George W. Bush learns to 'testify'

George Bush never did learn to open up when anyone asked about his faith, salvation, family values and all those messy spiritual issues.

On one campaign stop, he was asked what he thought about as he floated alone in the Pacific Ocean after his plane was shot down during World War II. His response was chilly: "Mom and Dad, about our country, about God ... and about the separation of church and state."

Eventually, the Kennebunkport Episcopalian ran into a Little Rock Baptist who could preach, pray, weep, hug, sing and confess with the best of them.

Now, Bush's heir is poised to make a run at the White House. However, George W. Bush is a Bible Belt Methodist and appears to have learned a big lesson: it helps if a candidate can stand tall in a pulpit and, as born-again folks say, "give his testimony."

"Faith gives us purpose - to right wrongs, preserve our families and teach our children values," said the Texas governor, speaking to about 15,000 during a March 6-7 visit to Houston's Second Baptist Church. "Faith gives us a conscience - to keep us honest even when no one is watching. Faith changes lives. I know, because it has changed mine. I grew up in the church, but I didn't always walk the walk."

Bush then described a backslider vs. the preacher showdown he had in the mid-1980s with evangelist Billy Graham. Bush said their talks inspired him to "recommit my life to Jesus Christ" and to end what he has previously confessed was a rowdy era in his private life. Bush's testimony also included nods to Promise Keeper orator Tony Evans, Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson and other prominent evangelicals.

Yes, this Bush also pledged his allegiance to church-state separation.

"The church is not the state and the state is darn sure not the church," he said. "Any time the church enters the realm of politics the church runs the real risk of losing its mission. ... Politics is a world of give and take, of polls, of human vision. The church is built on the absolute principles of the Word of God, not the word of man."

Bush's sermon on religion and politics was quickly buried in news about an Associated Press interview about abortion. As he has throughout the 1990s, Bush called himself a "pro-life person," yet he said most Americans do not share his convictions.

"America is not ready to overturn Roe vs. Wade, because America's hearts are not right," he said. "So, in the meantime ... what we ought to do is promote policies that reduce abortions."

Speaking to the press through a telephone news conference, Focus on the Family leader James Dobson urged Bush to be specific. "Don't give us double-talk. Tell us if you'll support pro-life judges. Tell us if you'll oppose giving money to Planned Parenthood International." At this point in the Bush campaign, Dobson said, "we don't know what he believes."

Bush's approach does resemble the fervent, yet vague, approach used for years by Bill Clinton. Back in 1986, Clinton even said he agreed with the "stated purpose" of an Arkansas constitutional amendment to "promote the health, safety and welfare of every unborn child from conception until birth." Clinton has preached many sermons on faith's positive role in public life.

It's easy to offer positive words about faith. The problem is that so many people -- both progressives and traditionalists - - currently believe their religious beliefs are under attack.

Bush stressed the positive at Second Baptist, calling for church-state cooperation that would unleash "little armies of compassion" to transform "one heart, one soul and one conscience at a time." Still, this strategy will raise questions. Some critics insist that cooperative efforts using tax money, or even tax incentives, blur the line between church and state. Others want to know why Bush welcomes faith-based alternatives to costly government social programs, yet shies away from similar alternatives in education.

Bush's remarks in Houston will be dissected by one and all.

"We have learned that government programs cannot solve all the problems in our society," he said. "Government can hand out money, but it cannot put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives. It cannot fill the spiritual well from which we draw strength day to day. Only faith can do that."

For my father, a pastor

Anyone who grew up in a parsonage knows that "PK" stands for "preacher's kid."

Early on, I rebelled against that label. But I wasn't rejecting my father, my family or the faith. When people called me a "preacher's kid," I told them that my father wasn't a preacher -- he was a pastor. There's a difference.

My father passed away last week at the age of 82 and I thought this would be a good time to say, once again, what I said to him and to others many times -- I have always been proud of his work. Of course, it had been some time since the Rev. Bert Mattingly retired from the pastorate and from his post-retirement work as a hospital chaplain. That didn't matter. In Texas Baptist lingo, he was always "Brother Bert."

My father preached, but that wasn't what defined him. The joy, and burden, of the job is that there's more to it than that.

The job seems to be getting tougher. Ask Jim Dahlman, a veteran editor at Focus on the Family who has specialized in issues linked to the ministry. During one research project he read many letters from clergy and their families, some of which left him weeping. Some pastors weren't burning out -- they were crashing in flames.

"I read one letter after another from pastors or their wives talking about this overwhelming sense of loneliness and isolation," he said. "Over and over, they'd write things like, 'We're totally alone. We can't talk to anyone about what's going on in our lives or the pressure we're under. We're out here twisting in the wind.' "

The big pressure is for pastors to be ready and available to handle each and every crisis, no matter how minor. With family and friends far away these days, who do people call? Oprah? The all-night therapist?

Dahlman said people also expect pastors to be "lifestyle role models" with perfect homes and perfect spiritual lives. But it's a problem if the pastor spends too much time at family events or on prayer retreats. Church members expect well researched, practical and, preferably, entertaining sermons. But it's a problem if the pastor spends too much time studying and writing.

The clock is always ticking.

I'm convinced the main reason stress levels are so high is that so many people -- in pews and pulpits -- have forgotten that pastors are defined by who they are and what they stand for, not what skills they possess and what tasks they perform. Pastors can't be shepherds if people expect them to be superheroes.

Why was I proud to be a pastor's kid? This may sound simplistic, but I believe churches need to hear it -- again.

* My father was a pastor -- not a preacher, CEO, entertainer, clinical counselor, self-help guru or crisis-management consultant.

* He preached the Bible, not his feelings and experiences. Today, many urge pastors to make their lives open books -- often forcing a faked extroversion that has little to do with reality. This has more to do with life in an era of mass-media confessions than solid teaching or evangelism.

* My parents were united -- for 58 years -- by their love and commitment to ministry. Today, many churches place so much pressure on clergy schedules and spirits that they weaken the very foundations of their personal lives. This has led to clergy divorce rates that are as shameful as in society as a whole.

* My father wasn't a workaholic. It wasn't until college that I talked with other "PKs" and discovered how unusual it was that I spent many, many hours with my father. I'm convinced this was linked to a more balanced, realistic approach to ministry.

* He kept on loving God, his work and his people. I have never known a pastor who didn't wrestle with fits of melancholy. Good pastors are realists who face the reality of pain and sin. And then many heap criticism on them, micromanage their lives and expect miracles.

Truth is, I rarely saw my father move mountains. But I did see him preach, teach, pray and embrace sinners. I was proud that he was a pastor. I still am.

Oh be careful little hands what you do

It's amazing how Sunday school songs can stick with people for the rest of their lives.

"Oh be careful little hands what you do! Oh be careful little hands what you do," sang social activist Tony Campolo, as he led a recent Milligan College (Tenn.) chapel audience in the hand motions that children have learned for generations. "God is up above. He is looking down in love. So be careful little hands what you do."

This song may sound silly, but it's not.

"That song! That song ruined my dating life," shouted Campolo. "You know, I'd be out there in a car and just when I'm ready to make the move, this voice from heaven says, 'Be careful little hands, what you do.' "

This kind of slapstick sermonizing always brings howls of laughter, especially on college campuses. The 64-year-old storyteller delivers more than 400 sermons and lectures a year and few people are better at making students laugh, think and cry at the same time. But he also wants to inspire tough questions.

Campolo has heard one question more than any other, ever since the Labor Day call from the White House asking him to serve as one of President Bill Clinton's three pastoral counselors. The question could be phrased this way: Has he sung "Oh be careful little hands what you do" recently in the Oval Office?

"Everybody wants to know what I say to the president and what the president says to me," said Campolo, who is both an ordained Baptist minister and a sociology professor at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pa. However, he has honored the confidentiality of this relationship, because "I don't think that you can talk about the president and to the president at the same time."

In the pulpit, Campolo's thundering voice and hot emotions often threaten the volume needles on tape recorders. He has admitted that the president often endsup shouting back at him, even though Campolo is an outspoken Democrat and a sworn foe of the Religious Right.

While the preacher won't discuss these sessions with the press, his sermons frequently address issues that are at the heart of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. At Milligan College, for example, he noted that many believers forget that it's "quite possible to be forgiven and not to be cleansed." Many also forget that, when they wallow in their sins, they bring pain to God.

Christianity teaches that Jesus is truly divine and that his life and ministry - such as his sacrifice on the cross -- transcend human time. Thus, Jesus is constantly carrying the sins of the world and of individual sinners. During a visit to another campus, Campolo said he met a young man who was a perfect example of those who fail to take this doctrine seriously.

"He said, 'Yeah, I do a lot of things that are wrong, you know, a lot of stuff sexually. I'm really into it. But, you know, I believe it's all taken care of on Calvary,' " said Campolo. "I was furious. I said, 'The next time you're screwing around, I hope you can hear Jesus screaming in pain! Because at that very moment, as he hangs on Calvary, he feels your sin and is absorbing it!' "

It's normal to hear preachers use this kind of language. But during the past year, it has become common to hear the likes of Geraldo Rivera and Larry King leading discussions of sin and grace, repentance and forgiveness. While this has been a troubling experience for many people, Campolo believes it has been good for the country.

For one thing, people on both sides of the political aisle are being forced to seek common ground on moral issues.

"All of a sudden we realize that no one sins to himself," said Campolo. "When you commit a sinful act, it has a rippling effect that goes around the world and back. We recognize that there is no such thing as private sin, anymore. It's all connected. And what is more, we have this sense now that there are a set of absolutes out there. There is a right. There is a wrong."

Lent -- Fasting from TV

Some people give up candy or soft drinks, while others sacrifice something as major as caffeine or meat.

So far, so good. However, Father Michael Buckley thinks most Roman Catholics, and members of other churches that observe Lent, would find it easier to properly prepare to celebrate Easter if they took an even more drastic step - unplugging their televisions.

"The reality is that most people sacrifice small things at Lent in order to give the season a kind of a tone of self- sacrifice," said Father Buckley of Plainview, Neb., whose "On Media" column appears in about 90 Catholic newspapers. "People give up little things because we have trouble even thinking about making real sacrifices, anymore. Seriously, most Catholics no longer see themselves as different from the culture around them. This really shows up at Lent."

Making a symbolic spiritual change isn't an end in itself, during the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, which this year is on April 4. In Eastern Orthodoxy the season of Great Lent began with Forgiveness Sunday on Feb. 21 and ends with Pascha on April 11.

The goal is to create a zone of quiet for repentance and reflection. The defining signs of Lent are supposed to be fasting, prayer and alms giving, said Father Buckley. However, the season's message is usually drowned out by the noise of daily life. As radical as it sounds, one of the only ways to give Lent a fighting chance is to turn off, or to at least curtail the use of, the TVs scattered throughout most homes.

"You end up with more time for your family, for prayer, for the church, for life in general," he said. "But I think most people would find it much harder to give up television during Lent than to give up meat."

It's hard to fight this kind of battle without practical strategies.

For some people, a good starting point would be spending two or more hours reading for each hour that they watch television, said evangelical media critic Doug LeBlanc, in a recent Moody magazine column. Then, when he does turn on the TV, he has vowed to hit the mute button during every commercial.

"Commercials are not only loud and intrusive," noted LeBlanc, "but they sell a particularly noxious snake oil known as commercialism. I have enough trouble resisting the siren call of narcissism without reinforcing it during every commercial break."

But the big problem is that people use mass media - especially television news, sports, talk radio and music - as pseudo-shopping-mall "white noise" to cover gaps in their lives that hint at loneliness or a need for self-reflection, said LeBlanc. Clearly, many fear silence.

It's also possible to make better decisions about what to watch, as well as how much to watch, said James Breig, a columnist in Credo, an alternative Catholic weekly in Ann Arbor, Mich. Some could begin by listing their five favorite shows and then swearing off one of them, to invest that time in spiritual books. High-quality religious programs also turn up occasionally on history and arts channels and some parishes have begun collecting libraries of videotapes.

And it might help to put a Bible or prayer book near the TV Guide or the remote control.

"In an average week," Breig asked his readers, "which do you do more often: Watch TV or pray? Think of how often you say, 'There's nothing on,' and then watch that nothing."

The overarching problem is that, all too often, church leaders and members choose to ignore the role that all those televisions play in most homes and in the culture at large. Mass media are, in fact, the channels through which most people receive the stories, images and values that shape their lives -- hour after hour, day by day, season after season.

"The THING called a television, the actual box with a screen on it and some speakers, can do some good," said Father Buckley. "The problem is how people let television and the media take over their lives. That's a spiritual issue. I don't think that it's a reach to say that the role television plays in most modern homes is evil."

Adolph Hitler: A perverted Christian?

From Adolph Hitler's point of view, Christendom had it all wrong.

Jesus wasn't a humble savior who suffered and died on a cross to redeem all of humanity. For Hitler, Jesus was an angry, whip-cracking messiah who was tough enough to lead Germany to victory. Hitler's Jesus looked a lot like Hitler. The Christian messiah was too Jewish.

"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter," said Hitler, in one 1922 speech. "It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by only a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned me to fight against them. In boundless love, as a Christian and as a man, I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord rose at last in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders."

In "Mein Kampf," Hitler went one terrifying step further as he attacked the "Jewish doctrine of Marxism." He wrote: "Eternal Nature inexorably revenges the transgressions against her laws. Therefore, I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator: By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord's work."

What do these words mean? While historians have struggled to answer that question, one thing is certain: Anyone who uses the words "Hitler" and "Christian" in the same sentence will cause controversy. The most recent flare-up centers on remarks by President Bill Clinton at the 1999 National Prayer Breakfast.

"The problem is that Hitler was all over the map when he talked about religion, including Christianity," said journalist Ron Rosenbaum, author of "Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil." "When it was useful for him to appear Christian, in order to manipulate the masses, then he did so. But then in private comments he was much more candid about his hatred of Christianity."

The result is a maze of questions. What did Hitler mean when he said "the Lord" or "Divine Providence" gave him spiritual visions and that an "inner voice" called him to redeem the German people and crush the Jews? And does the fact that Hitler called himself a Christian mean that it's proper for anyone else to call him a Christian?

What people say about Hitler usually reveals more about their biases and beliefs than about those of Hitler, said Rosenbaum.

Take Clinton's speech, for example. The president reminded his interfaith audience that many of the world's woes are "rooted in what we believe are the instructions we get from God to do things to people who are different from us." But just because people believe they're following God doesn't mean they're right, he said.

"I do believe that even though Adolph Hitler preached a perverted form of Christianity, God did not want him to prevail," said Clinton.

Conservative Christians immediately cried "foul."

In reality, Hitler's hate was rooted in a pseudo-scientific racism, not religious faith, said Rosenbaum. Thus, it would have been more accurate to say that Hitler preached a "perverted form of Darwinism, rather than a perverted Christianity." The most logical explanation for Clinton's comments would be that he was striking back at "conservative Christians and his other critics that he considers judgmental and mean-spirited," said Rosenbaum, who stressed that he also is a frequent critic of the Religious Right.

But this is business as usual, when it comes to discussions of Hitler and religion. Christians anxious to attack the occult can cite evidence that Hitler was a neo-pagan terrorist who hated God and saw himself as a god-like messiah. Atheists and agnostics blame Hitler's actions on his Catholic boyhood. Anti-Semites welcome any evidence that Hitler may have been part Jewish. The list goes on and on.

"It's like a Rorschach test. People see what they want to see and then they use Hitler as a way to settle arguments," said Rosenbaum. "Everyone wants to be able to say that their enemies believe what Hitler believed. What we can learn from all of this is that you can't trust anything Hitler said. If you are trying to understand Hitler, the last thing you can believe are his words."

Ash Wednesday for Baptists: Why not?

As worshippers entered the dim sanctuary, they could tell that this wasn't the usual Wednesday night prayer meeting in the First Baptist Church of Gretna, Va.

First, there was quiet music, candlelight and a meditative atmosphere. After awhile, worship leaders began reading verses from the Psalms, such as: "Have mercy upon me, O God. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me." Then everyone sang "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!"

Finally, participants were invited to walk the aisle and have ashes applied to their foreheads in the shape of a cross. Yes, First Baptist in Gretna held an Ash Wednesday service last year and it will do so once again next week, opening the Lenten season that precedes Easter.

"To tell you the truth, we didn't do the sign of the cross on the forehead part at first," said the Rev. M. Glenn Graves, describing the rites that began three years ago in his church. "That kind of thing tends to freak Baptists out, you know? So we just let them stick their own hands down in the urn the first time and get ashes all over themselves."

For one thing, the ashes were really thick and hard to handle that first year. Christians have long added to the symbolism of these rites by using ashes created by burning palm branches saved from Palm Sunday the previous year. But there's the rub. Palm Sunday rites are almost as rare in Baptist circles as Ash Wednesday services. Since Graves didn't have any old palm leaves around his church, he burned a dried-out Christmas tree instead. Since then, he has found that friendly florists will hand over a few palm branches.

"We could do Palm Sunday, but that would open up Holy Week and there you go," he said, laughing. "Then my people would really accuse me of being a Baptist-Episcopalian-Roman Catholic. That's the thing about traditions like that. They all seem to be connected and once you use one of them it's hard to know where to stop adding things to the calendar."

Graves is convinced many people in Protestant pews would welcome a chance to find symbolic ways to deal with sticky issues such as sin, repentance, forgiveness and their own mortality - even if the "new" rites are really centuries old. After asking a few tough questions, his flock has accepted Ash Wednesday as a chance to face "the dark side of their souls," he said.

"For those of us who are new at this, it is awkward, much like our confessed sins," he wrote, in an article in Baptists Today, a national newspaper for those in the "moderate" wing of Baptist life. "However, the shared, solemn occasion has left a mark on us like the dark ashes we carry on our foreheads."

First Baptist in Gretna - located about 38 miles south of Lynchburg - hasn't based its rites directly on a Catholic liturgy or the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. Instead, Graves said he adopted a very Baptist approach to tiptoeing into ancient traditions. He went to a mainline Protestant bookstore and bought a copy of "The New Handbook of the Christian Year." Then his church started experimenting.

Graves suggested that churches that want to try Ash Wednesday services should start with their own frameworks of scriptures and familiar music about sin and repentance - such as "Amazing Grace." For some people, this more formal approach to worship may seem like "going through the motions," he said. But for many others, it will provide a chance to form ties to believers in the past.

"Sometimes you just have to pull some stuff from here and some stuff from there and then give it a shot," he said. "Because I'm a Baptist, I'm free to pick and choose. I'm free to choose the parts of a liturgy that I'm comfortable with and to avoid the parts that I know will make my people uncomfortable. You have to find out what works for your people."

Peace, justice, life & Truth

No gathering of Catholic social activists would be complete without rows of cars outside with bumper stickers containing the famous words of Pope Paul VI: "If you want peace, work for justice."

To which Pope John Paul II would add a hearty "Amen."

But that's just once thread in a larger garment. During this recent American tour, the pope again stressed that it's impossible to talk about peace, justice and freedom without raising other issues that make many people, including some Catholics, very nervous. How can a society do what is good, he asked time after time, when few can agree on what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false?

"America first proclaimed its independence on the basis of self-evident moral truths," noted the pope, during an evening prayer service in St. Louis. "America will remain a beacon of freedom for the world as long as it stands by those moral truths which are the very heart of its historical experience.

"And so America: If you want peace, work for justice. If you want justice, defend life. If you want life, embrace truth -- truth revealed by God."

This one statement captures the big ideas of John Paul's pontificate. However, this ethic remains hard to fit into bumper stickers, T-shirts and headlines.

Thus, the pope's words will once again cause cheers and moans on both sides of the political aisle and in many Catholic and Protestant sanctuaries, said Mennonite theologian Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action. Nevertheless, it's obvious that John Paul's goal is to defend the sanctity of life by attacking what he calls a "culture of death" that kills human dignity and hope. This is the overarching issue.

"People on the left will love what he had to say about the death penalty and racism and caring for the poor," noted Sider, a veteran coalition-builder among evangelicals and Catholics of varying political views. "But many liberals are going to squirm because he ties these issues directly to traditional Christian teachings on abortion and euthanasia and family life. Meanwhile, some people on the right will squirm because the pope made it very clear that he links these pro-life issues to the death penalty and poverty, sickness, hunger and even the environment."

In the statement that drew the most media attention, John Paul said that "the Gospel of God's love for man, the Gospel of the dignity of the person and the Gospel of life are a single and indivisible Gospel." Thus, the church needs more believers who are "unconditionally pro-life," even when this stance seems to be harder to defend, he said.

"A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil," said the pope, during the St. Louis Mass. "Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. ...I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary."

While exchanging greetings with President Clinton -- who backs both the death penalty and abortion rights -- John Paul stressed that he believes America is undergoing a "time of testing" that will profoundly impact the rest of the world in the coming century. This can be seen, he said, in America's bitter conflicts about whether to declare "entire groups of human beings -- the unborn, the terminally ill, the handicapped and others considered 'unuseful' - to be outside the boundaries of legal protection."

And again, the pope added: "Only a higher moral vision can motivate the choice for life."

"The pope is dead on target by returning to the larger issue of today's debates over the reality of truth," said Sider. "We live in an age of incredible relativism in this society and even in the church. We live in a land that seems to have lost its way. ... So the pope isn't backing down on any of this. Those of us who really care about these issues can only hope that people are still listening."

Sister Winifred's veil: This is not a news story

Whenever Pope John Paul II travels, the events that receive the most attention are his spectacular public Masses and encounters with heads of state and other dignitaries.

But these tours also include quieter rites and meetings with priests, nuns and lay people. The pope leads prayers, delivers words of advice or encouragement, offers his blessing and shares a few moments of fellowship.

In other words, these events are rarely "newsworthy." This depends, however, on one's point of view.

Sister Winifred Mary Lyons was one of 130,000 New Yorkers at a 1995 papal Mass in Central Park and, later, she was in St. Patrick's Cathedral when John Paul led the recitation of the rosary. Afterwards, she had a brief chance to meet the pope. Years later, she still has trouble describing what she believes was a holy moment.

"As I walked out of the cathedral, I met a friend to whom I immediately said that I was going to return to wearing a veil," said Sister Winifred, a pro-life leader in the Archdiocese of New York's schools. "I could not believe I was saying it. The words were not mine."

It would be hard to make a more symbolic decision. It had been 23 years since Sister Winifred set aside her veil and started wearing "secular clothes" while going about her work in the Sisters of Charity. During the 1960s and '70s, she was one of thousands of women and men in religious life who rode the waves of change that rolled through Catholicism and the culture. She dyed her hair and pierced her ears. Her peers changed and so did she.

The first time she tried on her veil, again, she looked in a mirror and saw an image of herself as she was years earlier. This startled her, she said, and she literally lost her breath. In an essay in the New Oxford Review, she explained how this simple veil has brought her a renewed sense of her ties to the past, while her daily work continues to carry her into the present.

Sister Winifred thought she might encounter some resistance to her decision. But in all honesty, she said, this has not been the case, even though she knows that many people - in holy orders and in the pews - consider this a "monumental decision" after a tumultuous era.

The reactions of people around her have been quite touching, she said.

"Being greeted on the street was something I had totally forgotten. Moreover, the witness value has overwhelmed me: I know I cause others to think about God, if only for a few seconds, and I realize afresh the public dimension of the consecrated life and the hunger there is for it in this world. Again, this is something I had forgotten. I am in no way negating the witnessing I did and which all women Religious do, daily, but we do it after we identify ourselves. Wearing the veil, we do it in spite of ourselves."

It's fairly easy, she said, to describe the outward manifestations of this "public dimension" to her decision. She can see it in people's eyes and hear it in their voices. Once again, total strangers walk up and ask her to pray for them. It's easy to detect an increased vulnerability and openness in the people she sees in her work - especially among the women she counsels and consoles in crisis pregnancy centers.

Yet her decision wasn't about taking some kind of a public stand, she said. The biggest changes that have taken place since her return to wearing a veil haven't been on the outside. This really isn't a news story, she said. It's just part of her story.

"It's very difficult to put this into words. The change on the outside is important. I know that," said Sister Winifred. "But what happened to me on the inside has been so much deeper - deeper than all of the external changes. It is this inner reality that is so much more important. ... Yet that's the part of this that is beyond words. It's a mystery to me, too."

CCM Crossroads II -- Do the math

As she pulled into traffic, Elaine Benes turned on her boyfriend's car radio and began bouncing along to the music.

Then the lyrics sank in: "Jesus is one, Jesus is all. Jesus pick me up when I fall." In horror, she punched another button, then another. "Jesus," she muttered, discovering they all were set to Christian stations. Then the scene jumped to typical "Seinfeld" restaurant chat.

"I like Christian rock," said the ultra-cynical George Costanza. "It's very positive. It's not like those real musicians who think they're so cool and hip."

Notice how the lords of Must See TV stuck in the knife and gave it a sneaky little twist, noted rocker Charlie Peacock, who has two decades of experience in both the secular and sacred markets. Contemporary Christian music -- or CCM -- is "positive," not "cool" or "hip." It's nice, meek and safe. After all, these aren't "real" musicians.

"Positive and nice. Helpful and friendly," writes Peacock, in his upcoming book "At the Crossroads," about the identity crisis in the thriving CCM industry. "Sounds more like a description of the Ace Hardware man than music informed by a story so ... real that it involves every action, emotion and thought under the sun - a complex, bloody, beautiful, redemptive, truthful story."

Since Christendom is built on a story that is literally larger than life, Peacock's wonders why CCM is smaller than life. The Bible is full of sin, death, doubt, love, hate, anger, war, lust and other messy subjects. The faith of the ages wrestles with the bad news before reaching the Good News. Yet many Nashville executives would agree with the "Seinfeld" gang that CCM products must be tamer than the "real" pop, country and rock albums they mimic. Truth is, no one expects CCM to appeal to many listeners who aren't already true believers.

This is, noted Peacock, a mighty strange strategy coming from people who say one of their main goals is evangelism. He also wonders if it does believers much good to consume only "positive" messages that please them, comfort them and appeal to what marketers call their "felt needs."

Some critics go even further. Writing in the New York Times, critic Nicholas Dawidoff said CCM is simply "mediocre stuff, diluted by hesitation and dogmatic formula, inferior to the mainstream popular music it emulates." But he added: "There's no reason why contemporary Christian performers, if they allow themselves to explore their talent and emotion more completely, can't successfully combine virtuosity and moral virtue."

Mark Joseph of the MJM Entertainment Group in Southern California, has dug into sports history and found an even more provocative judgment. "As with baseball, strange bedfellows have colluded to keep musicians with Christian beliefs in the modern-day equivalent of the Negro Leagues," he wrote, in Billboard. This arrangement allows Christian companies to lock up their artists, while the biases of the secular marketplace remain unchallenged.

On the other side, some purists say CCM is soul sick because its artists crave mainstream success and respect. This camp claims that it's time to return to a strict "ministry" model in which performers stick to the biblical basics - recording only explicitly Christian songs -- and stop seeking to "crossover" into secular charts.

The bottom line, said Peacock, is that gifted Christians make all kinds of music -- from classical to jazz, from pop to edgy rock -- and it doesn't help anyone to enforce one narrow definition of "Christian music." People who run CCM companies must learn to reach the ears of unbelievers as well as believers, he said. This will, at the very least, require radically different marketing techniques and a more real-life-oriented approach to lyrics.

This would even allow some Christians to successfully write songs that appeal to non-Christians, even if that breaks the CCM rules and might, in the short run, seem unprofitable.

After all, noted Peacock, "an audience of 100 Satan punks and 10 Christians does not constitute a CCM consumer base. An audience of 95 Christians and five Satan punks does. If you're thinking something doesn't add up, you're right. Whether it adds up or not depends on whose math you're using."