White House religion -- words and deeds

The more Richard Nixon talked about his faith the more his enemies complained about it.

Critics of the troubled president accused him of hiding behind a smokescreen of "White House religion," which an Associate Press report described as "personalized piety detached from its social demands." Liberal church leaders said Nixon was using Christianity as a shield. Critics said he needed to get some new religious advisers, instead of surrounding himself with clergy who would only tell him what he wanted to hear.

Sound familiar? A quarter of a century later, it was the Religious Right's turn to complain while a president kept talking and talking and talking about forgiveness, sin and grace, rather than facing tough issues of repentance, justice and integrity.

That's the problem with White House religion. What you see is rarely what you get.

It's so much easier to offer positive talk about personal feelings and faith, rather than to answer divisive religious questions about the public square. That was true in Watergate, Fornigate and, now, the Y2K White House race.

"It's all very ironic," said Gabriel Fackre, a theologian in the highly progressive United Church of Christ. "One of the lessons we were supposed to have learned from the Clinton crisis was that a leader's private affairs are not supposed to be very relevant, when it comes to judging him as a public leader. We were not supposed to confuse the personal and the public."

But there's a problem and it's one that haunts Republicans and Democrats. In reality, it's impossible to separate these two spheres of life. "They are distinguishable, but inseparable," said Fackre, a Democrat who edited a controversial volume about the Clinton scandals entitled "Judgment Day at the White House" and recently wrote a sequel called "The Day After."

The "character issue" looms over America's political landscape, even if the candidates are afraid to discuss it with any degree of candor. Instead, the major players are offering variations on the classic "White House religion" formula -- talking warmly about their private faith, while batting away pesky questions about religious issues in public life.

Thus, Gov. George W. Bush keeps giving his testimony, but seems gun-shy when asked to describe how his personal faith is linked to his public convictions. Sen. John McCain preaches about character and the faith of his fathers, but won't discuss his moral and cultural views. Vice President Al Gore keeps showing up in pulpits, talking about his lively faith, but loathes questions about his days as a Southern Baptist-friendly Tennessee politician. Former Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader Bill Bradley insists that his faith is strong, yet totally private.

Everyone would rather discuss or how they were born again, rather than discuss the details of partial-birth abortion. It's safer to talk about spirituality and renewal than to make a case for or against private-school vouchers in the tense age after Columbine High School.

Right now, American politicians keep saying that faith is good, but it's clear that talking about the details is deadly. The subject is just too hot. So candidates keep shouting their testimonies, rather than answering detailed questions about policies.

What goes around, comes around. Back in the 1970s, noted Fackre, progressives used to attack conservatives whenever they failed to link their evangelistic words with efforts to change society. Thus, they said conservatives like Nixon were guilty of separating "their words and their deeds." Then, during the Clinton crisis, the political and theological left turned around and chanted: "Why don't you take him at his word? He said he's sorry. What more do you want?"

At the moment, everyone seems to have a plan for talking about their religious convictions, but no one wants to discuss how their faith will affect their actions, said Fackre.

"The common theme in all of this is the need to link word and deed," he said. "It matters what our leaders say they believe. But it's even more important to see who will answer questions about what they want to do, as president. We have to be able to make a decision about whether they will walk the walk, not just talk the talk."

He was God's man, not God's coach

On Friday afternoons, Tom Landry and his secretary used to work their way through hundreds of letters from Dallas Cowboy fans around the world, answering every one of them.

A few years before owner Jerry Jones shoved him out the door, Landry received a letter that left him shaken and speechless. A mother was worried because her 10-year-old son was still depressed, even though it had been weeks since the Cowboys failed to make the playoffs. Could the coach help?

"I really didn't know what to say," Landry told me, back in 1987. "That breaks your heart. ... Sometimes, things can just get out of hand."

Nevertheless, the coach also knew there had been times when his relentless, methodical approach to his work crossed the same line. The public saw the stoic general pacing the sideline, nattily dressed in office clothes and his trademark fedora. But sometimes, he admitted, his composure cracked after bitter losses and he wrestled with anger and depression. Landry learned to call this problem by its proper name.

"I know that's a sin," he said. "I learned that I could go home, get down on my knees and confess that to God. I mean, what is football next to God?"

Last week, the Hall-of-Fame coach lost a one-year battle with acute myelogenous leukemia. He was 75. Landry was the Cowboy's first coach and, in nearly three decades, turned his tacky expansion team into "America's team," winning two Super Bowls, five NFC crowns, 13 divisional titles and 270 games.

Along the way, the Texas native also became a legend in a state in which it is an understatement to say that football is often confused with religion.

Anyone who grew up in Texas in the 1970s knows why the Cowboys' stadium was built with that big hole in the roof.

Why's that, you ask? So that God would have an unobstructed view of his team.

Some fans called Landry "God's coach." Landry didn't like that. It's true that he was a leader in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. But he was not the kind of gridiron evangelist who claimed that God gave him the power, when he was an all-pro defensive back, to make game-saving plays. As a coach, he never hinted that God whispered game-winning plays in his ear.

There have always been players who, when facing reporters after the big game, stick in a plug for Jesus as the ultimate coach and teammate.

That was not Landry's style. While he never publicly criticized this brand of muscular Christianity, he went out of his way to promote another approach. Landry was, after all, a mainline Methodist and not given to emotional displays. The athlete with whom he was most closely identified was quarterback Roger Staubach -- a devout Roman Catholic.

Landry delivered a more sobering message.

Truth is, the bottom line for most people is the bottom line, said Landry, speaking in a Leighton Ford crusade in Charlotte in the early 1980s. Many people think that they worship God, but they really bow down to money, success and ego. This is true for all kinds of highly driven professionals -- not just athletes.

"We have to learn to look for higher things in life," he said. "Now, God does want us to use all our talents to the best of our abilities and, if you're a football player or a coach, that means you're supposed to do your best to win. I want to be a winner and I want to seek excellence. ... But I have had to learn to keep my priorities straight."

It was about the time that he took the Dallas job, said Landry, that he realized "football had been my religion." His faith and his family were getting the short end of the stick. After that, he prayed for God to deliver him from his obsession with football, not to deliver him victories on the field.

"It probably doesn't hurt for people to pray for their team to win, but that doesn't mean they'll win," said the coach, laughing. "Besides, there are much better things to pray about."

Because Ideas Have Consequences

The powers that be at Hillsdale College applauded when Chuck Colson delivered his lecture that was, with a nod to Fyodor Dostoevsky, entitled "Can man be good without God?"

But there was one problem. When the Christian apologist reviewed a version of his text prepared for Hillsdale's "Imprimis" newsletter, he saw that all of his references to Jesus were missing. When Colson protested to Lissa Roche, the college president's daughter-in-law and strong right hand, she said it was campus policy not to "use the Lord's name in any of their publications." President George Roche III finally allowed two references to Jesus.

In hindsight, it was a highly symbolic dispute.

This was long before Lissa Roche shot herself in the head and before George Roche IV said his wife had confessed to a 19-year affair with his father. Then President Roche resigned. Then officials on the Michigan campus began hinting that Lissa Roche had been unstable and delusional. Then, as the media storm raged, insiders began trying to draw a line between "Christian education" and merely "conservative education."

"What Roche was trying to do at Hillsdale ... was to create a strong pro-family, pro-traditional values institution -- but keep it secular," said Colson, in a radio commentary. "Many politicians try to do the same thing, giving us the impression that we can create a good and just society on our own, without reference to a transcendent moral authority. ... It just doesn't work."

The map of American academia is dotted with "Christian colleges" that have evolved into liberal carbon copies of their secular counterparts. Hillsdale offers a rare academic cautionary tale about a secular brand of conservatism.

The key is that "Christian colleges" must not cut the ties that bind them to their churches, according to Father James Tunstead Burtchaell, former provost of the University of Notre Dame. In his book "The Dying of the Light," he shows how colleges keep following the same path on issues affecting finances, faculty, morality, doctrine and student recruiting.

In America, most religious schools began as tiny, struggling communities led by clergy and other church leaders who mixed ministry and academics. They had modest goals and emphasized teaching. While they stressed personal piety, they also -- because they needed tuition dollars -- tried not to be too exclusive. "Chapel services" were religious, but they were not true church services.

The schools that survived eventually attracted wealthy donors and broader community support. These schools could then afford better faculty, which, by definition, meant ranking prestigious degrees and scholarship above church ties and spiritual leadership, said Burtchaell, during a Washington, D.C., conference on trends in Catholic higher education.

Campus religious life would remain vital, for a few decades, but led by chaplains and campus ministers. Faculty members vanished during services. Later, this faculty indifference on religious issues would turn into cynical sniping and then open hostility.

This kind of college, said Burtchaell, has a head and a heart, but they are not connected. The bank accounts and secular accreditation reports are solid, but the spirit is weak.

As Christian colleges gained "sophistication and financial stability, they naturally suffered church fools less gladly," he said. Besides, defending divisive doctrines was bad for fundraising. Eventually, "worship and moral behavior were easily set aside because no one could imagine they had anything to do with learning," he said.

"You know the battle is lost," said Burtchaell, "when a school has no meaningful ties to a church, no real sense of accountability or communion, yet its leaders keep talking about its religious heritage or some vague sense of cultural values. ... That cannot last. The church is the ground of the faith, not the college."

Meanwhile, Hillsdale has reassured supporters that its work will go on, unchanged.

The first post-scandal issue of "Imprimis" -- with its motto, "Because Ideas Have Consequences" -- ended by saying: "Hillsdale is not a church-affiliated college. We do not represent any denomination, but we are an institution that has never forgotten its Judeo-Christian roots. ... We at Hillsdale College consider the sons and daughters who have been entrusted to us for a short while as most worthy of the highest things."

The Third World Anglicans act

For the worldwide Anglican Communion, July 29, 1974, was a day when old ties were broken and new bonds were formed.

That was when four Episcopal bishops broke tradition by ordaining -- without permission from their hierarchy -- the "Philadelphia 11" as the first female Anglican priests. Liberals said they had to violate one tradition, to obey a higher tradition of equality and justice. Traditionalists said this radical action would only create more schisms.

Now, Anglican historians have to underline Jan. 29, 2000.

This was when an international circle of archbishops and bishops broke church tradition by consecrating -- without permission from their hierarchy -- two American priests to serve as "missionary bishops" to help rescue the splintered Episcopal Church. Traditionalists said they had to violate one tradition, to obey a higher tradition of scripture and creeds. Liberals said this radical action would only create more schisms.

The two men raised to the episcopate were the Very Rev. John Rodgers, the retired dean of the conservative Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa., and the Rev. Chuck Murphy III, rector of the historic, but booming, All Saints Church in Pawleys Island, S.C. They were consecrated in St. Andrews Cathedral in Singapore.

"Our calling is to minister to those congregations who believe that the authority of scripture and the historic creeds are central to our faith, conduct and unity as Anglicans," said Murphy. "We are committed to lead the church, not leave it."

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold was appalled by the news, seeing as how it screams that many believe his church is a heresy-haunted domain in need of missionaries.

"I have been profoundly disturbed by the caricature that has been presented of the Episcopal Church," he said, writing to the other Anglican primates. "To be sure there are divergent views on the question of human sexuality which are supported by different readings and interpretations of the biblical texts, but in no way is the biblical record treated as other than the word of God. ... I know of no active bishops who are other than completely orthodox in their understanding of the creeds."

This depends on what "active" means, as well as "orthodox."

Griswold himself once told the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Broadly speaking, the Episcopal Church is in conflict with scripture. ... (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."

America's best-known bishop is the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong of Newark, who has publicly stated that "Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead" and that it's "nonsensical" to say Jesus is God Incarnate. Spong recently retired, but neither the present nor the previous presiding bishops has ever publicly criticized Spong's theological views.

Meanwhile, a church court has ruled that Episcopalians have no "core doctrines" on marriage and sex. Episcopal clerics have led rites that included the worship of other gods.

Old ties are being broken and new bonds are being formed. Whatever happens, the Anglican Communion will never be the same.

The bishops who took part in the consecrations included Third World and America critics of the Episcopal establishment. The consecrators were Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda; Archbishop Moses Tay of South East Asia and Bishop John Ruchyahana of the Diocese of Shyira in Rwanda. They were assisted by retired South Carolina Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison, retired Memphis Bishop Alex Dickson and Bishop David Pytches, the former Bishop of Chile, Bolivia and Peru.

Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey called the consecrations "irresponsible" and a "grave disappointment." But the global wave of reactions also included this reflection by Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, whose diocese is home to the Rt. Rev. John Rodgers. In one discussion of this crisis, Duncan recalled that Archbishop Kolini bluntly described why he could not ignore the pleas of Americans who were urging him to act.

"We Rwandans have been refugees all our lives. We will always respond to the plight of refugees," said Kolini. The archbishop also said: "At the genocide in 1994, the whole world stood back and no one came to Rwanda's aid. We will never stand back, while others are similarly threatened -- physically or spiritually."

Amish choices in Y2K

HINKLETOWN, Pa. -- It was hard to see William and Minnie Stauffer in their traditional black clothes, since the only light inside the Pike Church came from a crimson winter sunset over the Amish Country hills.

It was hard to hear the story of how the Old-Order Mennonites came to Lancaster County, since there was no pulpit microphone the cold wooden pews were full of squirming young visitors. But it was easy to hear one of modernity's signature sounds, when a cellular telephone sang out over on the women's side of the sanctuary.

The children on this seventh-grade field trip giggled. Their host smiled.

"Feel free to take your call if you really need to," he told the chaperone. "We don't mind if you use your telephones. But you do need to go outside our church, to do that."

The present keeps threatening to drown out the past, like the trucks that shake this old church as they roar past a few feet away on Highway 322. It's getting harder for the minivans and SUVs to swerve around the horse-drawn buggies. Last year, some locals even faced Y2K complications, since tourists use credit cards, to the tune of $1.2 billion a year.

Many Amish have packed their wagons and moved to farms in more remote areas, far from the outlet malls. There are 20,000 traditional Amish left in the county, out of a population of 450,000. There are about 200,000 old-order Amish in America, living in 23 states.

Amish bishops face the ongoing challenge of discerning what to shun and what to embrace. It's OK to use a modern sewing machine, if it's powered by a special manual foot-pedal. Natural gas and air-compressors can work wonders, when connected to refrigerators, stoves and water pumps.

But if the Amish use modern banks, what about their ATM machines? Modern bicycles are forbidden, but what about roller blades? An Amish businessman may refuse to have an office telephone line. But can his non-Amish partner sit at a nearby desk and take calls on a cellular phone? Is it sinful to sell handmade quilts through a middleman at www.amish-heartland.com?

Amish parents used to worry about the subtle signals sent by buttons, bonnets and broaches or the intricate rites of courting using bachelor buggies to go to church socials.

Today, some teens see R-rated movies, go to beer bashes and blast out heavy-metal tunes in local bands, during the years before they make their life-defining decisions to join or to flee the church. This wild-oats tradition is called "rumschpringes," which, in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect, means "running around." In 1997, press reports of drug abuse led to a shocking memo to Amish parents -- warning them to study the details of their children's live, including looking for needle marks.

The times keep changing, but Amish young people still face the same choice, said Lena Zehr, a staff member at a Lancaster County museum called the Amish Farm. They know they cannot live the same lives as their 17th-century European ancestors or even of their parents and grandparents. But they still have to decide whether they will attempt to reject the standards of the modern world. She estimated the 90 percent join the church.

"Try to imagine what that would be like," said Zehr, facing another two busloads of children from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., or Baltimore, or Philadelphia, or Pittsburgh, or anywhere else, for that matter. "All your life, you have known that you were different. You were supposed to be separate from the world. Your clothes were different. Your home was different. If you are a little Amish girl, you look like your mother. If you are a little Amish boy, you look like your father."

The children looked around the bedroom in this archetypal Amish home, at the clothes, the quilts, the oil lamps and the old books. A sampler over the bed said: "Heaven is my home."

"If you are an Amish child you are always thinking: Do I want the modern things? Do I want that car? Do I want be one of the new people, one of the English? ... What would you choose? Can you even imagine making such a choice?"

Got those born-again feelings, again

Journalists rarely get to use terms such as "White House," New Age" and "seance" in the same story.

But they did in 1996, when the news broke that Hillary Rodham Clinton and her "sacred psychologist" Jean Houston were using meditation and visualization techniques to chat with Eleanor Roosevelt. Commentators smirked and said this behavior was wacky, if not "cult-like."

For scholar Wade Clark Roof, this ruckus was perfectly timed to aid his ongoing research into the Baby Boomer soul. Out in sanctuary pews and on suburban couches, Roof and his associates found that, as expected, the fundamentalist Protestants and Catholic traditionalists that he calls "Dogmatists" were outraged, while his "Secularists," "Metaphysical Seekers" and "Mainline Believers" were not.

The big news was that most "Born-Again Evangelicals" were taking the news in stride. As one born-again woman in North Carolina said, the first lady's rites were "a bit weird I must admit, but if that's what she wants and it helps her, that's what counts."

Hidden in his data is what Roof believes is a major trend. He is convinced there has been a seismic shift in America's spiritual landscape, one that has great implications for everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Billy Graham, from Al Gore to George W. Bush. To state it bluntly, the born-again label doesn't mean what it used to mean.

Consider, for example, reports that actress Jane Fonda is attending a Baptist church and has embraced the faith that her estranged husband Ted Turner once called a "religion for losers." From newspaper accounts, it seems clear she has had some kind of profound spiritual experience. She may, eventually, even call a press conference and say she has been born again. But this does not necessarily mean that Fonda, or any other born-again believer, has made radical changes in her personal convictions.

"It's crucial to understand that what unites most of the people who call themselves born-again Christians is their claim to have had a highly personal spiritual experience that has changed their lives," said Roof, whose most recent book is entitled "Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion."

"You are born again," he added, "because of certain feelings and emotions and experiences, not because you believe any particular set of doctrines or because you share certain beliefs about moral issues. ... Born-again Christians are increasingly becoming part of the American mainstream."

A third of America's 77-million Baby Boomers call themselves born-again Christians. According to Roof's most recent research, only 55 percent or so have any link to a conservative-Protestant denomination. In terms of their backgrounds, 38 percent grew up as evangelicals or fundamentalists, 28 percent as Catholics, 27 percent as mainline Protestants and another 7 percent as Jews or as members of some other harder-to-define group. Twenty percent say they are not members of a local congregation. Many prefer to watch religious television programs or attend a "house church" or another fellowship group.

Many born-again Boomers believe they have made a spiritual decision that is right for them, but not necessarily for everyone. Half affirmed that the various religions of the world are "equally good and true," and the younger the born-again Christian, the more likely he or she was to say this. A third of the born-again believers said they believe in reincarnation and astrology. And 48 percent of the born-again Christians said "yes" when asked, "Should a married woman who doesn't want any more children be able to obtain a legal abortion?"

As a rule, born-again Christians now join other Americans in saying they are "spiritual," rather than "religious." In the 1950s, said Roof, evangelicals tried to distance themselves from "liberal churches" and secular society. Today, increasing numbers of evangelicals want to make sure they are not seen as too doctrinaire or too judgmental and, thus, as fundamentalists.

"All of this is very American," said Roof. "Americans like new beginnings and new chances to start over. Being born again appeals to them. ... But Americans don't put much faith in institutions or traditions or doctrines. They aren't sure that they need a church. Americans believe in themselves and they trust their own experiences, more than anything."

Just another voice on the Metro

WASHINGTON -- The elderly black woman began preaching moments after the train left the Capitol South subway station.

"Praise the Lord. It's a good day," she said, starting a 20-minute sermon as her rush-hour congregation rolled toward the Maryland suburbs.

Her voice was calm, strong and serious. She was carrying a cane and, I wouldn't dare make this up this detail, a fragrant box of spicy fried chicken. I didn't take precise notes, but what follows is real close to what she said. My father was a Southern Baptist preacher and I have a knack for remembering sermons.

"God's grace is real, but that doesn't mean you can just keep on sinning and sinning and sinning," she said, gazing straight ahead. "God is watching all the time. God sees all of you. ... Our God is a Holy God."

People kept their eyes down, reading their newspapers and paperbacks. A young black woman across the aisle giggled. "Oh no, it's church," she whispered to a friend. New riders glanced around in surprise, as they boarded the crowded car. But no one challenged the preacher or asked her to stop.

"God doesn't ask that much of us," she said. "He wants us to love each other and take care of each other and follow the commandments that are in His Word. Is that too much to ask?"

A youngster listening to rap on headphones said, "Preach it, sister." Surely the collision between the pounding music and the sermon was causing a storm in her head. At first she was amused. Then she began shooting daggers at the preacher with her eyes.

"I know what you're thinking," said the elderly woman. "You're saying, 'How are we supposed to know how we're supposed to live?' ... You know what the Bible says: 'For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.' You all know that verse, right?"

No one answered.

"Sweet Jesus is all the guide we need. But God also gave us his Word. You open up your Bible and read it and tell me that God hasn't made himself perfectly clear how we're supposed to live. The Bible is God's book. There's no other book like it. Some of you may go to church and you may read your Bible. But have you ever let it get inside you and change you? That's what I'm talking about. We've got to change on the inside. We've got to change how we live."

I moved to the Washington, D.C., area six months ago and I have, in that short time, seen many people reading worn-out Bibles on trains. But I think I have seen exactly one white person reading a Bible. I wonder how many white believers ride around in the political capital of the world looking at these faithful black Christians, wondering who they are, why they are marking up their Bibles, what churches they go to and why we seem to live in separate worlds.

Come to think of it, I haven't read my Bible on the Metro either. I wonder what this preacher would think of that? I was reading a stack of religion-news magazines and wearing a cross. I wondered: Was this good, or bad? Was I a fake, to her?

By the time we reached the last station, out by the Beltway, many people had left their seats and were lining up to exit -- even quicker than normal.

The preacher brought her message to a close.

"What I'm saying is that God loves you and sent his Son to die for you. But I know that many of you are not listening," she said, still in her seat. "Maybe one person will go home tonight and think about what I am saying. Maybe God will touch one person's heart and they will go home and talk to their children about Jesus. Maybe one person will pray with their children tonight.

"That's why I'm saying what I'm saying. If one person hears the Word, then this is worth it. Just one person."

She was the last person to leave the train.

Intolerant Christians in the public square

As they lurched through a blinding snowstorm over Tokyo, the Rev. Billy Graham watched as the nervous pilot focused single-mindedly on his cockpit instruments.

When it came time to land that plane, the pilot and the air-traffic controllers followed a dogmatic set of rules. They were intolerant of errors, and Graham was thankful for that.

"I did not want these men to be broad-minded," he said, in a sermon that is currently circulating on the Internet. "I knew that our lives depended on it."

There are times, said the evangelist, when tolerance is bad. For centuries, Christians have proclaimed that the journey from earth to heaven is like any other difficult journey. It is crucial to have accurate directions and a trustworthy pilot, when souls are at stake. Thus, Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Jesus is intolerant, said Graham, when it comes to matters of salvation.

Try defending that stance on CNN. By the end of 1999, pundits and politicos were starting to suggest that evangelism equals hate speech.

The anonymous person who launched this text into cyberspace, with the title "Jesus was not tolerant," has a good memory and a nose for news. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's records indicate that this sermon was delivered in 1956, before being published as an evangelistic tract in 1957, 1984 and 1996.

The bottom line: If the world's most famous evangelist preached the same sermon today, it would make headlines and draw flack on the evening news. It would be hard to imagine anyone making a more inflammatory statement than the one attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John: "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

Questions about heaven, hell and salvation have been lurking between the lines of many news stories. Politicians want to bless new ties binding the government and "faith-based charities," so long as workers don't proselytize. GOP frontrunner George W. Bush said Jesus saved his soul and that other people may not understand what that means. Evangelical military chaplains have said they are being told to preach safe, non-judgmental sermons - or else.

While visiting India, Pope John Paul II said "there can be no true evangelization without the explicit proclamation of Jesus as Lord." The heir to Graham's pulpit - his son Franklin - angered many non-evangelicals when he urged non-Christians at the Columbine High School memorial service to turn to Jesus, before it was too late. The list goes on and on.

Leaders of the 15.8 million-member Southern Baptist Convention have repeatedly refused to cease their efforts to evangelize all non-Christians - including Jews, Muslims and Hindus. The interfaith Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago cried "foul" and said an upcoming Southern Baptist evangelistic push "could contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes" in the city.

Asked about President Clinton's view of this controversy, press secretary Joe Lockhart said the Southern Baptist in the White House is convinced that one of the new century's major challenges will be "dealing with intolerance and coming to grips with the long-held resentments between religions. So I think he's been very clear in his opposition to whatever organizations, including the Southern Baptists, that perpetuate ancient religious hatred."

Southern Baptist leaders immediately cried "foul," accused Lockhart of being hateful and called for his resignation. The Rev. Morris Chapman, president of the SBC's executive committee, said: "It is the right of every person to agree or disagree with the internal doctrines of Christianity, but we believe for any governmental office to endeavor to pressure Christians to change their doctrines or practices is improper and reprehensible."

This conflict will not fade away.

There is no question that the First Amendment protects the free speech of non-Christians and others who are offended by intolerant, narrow-minded Christians who proclaim that Jesus is the only savior for all of humankind. Right now, the question appears to be whether Christian evangelists will retain their right to preach that message in the public square.

A rose for 1999

Moments before the fateful lunch break, a Columbine High School classmate saw Rachel Joy Scott drawing in one of her spiral-bound journals.

It was a pencil sketch of a rose, which her family believes was meant to symbolize youth. The poet, dancer, musician and missionary also drew two eyes - weeping 13 tears onto the rose. Police found the journal in her bloody, bullet-pierced backpack.

Why 13 tears? Then, Scott's journal ended with this prayer: "Am I the only one who sees? Am I the only one who craves Your glory? Am I the only one who longs to be forever in Your loving arms? All I want is for someone to walk with me through these halls of a tragedy."

There were many important religion news stories this year -- from Kosovo to Kansas. But it was Columbine's shattering images of evil, faith, violence and courage that dominated 1999, inspiring fierce debates about whether America's soul is twisted. The massacre followed a bloody stream of school violence and preceded the slaughter of seven worshippers in Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Was Columbine a clash between pietistic believers and bitter acolytes for a media-fueled youth culture, or a cautionary tale about tolerance and guns? My answer is "all of the above," and Columbine tops my list of the top 10 religion news stories of the year.

In an April 20, 1998, journal entry - precisely one year before the tragedy - Scott wrote: "I have no more personal friends at school. But you know what? I am not going to apologize for speaking the name of Jesus, I am not going to justify my faith to them, and I am not going to hide the light that God has put into me. If I have to sacrifice everything I will. I will take it."

In their pre-rampage videotapes, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold discussed - in their litany of hate - how they wanted to start a "religious war" and mocked a girl named Rachel who had shared her Christian faith.

In audio tapes aired on CNN, and transcripts released by parents, Klebold said: "Stuck-up little b----, you f------ little Christianity, godly little w----."

Harris: "Yeah, 'I love Jesus, I love Jesus.'... Shut the f--- up."

Klebold: "What would Jesus do? What would I DO? (Makes shotgun sound at camera)"

Yet Columbine insiders know it could have been much worse, said the Rev. Bruce Porter, who preached at Scott's funeral. They also know that Harris and Klebold were not uniquely wicked villains, but bright young men who managed to hide their rage. This could have happened anywhere.

"We want to know: How could these students have done these evil acts? Where did this rage come from? It looked like these students had every advantage in life, or at least they had everything that our world considers an advantage in life," said Porter. "All of this just exploded on us. Columbine has become the Pearl Harbor of the culture wars."

Here are the remaining events on my 1999 list.

2. Secular Serbs clash with secular Albanians in Kosovo, while diplomats ignore the peace efforts of all faith groups. NATO bombs Serbia during Holy Week and on Pascha (Easter).

3. China arrests 35,000-plus members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, while continuing crackdown on underground Protestants and Catholics.

4. President Clinton impeached, but not convicted, in a riveting showdown between the religious right and the lifestyle left. His ultimate defense is that he could not have committed perjury, because of his biblical interpretation of what is and what is not "sex."

5. Kansas State Board of Education shelves mandatory tests covering Darwin's theory of macroevolution and allows teachers to cover controversies linked to Darwinian philosophy. The "intelligent design" approach to creation issues continues to rise.

6. Coalition of Protestants and Catholics begins governing Northern Ireland.

7. Is evangelism hate speech? Southern Baptist Convention attacked for efforts to convert Jews, Muslims and Hindus. Pope John Paul II visits India, stressing that "there can be no true evangelization without the explicit proclamation of Jesus as Lord."

8. U.S. Catholic bishops pass guidelines enforcing the pope's "Ex corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church)," a philosophical map for life on 235 college campuses.

9. George W. Bush's sermons at Second Baptist Church in Houston trigger a rush of spiritual testimonies, and calls for "faith-based" social work, by White House wannabes.

10. Y2K: apocalypse or a symbolic signpost?