Sin, Repentance, and Kansas

Every year, the Central Christian Church in Wichita, Kan., has "Repentance Sunday" and seeks God's forgiveness.

During a period of meditation, worshippers are asked to write their sins on pieces of paper. Then everyone goes to the front of sanctuary, where the notes are burned in urns.

"It's always a very moving service," said the Rev. Joe Wright, who leads the 3,000-member congregation. "Tossing your sins into the flames is something that really touches you."

This year, "Repentance Sunday" began a chain reaction that touched America. Wright was still thinking about the service the next day when a church member who is a Kansas legislator asked him to pray at the capitol, since the pastor was going to Topeka for hearings on gambling. By the way, he was told, please bring a copy of your prayer for the records.

So Wright wrote a few lines and, as the legislature opened on Tuesday, Jan. 23, he bowed his head, read the prayer and then handed it over. He doesn't remember receiving any strange looks at the time, but a newspaper reporter did ask some questions hours later. As Wright drove home, his car phone rang and the church secretary bluntly asked: "What have you done?"

The easy answer is that he read a prayer about sin. The complicated answer is that Wright jumped into America's tense debate about whether some things are always right and some things are always wrong.

His prayer said, in part: "Heavenly Father ... we confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word and called it moral pluralism. We have worshipped other gods and called it multi-culturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have neglected the needy and called it self- preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare."

Wright's staff stopped counting telephone calls after the first 6,500 and he still gets dozens each day. He has heard from all 50 states and many foreign countries. He has been on dozens of radio shows and the subject of numerous TV and print news reports. The prayer has been read in other legislatures, causing everything from quiet applause to loud jeers.

"I thought I might get a call from an angry congressman or two," he said. "But I was talking to God, not them. The whole point was to say that we all have sins that we need to repent -- all of us. ... The problem, I guess, is that you're not supposed to get too specific when you're talking about sin."

Wright said he didn't try to aim to the left or right or consciously try to fire both ways. A major theme in his preaching, he said, is that "people who think either political party is going to solve this country's real problems are dreaming. ... Politicians aren't big on absolute truths, these days." If he had an agenda, it was to pray about the sins he sees daily in ministries linked to the inner city, suburban families, crisis pregnancies, sexual confusion and other hot issues.

That's what he was thinking about as he wrote: "We have killed our unborn and called it choice," "shot abortionists and called it justifiable," "neglected to discipline our children and called it building esteem," "abused power and called it political savvy" and "coveted our neighbors' possessions and called it ambition."

Whether he intended to or not, Wright has become a symbolic figure in an election year that will almost certainly focus on issues of morality and character. He also lives in Kansas.

"No, I haven't heard from ... anybody close to Bob Dole," he said. "If they asked me to pray at the Republican convention, I guess I'd say `yes.' I'd be glad to pray at the Democratic convention, but I'd be rather surprised if they asked me to. ... Truth is, I'll pray anywhere I'm asked to pray, so long as people don't try to tell me what I can pray."

Franklin Stands Up

It is one of modern Christendom's most familiar images.

Evangelist Billy Graham finishes inviting his listeners to get up out of their seats and to come forward to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Then as the crusade choir gently sings "Just As I Am," he steps back from the pulpit folds his Bible against his chest, closes his eyes, bows his head and silently prays while people flow down the aisles

William Franklin Graham III uses many of his father's phrases, but his body language is totally different at this pivotal moment in a rally. He plants his cowboy boots at shoulder width, folds his arms across his chest like a cop and scans the crowd. The unspoken message: It's your decision, but God and I are watching.

The man who built the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) never claimed to be a prophet or a brilliant preacher. But, as he aged, Billy Graham developed a gentle approach that blended his unchallenged sincerity with a flexibility that let him preach to a wide variety of saints and sinners.

The man poised to inherit Graham's legacy doesn't even claim to be a preacher. He's more like Rocky Balboa, punching away with Bible verses and simple parables. Franklin Graham made his first call for repentance a minute after he began his May 24 sermon at this year's Washington, D.C., Promise Keepers rally and ended up including at least 12 other appeals for sinners to walk the aisle.

"Listen up, men," he said, preaching to 55,000 in RFK Stadium. "Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He died and rose again so that you can say, `I am a sinner!' Franklin Graham has sinned and I asked God to forgive me. ... I'm asking you to do that tonight, to say, `God forgive me, I am a sinner.' Do you have the guts to stand up and do that?

If it sounds like he keeps it simple, that's because he does.

"Speaking is speaking and I'm not a public speaker. That ought to be obvious," he said, afterwards. "I haven't been to seminary and I've never had a course in public speaking. Right now, I'm learning to speak by getting up there and speaking. It's not always a pretty sight. ... But I have decided that I can deliver a basic evangelistic message. I can do that. ... I can't do what my Daddy has done. But I can do what I can do."

Woven through Franklin Graham's message are threads of his own story, the archetypal tale of the rebellious preacher's kid. It's easy to focus on this -- contrasting the son's stance as a sinner in the hands of an angry God with his father's spotless image. After decades of the latter, many may have forgotten that purity is not the norm for evangelists. Billy Graham's predecessors often arrived in the pulpit after visiting the ditch. There's nothing new about an evangelist shouting that God saved him from smoking, drinking and flirting with disaster.

The question isn't whether Franklin Graham has anything to say, but whether great masses will flock to hear him say it.

For historians, the BGEA -- with its staff of 525 and 1995 revenues of $88 million -- is the epitome of the modern parachurch group, the model for hundreds born in the 1950s and '60s. Today's rapidly growing groups are nondenominational, but stress a specific subject or audience. Focus On The Family is one example and Franklin Graham's audience in Washington was assembled by another, the Promise Keepers movement for men. Similar groups target women and young people.

While some worry that the BGEA is becoming irrelevant, Franklin Graham said he's convinced it can retain a niche by sticking with basic evangelism.

"The strange thing is that very few people are really doing what we do," he said. "A decade or two ago, there were 12 or 15 people doing straight evangelistic preaching. You'd turn on the radio and hear them. Now there's a void, out there. ... We don't need to re-define ourselves or create some kind of new BGEA for a new day. We'll stay with the same old same old."

Christian Persecution

It's possible to buy a Christian slave in southern Sudan for as little as $15.

Last year's going rate for parents who want to buy back their own kidnapped child was five head of cattle -- about $400. A boy might cost 10 head. An exiled leader in Sudan's Catholic Bishops Conference reports that 30,000 children have been sold into slavery in the Nuba mountains. In six years, more than 1.3 million Christian and other non-Muslim people have been killed in Sudan -- more than Bosnia, Chechnya and Haiti combined.

"Sudan is characterized by the total or near complete absence of civil liberties," said activist Nina Shea, during recent Congressional Human Rights Caucus hearings. "Individual Christians, including clergy, have over the past few years ... been assassinated, imprisoned, tortured and flogged for their faith."

The Sudan report went on and the leader of Freedom House's Puebla program on religious freedom already had described horror stories from China, Vietnam, North Korea and Pakistan. She still had to cover Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Islamic world.

Americans are not seeing news reports about these tragedies or hearing preachers and politicians make urgent appeals for action. But that may change soon. An coalition of human rights activists and religious leaders -- most of them evangelicals or, like Shea, Roman Catholics -- is working overtime to yank this issue into daylight before the November elections.

Events at home and overseas may help. Last weekend, the South China Morning Post reported signs that a brutal crackdown was beginning on underground churches in northwest China. A day later, President Clinton announced that he will renew China's most- favored-nation trading status with the United States.

Millions of Americans can expect to hear these two issues linked on Sept. 29, when leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) will urge member churches to observe "Persecution Sunday." Efforts are underway to encourage Catholic programs at that time.

"The pope has been a great leader on issues of religious freedom -- it has been one of the hallmarks of his papacy," said Shea. "We can expect him to hear him speak out on this issue again. ... The issue is why the U.S. Catholic hierarchy has been quiet."

Meanwhile, most of America's Powers That Be in government, media and religion have looked the other way while Christians have become one of the modern world's most persecuted minorities, said Michael Horowitz, a former Reagan administration official who has worked frantically behind the scenes on this issue. His passion has led him to take a stance that angers many other Jews -- declaring that evangelicals, and to some extent Catholics, may become in the 21st century what Jews were in the 20th century.

"Christians -- especially evangelicals -- make great demons," said Horowitz. "Most people think of evangelicals as odd or a even threatening. Obviously, they stand out in Communist and radical Islamic cultures and they're not the kind of people you can buy off with money and raw power, which are the stock in trade of thug regimes. ... Meanwhile, our own political and media elites maintain a kind of quiet, sneering indifference, if not hostility, toward evangelicals. ...

"But more and more Christians are getting tortured and killed for their faith. That's the truth. I'll be damned if I'm going to sit through another holocaust. Absolutely not. One was enough."

In January, the NAE released a blunt statement calling for specific U.S. government actions -- beginning with President Clinton speaking out on persecution and ending with economic repercussions for offending regimes. One bitter complaint: State Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service officials often shun persecuted Christians.

Behind the scenes, talks continue with politicos working with Clinton and challenger Bob Dole. In March, Clinton ducked out of a commitment to speak at the NAE's convention.

"This is a chance for Clinton to reach out to some of his fiercest critics," said Horowitz. "But it's also a can't miss opportunity for Bob Dole. What's to lose? We'll have to see who seizes this issue first."

No Doctrine? Call the Lawers

The data sheet for would-be bishops asked for the usual facts -- driver's license number, Social Security code, college degrees.

But by page two, it was clear that this is the 1990s.

"Have you ever been convicted of ... (a) Sexual abuse of a minor, (b) Incest, (c) Kidnapping, (d) Arson, (e) Murder, manslaughter or assault, (f) Sexual assault, (g) Sexual exploitation of a minor, (h) Contributing to the delinquency of a minor, (i) Commercial sexual exploitation of a minor, (j) Felony or misdemeanor distribution of marijuana, or dangerous or narcotic drugs, (k) Burglary or robbery, (l) A dangerous crime against children as defined in (the state code), (m) Child abuse, (n) Sexual conduct with a minor, (o) Molestation of a child, (p) Domestic violence. If so, give full details."

Fill in the blanks.

Obviously, the Episcopal priests who completed this form -- which I received during an early 1990s election out West -- had other chances to answer theological questions and share their ecclesiastical dreams. Often, however, an era's truly crucial questions can be found between the lines of humbler documents.

So the questions continued: "Is there anything in your behavior or background that, if known, might cause concern or distress? ... Do you think that any member of your family, your present or former congregation, ... or the family of any youths with whom you may have had contact would believe that you ought to have given different answers to any of the foregoing questions?"

The bottom line: If church leaders can't reach consensus, then lawyers step in. When doctrine disappears, someone has to legislate morality. If theologians cannot define "marriage" and "fidelity," then lawyers get to define "harassment" and "abuse."

Recently, someone sent me a data form from the East -- with the nominee's name blacked out. In addition to probing questions, it contained definitions, such as: "Sexual harassment is the use of sexual words, gestures, touch or innuendo in an inappropriate manner beyond the bounds of normal social expectations." Or, "Sexual exploitation includes, but is not limited to, the development of or the attempt to develop a sexual relationship between a pastor and a person being ministered to, and exists even if the other is a willing partner or gives tacit consent."

Churches have always struggled to control shepherds who prey on their flocks. Most traditional churches have strict policies that defend biblical sexual ethics verse by verse. The key, in these culturally conservative churches, isn't knowing what the Bible teaches, but getting some all-powerful men to obey it.

Meanwhile, some progressive churches have had trouble honoring their updated credos and pledges not to hide abusive men. After the 1995 suicide of Massachusetts Bishop David Johnson, Episcopal officials admitted he had a number of affairs during his ministry, including some involving "sexual exploitation" of women. The big question: How long had his allies in the national hierarchy know about these affairs?

No one attempts to defend harassment and abuse. However, winds of change keep erasing boundaries and creating new questions. For example: If it's wrong for a married bishop to have an affair with a parishioner, is it acceptable for that bishop to have an affair with someone outside the flock?

Maybe, or maybe not. A classic statement of how far many are willing to bend was made by influential ethicist James Nelson of the United Church of Christ, a former consultant to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He argues that definitions of "marriage" and "fidelity" must evolve.

"Fidelity is the enduring commitment to the spouse's well-being and growth. It is commitment to the primacy of the marital relationship over any other," wrote Nelson. "Compatible with marital fidelity and supportive of it can be certain secondary relationships of some emotional and sensual depth, possibly including genital intercourse."

This kind of thinking certainly opens doors that were kept locked during the ages when church leaders tried to follow a strict, but clear, law -- sex outside of marriage is sin. But times have changed and, today, lawyers have to guard the keys.

Billy, Hillary, Sin, and America

Two very symbolic Americans -- Billy Graham and Hillary Rodham Clinton -- recently preached very different sermons on the state of nation's soul and what should be done to heal it.

As a rule, politicians receive more media attention than clergy. However, this time Graham was preaching in the U.S. Capitol and he used that pulpit to deliver a sobering call for Americans to repent before it's too late.

Soon, the world "will enter the third millennium," said the elderly evangelist, during May 2 rites in which he and his wife, Ruth, received a Congressional Gold Medal. "Will it be a new era of unprecedented peace and prosperity? Or will it be a continuation of our descent into new depths of crime, oppression, sexual immorality and evil? ... We have confused liberty with license and we are paying the awful price. We are a society poised on the brink of self-destruction."

The first lady's April 24 message to the United Methodist General Conference, meeting in Denver, received less attention. While addressing the same topic -- national renewal -- her message was radically different.

Graham stressed that "America has gone a long way down the wrong road" and now must "turn around and go back and change roads." However, Hillary Clinton argued that Americans must continue to "have courage in the face of change, to be willing to struggle forward doing what we can," seeking unity amid diversity.

"It is easy to complain about the problems that we face," she said. "It is harder -- but far more rewarding -- to roll up our sleeves and work together to solve them."

These were not political speeches, but they offered different answers to a crucial question that looms over national politics in 1996: Is America on the right moral road, or not?

It would be wrong to pin a "Republican" label on Graham's message, or to say that the first lady on this occasion spoke as a Democrat. Still, a kind of party politics was involved. For decades, historians have argued that American Protestantism is a two-party system, with one party emphasizing personal sin and evangelism and the other emphasizing the sins of society and, thus, social activism.

Through the decades, Graham's approach has broadened to include appeals for listeners to carry personal faith into public efforts to fight racism, hunger, poverty and other social problems. Nevertheless, this recent sermon began with the story of his own revival-meeting conversion and stopped just short of offering the assembled politicians, journalists and dignitaries a chance to make public professions of faith in the Capitol Rotunda.

Clinton described her "faith journey" with images familiar to her fellow United Methodists and others raised in oldline flocks, beginning with her christening in an historic sanctuary and continuing through years of church-supported social crusades. She never mentioned "sin" or "repentance." The key, she said, was for people of all religions to cooperate in efforts to help families and strengthen public institutions, schools and social programs.

"We know we need to strengthen the spiritual and moral context of our lives and we know that we need a new sense of caring about one another in which every segment of society, every institution, fulfills it's responsibility to the larger community," she said. "As adults, we have to start thinking and believing that there isn't really any such thing as someone else's child."

Meanwhile, Graham has grave doubts about the ability of "consultations" and "diplomacy" to solve the problems that most plague humanity. A century ago, he noted, optimistic theologians and intellectuals predicted that the "steady march of scientific and social progress" would bring justice and peace. Instead, the 20th century has "been ravaged by ... devastating wars, genocides and tyrannies. During this century we have witnessed the outer limits of human evil."

It is appropriate, said the evangelist, to ask, "Why?"

"The fundamental crisis of our time is a crisis of the spirit," he said. "We have lost sight of the moral and spiritual principles on which this nation was established -- principles drawn largely from the Judeo-Christian tradition as found in the Bible."

Looking For News at the Evangelical Press Association

COLORADO SPRINGS -- This year's national Evangelical Press Association convention theme was "Justice, Mercy and the Power of the Word" and much of the talk centered on hot social issues.

This week's early sessions included questions about racism, AIDS, poverty, abortion, hunger, teen pregnancy, immigration, divorce, drug abuse, gay rights and the tax status of religious groups, to name a few topics. All of this took place amid election-year talk about culture wars and family values, in a city known as a Mecca for today's breed of aggressive Christian activists.

Everybody had an opinion, but there was surprisingly little news to be found. While much has been written about the news media's blind spot on religion, gatherings such as this one offer ample proof that religious media struggle to handle news.

"Year after year, we come together and you can count on one hand the people who are really doing anything with news," said Joel Belz, the association's president and publisher of World, a conservative weekly that mixes news and analysis. "I guess that's just the nature of the beast. ... People don't want to do news."

Between sessions, writers and editors milled around tables covered with magazines, journals and newsletters from many of the association's 300-plus member publications. Most featured glossy photos and chatty, devotional stories about people whose lives have been changed by the ministry of the group that sponsors the publication. The emphasis was on emotion, more than education, and on inspiration, more than information -- even when dealing with complex, controversial issues.

Part of the problem is that most Evangelical Press Association members publish infrequently and have limited resources, said David Neff, Christianity Today's executive editor and the association's president elect. It's hard to "break" news stories in monthly or quarterly publications. Still, many who work in the Christian marketplace have backgrounds in news and it's disappointing that they don't take a more journalistic approach, he said.

"I would hope that these people just wouldn't be able to help themselves and that they'd find themselves doing some form of news just by instinct," said Neff. Also, the lack of news coverage "is intriguing because of the political activism that everyone assumes has taken over evangelicalism. You'd think that we'd be seeing more news-based writing about public issues."

Since the majority of Christian publications are public relations tools, no one expects them to publish hard-edged reports about their leaders. However, editors often go even further and avoid subjects that might require them to make references to competing organizations.

Recently, more Christian leaders have begun viewing their periodicals as part of their marketing efforts, said Ron Wilson, the association's executive director. Not only does this limit news coverage, it may even steer writers and editors away from practical articles about sobering issues linked to faith and ministry.

"The idea is that if your writing blesses people, then they'll turn around a give more to support that ministry; if you make people feel good, then they'll continue to make donations," he said. "Well, this often is interpreted to mean that you shouldn't write about anything that's too serious or has too much information in it. That isn't what people think of as `inspirational.' "

Thus, editors emphasize first-person narratives, devotional meditations and question-and-answer interviews. Also, it's easier and cheaper to produce "mood pieces," rather than well-researched news. On top of that, news tends to make people angry.

The result, said Belz, is that religious groups often keep their members in the dark and, for better or for worse, leave the reporting of hard issues and harsh realities to the secular media.

"The bottom line is that we're not getting the job done," he said. "I also think that it's kind of scary that people who are supposed to be so committed to truth and to the word have so easily accepted a communications model that's based so much on feelings and experiences. Everything's about how people feel. It's getting harder for people to focus on what's true and what's false."

Justice vs. The Worldly Wise

OK, here's where things stand in the war of words between the U.S. Supreme Court justice and the "worldly wise."

According to Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, the elites that rule American intellectual life think that Christians who believe in Easter and other biblical miracles are irrational fools. According to many outraged journalists, politicos and intellectuals, it was irrational and foolish of him to lash out like that at the American people.

"We are fools for Christ's sake," said Scalia, at a prayer breakfast sponsored by the Christian Legal Society chapter at the Mississippi College School of Law. "We must pray for the courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world."

Note: Scalia blasted the "sophisticated," "modern" and "worldly wise." Then, the very groups he criticized returned fire by saying that he was attacking America -- period.

The Washington Post reported: "Scalia, a devout Roman Catholic, issued a harsh condemnation of American society, portraying it as not just skeptical of, but openly hostile to religious believers -- particularly Christians."

One of Scalia's most outspoken critics went further. "It's a right-wing litmus test. ... If you don't say religion is being beat up on, then you aren't pitifully correct," the Rev. James Dunn, of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, told the Washington Post. "If the American people were as anti-religious as everyone says, then a Supreme Court justice wouldn't have the right to run around saying things like that."

It would help to know more about what Scalia said. However, the justice insisted that his remarks not be taped and his office has not released a text. The Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger and the Associated Press filed reports and many who were in attendance have been interviewed by journalists.

Obviously, Scalia knew his remarks -- which were laced with sarcasm and irony -- would cause a firestorm, said Phillip E. Johnson, an outspoken Christian who teaches law at the University of California at Berkeley.

"But no one is saying the American people are anti-religious -- especially not Justice Scalia," said Johnson, who began his career as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. "What he was doing was defending belief in a supernatural God. That's his bottom line."

A Baptist Press report offered another crucial detail. Scalia focused, in part, on 1 Corinthians 1: 18-19: "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, `I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.' "

Today, very little has changed, said Scalia. "The worldly wise just will not have anything to do with miracles. ... To be honest about it, that is the view of Christians taken by modern society. Surely those who adhere to all or most ... traditional Christian beliefs are to be regarded as simple-minded."

Concerning the resurrection, he added: "It is not irrational to accept the testimony of eyewitnesses who had nothing to gain. ... The wise do not believe in the resurrection of the dead. So everything from Easter morning to the Ascension had to be made up by the groveling enthusiasts as part of their plan to get themselves martyred."

Scalia appears to have argued that the "worldly wise" are "naturalists" who reject belief in a supernatural, intelligent, God, said Johnson, author of "Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education." This means that the justice's remarks will anger modernist conservatives who preach social Darwinism, as well as secular liberals.

"This is the big split right now in the Republican's rather shaky coalition -- between the pure economic conservatives and those who stress a moral order," said Johnson. "You see, once you start talking about the God of the Bible, then you're talking about a God who makes moral demands and plays a real role in the real world. ... For many people, it's shocking to hear a Supreme Court justice stand up and say he believes in that kind of God."

Starting Year Nine: Notes and Quotes

Every day, journalists who cover religion face waves of letters, press releases, magazines, books and, now, Internet versions of all of the above.

Some of this is news. Most of it isn't. But many items fall somewhere in between and create drifts of paper in my office. As of this week, I have written this column for eight years and I'd like to start another year by sharing some tidbits I couldn't trash.

* An interesting Newsweek report last summer described an emergency operation that saved a woman's life on a flight out of Hong Kong. The story ended with a dose of foggy faith: "Our lives depend on ... tiny miracles. Physicists say that the universe had to surmount vast odds to exist at all. ... No one stops to think about that, ordinarily, until an event like this one brings it into focus. Thousands of planes take off every day WITHOUT a surgeon on board. But there was a surgeon on Flight 32."

There but by the grace of -- uh -- the universe go we.

* At an Episcopal conference on church growth, New York Bishop Richard Grein criticized those who, to woo the unchurched, may sacrifice "Anglican style." This from a bishop who led a 1993 service in his own cathedral that included a whale-song Sanctus, preaching by skeptic Carl Sagan and prayers to Ra and Ausar.

* A thought for the Rev. Bill Hybels, the superstar pastor of Willowcreek Community Church outside Chicago: Bill Hybels is to Bill Clinton as Billy Graham was to Richard Nixon?

* No joke -- an actual Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) news release began: "The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) has upheld a decision of the Synod of the Northwest Permanent Judicial Commission, sustaining Long Island Presbytery's decision not to respond to a request from Central Presbyterian Church in Huntington, N.Y., to investigate the alleged ordinations of a homosexual elder and deacon at First Presbyterian Church of Sag Harbor, N.Y." The PJC noted that "dialogue attempted in an atmosphere where one side or the other faces immediate potential remedial or disciplinary actions is not likely to be productive. ... Unprotected dialogue leads inexorably to wholly unproductive monologue."

No translation was offered for the church-lingo impaired. And, please, no jokes about "unprotected dialogue" among Presbyterians.

• The 1994 document "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" angered many on the left, who called it a GOP tract. On the right, some Protestants said it conceded too much to Catholics. Wait until folks see Catholic scholar Peter Kreeft's new book, "Ecumenical Jihad." It urges Christians, Jews and Muslims to unite in fighting the "common enemies" of secularism, materialism and immorality.
• Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., has threatened to excommunicate members of 12 groups that reject current church teachings. Question: Will he be excommunicated from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops?
• Here's a memorable politics-and-religion quote from House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt: "In the Republican version of Christmas, you only get your stocking stuffed if it's a SILK stocking. ... Gone are the notions of decency, charity and compassion that were the hallmarks of the man whose birth we celebrate each December 25th."
• Expect the following to surface in debates about National Public Radio. Referring to Christians who await Jesus' second coming, commentator Andrei Codrescu said: "The evaporation of four million (people) who believe in this crap would leave the world a better place." NPR apologized, after airing the commentary.
• On the Tonight show, Howard Stern waved a Bible and said the Gideons are now putting his books in hotels instead of Bibles. Jay Leno's response: "Howard, ... this (Bible) will strike you down as you go down the road. It will go through the windshield and pierce your heart. I am sounding like an evangelist now. ... Suddenly, all that is in this book is making perfect sense to me."
• Every field has its ruts. New York Times reporter Peter Steinfels said any list of generic religion news stories would include: "Ancient faith struggles to adjust," "Scholars challenge long-standing beliefs," "Interfaith harmony overcomes inherited enmity," "New translation of sacred scripture sounds funny" and "Devoted members of a zealous religious group turn out to be warm, ordinary folk."

TV vs. Traditional Faith

Everyone now and then, people on TV dramas or sitcoms quote scripture, kneel before crosses, mention Jesus by name or perform other acts that symbolize religious devotion.

What happens next is rather predictable, according to the Media Research Center's third annual "Faith In A Box" study of television entertainment and news. A commercial or two later, these true believers usually rob, rape, seduce or shoot someone, or at the very least act like bigots.

"It appears to be OK for characters to say that they have a kind of nebulous faith in some higher power," said Thomas Johnson, who wrote the study's entertainment report. "But the warning sign is when people do something that shows that religion is the most important thing in their lives. That means they're strange ... and they almost always turn out to be intolerant, violent wackos."

In news reports, the Media Research Center is almost always identified as a "conservative media watch group," which means that many media insiders scoff at its findings. However, the "Faith In A Box" reports are getting harder to ignore.

During 1995, the center's researchers studied virtually all prime-time programs -- almost 1,800 hours of content -- on major and minor broadcast networks. The number of portrayals of religion rose slightly to 287, from 253 in 1994. Still, this meant fewer than one depiction for every six hours of programming.

The report noted that negative portrayals of "devout laity and of the clergy" rose sharply, from 35 percent in 1994 to 64 percent in 1995. Positive portrayals of devout laity slid from 44 percent in 1994 to 11 percent in 1995. Twenty percent of 1995 clergy references were positive in, an 8 percent drop in a year.

In other words, while "spirituality" may be making a slight comeback, most Hollywood artists continue to blast religious traditionalists. This is especially true in programs that focus on sex and social issues.

"One of the harshest things you can say about someone in the entertainment business is that they're judgmental. That's a curse," said Johnson. "So when characters say that what they believe is absolutely true, or say that a particular act is sinful, then that means they're judgmental. Obviously, they're bad guys."

The news wasn't much better in network newsrooms. Out of 18,000-plus evening-news reports, religion drew 249. Out of more than 26,000 items in morning-news programs, religion drew 224. "Networks continue to neglect people and issues of faith in their everyday reporting," said the report. "When religion is covered, hostility toward traditional religious positions on social issues remains overt and sometimes unrebutted."

In one case study, "60 Minutes" superstar Mike Wallace devoted an entire segment to Call to Action, a Catholic group that opposes church teachings on birth control, the ordination of women, priestly celibacy, abortion and other social issues. The report featured 25 Call to Action sound bites, without including a single traditional Catholic voice. Later, Wallace told the Catholic newspaper Our Sunday Visitor that quotations from conservative Catholics just didn't blend with Call To Action footage.

As in Hollywood, social issues cause problems. Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz, appearing on conservative Cal Thomas' CNBC talk show, conceded that a "cultural bias" exists on subjects such as religion, abortion and homosexuality. "I think a lot of it is unconscious, but I think on those kinds of subjects, most reporters are probably to the left of the American public," he said.

Media Research Center analysts did find some signs of improvement, especially at ABC News, the only network newsroom with a religion specialist. Also, the faith-friendly CBS drama "Touched By An Angel" is drawing a loyal audience. Acknowledging that religion plays a positive role in millions of lives might be a savvy move in an era when complaints are up and ratings down.

Nevertheless, "old habits don't change easily," the report concluded. "The silver lining ... is that the failure of the broadcast networks' yuppie-centered fall offerings and the continued decline in their share of the audience makes a return to traditional programming a more attractive prospect now."