Persecution: The power of apathy

For ages, many Christians have tried to work out the details for the apocalypse, right down to the precise arrival time for Jesus Christ's return flight from heaven.

Some of today's best-known end-times experts are convinced, based on verses in Daniel and Revelation, that the saints can count on being air- lifted, or "raptured," out of this terrestrial combat zone just before all hell -- literally -- breaks loose.

"For those of us living in this world today as we approach an age of growing persecution, there's something else to look forward to," according to best-selling author Hal Lindsey. "For God promises that He will take His flock out of this world just before the persecution becomes most unbearable."

This should be comforting news to those seeing their children sold as slaves in the Sudan, their churches burned in Pakistan, their pastors murdered in Iran or their bishops locked up in China, notes Canadian scholar Paul Marshall, with obvious sarcasm. Apparently, today's suffering saints have worse days ahead. Or perhaps martyrs far from America just don't count.

Fascination with "the rapture" might explain why many Christians don't take persecution seriously, said Marshall. They expect to be given a pass.

While this doesn't require Christians to ignore "current persecution, it does in practice seem to lead to a fatalism wherein persecution is simply taken for granted," argues Marshall, who teaches at Toronto's Institute of Christian Studies. "The result is a stunning passivity that calmly accepts such suffering. Perhaps this ... could be justified if we were dealing with our own suffering. But to do this with the suffering of another amounts to theological sadism."

Right now, a spectrum of activists -- from Hollywood liberals to Bible Belt conservatives -- are trying to focus attention on rising global reports of religious persecution. For millions of believers, this will lead up to the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on Nov. 16. Meanwhile, Capitol Hill debates continue on the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act of 1997, which faces fierce opposition from business groups and the White House.

But in their influential book, "Their Blood Cries Out," Marshall and journalist Lela Gilbert show that another powerful force aiding oppressive governments is the apathy of millions of church-going Americans. There is more to this than theological puzzles such as "the rapture."

* Most Americans show little or no interest in international events. Also, the American church has had no direct experience with persecution -- period.

* Few Americans can identify with the fervor of Third World churches. "The people who are getting persecuted the most are, by definition, those who are out doing the most evangelism," said Marshall. "That's what creates conflicts with the state. Obviously, these people are evangelicals, Pentecostals or conservative Catholics. That's who insists on spreading their faith. Mainline-church leaders and American Catholics just can't identify with that."

* Two other conservative beliefs play a crucial role. Millions of Americans have embraced a "prosperity gospel" that directly links faithfulness and material blessings and it's hard for them to square this belief with reports of persecution overseas. Also, other Christians note that, historically, persecution fans the flames of church growth. Thus, persecution may be good.

* While many pundits view conservative Christianity as a monolithic force, the reality is exactly the opposite, argues Marshall. Evangelicalism is a maze of thousands of independent denominations, ministries and mailing lists. There is fierce competition for dollars and devotion. Turf wars and jealousy are common. Often believers resist calls to aid those who kneel at other altars. Thus, it's almost impossible to steer this staggeringly complex fleet toward one goal.

"The evangelical world is like a big blob," said Marshall. "You push on it and your hand just sinks in. Things never seem to move. ... Evangelicalism is so entrepreneurial. All of these parachurch and missionary groups have to raise money by showing that they are out there having an impact around the world. They have to put themselves and their work front and center. They have to show SUCCESS. Well, it's hard to be upbeat when you're talking about persecution."

The void after the High Holy Days

It's the week after the High Holy Days and, once again, Jewish life is returning to normal. So the odds are good that any nearby temple or synagogue will have plenty of empty spaces in its pews and parking lots.

Thousands of American Jews worry about this. Millions do not. Thousands live their lives as if Jewish traditions make a difference in this life or the next. But millions do not.

Thus, the "most divisive factor in American Jewish life is ... Judaism," argues Jewish conservative Elliott Abrams, in his controversial book "Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America." Millions of Jews no longer fear God. Instead, they fear people -- even other Jews -- who believe in God. This cannot continue if Judaism is to survive in America.

"A return to Judaism must, inevitably, leave some Jews by the wayside," concludes the former Reagan administration assistant secretary of state. "Those who have lost all religious faith are tied to the community only by brittle bonds of ethnic memory, family history or personal interpretations of Judaism as a social or political force. They are free to entertain their own definitions of Judaism, but the organized Jewish community has no such luxury in the face of demographic disaster."

It's impossible to avoid the statistics. Once, Jews made up nearly 4 percent of the U.S. population. Today the figure is just over 2 percent. A recent American Jewish yearbook found a "core" population of 5.9 million practicing Jews, converts and "secular Jews." While most writers focus on intermarriage trends, Abrams also pays close attention to issues of faith. For example, a 1990 poll found that 1.1 million people of Jewish descent now claim no religion at all and another 1.3 million practice another faith. The researchers said only 484,000 American Jews regularly attend synagogue or temple services.

What to do? Everyone knows Jewish marriages tend to produce Jewish children and that Jewish marriages are more likely to occur among observant Jews, said Abrams. One of the only reliable ways to encourage traditional Jewish faith is to send children to Jewish schools. This will require a strategic change in most Jewish communities.

"If we went from 1 to 2 percent of Jewish children receiving a Jewish education to about 10 percent, even that would be a big change," he said. "Above all, it would be a sign that the community is once again thinking about the future. This also would produce a new generation of Jewish leaders."

But for traditional faith and education to increase, many Jewish leaders will have to face their own prejudices against the Orthodox. Abrams notes that most American Jews would "be more upset to learn that a child of theirs was to marry an Orthodox Jew and become Orthodox than that their child was marrying a non-Jew and was going to lead a secular existence."

In one pivotal 1994 case, mainstream Jewish groups united in opposition to an Orthodox community seeking government support for education of its disabled children. Apparently it is not enough for the state to be neutral on religion. Instead, "any state action whose effect is to help parents keep their children faithful to their religious beliefs" must now be ruled unconstitutional, said Abrams. "The elements of the Jewish community having the greatest difficulty keeping their children Jewish used the courts to attack the practice by which the elements having the greatest success keeping their children Jewish were doing so."

These kinds of debates almost always return to issues of faith. Even Jews who seek unity in ethnicity or social ethics will face eternal questions. Is God real? Does God want Jews to live a certain way? Does the Torah - the scriptural heart of Judaism -- have authority today?

"It's hard to say that the Torah is relevant when it talks about peace and justice, but it's out-of-date when it talks about marriage and family life," said Abrams. "That just doesn't work. It's a pick-and-choose brand of faith. That kind of truth has no transcendence, no power, and it doesn't last from generation to generation. It can't hold people together."

The Promise Keepers Catch 22

WASHINGTON -- Just before last weekend's Promise Keepers rally, a coalition of feminist groups met with news crews to issue challenges to the men massed nearby on the National Mall.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence made a very specific request.

"It is essential for the leadership and membership of the Promise Keepers to speak out against all acts of family violence and sexual assault, as well as to reject attitudes that too often fuel such violence," said spokesperson Pamela Coukos.

Three hours later, a Promise Keeper leader stressed that it is time for men to stop committing the same old sins.

"Two of them must end today. When it comes to marriage and family -- no more abuse and no more abandonment," shouted Bruce Fong of Multnomah Biblical Seminary, during a six-speaker segment of the rally dedicated to such issues. "The Bible is very clear. ... A husband should love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it. It's very simple, very clear. Battery is not included."

But there's a problem. Feminists can't hear these appeals because they are linked to calls for husbands to serve as the spiritual leaders of their families. It's this simple: one side believes that traditional Christianity can heal the wounds in homes today; the other is convinced that Christian tradition is the root cause of the suffering.

So the more the Promise Keepers say one thing, the louder their critics chant that they mean exactly the opposite. It's a Catch 22. For example, the movement's leaders keep trying to avoid partisan political statements. To critics, this only proves the Promise Keepers are both dishonest and dangerous - the Christian right flying in stealth mode.

"Why has a multitude of men from almost every city in the United States ...come to our nation's capital?", asked Promise Keepers President Randy Phillips. "Is it to demonstrate political might? No. Is it to display masculine strength? No. Is it to take back the nation by imposing our religious values on others? No. ... When it comes to politics and faith, we confess that we have had too high a view of the ability of man and too low a trust in the sovereignty of God."

To which the left responds: there they go again.

"Deceptive and carefully conceived," said a statement from the Center for Democratic Study, "Promise Keepers attempts to mainstream its image by using a seductive vocabulary of male-only self-improvement, opposition to religious `denominationalism,' and an alleged commitment to racial 'reconciliation,' to advance the strategic political agenda of the Christian right."

The historic "Stand in the Gap" assembly in Washington, D.C., offered ample proof that Promise Keepers is primarily a religious phenomenon. Yet secularists and the Christian left are correct when they say its message has political overtones. There's a reason for this: America's most divisive political issues - such as abortion and the redefining of marriage and family -- center on questions of religion and morality.

Using relentlessly biblical language, speaker after speaker told those packed onto the Mall that the sins of modern men have produced millions of abandoned, abused and aborted children and a climate of sexual confusion that is wrecking homes and marriages. Promise Keeper's leaders called for repentance and urged the church to act.

Trouble is, "sin" and "family" are now fighting words, especially when spoken with the U.S. Capitol looming in the background. However, the Promise Keepers coalition includes men with ties to the Religious Right and many from groups -- primarily black churches -- that historically vote Democratic. Increased efforts to reach conservative Catholics and mainline Protestants will add variations on the movement's morally conservative themes.

Maybe this really is about "guilt and grace, shame and forgiveness, repentance and resolve" and men striving to change, said church historian Martin Marty, in the New York Times. "Is it not possible that this sprawling movement is, in its present expression, as benign and as simple as that? ... Instead of seeing a threat, we should listen for what is really bothering the men. Perhaps this most recent 'muscular Christian' phenomenon is sincere at its core."

Catholics, evangelicals & Promise Keepers

Even critics of the Promise Keepers movement would have to concede that its leaders have shown an uncanny knack for crunching complex issues into mantras that men can chant in stadiums or, this Saturday, on the National Mall.

A classic example occurred at last year's rally for 42,000 clergy in Atlanta.

The movement is built on seven promises about faith, marriage and family life. The sixth commits a Promise Keeper to reach beyond any "denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity." Thus, superstar writer and preacher Max Lucado asked each pastor in the Georgia Dome, on the count of three, to shout his denomination's name. The created a verbal train wreck. Next, he asked them to name their savior, which drew a unified shout -- "Jesus!" -- followed by lots of hugs.

It was a joyful moment linked to a painful reality. Any movement that asks believers to pray, witness and work together will eventually be accused of watering down essentials of the faith. This is especially true on the conservative side of the ecumenical aisle, where evangelicals, fundamentalists, charismatics, Calvinists and Catholics keep bumping into one another. Some barriers are higher than others.

"I think we have a lot in common. But there are some obvious communications problems to overcome," said evangelist Jim Berlucchi, who this summer became the first Catholic to play a high-profile role in several Promise Keepers rallies.

Earlier this year, business leader Michael Timmis of Detroit also became the first Catholic on the group's board of directors. Timmis will be a featured speaker during the five-hour "Stand in the Gap" rally in Washington, D.C. Catholics also have been taking another look at Promise Keepers after a positive report on the movement from the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Committee on Marriage and Family Life.

"I think, initially, that Catholic leaders perceived Promise Keepers to be just what it was - an evangelical Protestant movement," said Berlucchi. "It certainly wasn't connected to the Catholic faith. ... But there was something about these big events that was very appealing to all kinds of men -- including Catholic men -- even though the whole style was so evangelical."

Catholic leaders knew that many Catholics were going to Promise Keeper events with Protestant friends. Some observers put the Catholic participation figure as high was 10 and 20 percent of those in attendance. Reports circulated that some Catholics were making decisions to change their lives - including changing churches. Many noted that Promise Keeper founder Bill McCartney was an active Catholic, before joining an independent charismatic congregation.

"But the more Catholic leaders looked at Promise Keepers, the more they saw themes they obviously could affirm," said Berlucchi. "Catholics are all for men taking responsibility, caring for their wives and families, being willing to take more of a leadership role in their own homes and seeking accountability and spiritual direction."

This doesn't mean everyone is ecstatic. The Fundamental Baptist New Service issued this warning: "The Bible commands us to mark and avoid those who cause divisions contrary to the doctrine which we have been taught in God's Word. ...Certainly this means that God forbids us to fellowship with a movement which accepts Roman Catholic bishops and priests as brothers in Christ."

Meanwhile, Catholic progressives -- especially feminists -- distrust Promise Keepers as much as do their secular counterparts. The group's success also reminds the hierarchy that U.S. parishes have, in recent decades, had trouble appealing to men. There is, noted Berlucchi, a "certain lack of virility" in much of today's worship. Thus, many Catholics have embraced the take-no-prisoners style of music, prayer and preaching at Promise Keepers events.

"The messages are very challenging and in-your-face," he said. "They take on issues that men know are real. Men like that. They look around those stadiums and see thousands of other men responding to that. ... And all of this is taking place in the context of a wider cultural crisis and great confusion about what it means to be a man. Catholics are not immune to that."

The American Catholic Church on TV

No doubt about it, the creators of ABC's "Nothing Sacred" knew which scenes would get the most ink.

Like the premiere's scene in which a girl confesses that she's tempted to get an abortion and Father Ray tells her to follow her conscience. Or that night at the Valhalla Inn when he is tempted to sleep with the woman who was his lover during seminary.

But the real headline grabber is Father Ray's hip sermon bemoaning the church's obsession with sex.

"I am declaring a moratorium on sins of the flesh in St. Thomas Parish," he says, and then holds up a Bible. "You see this little book? This is the gospel. If it was written today, it wouldn't get published. Not enough sex. And all of the stuff that we've reduced religion to -- contraception, homosexuality, promiscuity, abortion -- they aren't in here. Oh, maybe a mention. But they're not what the book is about. And I was not ordained to be a sexual traffic cop, which is what I'm turning into most of the time. So, until further notice, I will not hear any more sexual sins in the confessional."

Cue the congregation, which applauds.

Father Ray isn't obsessed with sex, of course, and neither are the writers of this fall's most controversial new offering in prime time. And executive producer David Manson is shocked -- repeat shocked -- that many have been offended by events in this fictional parish.

"Hopefully, it'll be clear after a period of time that we're trying to give voice to many different points of view, that we believe there is an active pluralism inside the church," he wrote, defending the series on its Internet site. "We're trying to make sure that different points of view get articulated intelligently and with passion. ... We would like to get people thinking and talking about not only issues of the spirit but about the notion of inclusion."

Millions of American Catholics would say "amen" and will find "Nothing Sacred" beautiful, well acted, accurate and spiritually sensitive. These Catholics feel at home in the pluralistic body that many commentators call the American Catholic Church. But millions of others will disagree and see the series as another Hollywood attack on the Roman Catholic Church. One person's "dialogue" is another's "dissent." Meanwhile, the gospel according to "Nothing Sacred" is crystal clear: discipline, doctrines and creeds are the enemies of freedom, faith and spirituality.

In addition to sex, the premiere punched other buttons. Entertainment Weekly reports that it was written by Father Bill Kane, a Jesuit, using the pseudonym Paul Leland.

One reason Father Ray is so exhausted and angry is that he is hounded by critics who tape his unorthodox whispers in the confession booth and leak them to the ecclesiastical police. "It's just politics," says another priest. The problem, another priest adds, is a traditionalist hit squad called "Vinculum Caritatis" - Latin for "chains of love." This fictionalized group is probably a cross between advocates of the Latin Mass and another conservative group called Catholics United for the Faith.

And then there are the sacraments. During Mass, Father Ray offers a prayer over the bread and wine that is straight out of the Shirley Maclaine school of liturgy, saying: "Transform us, as you will transform these gifts, into life - deep and true." Later, he baptizes an infant without making the sign of the cross or referring to the Trinity of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit." In the most dramatic scene, the priest dabs holy oil on the forehead of a troubled teen who has rejected Christianity, while invoking the Eastern martial arts traditions of Sholin monks.

"The show's central premise is that the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic," said Father Gregory Coiro, media relations director for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, who has been critiquing rough scripts for ABC. "It's like they are saying that traditional Roman Catholicism is now a false substitute for the `real thing,' which is some kind of new faith that is completely built on experience and feelings. Well, that isn't the Catholic faith."

Mother Teresa -- not a 'nice' person

It was another day in the Home for the Dying, a year before a 1969 British film that made Mother Teresa the most unlikely of global superstars.

As was her custom, she was taking her turn doing basic chores. Over and over, the tiny nun and a coworker - an Anglican seminarian named Sathi Bunyan - lifted patients off the thin pads on narrow steel-framed cots. Fresh sheets weren't enough. Workers also used this agonizing ritual as a chance to cleanse the sores of those found abandoned along the streets of Calcutta.

"There was one moment that I will never forget," recalled Bunyan, who now serves as a priest in Loveland, Colo. "We were trying to pick up a man whose back was simply covered with sores. This was very hard and, as I lifted his shoulders, my hands slipped and he fell back onto the bed. It was agonizing."

Mother Teresa waited a moment and then prodded her disciple to try again. Her face revealed both compassion and determination. Yes, the man was in pain. Yes, lifting him again, peeling the soiled sheet from his body, and washing his sores, would hurt. But this did not change the fact that this needed to be done, for his sake.

It wasn't that Mother Teresa had no feelings or had become oblivious to suffering. Just the opposite -- she didn't let her feelings prevent her from doing what needed to be done. She washed people's wounds.

"This is what made Mother who she was," said Bunyan, who returned to India four years ago to take part in a celebration of her ministry. "She was not otherworldly. Too often, calling her a saint is just as bad as saying she's crazy. ... It still puts her off in an unreal world of very spiritual people. Then we don't have to take her seriously."

Truth is, Mother Teresa was not a "nice" person in the usual sense of the word. She wasn't trying to be nice. She was trying to be good. But even her goodness had an edge to it. She was as good as a dentist probing decaying teeth, a parent warning a straying child, a priest urging a sinner to repent. She loved people, but she ultimately cared more about souls than feelings.

She did talk about peace and people liked that. They were less interested in her views on the sources of conflict. Mother Teresa, over and over, insisted that abortion was a sign that violence was seeping into all human relationships. When she accepted the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize she bluntly told her hosts: "Abortion is the worst evil in the world."

Years later, she faced America's political establishment at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Too often, she said, modern parents are too busy to care for their own children or their own marriages. This causes strife, creating poisons that spread into the world and destroy peace. Then abortion teaches people to "use any violence to get what they want," she said.

In one of the defining moments in her life, she turned and looked at President Clinton and Vice President Gore and their wives. "Please don't kill the child," she said. "I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child."

The president responded by praising her "moving words," but added: "We will always have our differences. We will never know the whole truth."

Mother Teresa disagreed. She believed that truth was truth, even if it hurt.

"In a world of doubts and ambiguities and cynicism, she was blessed with certainties, and the certainties that guided her life and her self-sacrifice are ancient, they are noble," said Rep. Henry Hyde, during one of many tributes to Mother Teresa on Capitol Hill. "She believed we are not lost in the stars. ... On the edge of a new century and a new millennium, the world does not lack for icons of evil -- Auschwitz, the gulag, the killing fields of Cambodia, Bosnia, the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. What the world desperately needs are icons of goodness."

Disney II: Protest or dissect?

Four years ago, ABC's "NYPD Blue" started yet another fire fight between Hollywood and the cultural right.

In addition to its violence and profanity, the gritty drama made headlines with a daring move in network TV - glimpses of nudity. This sent many conservatives to the barricades. Their protests led 57 stations, mostly in Bible Belt and Midwestern markets, to nix "NYPD Blue." While conservatives celebrated their moral victory, some of these stations filled this prime-time gap with a sexy syndicated series -- "Baywatch." This drew few, if any, protests. Apparently, Pamela Lee's front side was less offensive than Dennis Franz's backside.

This is the kind of dilemma that haunts religious groups that wade into the media whirlpool. Tell folks to boycott one brand of slimy entertainment and the odds are good they'll channel surf on over and watch something just as bad or worse.

"The message we have to deliver is that there's some good stuff out there and lots of bad stuff and, if people are going to live as mature Christians, they're going to have to learn to tell the difference. The church should help them do that," said Calvin College's William Romanowski, author of "Pop Culture Wars: Religion & the Role of Entertainment in American Life."

Right now, the Southern Baptists, Focus on the Family, the Catholic League, the Assemblies of God and a host of other groups are taking on the Walt Disney Co. The problem, once again, is that it's easier to tell people in the pews to zap Mickey Mouse than it is to ask tough questions about all those other entertainment decisions that shape their lives. So what should religious groups do?

* Comedian Jay Leno is right. The electronic devices in many homes flash one message - "12:00, 12:00, 12:00." It would be a prophetic ministry for congregations to simply teach people how to program their VCRs. Technology already offers many ways to make choices, for good or ill. The goal is for believers to control the media camped under their own roofs instead of letting those devices control them. If conservatives want to shake things up, they would start a national campaign to convince parents to own only one television and to help them set and enforce limits on entertainment.

* Content issues do matter. But it's hard to urge people to support the good and shun the bad without agreeing on some standards. Ministers should promote and use books, magazines, newsletters and Internet resources that critique the media. At the very least, congregations should hold one major media literacy event a year.

* This assumes that clergy pay close attention to how people spend their time and money. Yet this is precisely what missionaries do. They begin by studying a culture's language, symbols, myths, family structures and the institutions to which people turn to for guidance. If pastors did this, they will run smack into the TV and the mall. Seminaries should require at least one core course focusing on the role that mass media play in American culture.

* Yes, it also would help if there were more creative and committed traditional believers in Hollywood. However, most religious colleges and universities major in producing writers and technicians primed to work in a subculture of religious books, magazines, music and video. The bottom line: Media studies departments on most such campuses, if they exist at all, are rigged to produce PR people and fund raisers, not screenwriters and directors. Thus, cultural conservatives are reaping what they have sown.

"Why weren't Christians so entrenched in a company like Disney that it would have been impossible for it to behave in an unseemly way?", asks Bob Briner, an outspoken Christian best known for his work leading ProServ Television in Dallas. "Why are Christians always surprised and outraged to see non-Christians behaving the way non-Christians behave? ... Why is Disney not seen as a mission field rather than as enemy territory? Why do we have compassion for overseas pagans, and none for those in Burbank?"

Disney I: Did the Baptists go far enough?

No one gave it a second thought.

Season after season, church buses and family minivans made pilgrimages down Florida's highways to find their places outside the sanctuary called Disney World. Religious leaders often scheduled their national conventions in Orlando, knowing this would guarantee a much better turnout than gatherings in more mundane locales.

Then it happened. Families and church groups began to mix with legions of homosexuals and bisexuals at the annual Gay Days festivities at the Walt Disney World Resort. Flocks of folks in born-again T-shirts collided with those wearing pink triangles - creating a media storm.

Thus, the Southern Baptists, Focus on the Family, the Catholic League, the Assemblies of God, the Presbyterian Church of America and other groups have urged their constituents to shun Disney products or, in some cases, even those produced by the 200-plus companies in the Disney empire. For a number of reasons, most linked to sex, these cultural conservatives argue that Disney's leaders have betrayed the trust of millions of parents.

Lost in the shouting is a fundamental question: What were all of those church groups and conservative families doing at Disney World in the first place? Isn't the Magic Kingdom itself little more than a shrine symbolizing the omnipresence of TVs and VCRs in modern homes?

"I have questions about the propriety of denominations or parachurch groups calling for a boycott," said media critic Kenneth Myers, author of a essay on boycotts in a book entitled "Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church?" "But there is an even larger issue here and we shouldn't lose sight of it. The task of the church is to prepare its members to be of such a moral character that they wouldn't want to support a questionable company, anyway."

As a rule, modern churches grow timid when attempting to instruct people about the nuts-and-bolts issues that shape their lives. This is a classic case. Like it or not, entertainment dominates the daily rituals that shape millions of lives. Thus, the big question isn't whether the Southern Baptists and the anti-Disney coalition have gone too far. Have they gone far enough?

"There is no such thing as morally neutral entertainment," stressed Myers. "So it's a good thing when churches start teaching their people to take seriously questions about what they do with their time and their money. So it's good for churches to be upset about what Disney does or what other media companies do. That's fine. But what now?"

There is nothing new about churches meddling in the affairs of multinational corporations. The left has been doing this for years on issues ranging from recycling to racism. It also is ironic to hear progressives cheering for Disney. For years, many have attacked Disney as an icon of American cultural imperialism - that media tidal wave that is washing away folk cultures around the world. Others site Disney as the perfect example of a corporation that earns its billions by addicting children to a romanticized, commercialized, sentimental, materialistic view of life.

However, it's easier for religious institutions to take stands at the national level than it is for them to convince the faithful to make changes that affect wallets, living rooms, couches and TV remotes. Most people go to church on Sunday morning. The principalities and powers of entertainment are always open for business.

"Disney opponents do not argue that Americans should spend their time praying instead of planting themselves in front of 'Beauty and the Beast.' That battle was lost long ago," wrote Marc Fisher of the Washington Post. "No matter how betrayed traditionalists may feel by Disney's expansion into risqu?rime-time fare, R-rated movies and health benefits for partners of homosexual employees, the legacy of 70 years of Snow White and Bambi still rules: Many fundamentalist religious groups no longer struggle against the core of the Disney achievement -- the idea that entertainment is at least as important a part of life as faith, politics, work or family. ... Disney and religion are now competitors. Both sell a vision of reality."

China, Dobson and the Grahams

It's hard to keep personalities out of a global debate when the names are printed in bold on letters being passed around on Capitol Hill.

In this case, the key names are some of the best known in modern Christianity -- evangelist Billy Graham, along with his son, Ned, and Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, along with his colleague Gary Bauer. The question: What should the United States try to do about religious persecution, especially in China?

Leaders on both sides insist they are doing what is best for Chinese believers. Also, there has been an obvious clash of styles. There are the Grahams, with their quiet, diplomatic willingness to work within any political system. Then there is Dobson, whose growing organization has increasingly welcomed clashes with the powers that be, especially on social issues such as China's laws on family planning and forced abortions.

The conflict surfaced before the June vote that renewed China's most-favored-nation trading status. Now, Dobson's September newsletter says he will press on, focusing on the next MFN vote and on events supporting the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act of 1997. A crucial date is Nov. 16, which an ecumenical coalition has designated as an International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

The sharpest criticism he has received, wrote Dobson, has come from "the president of a well-known ministry outreach to China" who accused him of being more interested in bashing Beijing and raising money than in getting his facts straight and helping the Chinese church.

"It is puzzling why anyone who purports to be an authority on China would deny the brutality that is occurring there," wrote Dobson. "The statements I made about Chinese persecution are irrefutable, and if anything, were understated to avoid depressing my readers. No less an authority than the U.S. State Department ... has since issued a 'devastating' report that criticizes the Beijing government for its religious persecution. ...

"Why, indeed, would the leader of a Christian missionary outreach to China be angry at those of us who have called attention to the plight of our brothers and sisters in that country? I have no idea."

That missionary was Ned Graham, president of East Gates Ministries, International. Another symbolic detail: Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, was born into a missionary family in China. In his most recent statement, Ned Graham openly questioned the motives of those -- on both the left and right -- seeking sanctions against nations such as China.

"Is the motive behind a coalition such as this the propagation of the gospel of Jesus Christ?", he wrote. "Perhaps not. Could the possible motives be: (1) the political advancement of an individual or organization, (2) the overthrow of a sovereign government, (3) the financial gain for those who raise money from others' suffering, (4) a protectionist move by U.S. unions, or (5) the manipulation of evangelicals for the national security of another country? Who knows?"

The younger Graham doesn't deny that problems continue in China. But he insists that reports of arrests, torture and murder have been exaggerated. China is a maze of contradictions and conflicting reports. Christians are jailed in some places, yet hold tent revivals in others. He argues that diplomacy is yielding results, while political threats only hurt the church. These statements echo decades of similar words by his father.

Dobson and others openly fighting religious persecution say it is na? to trust positive reports from Chinese churches sponsored and controlled by the Communist government. Meanwhile, the anti-persecution coalition uses as its model earlier international efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews and South African blacks. Above all, its leaders say it is time to take a stand.

In their own way, the Grahams are doing just that.

"It is not my intention to become involved in the political aspects of this issue," wrote Billy Graham, in a letter pro-China legislators distributed during the MFN debates. "However, I am in favor of doing all we can to strengthen our relationship with China and its people. ... Furthermore, in my experience, nations respond to friendship just as much as people do."