The pope as Rorschach test

Papal tours are like Rorschach tests: observers tend to see what they want to see.

Pope John Paul II addresses many of the same subjects wherever he goes -- from eternal life to family life, from human economics to holy sacraments. But the full texts of his Cuba sermons show that he remains much more interested in the Good News than the evening news.

Nevertheless, John Paul is enough of a diplomat to know that calling the U.S. trade embargo a "monstrous crime" would make headlines. This policy, he said, "strikes the people indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare essentials." He aimed more critical words at Cuba's aging Communist regime. But the pope had much more to say about Jesus of Nazareth than Fidel Castro of Havana.

The pope spent much of his time addressing the ties that bind parents and children and the forces that threaten to tear them apart. It's wrong, he said, for human materialism -- communist or capitalist -- to crush fragile homes.

"The family, the fundamental cell of society and guarantee of its stability, nonetheless experiences the crises which are affecting society itself," he said, in his first mass. "This happens when married couples live in economic or cultural systems which, under the guise of freedom and progress, promote or even defend an anti-birth mentality. Children are presented not as what they are - a great gift of God - but rather as something to be defended against."

Meanwhile, the "idols of a consumer society" tempt many people to flee Cuba and divide their families, he said. When poverty dims hopes, "anything from outside the country seems more attractive." Also, many Cuban educational policies yank adolescents out of the home and require them to attend distant schools. The goal seems to be to insert government into the role of parents. The result is a litany of woes, said John Paul.

"These experiences place young people in situations which sadly result in the spread of promiscuous behavior, loss of ethical values, coarseness, premarital sexual relations at an early age and easy recourse to abortion," he said. "All this has a profoundly negative impact on young people, who are called to embody authentic moral values for the building of a better society."

Teachers, artists, scientists, social workers and public officials may increase their efforts to meet this crisis, said the pontiff, speaking to an audience of young Cubans. This is good, but they cannot solve the root problems because questions of morality, beauty, identity and truth cannot be answered merely in terms of money, power and information. Young people must have spiritual guidance, he said.

"The church seeks to accompany young people along this path, helping them to choose, in freedom and maturity, the direction of their own lives and offering them whatever help they need to open their hearts and souls to the transcendent," he said. "Openness to the mystery of the supernatural will lead them to discover infinite goodness, incomparable beauty, supreme truth -- in a word, the image of God, which he has traced in the heart of every human being."

By the time he reached the Placio de la Revolucion, where the flock of 200,000 chanted "libertad, libertad," John Paul had returned to the central theme of his papacy -- that true freedom is rooted in eternal truths, not human power. It's impossible for a government to mandate atheism or to separate public policy and personal moral decisions. Nations are changed one person, one soul, at a time, he said.

"If the Master's call to justice, to service and to love is accepted as good news, then the heart is expanded and a culture of love and life is born," he said, in the final mass. "This is the great change which society needs and expects, and it can only come about if there is first a conversion of each individual heart, as a condition for the necessary changes in the structures of society. The attainment of freedom in responsibility is a duty which no one can shrink."

The truths are out there

It is the Most Rev. Frank Tracy Griswold III's custom to begin his day at 5 a.m. with prayer and yoga, a heels-over-head ritual that symbolizes what some call his Zen-Benedictine approach to faith.

The graceful, bookish cleric didn't stand on his head in the National Cathedral during the festive rites in which he was installed as the Episcopal Church's leader. But the new presiding bishop did challenge his church to wholeheartedly embrace the ambiguity of modern life.

Each person must discover "the truth which is embodied in each of us, in what might be called the scripture of our own lives," he said, in his sermon on Jan. 10. With their legacy of "graced pragmatism," Episcopalians are uniquely gifted at blending the "diverse and the disparate," the "contradictory and the paradoxical," the "mix and the muddle," he said. In a flock committed to finding the "via media," or middle way, "different dimensions of truth, different experiences of grace, can meet together, embrace one another, and share the Bread of Life."

Here is a postmodern credo for the next millennium: The truths are out there.

The problem is that there are so many people with so many truths and so many of them clash. Thus, Griswold faces a challenge: promoting unity in a deeply-divided church in which, if he has his way, the only Gospel truth will be that truth is essentially personal and experiential and discovered in compromise. Thus, the only heretics will be traditionalists who insist that scripture and church tradition contain transcendent, eternal truths that must be defended.

But some issues defy compromise. Consider this biblical commandment: "I am the Lord thy God. ... Thou shalt have no other gods before me." On the other side are those who teach that the God of Christianity is merely one image of an older god or gods and who, on occasion, use rites blending Christianity with other religions. The "via media"? Thou shalt only occasionally have other gods before me? Or there is the issue that haunts Episcopalians and other old-line Protestants -- sex. On one side is the biblical teaching that sex outside of marriage is sin. On the other side are those who insist this teaching must change. The "via media"?

Griswold has sought compromise on this and other related issues. But the former bishop of Chicago has made his own stance clear. He has ordained priests who are sexually active outside of marriage and was one of more than 100 bishops to sign a 1994 statement saying sexual orientation is "morally neutral" and that the church must recognize "faithful, monogamous, committed" same- sex relationships. He is active in efforts to modernize church liturgies.

The new presiding bishop has said that his love of ambiguity is rooted in his education, which took him from New Hampshire's high-brow St. Paul's Episcopal prep school to Harvard University and then on to Oxford. His critics note that these settings have consistently served as Anglicanism's laboratories for theological innovation.

Griswold says his goal is to find middle ground between different truths. Others are more blunt. In a new book called "Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity," gay Episcopalian Bruce Bawer describes a titanic struggle between "legalists" who preach a faith based on law and compassionate Christians who base their faith on love.

"Legalists," argues Bawer, view "'truth' as something established in the Bible and known for sure by true Christians." Others see "truth as something known wholly only by God toward which the belief statements of religions can only attempt to point the way."

Griswold states this another way. Those who are committed to compassion, conversation and true communion accept the reality that "absolute truth is beyond our accessibility," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Broadly speaking, the Episcopal Church is in conflict with scripture," he said. "The only way to justify it is to say, well, Jesus talks about the Spirit guiding the church and guiding believers and bringing to their awareness things they cannot deal with yet. So one would have to say that the mind of Christ operative in the church over time ... has led the church to in effect contradict the words of the Gospel."

Japan II -- We are the world

TOKYO -- The Rev. Wes Calvery came to Japan 44 years ago during a wave of missionary work that washed over a proud, broken land.

It was almost impossible to get wary Japanese -- steeped in centuries of Shinto and Buddhist traditions -- to go anywhere near foreign churches and foreign clergy.

Today, young people flock to his Sharon Gospel Church west of Tokyo for one reason: to get married. They want a wedding that looks and sounds like the ones in movies and on television. They want flowers, candles and white lace. They want to take vows that talk about love, more than duty, and their future, more than their ancestors' pasts.

"They tell me that they want to be able to understand what they're saying in their own wedding, instead of just repeating a lot of old language that they think is gloomy and intimidating and has nothing to do with their lives," he said. "In other words, they think traditional Japanese weddings are old- fashioned. ... They don't want to just go through the motions."

But there's the rub. While missionaries say Christian ministers conduct 40 percent or more of Japan's weddings, few of the brides and grooms are Christians. Only 1 percent of the Japanese population is Christian, a statistic that has changed little in recent years. Thus, many missionaries debate whether it truly helps their cause for so many brides and grooms to go through a new set of motions, speaking vows that they may only think that they understand.

The bottom line is that it's easy to get cynical about the role of religious rites and symbols in Japanese life, said reporter Junko Tanaka, who covers America and American trends for NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). A ceremony may only be a ceremony.

"I don't think the wedding trend has any profound meaning," she said. "It is a very superficial and commercialized trend. ... Young people think it is 'cooler' or 'more fashionable' to have a wedding in church, in a wedding dress, rather than having one in a shrine or a temple in a kimono."

Yet religious rites, centering on religious vows, have meaning even if they take place in chapels attached to luxury hotels. The ministers at the altars are real. The brides and grooms are real. The parents in the pews are real. These are real weddings, even if the participants think of them as mere fashion statements.

Then again, this may not be as big a change as it appears at first glance. It is perfectly normal in Japan for people to embrace different, even conflicting, religious practices at different times in their lives. As the saying goes, the Japanese are born Shinto and die Buddhist. They may practice one faith, neither or both. Today they may blend in elements of Christianity.

The big news is that this cafeteria approach is becoming more popular worldwide. In the United States, millions of nominal Christians now dabble in Buddhist meditation, read books by self- help gurus, devour entertainment created by Hindu wannabes and wonder, from time to time, about reincarnation. And note this irony: a growing number of American pastors are beginning to decline to do weddings for people they believe are not practicing Christians. We are the world.

Yet Calvery remains convinced that it makes sense for missionaries -- in the context of Japan -- to risk performing weddings for non-Christians. After 10 years in this line of work, his "wedding chapel" has evolved into a full-fledged church complete with worship services, education programs and other ministries. He also noted that he now requires a counseling session with parents before each wedding, as well as with the bride and groom.

"The whole area now accepts our chapel as a regular church - - one that just happens to do 400 weddings a year," he said. "I don't have to push my Christianity on people. Now they are coming to me. And in each and every one of those 30-minute weddings, I get 10 minutes to preach to people I would have never seen in my church, otherwise."

Japan's lady in white

TOKYO -- She smiles down from rows of advertisements that frame the ceilings of Japan's crowded commuter trains and from giant posters in shopping malls.

She is the woman in white and she is everywhere in Japanese media. In these glowing images, it is her wedding day and she is joyful, lovely, passionate and modern. She wants a Christian wedding.

"Everyone wants the white dress. It's America and Cinderella and all the movies we grew up with. It's what a Japanese girl yearns for," said Kumiko Ishii, a Tokyo native who spent her high school and college years in California. "That white dress makes her feel like a princess. ... So she wants a wedding in a Christian church and they say the Christian vows and there's a Christian minister. There's a cross on the wall, but for most Japanese girls that doesn't mean anything. It's just a design."

There is a saying here that people are born Shinto and buried Buddhist and, in between, their true religion is Japan. Now, another custom is being added to that timeline -- the Christian wedding. Only 1 percent of the Japanese population is Christian, but at least 40 percent of the weddings use Christian rites. Some say the figure is much higher.

Ishii is a rarity -- a young Japanese woman who was married in a white dress because she is a Christian. She grew up in a highly secular home and converted as a young teen-ager. Today, she is married to a Japanese rock musician who is the pastor of Committed Japan, a church that operates out of a coffeehouse and appeals to Tokyo's version of Generation X.

Getting married in an elaborate white dress, surrounded by candles and flowers, appeals to young Japanese women more than being bound into the up to 12 layers of a Japanese wedding kimono. The traditional ceremony also symbolizes centuries of arranged marriages, silent, subservient wives and husbands who do not even take vows to be faithful.

"For Japanese girls, the Christian wedding is so romantic. It's like a dream," said Ishii. "But it's like Christmas in Japan. It doesn't mean anything."

The trend began with Japanese movie stars and spread into chapels attached to hotels. At first, missionaries refused to marry non-Christians in real churches, so entrepreneurs stepped in. Today, one major wedding company goes so far as to buy the altars, pews, windows, pulpits, pipe organs and other furnishings in old Anglican churches and move them from England to Japan. The package of wedding, reception, photographs and the participation of a legitimate minister costs the Japanese equivalent of $10,000 to $20,000, or much more. The minister is paid between $100 and $200, for about an hour's work.

Japanese pastors often refuse to do these rites. That's fine, since most customers prefer a Caucasian minister in their wedding pictures. Some observers predict Western funerals will be the next growth industry.

Few missionaries are totally comfortable with all of this. Many will only marry two Christians. Others will also marry two non-Christians, since they are at least members of the same faith. Others will marry a Christian and a non-Christian, hoping the non-Christian will convert. Some will marry non-Christians if they consent to a full series of counseling sessions about the meaning of Christian marriage. Others will marry those who agree to a single 30-minute session. Some missionaries do these weddings -- period -- since this allows them chances to preach to a captive non-Christian audience.

"There is a thin line between doing these weddings to pay the bills and doing them as a means of outreach," said the Rev. Michael Hohn, a German Lutheran who leads the Christ of All Nations Church just north of Osaka. "It is a good business. This helps many missionaries stay in Japan. You can put away a lot of money for retirement or to put your children through college. ... I, myself, want to do everything I can to make sure that the people I marry understand the vows they are taking. Otherwise, I don't know what we are doing."

Part II: A journalistic blind spot

The U.S. State Department churns out many newsworthy reports, a few of which make news while the rest vanish into circular files.

In July, the state department finally released its first report on religious persecution in 78 nations. A spokesperson reminded reporters that it was Congress that mandated the 56- page document's emphasis on the persecution of Christians. The state department, stressed John Shattuck, doesn't view this "as more important than other topics involving religious freedom."

On Capitol Hill, critics noted that the report was six months overdue and came weeks after pivotal congressional votes on Most Favored Nation status for China. It created a few media ripples, then vanished. The Religion Newswriters Association did name the state department report as its eighth most important news story of 1997.

On Nov. 16, there was another newsworthy event -- a global day of prayer on behalf of the persecuted church. About 8 million Americans in 50,000 Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations took part, pledging themselves to keep praying and to seek changes that would help persecuted believers.

This event received even less news coverage than the state department report. The end-of-the-year ballot mailed to religion-news specialists didn't even mention it.

"That's astonishing. It's quite depressing, actually," said retired New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal. "That state department report was nothing -- it was a non-story. It was patched together out of old information and then they delayed it as long as possible to minimize its impact. The only reason that report even existed was because of the movement against religious persecution and all of the pressure it has been putting on Congress. That's the story."

The day of prayer was even perfectly timed to justify major news coverage. It fell shortly after Chinese President Jiang Zemin's controversial U.S. visit and, that very weekend, the press gave major coverage to Beijing's release of Wei Jingsheng.

"The release of one famous political dissident should have heightened, not blacked out, the news value of a story that millions of Americans were paying devoted attention to other dissidents still imprisoned," wrote Rosenthal, in a recent New York Times column. "The stories might have mentioned Peter Xu, the Protestant leader recently sentenced to 10 years -- or the Roman Catholic Bishops Su Zhemin, An Shuxin and Zeng Jingmu, in their cells, somewhere."

There is more to this glitch than the usual journalistic bias of listening to beltway bureaucrats more than to people in pews.

Human-rights activist Stephen Rickard is convinced that many journalists are suffering "cognitive dissonance" when faced with Amnesty International and Christian Coalition leaders sitting side by side on Capitol Hill. Others seem to think it's wrong for Christians to rally on behalf of their own sisters and brothers.

"People laboring in the human rights vineyard know that this argument is both wrong and self-defeating," argued the director of Amnesty International's Washington, D.C., office, writing in the Washington Times. "It seems obvious to me that someone who has been touched by the suffering of one victim is forever more sensitive to the suffering of all victims. Do I hope that the communities now galvanized on religious persecution will stay engaged and fight for other victims with equal fervor? You bet. Do I think their current efforts deserve to be mocked or denigrated? No way."

Clearly, political prejudices have something to do with all of this, said Rosenthal. Yet, for journalists, this should not cancel out the fact that the movement against religious persecution is based on events and facts that are worthy of coverage.

"You don't need to be a rabbi or a minister to get this story. You just need to be a journalist. You just have to be able to look at the numbers of people involved and then look at all the other stories that were linked to it," he said. "So why are journalists missing this?... I am inclined to believe that they just can't grasp the concept of a movement that includes conservatives, middle-of-the-road people and even some liberals. Their distrust of religious people -- especially conservatives -- is simply too strong for them to see what is happening."

Religion news '97 -- celebrity trumps saintliness

After the shock, came grief and after the grief, came waves of praise and admiration that raised Princess Diana from superstar, loving mother and humanitarian to mass-media sainthood.

It didn't take long for a few commentators to ask a blunt, but obvious question: Would the death of a living saint such as Mother Teresa produce anywhere near the same outpouring of emotion around the world?

Then Mother Teresa died. It was impossible for editors and producers to avoid comparisons between their handling of the deaths of these two remarkable women who were both on a first- name basis with the world. What to do? If they gave Diana's funeral more coverage than Mother Teresa's death, this would only prove that celebrity trumps saintliness. Yet decreasing Diana coverage might prove financially catastrophic. Even playing the stories side-by-side awkwardly implied equal status.

The Religion Newswriters Association's ballot to determine the year's top 10 religion stories began with a simple reference to the "life and death of Mother Teresa" and didn't include a clear reference to Princess Diana. The passing of Mother Teresa was voted as the top story on the religion beat and she also was named religion newsmaker of the year.

Yet it's impossible to discuss the public impact of the tiny nun's death without mentioning Diana. The juxtaposition was simply too ironic. This was, as Time magazine put it, "The Year Emotions Ruled," and the emotions generated by Diana's photogenic life simply had more mass appeal than those inspired by Mother Teresa's.

The Evangelical newsmagazine World bluntly decreed that the "conjunction of Mother Teresa's death with that of Princess Diana shows once again the instructiveness of God's providence. The two women were both media sensations, but they were poles apart in terms of the world's values. One enjoyed the highest social status of all; the other identified herself with the lowest of the low. One helped the unfortunate by sponsoring fundraisers; the other by washing the sores of lepers and ministering to the dying. One was the height of fashion, wealth, and glamour; the other wore a white and blue sari, but exuded a far different kind of beauty."

But perhaps it was a caller named Terry who, during the Rush Limbaugh radio show, best expressed the tensions many felt while watching Diana's media star outshine that of Calcutta's saint of the gutters.

"We wanted to be like Diana and not many of us wanted to be like Mother Teresa. And that's sad," she said.

The other nine events in the RNA's 1997 list were:

* The Promise Keepers movement draws a million or so men to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in an emotional display of repentance and commitment to marriage, family life and racial reconciliation. Then a coalition of religious and secular groups rallies hundreds of thousands of black women in the streets of Philadelphia.

* Shortly after posting mysterious revelations in cyberspace, guru Marshall Applewhite and 38 members of his high- tech Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide -- claiming that the Hale-Bopp comet would carry them to a higher spiritual level.

* Scottish scientists clone Dolly the sheep, raising myriad questions about what happens when researchers begin playing with the building blocks of creation.

* After 32 years of talks, four old-line denominations -- the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ -- agree to full communion, including the recognition of each other's ministries and sacraments.

* Led by the Southern Baptist Convention, a coalition of conservative Protestants and Catholics attempts to boycott the Walt Disney empire.

* Shaken by reports of scandals, National Baptists vote to retain the embattled leader of the nation's largest black church.

* The U.S. State Department releases a long-awaited report on religious persecution, shortly before 8 million Americans in about 50,000 Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations take part in prayer services for persecuted Christians around the world.

* Facing an invasion of alternative religions and other Christian churches, Russian lawmakers pass a strict law to protect the favored status of Russian Orthodoxy.

* Oregon voters reaffirm the status of physician-assisted suicide.

Is Christmas funny, or what?

Some of the rhythms are ragged, but it doesn't take a doctorate in musicology to figure out what melody fits these lyrics.

"On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically imposed midwinter festival, my significant other in a consenting adult relationship gave to me, 12 males reclaiming their inner warrior through ritual drumming, 11 pipers piping (plus the 18-member pit orchestra of members in good standing of the Musicians Equity Union...), 10 melanin-deprived testosterone-poisoned scions of the patriarchal ruling class system leaping, nine persons engaged in rhythmic self-expression, eight economically disadvantaged female persons stealing milk products from enslaved Bovine-Americans. ..."

It happens every year on the Internet, about the time TV networks start serving up holiday specials and newspapers uncover new stories about battles over crhches, candles and concerts in the public square. Something snaps out there in cyberspace and armies of anonymous scribes begin churning out holiday satires.

"Everybody has an opinion on what's happening to Christmas, and I mean everybody," said Chris Fabry, a radio humorist with the Chicago-based Moody Broadcasting Network. He is the author of the satirical "Away With The Manger: A Spiritually Correct Christmas Story."

"If you're a strong Christian, then you really care about what Christmas is supposed to mean. If you're a secularist, who only cares about the orgy of gift giving, then you're still going to get caught up in the crush at the mall. Even if you are a rabid atheist and you don't buy any of this, then Christmas still matters to you because you're surrounded by all kinds of things that push your buttons. Everybody reacts."

Here's what it looks like on the Internet. First, someone writes something funny - like a scientific analysis of why sleighs can't fly, a lawyer's analysis of the Nativity story, a detailed corporate plan to downsize Santa's workshop or a news report about Microsoft's takeover of Christmas '97, which will be delayed until mid-1998. Then the wag sends it to a list of e- mail friends. Then people start adding variations of their own. Then someone posts it on the World Wide Web, where others copy it and pass it on. Then it ends up in church bulletins. I get stacks of this stuff, since I write about religion.

One newspaper copyeditor sent a set of punchy headlines - one word per line in massive type -- that journalists might write for news reports during that first Christmas season. The list included: "Angel accosts woman," "Peace offer told," "Baby called 'savior'," "Kings recant pledge" and "Mary mulls events." I offered one with a feature-story spin: "Sheep home alone."

Another winner was a version of "A Visit From St. Nicholas," as written for an academic journal. It ended with the narrator proclaiming: "But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility; 'Ecstatic yuletides to the planetary constituency, and to that self-same assemblage my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."

Christmas is getting funnier and sadder. Fabry writes large doses of this brand of humor, from "Silent night, Solstice night, all is calm, all half price" to "Good liberal men, with zest, hire lawyers to protest. ... File a suit today, file a suit today." In his novelette, Christians led by an ex- Marine march on city hall chanting: "You can't take our holiday! It's in our heart and here to stay! Sound off! JESUS! Sound off! HE'S BORN!"

But he also raises serious questions about what happens when so many believers let a cynical tone slip into their celebrations. It's one thing to criticize Christmas, American Style. It's something else to become so fatalistic, and spend so much time mocking "The Holidays," that Christmas is dead on arrival.

"We can laugh, to keep from crying, along with everybody else at Christmas," said Fabry. "But we have to laugh at ourselves, too, and realize that we're part of the problem. ... If I don't see something wrong with the way that I am, if I only see myself as better than everybody else, then I've missed the point."

A Traditional Christmas -- Not

JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. - History is serious business in this picturesque town that once served as the doorway to the wilds beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Civic leaders constantly call their town "Historic Jonesborough" and note its birth in 1779. This time of year, they strive to turn their brick sidewalks, street lamps, churches, shops and inns into a living Victorian postcard. This year's theme is the "Twelve Days of Christmas" and the calendar is packed with exhibits, concerts, dinners and storytelling events.

But the actual 12-day Christian festival called Christmas - which begins Dec. 25th - is totally empty on the calendar. The second day of Christmas is Dec. 26th, and it's empty. The third day of Christmas is Dec. 27th, and it's empty. And so forth and so on until the Jan. 6th Feast of the Epiphany, and that's empty, too.

Don't mutter "Bah! Humbug!" Even Ebenezer Scrooge was granted a vision of the entire season - from the holy rites of Christmas Day to the parties of the Twelfth Night.

"Oh, we're just using the 'Twelve Days of Christmas' as a kind of umbrella theme for all kinds of activities that everybody wanted to do at Christmas," said Steve Nelson, in the town's tourism office. "We kind of kicked things around for a while and that's what we came up with. We're just using the images of the song. We know that all of this isn't historically accurate."

So while the publicity proclaims that this is a "traditional," "Victorian" Christmas, it really isn't, said Nelson, who has been a church choir director for 41 years and understands the details of the Christian calendar. But the month of December is simply too packed to worry about all of that.

Of course, the irony is that the actual days of the Christmas season are wide open. No one would have trouble fitting in concerts, parties, sales and services between Dec. 26th and Jan. 5th.

"Sure, you could go ahead and do your parties then, but everyone would think that you've lost your blooming mind," noted Linda Measner, a hostess at the Historic Jonesborough Visitors Center. "If you went caroling after Christmas Day, people might throw things at you."

Everyone knows that the cultural tide called "The Holidays" begins soon after Labor Day and has swamped the World Series, Halloween, Thanksgiving and the Dec. 6 feast day of St. Nicholas. The main casualty has been the reverent four-week Christian season known as Advent, which leads up to Christmas. After Dec. 25th, America slides into a season of bowl games and the National Football League playoffs.

It's a corporate thing. As the old saying goes: America's economy is powered by two giants - Uncle Sam and Santa Claus.

Nelson noted that Jonesborough is managing to hold a community-wide service of Bible lessons and carols, a traditional rite in which the 12-day season begins with the glow of candlelight late on Christmas Eve. Of course, the community's service of lessons and carols will have to be on Dec. 17th.

"We just had to get done what we could get done," he said. "Most of our churches have even moved their Christmas cantatas up to Dec. 21st this year. I think the important thing is that the whole community is involved."

Meanwhile, down on East Main Street, the owner of the Old Towne Christmas Shoppe sat surrounded by hand-made decorations and twinkling lights. For most people, this season has turned into an obstacle course of commercial and cultural obligations that has little or nothing to do with faith and family, said Joanna Anderson. It's getting to the point that many people don't even mind admitting it.

"I really wish there was some way we could get people to go back to the old ways. I know that everybody is supposed to say that, but I really, really believe it," she said. "Things are out of control. People wouldn't want to spend 12 days lingering over Christmas and having a good time or thinking about what it means. Everybody has to rush off and do a bunch of other stuff."

Spirit filled or Spirit fooled?

Saving souls rarely makes news, unless somebody starts saving lots of souls in a bizarre way that looks really spooky on videotape.

The mass-media sawdust trail has, in the 1990s, led to the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and to the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Fla. So far, several million people have attended well-documented rites in which worshippers collapse in tears or laughter or say that they have found healing for various addictions or diseases. Meanwhile, critics keep sounding warnings about fraud and heresy.

It would be easy to dismiss this as merely another mating dance between camera-friendly Charismatics and jaded journalists who love a wild story. But one outspoken evangelical is convinced something else is going on - another clash between faith rooted in human emotion and faith built on centuries of scripture and tradition. The new super-preachers may look and sound like conservative Christians. But radio commentator Hank Hanegraaff is shouting what many are saying quietly: some of these super preachers are New Age prophets in Christian clothing.

"What was once relegated to the ashrams of occultists, you can now experience at the altars of many huge churches," said Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute in Southern California. "This is all about human experience overwhelming biblical truth. ... When people start saying that doctrine is a bad word - look out. When people start talking about the mind being the obstacle to enlightenment - look out."

Hanegraaff's recent book, "Counterfeit Revival," attacked the very foundations of the modern Pentecostal revival that has touched much of Protestant Christianity, and even Roman Catholicism. He is in the thick of a new media storm swirling around the preachers in Brownsville. Yet note this paradox: Hanegraaff and his family attend a Charismatic church, the Pacific Hills congregation in the Calvary Chapel movement.

The bottom line: miracles are always controversial. Yet the churches that are growing -- worldwide -- are those that preach a supernatural faith. There are, of course, skeptics who believe that biblical accounts of supernatural events are merely tales of ancient frauds. Others, often liberal Christians, say the Bible is full of myths written before science explained many mysteries. On the other side are many conservative Christians who argue that the biblical accounts are true, and that God still performs miracles, but that believers stopped receiving miraculous "gifts of the Holy Spirit" soon after the birth of the early church. Others say modern believers may be able to perform some miracles, but not others. The arguments go on and on.

On top of that, there are splits in the Pentecostal camp centering on clashing views of "speaking in tongues," an ecstatic experience in which believers are said to speak in a "heavenly" language. Some Charismatics say this occurs to some, but not all, "Spirit-filled" people. Others insist that anyone who has not done this is somehow "less mature." Some ultra-traditional Pentecostal believers go much further and argue that someone cannot go to heaven unless they have received the true "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and spoken in tongues.

Thus, many people engaged in bitter fights over events in Toronto and Pensacola have totally different understandings of how God works through the church and scripture. These debates have been raging for a generation and there is no sign they will end anytime soon.

Nevertheless, many who fiercely disagree with some of Hanegraaff's pronouncements will agree with one major theme: some Charismatics are spewing joyful revelations about life and faith that threaten the authority of scripture and centuries of sobering church teachings. Above all, their emphasis on everyday miracles tends to deny the reality of sin and human suffering. It makes healing and happiness more important than repentance and salvation.

"It doesn't matter if the people who are having all these highly personal experiences are liberals or New Agers or whatever," said Hanegraaff. "Pure personal experience has a very, very, very bad track record when it comes to providing truths on which people can base their lives. ... What we're seeing is more people moving from faith to feeling and from facts to fantasy."