God, Barbies and girlie girls

It's a question that can cause tension and tears in a circle of home-school moms in a Bible Belt church fellowship hall. It's a question that can have the same jarring impact in a circle of feminist mothers in a Manhattan coffee shop.

Here it is: Will you buy your daughter a Barbie doll? Other questions follow in the wake of this one, linked to clothes, self esteem, cellphones, makeup, reality TV shows and the entire commercialized princess culture.

The Barbie question is not uniquely religious, which is one reason why it can be so symbolic for mothers and daughters in liberal as well as conservative circles.

Yet questions about religion, morality, health, culture, education, sexuality and, of course, "family values," loom in the background, noted Naomi Schaefer Riley, a former Wall Street Journal editor who is best known for her writing on faith, education and the lives of modern young people. Many parents simply worry about the powerful forces that keep pushing their daughters -- as experts put it -- to "grow older, younger."

"Mothers are divided on this whole issue and some can get very upset just talking about it. Yet others are not upset," noted Riley. "You'll see all kinds of women, religious and non-religious, who taking their 6-year-old daughters to get manicures and to get their hair done, trying to look pretty just like the girls on TV and in all the magazines.

"Then there are women who are the total opposite of all that. They may be evangelical Christians or they may be feminists, but they see this as an attack on what they believe."

Barbie dolls are not the only products that define this dilemma, but they are highly symbolic. In an essay for the journal Books & Culture, Riley noted the power of a story recounted in "Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture," a book by feminist Peggy Orenstein. The anecdote begins with her filmmaker husband approving a Barbie purchase for their young daughter.

"I demanded that he take it away from her. She started to cry. So I gave it back," wrote Orenstein.

The parents argued some more and the Barbie went back on the Target shelf.

At that point the debate evolved into a clash over quality. Orenstein explained: "I promised I would get her a well-made Barbie instead, perhaps a Cleopatra Barbie I had seen on eBay, which, at the very least, was not white or blond and had something to offer besides high-heeled feet. As if the ankh pendant and peculiar tan made it all okay."

The daughter began crying and said, "Never mind, Mama. ... I don't need it."

Many mothers will tear up reading those lines, said Riley, because the scene is so familiar and can be triggered by so many products in shopping malls and just about anywhere on cable television. Moms may be urged to buy a pink Ouija board ("Who will text me next?") or a Monopoly Pink Boutique Edition. They can dive into the parallel universe of Disney Princess products for toddlers, tweens, teens and young women ("Disney Bridal Gowns: Have a Disney Princess Wedding"). The list goes on and on.

Then there are the television shows. Riley, who has a 4-year-old daughter, noted that the style and content are essentially the same -- whether the stars are preschoolers or aged veterans such as Miley Cyrus or Katy Perry. These shows lead young viewers into the world of reality television, with offerings ranging from "Teen Mom" to "Bridezillas," from "Jersey Shore" to "Say Yes to the Dress."

Once again, these subjects are just as likely to be discussed by girls gossiping after a suburban church service as by those chatting at the local mall.

This commercialized, highly sexualized culture, said Riley, has become the dominant culture. The question is whether parents dare to challenge it.

"There's more to this than parents trying to be countercultural," she said. "The big question is whether they will -- for religious reasons or whatever -- dare to take a stand and say, 'I have a right to be THE major influence in the lives of my children.' ...

"It's hard to say that, in this day and age. It takes a certain amount of courage for a mom to say, 'Look, I don't think padded bras are appropriate for 10-year-olds.' "

From Denver to the Main Line

Call it the "Rocky Mountain Time Zone syndrome." Journalists in the region know that it's scandalously rare for news events and trends that break in the Rocky Mountain West to gain traction in the elite news outlets of the urban Northeast and the West Coast.

But the massacre at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 was different. The national press came to Littleton, Colo., and stayed -- forced to wrestle with ancient questions of good and evil, as framed in the unfathomable acts of students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

Days after the bloodshed, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput -- two years into his tenure -- joined a friend at a movie theater, trying to understand the buzz surrounding "The Matrix." The archbishop left deeply troubled, gripped by the sci-fi epic's blurring of the line between life and death, between reality and a digital, alternative reality.

A week after another funeral for a young Catholic who died at Columbine, the archbishop was summoned to testify before a U.S. Senate hearing, and the Beltway press, on a loaded topic -- "Marketing Violence to Children."

Chaput was not well known at that time. This was before he was selected to serve on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, before he started speaking out on national issues, before a public clash with the New York Times, before he wrote a bestseller, "Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life." This was years before his name began surfacing in rumors about empty slots high in the church hierarchy.

Now, the 66-year-old Native American has been named as the 13th shepherd Philadelphia, an ultra-Eastern archdiocese of about 1.5 million Catholics, only 30 percent of whom regularly visit pews. This is a high-profile throne that has, for every occupant since 1921, led to a seat in the College of Cardinals.

As someone who has known Chaput since the mid-1980s, when he was a pastor and campus minister, I'm convinced that anyone who wants to understand this Capuchin Franciscan friar's priorities should start with Columbine.

In that early Washington visit, Chaput told the senators it would be simplistic to blame one movie, or Hollywood, or corporate entertainment giants for what happened at Columbine. At the same time, it would be naive to ignore the power of popular culture.

"The reasonable person understands that what we eat, drink and breathe will make us healthy or sick. In like manner, what we hear and what we see lifts us up -- or drags us down. It forms us inside," explained Chaput.

The day he saw "The Matrix," he noted, the "theater was filled with teen-agers. One scene left me completely stunned: The heroes wear trench coats, and in a violent, elegant, slow-motion bloodbath, they cut down about a dozen people with their guns. It occurred to me that Mr. Harris and Mr. Klebold may have seen that film. If so, it certainly didn't deter them."

Critics were not amused, especially when the archbishop linked this bloodshed -- real and imaginary -- to other hot-button issues on both the cultural left and right.

"The problem of violence isn't out there in bad music and bloody films. The real problem is in here, in us, and it won't be fixed by v-chips," he said. "We've created a culture that markets violence in dozens of different ways, seven days a week. ... When we build our advertising campaigns on consumer selfishness and greed, and when money becomes the universal measure of value, how can we be surprised when our sense of community erodes?

"When we glorify and multiply guns, why are we shocked when kids use them? When we answer murder with more violence in the death penalty, we put the state's seal of approval on revenge. When the most dangerous place in the country is a mother's womb, and the unborn child can have his or her head crushed in an abortion, even in the process of being born -- the body language of that message is that life isn't sacred and may not be worth much at all."

That's the voice that "Whispers In The Loggia" blogger Rocco Palmo of Philadelphia has called "brash, outspoken and fearless -- energetic, colorful, cultured -- indeed, even hard-core."

That's the voice that is leaving the Rocky Mountain Time Zone and headed to the Philadelphia Main Line.

Harry Potter wars forever?

The Harry Potter culture warriors have surged into action one last time, adding their familiar notes of discord to the fanfares greeting the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2." "It's no secret that the Harry Potter storyline about both good and evil wizards has fueled global teenage increase in Wicca and the occult," according to an urgent Christian Newswire press release. "Stephanie Meyer's The Twilight Saga about good and evil vampires has done the same thing for vampirism. Blood drinking among teens has surged. What's next?"

Whatever comes next cannot hope to match the firestorm sparked by the 1997 release of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," which led to global sales of nearly half a billion volumes for the seven-book series.

Nevertheless, that very first title -- containing a medieval Christian alchemy image for eternal life -- was a sign of debates to come. Publishers changed the title image to "Sorcerer's Stone" in America, assuming Americans would shun "philosopher" talk. Before you could say "Deuteronomy 18 (There shall not be found among you anyone who ... who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells)" -- the Potter wars began.

It mattered little that Rowling soon outed herself as a communicant in the Scottish Episcopal Church and told a Canadian newspaper: "Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said, 'yes,' because I do. ... If I talk too freely about that, I think the intelligent reader -- whether 10 or 60 -- will be able to guess what is coming in the books."

Thus, the series unfolded, with each book containing waves of medieval Christian symbols, including many used by artists to point to Jesus -- such as white stags, unicorns, hippogriffs, a phoenix and a red lion.

Meanwhile, the plots were built on alchemical themes of dissolution, purification, illumination and perfection, themes shared with Milton, Blake, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and others. In each book, Harry Potter the "everyman" tries to sacrifice himself for others, before somehow being raised to new life in the presence of a Christ symbol.

Nevertheless, many critics failed to see how Rowling's work stands in contrast to the spirits of materialism and individualism that dominate modern life, according to classics scholar John Granger, an Orthodox Christian best known as the scribe behind HogwartsProfessor.com and numerous related books. I met him at Nimbus 2003, an early global conference on Potter studies, and we have compared notes ever since.

"In a secular culture like ours, fiction of this kind serves an almost sacramental function for millions of people," said Granger. "This offers a hint of the transcendent, a taste of spiritual transformation -- but it's not the real thing. ... Reading Harry Potter could, however, help some people become more open to transformative experiences and perhaps even to yearn for them."

In the end, the faith-based side of Potter mania produced at least five camps that rendered clashing judgments on these books, including:

* Rowling intentionally wrote occult books, creating a doorway into witchcraft for young readers.

* The books are merely tempting trifles celebrating adolescent behavior and mushy morals. They were not intentionally evil, but simply bad books.

* These fables are a mixed bag, mixing good messages with the bad. But if Rowling used Christian symbolism it was as mere window dressing.

* Rowling intentionally wrote "Christian books" containing literal, almost mechanical allegories that can serve as evangelistic tools, in and of themselves.

* The books, according to Granger and many other academics, are part of a British tradition of storytelling built on Christian symbols and themes (including clear biblical references) and can be enjoyed on several levels, including as stories of transformation and redemption. Thus, the Church of England produced "Mixing it up with Harry Potter" study guides.

After years of debating Potter critics, Granger said he still finds it stunning that so many people can study Rowling's work without seeing her extensive use of Christian themes and symbols. At the same time, her approach is "very English" and there is "no way anyone could call these books evangelical," he added.

"Clearly these books contain Christian content, but there is no altar call at the end of each one," said Granger. "If there was an altar call at the end, there never would have been a Potter mania. People would have seen through that."

Evangelicals vs. 'secularists' (2011)

When evangelical leaders look at the United States of America, they do not see a country defined by the familiar Gallup Poll statistic stating that 92 percent of its citizens profess some kind of belief in God. Nor do they see a land that is only 1.6 percent atheist and 2.4 percent agnostic, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. They do not see a land in which another 12.1 percent of the people do not embrace any one religion "in particular," but insist that "spirituality" plays some role in their lives.

In other words, they do not see a remarkably, if somewhat vaguely, religious nation -- especially in comparison with other modern industrialized lands.

No, when elite evangelicals see America today the word that comes to mind is "secular."

In fact, 92 percent of evangelical leaders from the United States who took part in a new Pew Forum survey said they are convinced that secularism is a "major threat" to the health of evangelical Christianity in their land, a threat even greater than materialism, consumerism and the rising tide of sex and violence in popular culture.

In a related question, a majority of U.S. evangelical leaders -- 82 percent -- said they are convinced that their churches are currently losing clout in American life.

In this study, researchers surveyed nearly 2,200 evangelical leaders from around the world who were invited to participate in last year's Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa.

"This rising fear of secularism" among top American evangelicals "really surprised us, especially when you compared their feelings to the more optimistic attitudes among evangelicals in other parts the world," noted John C. Green of the University of Akron, a senior Pew Forum research advisor.

So what is happening? For generations, he explained, evangelicals have "primarily been defined in terms of their conflicts with other religious groups, with other faiths. ... But now, it seems that they are increasingly starting to see themselves in terms of conflicts with those who are either indifferent to religion or who are openly hostile to traditional forms of religion."

Thus, it seemed that when these evangelical leaders used the term "secularism" they were not always referring to people and groups with no religious convictions at all. Instead, they were expressing their concerns about the rising numbers of people in America and around the world that simply do not practice any one form of faith, as traditionally defined.

"They don't seem to know what to call the unorthodox expressions of faith that you see among the so-called 'spiritual, but not religious' people," said Green. Thus, the frustrated evangelical leaders may be "lumping them all together under the term 'secularism.' "

In contrast to this surge of pessimism in North America, evangelicals from other parts of the world were more optimistic about the future. This was especially true among those from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the rest of the so-called "Global South." Other survey results included:

* While only 41 percent of northern leaders believed the state of evangelicalism would improve in the next five years, 71 percent of those in the Global South were convinced things would be "better than now" for their churches. In the Global North, 33 percent of those surveyed thought things would soon get worse.

* While in overwhelming agreement (96 percent) that "Christianity is the one, true faith," these evangelical leaders were somewhat divided on a key authority issue, with 50 percent saying the "Bible should be read literally, word for word" and 48 percent saying "not everything in the Bible should be taken literally."

* Not surprisingly, 90 percent of evangelicals from Muslim-majority nations said Islam poses a major threat to their future work, compared with 41 percent from those living elsewhere. However, survey participants from Muslim lands held more favorable views of Muslims and their faith than did evangelical leaders from other countries.

* The Lausanne Congress participants were convinced that evangelicals in the Global South currently have "too little influence" in the leadership of world Christianity. Researchers found it particularly interesting that leaders in the United States and other parts of the Global North were even more likely to hold this point of view -- 78 percent compared to 62 percent -- than their counterparts in the Global South.

NYC's dangerous churches (in schools)

Once a month, Village Church volunteers offer their neighborhood a gift -- free babysitting. This Friday "Parents Night Out" program uses non-religious crafts and games, which is important because the Presbyterian flock's leaders insist that it's open to parents of any "creed, color, party or orientation." It helps to know that this evangelical church is located in New York City's Greenwich Village and meets in rented space in Public School 3.

"We're New Yorkers and we know all about the incredible diversity of life in the Village," said the Rev. Sam Andreades, a former computer professional with a New York University graduate degree. "We're trying to be part of that diversity. We live here."

The question, however, is whether the Village Church will get to stay where it is, pending the resolution of an old church-state clash that is probably headed back to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is one of 60 churches that rent space -- outside of school hours -- in New York City's nearly 1,700 schools. About 10,000 non-religious groups take advantage of the same opportunity.

The question that vexes some educators is whether it's acceptable for churches to worship in their buildings. This is currently allowed under equal-access laws that have become common nationwide in recent decades.

At the heart of the debate is a 2001 Supreme Court decision -- Good News Club vs. Milford Central School -- that instructed educators to offer religious groups the same opportunity to use public-school facilities as secular groups. School leaders can elect to close their buildings to secular and religious groups alike, thus avoiding discrimination.

Now, the Second Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals has challenged this status quo. In a 2-1 decision, it backed New York City school board attempts to ban regular worship services in its facilities, while allowing for some other forms of religious expression by religious groups.

"When worship services are performed in a place, the nature of the site changes," wrote Judge Pierre N. Leval. "The site is no longer simply in a room in school being used temporarily for some activity. ... The place has, at least for a time, become the church."

The implication is that a "mysterious transformation" literally takes place during these worship services, noted Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund, a lawyer who has been involved in equal-access cases in New York City and elsewhere for a quarter of a century.

"There isn't some kind of architectural alchemy at work here that suddenly turns a school facility into a dangerous place," he said. "Allowing unions to rent space in schools doesn't turn them into union halls. Allowing Alcoholics Anonymous to use a school doesn't turn it into the Betty Ford Clinic."

However, this ongoing conflict is evidence that many New Yorkers are spooked by the thought of people -- especially evangelicals -- worshipping in spaces created for secular education. The bottom line: What if believers dared to pray for the students and teachers who occupy those spaces on school days?

In a New York Times essay, activist Katherine Stewart explained why she fiercely opposes having a church meet behind the red door of her local school on the Upper East Side. She also attacked the Village Church by name.

"I could go on about why my daughter's photo should not be made available for acts of worship, or why my P.T.A. donations should not be used to supply furniture for a religious group that thinks I am bound for hell," concluded the author of the upcoming book, "The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children."

"Maybe it's just that I imagine that that big red door is about education for all, not salvation for a few. Sometimes a building is more than a building."

The most disturbing theme in these arguments, said Andreades, is the frequent claim that his church and others like it are somehow aliens in their city. Renting space in PS3, he noted, allows his small flock to invest 10 percent of its budget into Village charities -- from an AIDS research center to programs for shut-ins, from arts projects to soup kitchens.

"This church has been in the Village for 16 years," he said. "We've had members attend that public school and teach at it. ... We know who we are and where we are and we think we belong here."

Parents, circumcision and the law

At first, it seems strange for Christians to jump into the firestorm surrounding the Nov. 8 ballot initiative in San Francisco to ban circumcisions. After all, the issue of whether gentiles had to be circumcised when converting to Christianity was -- literally -- settled in the age of the apostles. Nevertheless, the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco quickly went public with his views on this hot-button issue.

"As a religious leader I can only view with alarm the prospect that this misguided initiative would make it illegal for Jews and Muslims who practice their religion to live in San Francisco -- for that is what the passage of such a law would mean," stated Archbishop George Niederauer, in an letter to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Apart from the religious aspect, the citizens of San Francisco should be outraged at the prospect of city government dictating to parents in such a sensitive matter regarding the health and hygiene of their children."

However, the letter the editors published directly beneath the archbishop's openly stated -- in bitter, satirical terms -- the anger behind this effort to limit the religious freedom of parents on this highly personal question.

A reader in San Francisco suggested that readers be polled on this question: "Should government allow parents the right to remove functional tissue from their children when there is no immediate medical need?"

Citizens could then choose one of the following answers.

"A. No, it violates the rights of the individual child.

"B. Yes, the parents' religion might demand human sacrifice.

"C. Yes, children have no rights, not even to their own body parts."

No doubt about it, a growing number of modern Americans are convinced that it's time for government officials to do some cutting and snipping in the pages of the holy books that define some of the world's major religions.

"What you have here is an assault, by a popular referendum, on a central ritual in a recognized ancient religion," noted Marc Stern, associate general counsel for legal advocacy at the American Jewish Committee. While the current initiative may seem brazen, "it's really nothing new. It's easy for historians to find sources showing how the Greeks and Romans mocked the Jews for practicing circumcision."

So far, the most shocking twist in this ballot-box drama has been provided by "Foreskin Man," a comic book produced by strategists in this campaign against "Male Genital Mutilation," a phrase crafted to echo global efforts to ban female genital mutilation. The star of these books is a stereotypically Aryan superhero who protects children from the "Monster Mohel," a bearded villain wearing all of the distinctive garb of an Orthodox Jew.

The introduction notes: "Nothing excites Monster Mohel more than cutting into the penile flesh of an eight-day-old infant boy."

It is easy, noted Stern, to focus on the stark implications of this initiative for Jews and Muslims, for whom circumcision is a defining rite of faith and identity. If passed, the San Francisco measure would make circumcision on male minors a misdemeanor crime punishable by a $1,000 fine or a year in jail. A similar ballot measure was recently withdrawn in Santa Monica, Calif.

In the end, he said, the upcoming vote should be seen as part of a trend in which increasing numbers of activists are focusing attention on limiting parental rights, even when parents are making decisions that involve religious liberty.

"We live in an age in which it is common for mainstream scholars in mainstream schools to produce entire books arguing that the state should prevent parents from sending their children to parochial schools," he noted.

"The theme that runs through all this is the conviction that parents must yield to what society thinks is best for their children, even in matters of faith. ... These cases keep coming up and all kinds of religious believers are starting to realize that."

Thus, it was not surprising that the National Association of Evangelicals released a statement joining those released by Jews, Muslims and Catholics in opposition to the ballot initiative and in defense of the broader First Amendment issues linked to it.

"Jews, Muslims and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Biblical circumcision begins with Abraham," noted the Rev. Leith Anderson, the group's president. "No American government should restrict this historic tradition. Essential religious liberties are at stake."

Orthodox bridge to evangelical world

As point man for Russian Orthodox relations with other faith groups, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev is used to talking shop with Catholics, Anglicans, leaders in older brands of Protestantism and other world religions. These duties have long been part of his job description. Meeting with leaders from the world's booming evangelical and Pentecostal flocks?

Not so much.

However, recent ecumenical contacts by this high-profile representative of the Moscow Patriarchate is evidence that times are changing. Time after time, during meetings with evangelical leaders and others here in America, Hilarion has stressed that it is time for Orthodox leaders to cooperate with traditional Catholics, evangelical Protestants and others who are trying to defend ancient moral truths in the public square.

"I am here in order to find friends and in order to find allies in our common combat to defend Christian values," said the 44-year-old archbishop, who became a monk after serving in the Soviet army. He also speaks six languages, holds an Oxford University doctorate in philosophy and is an internationally known composer of classical music.

For too long, Orthodox leaders have remained silent. The goal now, he said, is to find ways to cooperate with other religious groups that want to "keep the traditional lines of Christian moral teaching, who care about the family, who care about such notions as marital fidelity, as giving birth to and bringing up children and in the value of human life from conception until natural death."

On this occasion earlier in the year, Hilarion was preaching from the pulpit of the 5,000-member Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, a conservative congregation that remains part of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which recently approved the ordination of noncelibate gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

While in Dallas, Metropolitan Hilarion's public schedule included meetings at Dallas Theological Seminary, a prominent institution among many of America's most conservative evangelical leaders. He has also, during the first half of the year, met with nationally known evangelical leaders in New York, Washington, D.C., and at Princeton University.

In a recent interview with Christianity Today, one of evangelicalism's flagship publications, the archbishop said it is crucial for all churches -- including Eastern Orthodox churches -- to expand their work into public life, even if this creates controversy in some quarters.

"Very often nowadays our church will publicly express positions on what's happening in the country," he said. "Some people ask, 'Why does the church interfere? It's not their business.' We believe that the church can express its opinion on all aspects of human life. We do not impose our opinions on the people, but we should be free to express them. And people will have to choose whether to follow or not to follow, whether to listen to what we say or to ignore it."

The archbishop's statements were especially significant and timely because of a related conflict now raging in the Orthodox Church in America, which has Russian roots.

A major cause of the controversy was the decision by the church's leader, Metropolitan Jonah Paffhausen, to privately endorse The Manhattan Declaration, a document produced by a coalition of conservative Christians that focuses on abortion, euthanasia, sexual morality and religious liberty issues. Numerous Catholic bishops and several other Orthodox leaders have also signed as private citizens, not in their roles as church officials.

At the very least, this bitter dispute has demonstrated that some OCA leaders are opposed to public stands on hot-button political issues, especially any that proclaim the church's teachings on sexuality. Some prefer isolation and silence.

However, Metropolitan Hilarion, in his taped sermon in Dallas, said it is shocking to see churches divided by "what hitherto seemed unthinkable -- namely marked differences among Christians in their understanding of moral law. ... There has surfaced a desire to revise, or to be more precise, to adjust, the unambiguous commandments of God to any manifestation of human fancy, a trend that has spread out with the speed of a cancer. ...

"Maybe this is one of the reasons why so many families break, why so many marriages end up with divorce, why so many children are raised without a father or a mother and why the birthrates in many countries have become so low. ... Family is no longer a primary value to many young people. This is a tragedy of our times and this is a challenge that we can face together."

Oprah's liberal prosperity gospel

There was only one way the Oprah Winfrey Show could end after 25 years, 4,561 shows and 30,000 guests -- with a sermon. "Here's what I learned," explained Winfrey, in a monologue now circulating as an online "love letter" to viewers. "Nobody but you is responsible for your life. It doesn't matter what your mama did. It doesn't matter what your daddy didn't do. ...

"You are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself, and you're responsible for the energy that you bring to others. ... All life is energy and we are transmitting it at every moment. We are all little beaming little signals like radio frequencies, and the world is responding in kind."

God is in there, somewhere, along with love, grace, kindness, tears, empathy, consolation, compassion, and, above all, self-acceptance. Put it all together and you have a non-threatening faith that many Americans call "spirituality," as opposed to religion.

Knowing this issue was sure to arise, Winfrey frequently played the God card during her farewell show and even used the oh-so-controversial J-word -- Jesus.

All her success, she stressed, has been built on, "My team, and Jesus. Because nothing but the hand of God has made this possible for me."

Was this any particular God? After all, Oprah's only orthodoxy has long been her conviction that there can be no one, true orthodoxy. What God was she talking about?

"I'm talking about the same one you're talking about," she told her global flock, thus combining many cultures and religions. "I'm talking about alpha and omega, the omniscient, the omnipresent, the ultimate consciousness, the source, the force, the all of everything there is, the one and only G-O-D. ...

"God is love, and God is life, and your life is always speaking to you."

The key is that Oprah has empowered her followers to have a good cry, forgive themselves and move on, urging them to evolve beyond old-fashioned religions built on doctrines linking forgiveness to the repentance of sins, according to Sally Quinn of the Washington Post, a Beltway society maven for several decades.

Americans should celebrate this trend and Oprah's role in it, she wrote, at the newspaper's "On Faith" website.

"Gone were the fire and brimstone, you're-all-going-to-hell-unless-you-accept-Jesus-Christ-as-your-personal-savior, the judgment, the fear, the punishment. ... People don't want to be lectured to and made to feel guilty for common human failings. People want to feel hopeful, as though they matter. They want to feel empowered. Oprah led the way," argued Quinn.

Many traditional religious leaders are not so sure and some, in particular, have linked Oprah's work to trends spotted by sociologists in the lives of young Americans and their parents. Crucial to these sobering discussions is "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism," a belief system articulated by researchers Christian Smith and Melinda Denton. Core beliefs include:

* A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over it.

* God wants people to be good, nice and fair to one another, as taught in most religions.

* The goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

* God gets involved when we have problems we need solved.

* Good people go to heaven.

Winfrey's approach fits nicely inside the borders of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, while also combining emotional elements of megachurch evangelicalism with the modernized doctrines of liberal Protestantism, noted church historian Thomas S. Kidd of Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. Meanwhile, the non-ordained host guided her guests through on-air confessions, taught her own version of tolerance and, literally, sent her most devoted followers on mission trips to help others.

All of this, he stressed, was part of a commercial enterprise, not a religious ministry. Thus, it's possible that Oprah preached a liberalized form of the "prosperity gospel" seen in some churches. In the end, viewers were supposed to heal themselves, and grow spiritually, by consuming products -- especially books -- endorsed by Winfrey & Co.

"In the end, it's all God stuff," said Kidd. "Her whole world is infused with religious themes and images and theories that are all her own. ... I'm not sure how people are supposed to practice this religion, because to do that you would have to figure out what it all means. Oprah offered a form of faith that may only work at shopping malls."

Boehner, Dolan, Catholic heretics?

The 122nd annual commencement address at Catholic University of America was old school from start to finish, offering calls for self sacrifice, inspirational sports stories, a bite of Irish wisdom, a dash of positive thinking and a quote from Mother Teresa. "The good things in life aren't things. They are people. They are values. They are our birthrights," concluded Speaker of the House John Boehner, who also mentioned his childhood in a Catholic family with 12 children. "For when it's all said and done, we are but mere mortals doing God's work here on Earth. Put a better way -- no, put the best way: remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

The speech was low key, but there were tensions behind the scenes.

Boehner's appearance drew a firm, but civil, letter of protest from 80-plus Catholic academics who accused him of dissenting from essential church teachings because of his role in Republican attempts to cut or reshape a number of government safety-net programs.

"From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor," stated the letter. "Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it."

This protest drew clear parallels to an earlier battle, when 80-plus bishops, numerous academics and many Catholic pro-lifers protested the University of Notre Dame's decision to grant President Barack Obama an honorary doctor of laws degree. This earlier coalition insisted that honoring a strong supporter of abortion rights violated a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops policy stating: "Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

Thus, Catholic progressives were saying that if it was controversial to honor the president, a liberal Protestant who disagrees with many Catholic moral teachings, it also should be controversial to honor Boehner, a Catholic whose approach to economic issues angers many activists and almost certainly some bishops. Meanwhile, it also helps to know that the coalition that protested the Boehner honor included some academics with consistent records of dissent against church teachings on abortion, homosexuality, birth control, the ordination of women and other doctrinal issues.

The bottom line: Who gets to say who is, or who is not, a "dissenter" against church doctrines?

Another skirmish took place soon after the Boehner address, when New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan -- president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops -- wrote a friendly letter Rep. Paul Ryan, the mastermind of the GOP budget. He praised the Catholic congressman for his "attention to the guidance of Catholic social justice in the current delicate budget considerations in Congress."

While not endorsing Ryan's work, the archbishop stressed that caring for the poor was not a matter for state action, alone. Thus, he affirmed Ryan for noting "Pope John Paul's comments on the limits of what he termed the 'Social Assistance State.' "

A political group called Catholics United immediately issued a fiery press release under the headline, "Catholics Ask Archbishop Dolan: What Anti-Poverty Programs Would Jesus Cut?" The group claimed the New York prelate's comments "have confused Church teaching" and urged him to recant.

Two things are certain in these ongoing debates, noted Stephen Krason, president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and a political scientist at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. The Vatican has repeatedly stated its opposition to abortion in the strongest possible terms. Catholics also live under an urgent mandate to help the poor and needy.

The problem is that some Catholics are "treating specific government programs as if they are the embodiment of Catholic teachings," he said. "They are confusing criticism of the effectiveness of some government programs with criticism of the absolute teachings of the Catholic faith. ...

" We must serve the poor. There is no doubt about that. But within the realm of Catholic orthodoxy, there are a number of ways that we can pursue this moral imperative. The Catholic Church has not endorsed a particular political approach as to how we are supposed to go about doing that work."