cancer's Unexpected Blessings."

"Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out. But despite this -- because of it -- God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face."

Faith and the Russert Test

The politico facing Tim Russert was Vice Present Al Gore and their testy dialogue was one of the memorable moments during the 2000 White House race.

RUSSERT: When do you think life begins?

GORE: I favor the Roe vs. Wade approach, but let me just say, Tim, I did --

RUSSERT: Which is what? When does life begin?

GORE: Let me just say, I did change my position on the issue of federal funding and I changed it because I came to understand more from women -- women think about this differently than men.

RUSSERT: But you were calling fetuses innocent human life, and now you don't believe life begins at conception. I'm just trying to find out, when do you believe life begins?

GORE: Well, look, the Roe vs. Wade decision proposes an answer to that question --

RUSSERT: Which is?

Liberal critics said this line of questioning veered out of journalism into hostile territory, especially when Russert probed Gore on laws banning the execution of any pregnant woman on death row, somewhere, someday. Gore defenders defended his stunned, befuddled silence -- what one called a "pregnant pause."

But the Gore showdown raised other questions. Was the host of NBC's "Meet the Press" asking this question because of his own Catholic beliefs? Or was Russert pressing hard because he knew that, as a U.S. senator from Tennessee, Gore had an 84 percent positive National Right to Life voting record and he wanted to hear the candidate describe his change of heart?

"Tim wore his Catholicism proudly. He talked about it all the time," noted NBC anchor Brian Williams, who stepped in, after Russert's death, as the featured speaker at a recent Catholic Common Ground Initiative forum in Washington, D.C.

In fact, Russert's faith was not "an elephant in the room. It was the room. It was the room he was raised in. It was one of his great charms, as was how he dealt with it in life and in our public discourse. ... Catholicism was his base. It was never his bias. I think that's absolutely crucial and I will debate anyone who contends to the contrary."

Russert scheduled speech was called "Learnings from the Political Process for Common Ground in the Catholic Church," a natural topic drawing on his lengthy news career and his earlier brass-tacks political work with two major Democrats -- Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.

In the days after the 58-year-old Russert's shocking heart attack, the focus changed for this event at the Catholic University of America. Williams, who is also Catholic, said the key question was theological and journalistic: Was Russert's relentless search for the truth a result of his Catholic upbringing?

Williams argued that it was impossible to understand Russert's "beautiful mind" without taking seriously the Catholic life and education that formed him. The newsman was who he was, an Irish Catholic guy from south Buffalo, N.Y., who loved his family and always sang the praises of the Mercy Sisters and Jesuit teachers who inspired him enter public life. In April, he openly brought his rosary to a meeting between elite journalists and Pope Benedict XVI, during his visit to Washington.

Russert vowed to never miss Sunday Mass if his son, Luke, was born healthy and kept that promise. While he had strong ties to Catholic progressives, Russert also admired the work of Pope John Paul II. He once told Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a veteran Catholic writer, than when he died he hoped John Paul would meet him at heaven's gate -- wearing the white NBC News baseball cap that Russert gave him.

There were tensions in Russert's life and work. In particular, the clergy sexual-abuse scandals left him angry and shaken. The newsman saw the crisis as "a test of his Catholicism," said Williams. But he also believed that covering the story required him to do the "job of a journalist."

Russert always "understood that the stakes were high. He knew that better than most of us," added Williams. "He knew that the civility of our dialogue was under attack. He knew that diversity in the public square takes work every day. And he knew that our standards of journalism were being attacked. ?

"He understood what it meant to be 'called' to be Catholic, and I think that's very important. He took the call."

Define 'religion,' please

Ask Southern Baptists to name their "religion" and most of them will simply say, "I'm a Baptist."

Ask Roman Catholics the same question and most will say, "I'm Catholic." Odds are good that most Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and occupants of other name-brand pews will take the same approach.

However, some of these believers may choose to define "religion" more broadly and say, "I'm a Christian." A researcher would certainly hear that response in scores of independent evangelical and charismatic churches across America.

This may sound like nitpicking, but it's not.

Confusion over defining the word "religion" almost certainly helped shape the most controversial results from the new U.S. Religious Landscape Survey produced by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

In one of several questions probing the role of "dogmatism" in American life, interviewers asked adults which of two statements best fit their beliefs: "My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life" or "many religions can lead to eternal life."

The results leapt into national headlines, with 70 percent of those affiliated with a religion or denomination saying that "many religions" can bring eternal salvation.

In fact, 83 percent of those in liberal Protestant denominations affirmed that belief, along with 79 percent of Catholics, 59 percent of those from historically black churches and a stunning 57 percent of believers in evangelical pews. In other world religions, 89 percent of Hindus polled said "many religions" can bring eternal life, along with 86 percent of Buddhists, 82 percent of Jews and 56 percent of Muslims.

But there's the rub. It's impossible, based on a straightforward reading of this research, to know how individual participants defined the word "religion" when they answered.

"We didn't have a set of interview guidelines or talking points that we used when asking that question," said Greg Smith, a Pew Forum research fellow. "The interviewers didn't say, 'Well, that means someone who is a member of a different denomination than yours' or 'that means someone in a completely different religion than your religion.'

"So people may have answered that in different ways. There may have been Baptists that interpreted that question as simply referring to members of other churches. Others may have answered with a more universal concept of 'religion' in mind. That's possible. In fact, it's highly likely."

There is no way -- based on this round of research -- to know precisely how many believers have decided to reject what their faiths teach, if those faiths make exclusive truth claims about salvation and eternal life. Thus, said Smith, the Pew Forum is planning follow-up work.

For example, it's one thing for evangelicals to say they believe salvation can be found through "religions" such as Catholicism, Lutheranism, Pentecostalism or other forms of Christianity. It's something else altogether to say a majority of American evangelicals now believe that salvation can be found through Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca and various non-Christian "religions."

Meanwhile, many traditional Christians may believe that all people will -- somehow, in this life or the next -- face some kind of spiritual decision to accept or reject Jesus. However, when asked if that means that only Christians will "be saved," these believers may say that only God can know that. The Rev. Billy Graham has given this kind of answer on many occasions.

The bottom line: It's hard to write a question that will reveal how many Christians now believe that Jesus was mistaken when he said, as quoted in the Gospel of John, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

In fact, a new survey by the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWay Research team specifically asked Protestants if they believed people can find eternal life through "religions other than Christianity" and only 31 percent agreed "strongly" or "somewhat."

"The problem is that all religions make mutually exclusive truth claims," noted evangelical activist Charles Colson, in a radio commentary criticizing the Pew Forum survey. "What Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus say about the person and work of Jesus Christ cannot be reconciled. They may all be false, but they cannot all be true.

"It's called the law of non-contradiction. It goes back to Aristotle. If proposition A is true -- that is, if it conforms to reality -- then proposition B, making a contrary claim, cannot be true as well."

Sex, sin and surveys

It's becoming more and more dangerous for preachers to use the words "sex" and "sin" in the same sentence.

Consider this question: Is sex outside of marriage a sin?

Say "yes" and millions of believers who are sitting in pews will say "amen." But that same affirmation of centuries of doctrine will offend just as many believers and nonbelievers, giving them an easy excuse to avoid congregations they believe are old fashioned and intolerant.

"We have to recognize that our historic positions on sexual issues are becoming incredibly distasteful to more people in this culture and especially to our media and popular culture," said Ed Stetzer, director of the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWay Research team.

"The whole 'Hate the sin, love the sinner' thing -- people are not getting that anymore. People do not believe that we mean that."

Right now, the gay-marriage issue is making headlines. But for millions of traditional believers in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and many other faiths, this issue is linked to a question rooted in religious doctrine, not modern politics. In a spring LifeWay survey, researchers asked: "Do you believe homosexual behavior is a sin?"

The results showed a culture torn in half, with 48 percent of American adults saying that homosexual acts are sinful and 45 percent disagreeing. Considering the margin for error, this is a virtual tie.

The numbers were radically different in different pews, with only 39 percent of Roman Catholics believing that homosexual acts are sinful, as opposed to 61 percent of Protestants and 79 percent of those who identified as evangelical, "born again" or fundamentalist Christians.

A similar pattern emerged from a hot-button question in the latest results reported from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Researchers in this massive effort asked participants which of the following statements "comes closer to your own views -- even if neither is exactly right. 1 -- Homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society, OR 2 -- Homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged by society."

The question was not stated in strictly political or religious terms. However, with that powerful, more official word "discouraged" in the question, 50 percent of the adults surveyed said that "homosexuality" in general, as opposed to homosexual behavior, should be accepted by society.

Once again, there were sharp differences in various religious groups, with 79 percent of American Jews, 58 percent of Catholics and 56 percent of mainline Protestants calling for acceptance of homosexuality. Meanwhile, only 39 percent of the members of historically black churches, 27 percent of Muslims and 26 percent of the evangelical Protestants affirmed the public acceptance of homosexuality.

These numbers are evidence of great change in the religious and moral views of many Americans, yet they also point toward familiar tensions between traditionalists and progressives. The Pew Forum survey, for example, again demonstrated a reality seen in recent elections. Americans who frequently attend worship services and say that religion is very important in their lives continue to take more conservative stands on hot moral issues in public life.

What about people outside the pews? That is where another set of statistics will prove especially distressing to clergy who sincerely want to defend what Stetzer called the ancient "one man, one woman, one lifetime" doctrine of marriage.

In the LifeWay survey, 32 percent of American adults said that their decision to visit or join a congregation would be "negatively affected" if it taught that homosexual behavior is sin. That number rose to 49 percent among the "unchurched," people who rarely or never attend worship.

The issue of homosexuality does not, of course, stand alone, said Stetzer. It's getting harder for religious leaders to maintain consistent teachings about other acts and conditions that traditional forms of religion have, for centuries, considered sin. This affects preaching on premarital sex, divorce, cohabitation and adultery.

"Ultimately, the modern church has failed to proclaim and explain a biblical ethic of sexuality," he said. "We also need to admit that the church has failed to live out the ethic that it's claiming to be advocating. If we are going to say that we stand for the sanctity of marriage, then we -- in our churches and in our homes -- are going to have to live out the sanctity of marriage."

Obama prays behind closed doors

Steve Strang knew the ground rules for the recent meeting between Sen. Barack Obama and a flock of evangelical, Catholic and liberal Protestant leaders.

The invitation to the Chicago gathering stated: "This is an off-the-record (no media) time for questioning and listening, with no expectation of endorsement."

But it's one thing to keep Obama's answers off the record. As soon as the two-hour meeting was over, some participants began talking and writing about the questions they had asked.

"I was concerned after three or four general questions that we wouldn't ask the most important questions," wrote Strang, the founder of Charisma Magazine. "So I raised my hand. ... I said, 'Senator, I want to ask a question I'm sure you are expecting regarding your position on abortion. I represent a segment of the church where nearly everyone considers the issue of supporting life to be the most important issue and where nearly everyone would be opposed to abortion. I want to ask what your stand on abortion is and if you believe what I think you believe, how you justify that with your Christian faith."

Strang said Obama offered a surprisingly "centrist," 15-minute answer. Since the evangelical entrepreneur had read the Obama's "Audacity of Hope" memoir, he recognized that the response came from its "Faith" chapter.

Thus, it's likely that the presumptive Democratic nominee retold the story of the University of Chicago doctor who gently challenged a statement on a U.S. Senate campaign website pledging that Obama would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The doctor's email said he wasn't asking Obama to oppose abortion, but to begin addressing "this issue in fair-minded words."

Obama told his staff to drop the offensive language, in recognition of the fact that many abortion opponents want sincere, sober discussions instead of more shouting. About that time, a member of a polite, pro-life family protesting outside an Obama rally called out: "I will pray for you. I will pray that you have a change of heart."

Thus, Obama wrote: "Neither my mind nor my heart changed that day, not did they in the days to come. But I did have that family in mind as I wrote back to the doctor and thanked him for his email. ... I said a prayer of my own -- that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me."

After the Chicago meeting, online reports by Strang and others said the leaders discussed a wide variety of issues, from the Iraq war to same-sex marriage, from genocide in Darfur to religious liberty issues here at home. A spokesman for the Rev. Franklin Graham said that the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association asked if Obama "thought Jesus was the way to God, or merely a way" -- but did not report the response. There were conflicting reports about whether Graham and Obama exchanged a hug or a handshake.

But abortion remains a high hurdle in an era when several U.S. Supreme Court justices are near retirement.

Is change possible? In "The Audacity of Hope," Obama noted that many opponents of abortion are willing to "bend principle" in cases of rape and incest. Meanwhile, the willingness of "even the most ardent" of pro-abortion-rights advocates to "accept some restrictions on late-term abortion marks a recognition that a fetus is more than a body part."

The key, stressed Strang, was that the Chicago meeting even took place, allowing frank discussion of such bitterly divisive issues.

Rather than merely talking to the religious left, Obama's staff offered him a chance to talk and pray with a variety of evangelical and Pentecostal leaders -- such as author Max Lucado of San Antonio, Rich Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals, Bishop T.D. Jakes of Dallas and many others.

"Obama seemed to have the support of at least half of the 43 leaders who attended the Chicago meeting," noted Strang. "In my opinion, he 'made points' with the rest."

David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network was even more blunt about the meeting's political implications.

"Folks, this is an important development," he said. "It shows that the game has changed. Old rules don't apply. We're in uncharted territory. John McCain's religious outreach team has to now step to the plate and work hard for faith voters."

'No go' zones in UK -- again

The alleged crime took place at the corner of Alum Rock and Ellesmere roads in Birmingham, England, where an officer spotted two missionaries distributing "God's Bridge to Eternal Life" tracts.

The controversial pamphlets contained comments such as, "Throughout history individuals have tried many ways to gain or earn eternal life, but every attempt has been unsuccessful." There were Bible verses, such as, "Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Titus 3:5a."

What happened next has reopened a painful debate about so-called "no go zones," areas that may as well be off limits to British citizens who do not heed Islamic laws.

According to a statement by the Rev. Arthur Cunningham, the "police community support officer" told him "you're not allowed to preach ... here. This is a Muslim area. He said, 'You know, you guys are committing a hate crime here with what you're doing. I'm going to have to call you in and take you in.' Then he took his radio and he said something like, 'There's a hate crime in progress here. I need assistance.' "

This occurred three months ago, but legal actions by Cunningham and the Rev. Joseph Abraham have created a wave of new coverage. Both men carry American passports, although Abraham was born a Muslim in Egypt and then converted to Christianity.

While declining to discuss details, West Midlands Police officials have released statements saying their investigation found that the officer acted "with the best of intentions" and that "the PCSO has been offered guidance about what constitutes a hate crime and advice on communication style."

Another statement: "We would like to assure all communities that there are not any 'no go' areas in the West Midlands Police area and we will defend the rights of the individual to freedom of expression and religious faiths."

The "no go zone" debate began in earnest when Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, who was raised in Pakistan in a family with Christian and Muslim roots, expressed fears that England is splintering into segregated communities of citizens living "parallel lives."

"It is critically important to all that the freedom to discuss freely and perhaps to have our views changed, whether in politics, religion or science, be encouraged and not diminished," wrote Nazir-Ali, in a newspaper essay that led to death threats against him.

Christianity and Islam are both evangelistic faiths, which creates sparks when their traditional, growing forms collide. However, Christian evangelism is banned in many Muslim lands and some Christian converts have faced death sentences as apostates.

In the Alum Rock case, the missionaries freely admit they were seeking converts. Abraham and Cunningham insist that they were told they would be physically attacked if they dared to return.

"The actions and words used by the officers were intimidating and were calculated to warn and-or frighten our clients and to have the effect of deterring our clients from lawfully expressing their opinions and manifesting their beliefs and to have a chilling effect on the exercise by them of their right to manifest their beliefs," according to a document prepared for police by activists at the Christian Institute. "Our clients were left with the understanding that they could not express their religious beliefs in Alum Rock Road without committing a hate crime."

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has reported that the officer involved in this incident is active in the local branch of the National Association of Muslim Police. The West Midlands police force also made recent headlines when it accused a BBC Dispatches program -- entitled "Undercover Mosques" -- of distorting Muslim statements about terrorism.

All of this has led to heightened tensions about how to balance Muslim concerns with British laws.

"Freedom is not, of course, absolute. It is only possible in the context of the Common Good, where the freedom of each has to be exercised with respect for the freedom of all," according to a new essay by Nazir-Ali, in Standpoint magazine.

"Freedom of belief, of expression, and the freedom to change one's belief are, however, vitally important for a free society, and the onus must be on those who wish to restrict these in any way to show why this is necessary. Nor can we say that such freedoms apply in some parts of the country and of the world and not in others."