Catholic dad's fight against abuse

It wasn't hard to connect the dots when, after decades of lurid news about the sexual abuse of the young, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger delivered a Good Friday sermon bemoaning "how much filth" was in the church, including "the priesthood." Weeks after that signal in 2005, the cardinal became pope. Then at World Youth Day 2008, he said, "I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured. ... These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation."

The pope's recent letter to Irish Catholics also made headlines, of course. After new cries for repentance, Benedict XVI told the victims: "I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. ... It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church."

All of these words were spoken in public and, thus, led to debates and discussions around the world. However, in recent months tuned-in Catholics have been reading about a private, strategic statement -- by a Catholic layman -- that may have had the greatest practical impact in American sanctuaries. The St. Louis Beacon, an independent online newspaper, recently published the document.

The 10-page memo (.pdf here) was written by David Spotanski, vice chancellor of the Diocese of Belleville in Southern Illinois, and given to his bishop on Feb. 22, 2002.

It's crucial that Bishop Wilton D. Gregory had recently become president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- just as another wave of abuse reports hit the news. When the bishop began scanning the document, Spotanski took it back and read it aloud, behind closed doors.

"The truth is that our bishops are not doing all they CAN to stop sexual abuse of minors by their brother priests; they're doing all they CARE TO," wrote Spotanski. "Like most Catholics I'm stunned and horrified that there's a distinction. ... For a Church that can be so outspoken and uncompromising about the splinters in the eyes of our culture, She has apparently for decades hypocritically concealed a plank in Her own eye from which one could hew an ark."

In addition to handing the bishop the memo, Spotanski provided a photo of his daughter and two sons, who were 14, 11 and 9 when it was taken. He then placed a copy of the photo in Gregory's briefcase before every major meeting the bishop attended that year -- including a face-to-face meeting between Pope John Paul II and the president of the U.S. Catholic bishops. Gregory also met with Cardinal Ratzinger and other top Vatican officials.

This led to a crucial Vatican summit on the abuse crisis and, eventually, much tougher policies to protect children in American churches.

While that charter didn't take every action advised by Spotanski, noted commentator Ross Douthat, it's safe to say that "while the princes of the American church were immobilized by denial ... the rough draft of the policy that righted the ship was being written by a middle-aged layman in the Midwest, in consultation with the Catholic dads on his local softball team."

The New York Times columnist, who is an active Catholic, called Spotanski, the "man who saved American Catholicism."

If so, the key to the memo was its blunt, personal tone and its emphasis on the damage done to the lives and faith of ordinary Catholic children and their parents. For example, Spotanski asked, what Jesus would say to a cardinal who has "shown himself to be dishonest about his knowledge of the forcible anal rape of children?" He then quoted a bishop as observing, "I don't think I'd like hell very much."

Most of all, he argued, Catholic bishops needed to start thinking about their own vows and the church's future and, thus, stop treating victims like "lepers, sinners, nuisances or threats." At some point, faithful Catholics would close their hearts and their checkbooks.

When that happened, warned Spotanski, bishops in "tainted dioceses" would have to "choose between their missions and their mansions, their food buses and their limousines, the 'least of their brothers' and Brooks Brothers. ... The depleted bottom line is that you simply can't run a major American archdiocese for very long on 30 silver coins."

Law, faith and the good death

WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- As the end of his life drew near, Pope Pius XII began addressing complex medical questions that were personal, theological, practical and scientific, all at the same time. For example, how far could doctors go to relieve a dying patient's pain?

Months before his death in 1958, the pope wrote: "Is the suppression of pain and consciousness by means of narcotics (when it is demanded by a medical indication) permitted, by religion and morality, to the patient and the doctor (even at the approach of death and when one foresees that the administration of narcotics will shorten life)?" His answer was "yes," if that was what it took to truly relieve suffering.

Pius XII also knew that doctors were pondering ways to apply ancient truths to issues raised by new technologies, said Ian Dowbiggin, author of "Life, Death, God and Medicine: A Concise History of Euthanasia." The historian from the University of Prince Edward Island spoke to media professionals gathered at this week's G8 "World Religions Summit" at the University of Winnipeg.

Many of these puzzles remain, which is why ethicists still study another 1957 address by Pius XII to the International Congress of Anesthesiologists, in which he asked when it was necessary to make extraordinary efforts to resuscitate patients.

The pope concluded that if it "appears that the attempt at resuscitation constitutes ... such a burden for the family that one cannot in all conscience impose it upon them, they can lawfully insist that the doctor should discontinue these attempts, and the doctor can lawfully comply. There is not involved here a case of direct disposal of the life of the patient, nor of euthanasia in any way: this would never be licit. Even when it causes the arrest of circulation, the interruption of attempts at resuscitation is never more than an indirect cause of the cessation of life."

Dowbiggin stressed that Pius XII was already engaging complex issues that continue to impact debates -- in Canada, the United States and elsewhere -- about legalizing physician-assisted suicide. While this decade has seen a "perfect storm" of conflicts about a "right to die," it is essential that citizens, clergy and public officials study the history of euthanasia before making policy decisions that will touch millions of lives in the future, he said.

"There are deep moral and religious issues at stake in debates about physician-assisted suicide, which is why religious believers have always been involved," said Dowbiggin. "But what we are hearing today are prominent voices that say that religious people must keep their ideas to themselves, because religion is a private thing -- period -- and must not affect public life. If that idea is accepted, that's a major step toward the acceptance of physician-assisted suicide."

The word "euthanasia" comes from two Greek words that simply mean "good death," noted the historian. For centuries, Catholics and others have argued that a "good death" is one that is as pain-free and dignified as possible. Thus, religious groups have been at the forefront of efforts to offer in-home hospice care.

However, several trends have aided efforts to legalize physician-assisted suicide, especially scientific advances that have increased the "graying of America," said Dowbiggin. Thus, people are living longer lives, which also means they are more likely to face lengthy battles with cancer and neurological conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Rising health-care costs have also affected "quality of life" debates. After all, as President Barack Obama told the New York Times, the "chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here." The stakes are rising.

Meanwhile, the Hemlock Society has evolved into End of Life Choices, an organization that merged with Compassion in Dying to form Compassion & Choices. Physician-assisted suicide became the "right to die" which has now evolved into calls for a legal "self deliverance" option.

If religious leaders want to keep taking part in these policy discussions, said Dowbiggin, "they must have something positive to say. It is not enough to just keep saying 'no.' ... They need a vision of what the 'good death' looks like. They need to say that this is the goal of all end-of-life care -- people making informed moral decisions about hospice and other forms of care that are right for themselves and for their families."

SBC wrestles with corporate sin

Like most people born and raised in Biloxi, Miss., theologian Russell Moore grew up about 10 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico. It cost too much to live near the water, but that didn't really matter since the sights, smells and rhythms of the coast defined the whole community. Driving away from his hometown has always been emotional, but the last time he pulled onto U.S. Highway 90 was different.

Hurricane Katrina was terrible. Now, the locals are facing what some writers have called "Katrina meets Chernobyl."

"I've never left like this, wondering if ... my children's children will ever know what Biloxi was," wrote Moore, in an online meditation about a recent visit. Gazing at Gulf, he knew that "there's a Pale Horse" out there, the rupture in deep water that is creating "plumes of petroleum great enough to threaten to destroy the sea-life there for my lifetime, if not forever.

"Everything is endangered, from the seafood and tourism industries to the crabs and seagulls on the beach to the churches where I first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is more than a threat to my hometown. ... It is a threat to national security greater than most Americans can even contemplate, because so few of them know how dependent they are on the eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico."

It would raise few eyebrows if Baptists such as Al Gore, Bill Clinton or Bill Moyers voiced these views. Russell, however, is dean of the theology school at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., a vital hub for conservatives in the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention and in the wider world of evangelicalism.

Moore served as chairman of the resolutions committee this past week in Orlando when Southern Baptists gathered for their annual national meeting. Thus, in addition to dealing with scores of internal SBC issues, the convention also expressed its concerns about the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

Noting that the Bible teaches that those who harm the vulnerable should be held accountable, the convention called on "governing authorities to act determinatively and with undeterred resolve to end this crisis; to fortify our coastal defenses; to ensure full corporate accountability for damages, clean-up, and restoration; to ensure that government and private industry are not again caught without planning for such possibilities; and to promote future energy policies based on prudence, conservation, accountability, and safety."

The resolution (.pdf) urged Southern Baptist churches to recruit waves of volunteers for clean-up crews, just as they did after hurricane Katrina.

The resolution stressed that "our God-given dominion over the creation is not unlimited, as though we were gods and not creatures, so therefore, all persons and all industries are then accountable to higher standards than to profit alone."

The key, said Moore, is that Baptists need a broader view of a key word -- "sin."

"A solid doctrine of sin is what has kept most evangelicals from sliding into a utopian view of government," he said, in a telephone interview. "We understand the sin nature of human beings. We understand that checks and balances are needed, when you are dealing with human institutions. Well, now we need to understand that corporations must be watched carefully. Planned Parenthood is a corporation. Playboy is a corporation. British Petroleum is a corporation, too."

The April 20th explosion in the Gulf, said Moore, could be a turning point for many conservative Christians on issues of pollution, ecology and environmental stewardship. It will be hard to ignore the worst oil spill in U.S. history, especially when the wider economic and human toll begins to close church doors and threaten generations of Bible Belt traditions -- like youth camps on or near the beach.

It hasn't helped that the first things most conservative Christians think about when they hear the word "environmentalism" is Hollywood, New Age spirituality and politicos who suggest that human beings are "parasites on a world that would be better off without them," he said.

This evangelical silence has not been constructive.

"This is one of those issues that, if evangelicals concede it to extremists on both sides, we are going to miss our opportunity to let our voices be heard on what the Gospel says about God's creation and our stewardship of the resources we've been given," said Moore. "Without a biblically conservative voice in that debate, something vital will be missing."

John Wooden, a faithful man

As the decades passed, the coach got used to hearing people call him a hero, an icon and even a saint -- even though he reminded them that only God knows the truth about any man. It was common to see the former English teacher reading the classics. But he also read his Bible daily and rarely missed church, so some friends called him the "reverend." That was probably for the best, since he disliked his other nickname -- the Wizard of Westwood.

John Wooden's own list of heroes was short and symbolic. At the top was his father, Joshua, followed by Abraham Lincoln. Among those who lived during his 99 years of life, he greatly admired the selfless service and deep faith of Mother Teresa.

It's hard to find heroes in a world wracked by scandals, corruption, infidelity and greed, Wooden once told me, during a 1990 telephone conversation just before the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament ended in Denver. But these painful realities only raise the stakes for people whose callings can lead to fame.

"When anyone is in a profession that is constantly putting them in the public eye, then they have to feel that they have a unique responsibility," he said. On the other side of this tricky equation, he added, some "people want you to be perfect. But we're not perfect. We're all fallible, flawed people. That's the reality of life."

Wooden had planned to come to Denver and take part in an event he rarely missed, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes breakfast at the Final Four. However, he decided it was too soon to return to a setting he had always shared with Nellie, his wife of 53 years, who died on March 21, 1985. He was still grieving.

After the coach's death on June 4, waves of media tributes focused on his stunning final years at UCLA -- when his teams won 335 games and lost 22, while winning 10 NCAA championships in 12 years. But Wooden was also an outstanding student at Purdue University and the first three-time consensus All-American in history. He was the first person enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and as a coach.

Many Americans also learned poignant details about the marriage of Nellie and John Wooden, including his ritual of writing a love letter to her on the 21st of every month after her death, producing stacks of envelopes wrapped in ribbons on her pillow.

Wooden's favorite scripture passage was 1 Corinthians 13 and it guided his relationships with his wife, family and players. That chapter ends with these famous words: "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

When working with secular audiences, Wooden used a nondenominational approach to life's great lessons -- which led to his famous "Pyramid of Success" image, built on common virtues such as "skill," "enthusiasm," "industriousness," "patience" and "faith." Former players also learned to recite his folksy sayings, such as, "Be quick, but don't hurry," and "It is what we learn after we know it all that really counts."

But Wooden shared other sayings, when the time was right, including this one: "Basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior. Until that is done, we are on an aimless course that runs in circles and goes nowhere."

In the 1990 interview, the coach stressed that sports are important and can be used to build character. However, sports can also "tear down character" if twisted into a win-at-all-costs brand of faith.

Sports are like politics, business, the arts and organized religion, he said. All of these callings require people to make hard decisions and people are free to make good choices and bad choices. People are also free to admire and follow bad leaders, as well as good ones.

"You see, the truth is somewhere in between. It's wrong to turn people into idols. But it's also wrong to lose hope, to believe that we can't find good examples to inspire us," said Wooden. "We need role models. … Maybe role models are getting harder to find, these days. That doesn't mean that there aren't any worth finding."

An Orthodox question for 2010

The first Orthodox missionaries to reach Alaska traveled with the early Russian explorers and, in 1794, a party of monks established the Orthodox Christian Mission to America. When Orthodox believers venerate icons of the "Saints of North America," many of the images are of missionaries. One is St. Herman of Alaska, a pioneer monk, and another is St. Innocent, an early missionary bishop. Then there is St. Tikhon of Moscow, who envisioned one united Orthodox body in America, a church without ethnic divisions. He later became Russia's patriarch, but died a martyr in the Bolshevik era.

"Before the 1920s, there was only one jurisdiction in North America -- that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which, as we know, was open to ... the widest variety of ethnic communities," said Archbishop Justinian of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, during last week's Episcopal Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Hierarchs in North and Central America.

"Much has changed since that time. The tumultuous events of the 20th Century forced many citizens of traditionally Orthodox countries to leave their native homes and seek refuge in other countries, which led to the rise of large ethnic Orthodox communities beyond the boundaries of corresponding local churches."

But the key to conditions today, he stressed, is the fact that an "increasing number of our faithful belong to the Orthodox Church not as the result of their ethnic background, but of a conscious choice in favor of Orthodoxy's truth."

There's the rub, the source of one of the tensions that pulled the bishops behind tightly closed doors in New York City. Even in the public speech texts, it was clear they were wrestling with this question: Is America best described as a mission field in which Orthodoxy is growing or as a strange land in which immigrants have found shelter during a painful diaspora era?

How the hierarchs answer that question will help shape the future, especially if there is to be a way to unite Greeks, Russians, Arabs, Ukrainians, Serbs, Romanians and other Orthodox believers into one American church, with one hierarchy -- as required by Orthodox tradition.

If America is truly a mission field, that would favor the Russian roots of the Orthodox Church in America, which now worships in English. Its claim to be an autocephalous, or independent, national church is based on a declaration to that effect by leaders of the giant Russian Orthodox Church. Meanwhile, a "diaspora" framework favors leadership claims by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul, the symbolic, "first among equals" of the Orthodox patriarchs.

Last week's assembly was led by Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and was one of 12 meetings in regions containing multiple Orthodox bodies. However, Demetrios declined Bartholomew's request to exclude Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America. Jonah was seated as a bishop -- but not as the OCA primate. He is a convert to the faith.

At this point, said Demetrios, it's impossible to end the overlapping jurisdictions, which means that bishops from ethnically defined flocks control their own parishes in the same locations. America is both a mission field and part of a diaspora phenomenon caused by immigration, he said. So the new Episcopal Assembly is in control -- for now.

"The vital presence of our churches ... world bears witness to the ongoing work of pastoral care of our flocks who have moved around the globe," he said. "It also bears witness to the continuous preaching of the Gospel that has brought an abundance of converts to the faith. Neither of these realities stands in opposition to the other. They are merely the facts of our existence."

But it's time to see the big picture, stressed Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, another flock affected by thousands of converts. If anyone is living in diaspora, he claimed, it's the tiny Orthodox flocks in Jerusalem, Constantinople and other besieged Old World cities.

Meanwhile, the Orthodox in America, he said, are "no longer little children to have rules imposed on us from 5,000 miles away. Orthodoxy in America has its own ethos. We have our own theological institutions and we have our own theologians, authors, publications and magazines. ... We have been here for a long, long time and we are very grateful to the Almighty God that in our theology and worship, we do express the fullness of the Holy Orthodox faith."

'Lost' in the eternal lite

When describing the mysterious concept called purgatory, the Catechism of the Catholic Church starts with the basics. "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven," the text states. "The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification. ... The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire."

Alas, any distressed "Lost" viewers who rushed to the Vatican website after the show's finale found no insights about the smoke monster, the Dharma Initiative, that mysterious "4 8 15 16 23 42" sequence or why the fate of the world depended on a pool of light on one very strange island.

At least one member of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy has owned up to being tuned into the "Lost" phenomenon from the beginning. At the end, all Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark could do was understate the obvious.

"I've enjoyed the series, considering it to be akin to science fiction," he noted, reacting to the raging debates about the religious symbols and language that dominated the final moments. "While the Catholic Church does believe in Purgatory, I'm not sure that the series presents an accurate understanding of our beliefs."

Before the finale, the scribes who had been running "Lost" -- Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse -- said their creation would end by focusing on how the Oceanic Flight 815 survivors answered ultimate questions about the wounds, conflicts and sins in their pasts. The key word, they agreed, was "redemption." All of that pain and suffering had a purpose.

The final episode blended together lots of vague theology, philosophy, pop psychology, religious symbols and references to popular books and movies. Think of it as "Our Town" meets "The Sixth Sense," with dashes of "Ghost," "Field of Dreams," "It's a Wonderful Life" and, at the last minute, a comforting nod to "All Dogs Go to Heaven."

After years of flashing back and forth in time, the final year's action centered on events in two parallel time sequences -- the climactic battle to determine the island's fate and a purgatorial "sideways" timeline in which the characters gained insights into their troubled lives, before and after the fateful crash.

At the end, the castaways gathered in a church sanctuary for one last group hug before entering eternity -- an ocean of bright light outside the exit doors. The big chat explaining these final events -- reuniting the show's Christ figure, Jack Shephard, with his father, Christian Shephard -- was lit by a stained-glass window containing symbols of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

But was the show, as some had theorized all along, actually built on the concept of purgatory? Hadn't Lindelof told the New York Times in 2006: "People who believe that they're in purgatory or that they're subjects of an experiment are going to start reassessing those theories. ..." The creator of "Lost," J.J. Abrams, had denied the purgatory theory, too.

The finale's spirituality shocked many critics, including one or two who were so upset that they retroactively (flash backward) dismissed "Lost" as a whole. But veteran Washington Post writer Hank Stuever, drawing on his Catholic school past, said it's time to admit the obvious.

In the final five minutes, "I realized that the purgatory camp had been right all along, that Occam’s razor (the simplest solution is usually the correct one) had worked," he argued. "Oceanic 815 crashed. Some of its souls awoke in a realm that is neither heaven nor hell. It's limbo. ... Jack Shephard and his fellow travelers were brought there to resolve a number of problems between heaven and hell."

But some Catholic viewers struggled to reconcile their church's teachings with the limitations of a product created in Hollywood, a place that has its own definitions of terms such as "sin," "repentance," "redemption" and "savior."

Now, the creators of "Lost" have offered a glimpse of purgatory -- lite.

"From a theological point of view -- well, you can't have 'purgatory' per se without God, without Christ," said Amy Welborn, a popular online Catholic commentator. "But given a vague, non-specific Christ-less spirituality, I really don't see an argument that the sideways realities in the final episode, at least, weren't meant to be purgatory."

Island of 'Lost' souls

It's getting harder to visit office water coolers without hearing the whispers of the "Lost" disciples who are bracing for the end of the world as they know it. The same thing is happening during coffee hours in religious congregations of every shape and size, which is a testimony to the complexity of the religious themes and symbols embedded deep in the show's mythology. Tough theological questions have circled the island of the castaways ever since the fateful crash of Oceanic Flight 815.

Do absolute moral truths exist? Do good intentions ever justify evil acts? Does real love always lead to self-sacrifice? Can faith and reason coexist or even mesh? Can people change or are they doomed to commit the same sins over and over? What does it mean to be saved? To be delivered?

Some questions are more plot specific. Biblically speaking, what would happen if a patriarch named Jacob was killed by a brother who may or may not be named Esau? Why do some of the island's inhabitants occasionally speak Latin? What is the significance of the fact that most of the characters had horrible fathers? Where do the female survivors get all those tight-fitting tank tops?

" 'Lost' is a religious parable with obvious biblical references trying desperately not to be a religious parable," according to Catholic writer Roberto Rivera y Carlo, who is best known for his work with the evangelical apologist Charles Colson.

"The religion that has been most straightforwardly stated on the show has been straight-no-chaser Christianity. People pray like evangelical Christians or faithful Catholics. There's no kumbaya-style religion. … Ultimately, 'Lost' is an exploration of free will versus determinism or human freedom versus predestination. Take your pick."

Let's see, the plots involve hope, doubt, reason, freedom, sin, virtue, salvation, damnation and seekers striving to find empirical evidence to back their often agonizing leaps of faith. No wonder there is a central character named John Locke, along with others named Milton, Hume, Rousseau and C.S. Lewis (a Charlotte Staples Lewis, this time around).

The men who have been running the program for most of its life -- Damon Lindelof, who is Jewish, and Carlton Cuse, a Catholic -- have called themselves "men of faith," while confessing that "Lost" has become a "mash-up" of their favorite Bible stories, college philosophy textbooks, fantasy novels and movies. Thus, it will be impossible to understand Sunday's finale without wrestling with its final, indeed ultimate, spiritual questions.

"If there’s one word that we keep coming back to, it's redemption," said Lindelof, in a New York Times interview that has caused waves of online fan discussions.

"It is that idea of everybody has something to be redeemed for and the idea that that redemption doesn't necessarily come from anywhere else other than internally. But in order to redeem yourself, you can only do it through a community."

In the end, it's almost impossible to say that "Lost" has one overarching theme, said the Rev. Chris Seay of Ecclesia Church in Houston, author of "The Gospel According to 'Lost.' " However, if forced to choose, he said it's clear that the central characters have been forced to realize that they cannot survive as selfish, isolated individuals -- they must "live together" or they are doomed to "die alone."

However, this also means they have had to confront the reality of their own flaws, he said. Over time, he said, the survivors learned that if they were going to be saved they would have to "fear the evils they find inside themselves more than they fear what is out there in that jungle." That's the kind of message that works in a pulpit, as well as on a large-screen television.

While "Lost" does contain its share of references to Eastern religions and direct references to Christian classics, Seay said recent episodes have reminded him of a defining event in the Hebrew Bible -- the Exodus of the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt.

"In a way, these years on the island have been their time of wandering in the wilderness," he said. "They've had to learn how to live in forgiveness with one another, to face their own sins and find some kind of healing and some hope for the future. ... You have to ask, what would a promised land look like for this set of characters?"

Trying to focus on the future

As strange as it may sound, the head of Focus on the Family is trying to find just the right place in his Colorado Springs office to put a framed copy of an editorial from the New York Times. Under the headline "Super Bowl Censorship," it defended the Christian group's right to buy a prime chunk of airtime, even if the ad focused on the decision by an ailing Pam Tebow to ignore her doctors' advice to abort her fifth child -- a son named Tim. Protests by the National Organization for Women, NARAL Pro-Choice America and others, it said, were "puzzling and dismaying."

"The would-be censors are on the wrong track," proclaimed the Times. "Instead of trying to silence an opponent, advocates for allowing women to make their own decisions about whether to have a child should be using the Super Bowl spotlight to convey what their movement is all about. ... Viewers can watch and judge for themselves. Or they can get up from the couch and get a sandwich."

Where should Focus on the Family President Jim Daly place this memento? After all, it represents a major event during the final days of founder Dr. James Dobson, the child psychologist who over three decades built one of America's most powerful radio franchises and evangelical ministries. Dobson's farewell broadcast was Feb. 26th.

Daly, who became Focus on the Family president in 2005, is thinking about putting the framed editorial between two photos. In one, Daly is standing with President George W. Bush. In the other, he is standing with President Barack Obama.

"I'll find a spot," he said. "That would be a rather symbolic place to put it."

Daly has worked for Focus on the Family for two decades, focusing on building a global audience of 200 million listeners. He is well aware that some loyalists on the legendary Focus on the Family mailing list -- a major resource when raising money or inspiring grassroots support on hot issues -- are worried about recent strategic moves.

Take, for example, Daly's decision to attend an Obama White House conference on fatherhood. Some also questioned the decision not to fight CBS over the right to explicitly mention abortion in the Super Bowl ad.

"I don't want to underestimate their concerns," said Daly. "There are people who want to see more of the hard-hitting approach. The thing is, I'm not sure that approach still works today."

While it's impossible to say if Focus on the Family will take another Super Bowl plunge, the mainstream-media approach used in the Tebow family ad is a sign to what lies ahead, and not just because the Heisman Trophy winner will soon be playing in nearby Denver.

The goal all along was to use the brief advertisement to point viewers toward a longer version of the Tebow story at FocusOnTheFamily.com, said spokesman Gary Schneeberger. Thus, the crucial post-Super Bowl numbers were these -- 92 million of the 106 million who watched the game told researchers they saw the Tebow ad. Among those who did, 6 percent said the spot and the furor surrounding it made them think twice about their beliefs on abortion. In all, about 1.5 million people went online to watch the more detailed Tebow feature.

Daly and Schneeberger insisted that there was no sneaky, brilliant strategy to hide the ad's contents, other than their desire to keep pressure off Tebow as he prepared for his final college bowl game. Nevertheless, a giant media storm was triggered by an early report that Focus on the Family was planning a Super Bowl ad, coupled with a later wire-service story that the Tebows were involved. The result, said Schneeberger, was the equivalent of $32 million worth of free ink and airtime in national media.

"The people who didn't approve of the ad that they had never seen ended up doing all of our talking points for us," he said. "We didn't have to say anything else."

The key lesson, agreed Daly, was that it's possible to "reach out and hold a dialogue" with an audience larger than the Focus on the Family mailing list. The Super Bowl project proved that the ministry could frame a message in such a way that "people outside of our niche had a chance to catch it and it does appear that some caught it. We think that's progress."

Voices of unbelievers, in pulpits

On Sunday mornings, you will find him leading hymns in one of the independent Church of Christ congregations somewhere in South Carolina. Call him "Adam." He is a church administrator, a "worship minister" and a self-proclaimed "atheist agnostic." That last detail is a secret. After all, his wife and teen-aged children are devout believers and he needs to stay employed.

"Here's how I'm handling my job. ... I see it as playacting. I kind of see myself as taking on a role of a believer in a worship service, and performing," he said, during an interview for the "Preachers who are not Believers (.pdf)" report from the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.

"I know how to pray publicly. I can lead singing. I love singing. I don't believe what I'm saying anymore in some of these songs. But I see it as taking on the role and performing. Maybe that's what it takes for me to get myself through this, but that's what I'm doing."

The researchers behind this report do not claim they can document whether this phenomenon is rare or common. What they have right now is anecdotal material drawn from confidential interviews with five male Protestant ministers -- three in liberal denominations and two from flocks that, as a rule, are conservative. An ordained Episcopal Church woman was interviewed, but withdrew just before publication.

The authors of the report are philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, an outspoken leader in the movement many call the "New Atheism," and Linda LaScola, a clinical social worker with years of qualitative research experience. She is also an atheist, but, until recently, was a regular churchgoer.

"We started with a pilot study because this is very new ground," said LaScola, who conducted the interviews. "We are planning to do a larger study in the future."

The key is circulating this early material and then finding more ministers who are willing to be interviewed. The initial participants were found through contacts with the Center For Progressive Christianity and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. As this report candidly states: "Our sample is small and self-selected, and it is not surprising that all of our pastors think that they are the tip of an iceberg, but they are also utterly unable to confirm this belief."

What unites these ministers is their isolation from the believers in their pews, their awareness that they cannot honestly discuss their doubts and evolving beliefs. They also struggle with labels such as "atheist" or "agnostic," often insisting that they remain believers of some kind -- although they reject Christian doctrines or even theism.

This tension, the authors stressed, is "no accident" in these postmodern times.

"The ambiguity about who is a believer and who a nonbeliever follows inexorably from the pluralism that has been assiduously fostered by many religious leaders for a century and more: God is many different things to different people, and since we can't know if one of these conceptions is the right one, we should honor them all," noted Dennett and LaScola. "This counsel of tolerance creates a gentle fog that shrouds the question of belief in God in so much indeterminacy that if asked whether they believed in God, many people could sincerely say that they don't know what they are being asked."

More than anything else, the report offers a striking mix of voices and motives.

"Darryl" the Presbyterian still calls himself a "Jesus Follower," but adds: "I reject the virgin birth. I reject substitutionary atonement. I reject the divinity of Jesus. I reject heaven and hell in the traditional sense, and I am not alone."

There's "Wes" the United Methodist: "I think the word God can be used very expressively in some of my more meditative modes. I've thought of God as a kind of poetry that's written by human beings."

A retired United Church of Christ pastor, "Rick," has learned to add this subtle disclaimer when reciting creeds: "Let us remember our forefathers and mothers in the faith who said, 'dot, dot, dot, dot'."

"Jack" the Southern Baptist has concluded that the "grand scheme of Christianity, for me, is a bunch of bunk." Thus, he is quietly planning a new career.

"If somebody said, 'Here's $200,000,' I'd be turning my notice in this week, saying, 'A month from now is my last Sunday.' Because then I can pay off everything."