Hello World, Welcome to the Bible Belt

Somewhere, there's a big book that determines how networks televise the Olympics.

In addition to the games, they are instructed to offer hours of pageantry, inspiring parables about athletes and sermons about what it all means. The final ingredient: Mini-documentaries that dissect whatever foreign, mysterious land is hosting the Olympics.

So hello world, welcome to the Bible Belt.

While some may question whether Atlanta remains in "the South," there's no doubt TV crews can find the real thing in Birmingham, Ala., Savannah, Ga., and the Tennessee and North Carolina mountain towns near the Ocoee River.

"Some parts of the South are definitely further south than others," said the Rev. Harold Bales, director of ministries for United Methodists in Western North Carolina. He also produces -- whenever he feels like it -- a newsletter called "The Southern- Fried Preacher." As a whole, he said, "the South remains a kind of strange country that some folks just can't figure out."

So God only knows what'll happen when 20,000-plus media professionals flock to the 17-day summer games, which should draw about 1.5 million people.

"You have to ask: What's different about the South, these days? What does it mean to be `Southern'? The problem is that I'm not even sure many Southerners have a rock-solid answer for questions like that, anymore," said Bales.

Bales said he keeps returning to three subjects -- food, family and faith. In Southern lingo, those are his three points (alliteration helps) and, yes, he has a poem. If you don't grasp the symbolism of three points and a poem, then you didn't grow up in a Southern pew.

Links between food and faith are fundamental. For many Southerners, church suppers remain weekly rituals and flocks may split while defining terms such as "barbecue" and "Brunswick stew."

In a poetic fit, Bales once composed a hymn to a beloved vegetable, while alluding to Southern populism. "Thou much-maligned by foolish folk, the suave, the chic, the mod," he wrote. "Remember, thou art nobler yet than they, dear humble pod! ... In skillet and in stewpot now, where knowing cooks all put thee, exult thou soul-food; take a bow. I love thee grand ole okree!"

But times change, even in Southern homes. Much has been written about the "new South" and the region's relatively recent transition from a agrarian economy into the age of supermalls. The result: Sweeping changes in the lives of children, parents and grandparents. Still, Southerners remain a few generations closer to older family patterns than many other Americans and, thus, are quick to defend the ties that bind.

"It wasn't fashionable, awhile back, to talk much about traditional families and loving your kinfolks," said Bales. "People said that kind of language excludes some people or just isn't realistic, today. Well, there aren't many people in the South who would agree with those kinds of complaints. The family never went out of style, down here, especially in Southern churches."

But Southerners know that family life has dark and light sides. The same is true of Southern faith, which Bales admitted can be infested with "creepy crawly things," such as racism, sexism, superstition and fear of religious minorities. Also, a lingering regional inferiority complex often causes a shrill defensiveness. Few Southern folks will be shocked if, amid headlines about church burnings, folks from the East and West coasts focus many Olympic reports on this dark side.

But the truth is more complex than that, said Bales. For example, the South contains as many or more truly interracial congregations as any other American region. Another example: The Southern tendency to dwell on issue of sin and evil also can make it easier to move people with appeals to repentance and justice.

"For sophisticated people, the power that religion has down here may not always be as logical as they'd like it to be," said Bales. "But you have to understand the appeal of this kind of complex, sometimes paradoxical faith, or you just can't understand the South."

Southern Baptists, Disney and Media Reality

For the next 12 months, the Rev. Richard Land will try to convince Southern Baptists to reconsider the ties that bind their homes to the Walt Disney Co.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention's Christian Life Commission also will watch for signs that Disney executives are willing to discuss the threat of a boycott by America's largest non-Catholic flock.

It's hard to say which task will be more difficult. Most church leaders don't take entertainment seriously and most media leaders don't take churches seriously. However, media leaders know that millions of churchgoers shell out billions of dollars for their products and use them as video babysitters -- just like everyone else.

"We know we've done pitifully little to help our people deal with the media age," said Land, whose Nashville-based agency is best known for its political activism. "We haven't done enough to help them think seriously about the role that TV and movies and VCRs and everything else play in their lives. We will -- believe me, with this Disney situation we will -- step up our efforts."

"The Disney situation" refers to the media storm after a June 12 Southern Baptist Convention resolution accusing Mickey Mouse and company of various moral sins. It encouraged "Southern Baptists to give serious and prayerful reconsideration to their ... support of Disney products and to boycott The Disney Company and theme parks if they continue this anti-Christian and anti-family trend."

The vote protested a variety of Disney actions, such as granting insurance benefits to partners of homosexual employees, hosting homosexual events at theme parks, the publication of books for homosexual children and the hiring of a convicted child molester to direct the movie "Powder."

Land stressed that the convention resolution did not establish a boycott, but asked his agency to monitor Disney's responses -- to see if a boycott is needed.

The official Disney response stated: "We find it curious that a group that claims to espouse family values would vote to boycott the world's largest producer of wholesome family entertainment. We question any group that demands that we deprive people of health benefits and we know of no tourist destination in the world that denies admission to people as the Baptists are insisting we do."

Disney chairman Michael Eisner was more blunt, telling the Los Angeles Daily News: "We think they're a very small group of the Southern Baptists that took a very extreme position, which we think is foolish." The company's only other known response was a June 13 appeal for support, sent to gay and lesbian Internet sites.

"I would have to say," said Land, "that if Disney's leaders continue to give us the back of their hand ... then I think you'll see us vote next June to this turn into a real boycott."

So the clock is ticking. Southern Baptist leaders have a year to use their own educational publications and media to reach 15.6 million members in nearly 39,000 churches. The goal: to make a case that changes at Disney demand a response that will affect everyday life at the level of wallets, TV remotes and family-room shelves lined with video cassettes. Land said he already has met with leaders at the SBC's powerful Sunday School Board, one of America's largest religious publishers.

But talking about a boycott affects more than Disneyworld and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Disney's kingdom now includes everything from "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" and "Nightline" to "Home Improvement" and "Monday Night Football." Also, gay-rights activists note that dozens of media giants, including all the major studios, have taken steps similar to those at Disney.

Land knows many will continue to ask: Why pick a symbolic fight with Disney?

"Disney has asked to be judged by a different standard," he said. "For years, they've told parents that their company will be family friendly. ... It's going to be hard for them to back the gay-rights cause and then turn around and tell traditional families and church groups that things haven't changed out at the Magic Kingdom."

Online Religion II: Net Wits Set Free

All Quentin Schultze did was run the "Top 15 Biblical Ways to Acquire A Wife" in his online "Internet For Christians" newsletter.

No. 1 was: "Find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails and give her new clothes. Then she's yours (Deuteronomy 21: 11-13)." No. 2: "Find a prostitute and marry her (Hosea 1: 1-3)." And so forth.

The problem was that the Calvin College professor's decision to run the list in three installments caused a cyber riot. Legions of readers fired back digital demands for items six through 15.

At that point in March, the "Internet For Christians" site on the World Wide Web already was being used 5,000 times a day, while thousands read copies and copies of copies via e-mail. Before the "Ways to Acquire A Wife" rush was over, the incoming messages "fried" the software that controlled the newsletter.

"That was like the last domino," said Schultze, who recently revamped his newsletter to handle the load. "That told us we had created a real community, of some kind. ... It also told us that humor was a key to establishing that sense of community."

Modern humor takes many forms -- from the crass broadsides of network TV to gentle winks that cue friends' inside jokes. However, it's more common to hear people joke about faith at the dinner table than on the Tonight Show. While religion may be a funny, researchers have found that relatively few entertainers dare to prod sacred cows in the secular marketplace. It's safer to ignore religion altogether. Meanwhile, religious media tend to avoid humor that makes people squirm.

However, it appears that the Internet -- offering both global networks and personal niches -- may actually encourage funny faith.

"Everybody knows that the great masses out there have a whole different approach to life," said Rob Suggs, whose "Brother Biddle" cartoons appear on Christianity Online and in many magazines. "Normal people think a whole lot of things are funny or interesting that cautious editors don't think are funny or interesting."

Net wits can joke around all they want without the blessings of secular producers or skittish preachers. The Web features everything from gentle jokes about church life to biting theological satires. The former will appeal to anyone who frequents a pew or reads Bible stories to toddlers. The later -- much of it anonymously written -- may appeal only to those who, perhaps, grew up in Dutch Reformed Calvinist pews or face Unitarian toddlers.

Much of the religious humor in cyberspace mirrors mainstream fads. Lists are everywhere, such as the "Top 10" ways for pastors to know if their sermons are boring. (No. 4: When you dream you are preaching and wake up to discover that you are.) Another site notes that "you might go to a fundamentalist church if" women's bee-hive perms keep getting caught in the ceiling fans.

Some of best Net humor blurs the line between computers and faith. One famous example was a bogus Associated Press story saying that Microsoft's Bill Gates had bought the Catholic Church. A later story said IBM retaliated by purchasing the Episcopal Church. Many reports claim to prove that Gates is the Antichrist.

Also, with its interactive blend of text and graphics, the Web is a natural home for cartoonists.

Dennis Hengeveld's "Reverend Fun" site on the Gospel Communications Network combines modern and biblical images, such as a cartoon showing Satan glaring at a beeping smoke detector on the ceiling of hell. Suggs has allowed his readers to offer punch lines and characters to expand on the themes previously explored in books such as "Preacher From The Black Lagoon."

"I think we're about to see a whole new approach to humor and, maybe, media in general," said Suggs. "Things are starting to bubble up from people out there on the Net, instead of just coming from the people who are used to calling the shots. We're all going to have to listen and learn."

Cyberspace Religion: Part I

Quentin Schultze felt relieved and sad as he transmitted what he thought would be his last Internet For Christians newsletter. The communications guru at Calvin College unplugged his cyber- publication after only 18 biweekly issues. It was just too successful. Day after day, 250 or more messages invaded his computers in Grand Rapids, Mich. Night after night, he ate dinner with his family and then vanished to battle e-mail until the clock neared midnight.

"With the click of a mouse, people could write me, ask questions, send in ideas and on and on, world without end," he said. "The main thing I learned is that success on the Net is a good news, bad news situation. ... Sooner or later, this medium forces you to either limit all those interactive responses or direct them somewhere else. Otherwise, you drown."

So Schultze told his sponsors at the Gospel Communications Network that he was waving a white flag.

"It was a real catharsis to sit at my computer and hit `delete,' `delete,' `delete' on hundreds of messages," he said. "But at the same time, it felt like I had lost a friend or thousands of friends around the world."

Soon, Gospel Communications Network executives said they would provide staff help to run the newsletter. Within hours of a May 31 announcement, 90 messages arrived containing items submitted for the first new issue. This time around, Schultze removed his e-mail address and aimed the digital river at a neutral site -- ifc- submit@gospelcom.net.

Right now, statistics charting the growth of the Internet, and the graphics-intensive World Wide Web, are changing so rapidly that no one knows what is going on. In the religious marketplace, early projects such as Ecunet, organized by oldline Protestant churches, and the Southern Baptist Convention's work with CompuServe have led to a dizzying number of digital resources -- sponsored by everyone from individual scholars to seminaries, from local churches to giant corporations. In April alone, 4.7 million individuals used the Gospel Communications Network's Web sites and 730,000 visited Christianity Online on America Online.

When Schultze started Internet For Christians, he assumed his core audience would be 100 or so loyal readers -- mostly academics, denominational leaders and parachurch "decision makers." He didn't think, for example, that many pastors and church leaders were leaping online. Apparently, he was wrong.

However, no one really knows how to count the people who are using the Web, let alone to do business with them. At its peak, the Internet For Christians "home page" was welcoming 10,000 visitors a day and the computerized list of those sent electronic copies contained 5,000 names. But most of Schultze's e-mail came from readers who appeared to have read the cyber-world's equivalent of a carbon copy. Subscribers can -- again, merely by clicking a mouse -- spray digital copies of texts to online friends, who may turn around and do the same thing. All of this costs far less than letters, faxes or long-distance telephone calls.

"We need a new term for this," he said. "`Word of mouth' doesn't fit. Maybe `Web of mouth' or `word of Net'?"

Another key is that the Web has created a somewhat level playing floor on which small ministries and publications can compete -- or cooperate -- with large groups. Online, one or more creative people with time and creativity can have approximately the same impact as a well-established organization. A dissident group's online publication may have the same impact as a denomination's official newspaper.

The new medium also makes financial sense, in a world of rising costs for ink, paper and postage. Schultze said his research indicates that the ratio of costs in traditional publishing, in comparison to "digital publishing," may be as high as 1000 to 1.

"Clearly, the Net is becoming a place for religious discourse that is being ignored in public media and isn't being allowed in the sanitized world of official church publications."

Can Reform Jews Keep the Faith?

Time after time, Reform Judaism's new leader made one point: It's obvious that millions of modern Jews are hungry for faith.

"They are tired of the cult of novelty and the caprices of modern fashion," said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, during the June 8 rites in which he was installed as president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. "They are tired of a world in which the heroes for their children are Bart Simpson and Madonna. They are overwhelmed by an avalanche of images and specialized information so dizzying that it stuns the brain. And they can't help but feel that whenever they find a moment to themselves, someone turns up the speed on the treadmill of their lives."

Where, he asked, will these sophisticated, cynical and skeptical people take their dilemmas, their "yearning for the sacred" and their children?

To answer that question, leaders of North America's 850 Reform congregations must face other issues. For starters, they must teach that "fervent prayer in a Reform synagogue should not been seen as eccentric or embarrassing," he said. Educators must insist that Jewish education can have both scholastic and spiritual content. Reform Jews must talk openly about Judaism in terms of religious faith, as opposed to merely secular culture.

Why? There are 3.5 million unaffiliated Jews in North America. While liberal leaders say they want to reach outsiders and assist in their spiritual journeys, that may not be how matters look to others, said Yoffie, the movement's first president who was raised as a Reform Jew.

"Which religious movement takes the greatest interest in the spiritual life of the unaffiliated? Who finds them on campus, or in out-of-the-way places? Who instructs them in the lighting of Shabbat candles and in all manner of Jewish rituals? Who reaches out to them with classes and audiotapes and satellite TV?"

While some Reform groups are getting the job done, more are not, he said. What the rabbi left unsaid is that Orthodox Jews and traditionalists have excelled where liberals have not -- reaching the mission field of secular Judaism.

Reform leaders should not be surprised, because liberalism stunted the faith of many, according to conservative David Klinghoffer. In a National Review article that included an ironic dissection of his bar mitzvah in a Reform synagogue, he accused reformers of swapping politics for faith, abandoning Jewish morality and, in general, peddling a kind of Judaism Lite.

The key, he said, is Reform's ideology, a "theoretical contraption asserting the existence of God while denying that the Jews or any other people possess a document containing clearly revealed instructions from Him." The result is "kitsch religion," he said, a Judaism that is "influenced less by the traditions of the Oral Torah than by the editorial page of the New York Times."

Klinghoffer said an angry Reform rabbi, writing in New York's Jewish Times, summed it all up: "We have become a vacuous, no- demand, no-standards, no-requirements, no-guilt, do-good enterprise of sloppy sentimentality: a liberal Protestant Christianity without Jesus."

As the former leader of Reform Judaism's Commission on Social Action, Yoffie was quick to defend the movement's work on behalf of liberal political and moral causes. He also said Jewish pluralism must recognize that there are "many kinds of authentic Jews -- less traditional and more traditional, activist and contemplative, believing and unbelieving."

But this doesn't mean that the way to reach unaffiliated Jews is by "erasing boundaries and eliminating distinctions," he said. There must be some differences between those who claim Jewish faith and secularists who do not.

"The warning I was trying to give is this: Some people have said that Jewish community life is enough, that Jewish culture is enough. It isn't," he said, days after his installation service. "If you extract the Jewish element -- if you extract the element of religious faith -- from Jewish life, then there isn't enough there to sustain a sense of Jewish identity that will live in future generations. ... We must believe that and teach that."

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.