Oprah, 'Babe' and Religious Liberty

It's hard to debate religious liberty issues with a superstar pig from Hollywood.

The star of "Babe, the Gallant Pig" made a cameo appearance during the recent taping of an Oprah Winfrey show about Bible readings and prayers in public schools in Pontotoc, Miss. The talking pig -- on video -- interrupted the host's opening narration about "people who have been made to feel like outcasts in their own communities."

While plugging the movie, "Babe" stressed its timely message -- the importance of loving one another and having an "unprejudiced heart." Sure enough, this sound bite later fit perfectly in yet another television drama about the Religious Right. The episode is scheduled to air Tuesday, March 19.

"There's really not much you can do," said Michael Whitehead, a Southern Baptist attorney representing the school district. "You can either play their game and look like a cad or be silent and not defend yourself. ... If you choose to take them on, then it's really hard not to appear angry. After all, the whole game is set up to produce fireworks."

In this case, the local school board allowed student-led prayers and Bible readings, resulting in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and People For The American Way. In addition to attorneys, the "Oprah" show featured citizens who back the school board as well as those who contacted the ACLU, Lisa Herdahl and her son, Kevin.

Beforehand, Whitehead said that Winfrey's staff seemed surprised that many in the studio audience supported voluntary prayer. Thus, they hunted for those willing to take the other side in a "spontaneous" debate.

Producers have to find out who will do the best job of stating strong opinions on the air, said Jill Almquist, an "Oprah" publicist. Also, it's customary to move these people to designated chairs, to help the camera crews. "We do ask, `Who can we go to?'... But we don't like people to do too much talking ... because we want to save the excitement for the show itself," she said.

From Whitehead's perspective it appeared that the producer, after generating "passionate and heated exchanges," then set out to tape a show about "how awful it is that people in Pontotoc have ... strong, passionate convictions." Also, Winfrey's script suggested that Christian activists engaged in, or condoned, alleged death threats and harassment.

"People are seeing images of students praying around a flag pole or holding a rally," said Whitehead. "But Oprah's doing a voice-over that says something like, `How would it feel to get up in the morning not knowing if this day would be your last or to wonder if you'll be shot on the way to the supermarket?' "

Ironically, recent research -- including work by conservatives -- indicates that "Oprah" is now one of talk TV's least sensationalistic shows. Also, Winfrey openly embraces religion. While her beliefs may be unorthodox, and her personal life is tabloid territory, she often goes out of her way to use language such as "the God that I love loves all of us, no matter what" or to say that she is a practicing Christian.

"The studio audience always ends up applauding as Oprah defends Christianity," said Whitehead, who was making his second appearance on Winfrey's show. "She's the champion of a loving Christianity and, obviously, anyone who takes a different approach represents a mean, judgmental Christianity."

The result is a powerful form of television that addresses serious public issues, while emphasizing entertainment, opinion and, above all, visual images. While it's hard to know what editors will choose as a finale for this show, Whitehead predicted it will be an emotional statement by Kevin Herdahl, followed by Winfrey's reprise of the gospel according to "Babe."

"It's a classic. You have a teen-ager saying `Can't we all just get along?', with tears running down his cheeks," he said. "You can't argue with a teen-ager's tears. So much for student-initiated, student-led prayers and Bible studies. So much for a fair debate. ... It all comes down to tears and a Hollywood pig."

The Charismatic Episcopal Church

ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- This was only Janine Nitterauer's second time in the pulpit and her mind went blank when she finished reading from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans.

Father Bill McLoughlin guided her to the liturgy's next line. "The Word of the Lord," he said. "Thanks be to God," responded the congregation.

"I knew there was something I was supposed to say," said Nitterauer, laughing. Several friends offered hugs as she returned to her folding chair in the Church of the Resurrection's temporary sanctuary.

Welcome to the cutting edge of American church life, where it's getting harder to tell the players without an up-to-date program and people are constantly learning new roles.

Until recently, the 80 or so members of this mission, including their priest, were part of an historic parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina. Others were Baptists, Pentecostals or, like Nitterauer, simply unchurched. Now they are part of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, a hard-to-label flock that was born in 1992 and already has 120 congregations -- more than half of them missions.

An Episcopal Catch-22

One easy way to create fog is to bring together clashing fronts of lawyers and theologians.

The soup got thick this week in Wilmington, Del., site of the heresy trial of Bishop Walter Righter, who stands accused of violating his vows by ordaining a noncelibate gay man.

While homosexual issues took center stage, this complex trial pivots on another question: Does the Episcopal Church have a doctrine that says sex outside of marriage is sin? Today, this question leads directly to another: Will the Episcopal Church change its rites to allow same-sex marriages?

A verdict is probably weeks away. A conviction is almost unthinkable since at least four of the nine bishops on the court have performed or openly endorsed ordinations such as the one Righter performed.

The church establishment, led by Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning, backs the gay cause and Righter recently added evidence of this fact. At the time he performed the controversial 1990 ordination of Barry Stopfel, Righter already was retired and assisting Newark Bishop John "Jack" Spong, the Episcopal left's clearest voice. Why did Righter perform the rite?

"Jack and the presiding bishop agreed it was better for Jack not to ordain Barry ... because (Spong) was a lightning rod for controversy, and I was kind of a safe person from Iowa," Righter told Religion News Service.

The Church of Whatever

For years, Nashville has sort of played for Southern Baptists the role that Rome plays for Roman Catholics.

The pastor of Nashville's 175-year-old First Baptist Church doesn't just lead a tall-steeple church -- he fills a symbolic role in America's largest non-Catholic flock. So it raised eyebrows at Nashville's "Baptist Vatican" when the news spread that the Rev. Dan Francis was leaving his 2,400-member church to start a mission.

"The senior pastor of a First Baptist church isn't supposed to go build a new church from scratch," he admitted.

That wasn't all. This suburban mission in booming Brentwood will be "seeker-friendly," using interactive media, pop music, film and drama. And while the mission committee hasn't chosen a name, it has decided that the sign out front will not say "Baptist."

"That was never an issue," said Francis. "We're just not going to put words like `Southern Baptist' in our name. We don't want to set up that kind of denominational barrier. That would only keep us from reaching unchurched people."

Define 'Christian College' -- Please

As the late Southern humorist Grady Nutt always said, you know you're in Baptist country when the preachers pronounce "dance" with four syllables -- as in "daaah-E-unce-uh!"

Nutt was a graduate of Baylor University, so he knew all about hot-button issues in the Bible Belt. It seems like every few years, journalists can count on the world's largest Southern Baptist university to make headlines linked to drinking, dancing, sex or all of the above.

Naturally, a recent chapel announcement that Baylor would begin holding on-campus dances was big news. The ban was mostly symbolic, since students have for years danced at university-approved "functions" elsewhere in Waco, Texas. Still, conservative critics cited the decision as new evidence of moral decay.

It's sad, even tragic, that these issues get so much ink, said philosopher David Solomon, a 1964 Baylor graduate who teaches at Notre Dame University. While some folks yelp about dancing, Baylor's leaders have for years been engaged in a high-stakes debate about a serious issue -- what it means to be a "Baptist," or even a "Christian," university. Similar arguments rage behind the scenes on hundreds of campuses.

PK Reaches Out to Clergy

The agenda for next week's Promise Keepers clergy conference ends with a tiny note saying the "schedule is subject to change."

That's interesting, since the agenda for the Atlanta gathering is sketchy to begin with. It opens with a Tuesday session on "Hope for the Church," ends with "Renewing Our Call" on Thursday and, in between, leaves organizers lots of room to maneuver. The program doesn't even nail down who speaks when.

Strangest of all, Wednesday night is wide open. This is not standard operating procedure when a group expects to draw more than 40,000 men into the expensive confines of the Georgia Dome.

Perhaps there will be a bonus session on a topic that emerges early in the conference, said the Rev. Dale Schlafer, who leads the surging movement's work with clergy. Then again, something more volatile may happen, something along the lines of the dusk-to-dawn marathons of confession and repentance that swept many college and seminary campuses last year.

"I'm not trying to evade the question, but we just don't know," he said. "We've been trying to picture what we could do with 40,000 guys in a dome. How can we let pastors say what they need to say? How can we handle this in a responsible way?"

Hell and the Church of England

It wasn't a firestorm, but British newspapers recently found a subject hot enough to compete with the Royal Family's sex life.

"Hell hath no fury any more," said the Observer, responding to a Church of England report that included modernized language on heaven, hell and damnation. Another London headline said, "We believe in Hell, says the Church (but without the flames)."

While "The Mystery of Salvation" does reject "universalism," the belief that everyone goes to heaven, it suggests that those who choose to reject God face eternal death, not eternal punishment. In other words, if hell exists, it's empty.

"In the past the imagery of hell-fire and eternal torment and punishment ... has been used to frighten men and women," says the report. "Christians have professed appalling theologies which made God into a sadistic monster. ... Hell is not eternal torment, but is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely ... that the only end is total non-being."

The Religion of American Sports

Amid the tumult surrounding Super Bowl XXX, Americans will congregate to party, pray, swear, chant, eat, drink and bond.

They will wear symbolic clothes, attend public rites, recall heroic deeds, consult oracles, hand down traditions and spend -- or risk -- millions of dollars. It's easy to see why many researchers now consider Super Sunday a pseudo-religious holiday.

"The Super Bowl combines all the elements that America has always valued the most. It's a ritual that glorifies physical excellence, determination, religious fervor and a military style," said Robert Higgs, author of "God in the Stadium," which has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. "All of this is focused on a quest for the dollar and success. ... It somehow seems symbolic and sad that it all takes place on a sacred day."

ABC: Adventures in Religion News

Hours before the funeral of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, an ABC News colleague brought Peter Jennings a copy of "The Jewish Mourners Book of Why."

"I found the explanation of Jewish burial so fascinating that I incorporated a good deal of it into my funeral commentary," said the veteran anchorman, in a recent address at Harvard University's Divinity School. "If my mail is a guide, the audience much appreciated it. Contrary to what many news executives have believed in the past, news of the soul is very much news."

It's been two years since Jennings raised eyebrows in major television newsrooms -- including his own -- by deciding that religion was worthy of full-time coverage by a journalist trained to handle this complex and powerful subject.

People still ask why he did it. The answer, obviously, begins with Jennings' work in the Middle East, Russia, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and in the American South during the civil rights era. And in 1992, he said ABC crews kept returning from trips to Middle America with "this gnawing feeling that we were missing something if we didn't talk to people about the effect that their religious beliefs might have on their presidential choice."