New questions about the shroud, part one

Once a week, Barrie Schwortz digs into the computer data that describe who is using his Web site dedicated to news, photographs and scientific papers about the Shroud of Turin.

The report doesn't give names, but does show where people work. Scrolling through the "dot.edu" addresses yields scores of hits from Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale and numerous other campuses. Some codes in the "dot.gov" listings are tougher to decipher. Nevertheless, a trained eye can spot the Los Alamos National Labs, the Lawrence Livermore National Labs, the National Science Foundation and other research centers.

And out in cyberspace, there are clusters of NASA folks who are still curious about that 14-foot herringbone sheet at the Cathedral of Turin. This, despite the 1988 carbon-14 work that indicated it was woven between 1260 and 1390.

"Carbon dating is like the Holy Grail of science for a lot of people," said Schwortz, the official photographer for the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project. "But if the carbon dating had really proven, definitively, that the shroud was fake, nobody would be hitting my site except religious fanatics. The fact is, there are fascinating unanswered questions that keep pulling hard-core scientists back to that piece of cloth."

Meanwhile, many Christians sincerely believe this is the burial cloth of Jesus, and cite historic and scientific reasons for doing so, as well as the testimonies of faith and church tradition. The shroud will be displayed between Aug. 12 and Oct. 22, the fifth public exhibition since 1898.

The problem is that each shroud study seems to raise new questions, while providing few rock-solid answers. In 1898, Secondo Pia discovered the image is a photographic negative and, in 1976, Colorado researchers proved that it contains three-dimensional data. The image contains scores of technical details about crucifixion that had been lost for centuries, only to be discovered by modern archaeologists and pathologists. All but a few researchers have concluded that its ghostly image of a whipped and crucified man consists of lightly scorched fibers, not pigments.

The 1978 project yielded a treasure drove of data and research materials, including the 2,700 photographs that form the backbone of the Schwortz internet site (www.shroud.com) and his upcoming book with British historian Ian Wilson, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence." But research money all but vanished after the carbon-14 test results and waves of headlines proclaiming "The Shroud is a Fake."

Meanwhile, critics kept suggesting ways that the shroud could have been created. Other teams of researchers tested each theory, and found them lacking. As a researcher at Los Alamos once told me: "We've tested every method we can think of and none of them work. ... It seems like we have proven that the shroud doesn't exist. The only problem is that it does."

By 1995, Schwortz said he was sickened to realize that the only place Americans could read about the Shroud of Turin was in supermarket checkout lines. Tabloid headlines screamed that Leonardo da Vinci had invented photography to produce the image, or aliens did it, or that scientists were poised to use DNA from blood samples to clone Jesus.

But behind the scenes, research was proceeding -- work that is chronicled in a growing number of Web sites. There has been new work in Israel focusing on plant pollens that could help scientists trace the shroud's history, on characteristics of the cloth samples that may have skewed the carbon-dating process and on fascinating similarities between the shroud and the Sudarium Christi (Face Cloth of Christ) in the Cathedral of Oviedo, Spain.

The upcoming exhibit may inspire renewed media coverage and, thus, public interest, said Schwortz.

"At this point," he said, "I think that there is more evidence indicating that the cloth is authentic than there is that it's a fake. I say that, and I'm a Jew, so it's hard for people to accuse me of Christian bias. But there are so many questions to be answered and some that may never be answered. That's what this is all about -- big, big questions."

An Easter question -- liar, lunatic or Lord?

Every now and then, messiahs slip past newspaper security personnel and pay visits to religion reporters, offering scoops on the end of the world and other hot stories.

Guards can spot those who wear robes or offer other clues that they may not currently reside in a known zip code. Nevertheless, a prophet who looked like Elvis once reached my desk at the Charlotte Observer. The great religion writer Russell Chandler, now retired from the Los Angeles Times, has threatened to write a memoir entitled "Messiahs I Have Known."

The Rev. Lee Strobel encountered a few messiahs in mental hospitals during his years as the Chicago Tribune's ultra-skeptical legal affairs reporter.

"I met people who said they were Jesus on a fairly regular basis," he said. "But anyone can claim to be God. The question is whether they can back that up. That's why the resurrection is so crucial for Christians."

This controversy never dies. Thus, every Easter magazines and newspapers try to find a way to put Jesus on page one, often focusing on debates about the resurrection, life after death or the truthfulness of Christian scriptures.

Book publishers feed off this cycle as well, offering a stream of works by skeptics and believers. Most cover familiar territory in scripture, archeology, history and church tradition. But one chapter in Strobel's popular "The Case For Christ" veers off the usual path. It's called "Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed to be the Son of God?"

This was one of the hard questions that Strobel asked two decades ago, when he dissected his wife's newborn Christian faith using his Yale Law School skills. He spent two years investigating the evidence relevant to the story of Jesus and, in the end, the atheist was converted and then ordained. He currently is "writer in residence" at the giant Saddleback Community Church in Orange County, Calif.

Most Americans say that they believe in God, Jesus and the Bible. But in this tolerant age, noted Strobel, many gloss over the church's claims that Jesus is the only savior, for all humanity. This raises two questions: Did Jesus say that he is divine? If he did, was he sane?

Here is how Christian apologist C.S. Lewis put it: "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse."

Strobel asked the president of the American Association of Christian Counselors to describe sanity. The key, said Gary Collins, is not what a person says or even what emotions he displays. Psychologists are primarily interested in whether a person responds to his environment in a way that is inappropriate.

Thus, it's normal that Jesus wept when a friend died. Faced with injustice, he got mad. He knew that many opposed him, yet did not slide into paranoia. Jesus seems to have related well to ordinary people, yet also to leaders and crowds. Even some of the radical events in his life -- such as his extreme fasting in the wilderness -- fit within the norms for mystics of his day.

Yet when Jesus made messianic claims, many immediately said that he was insane and irrational. Disciples answered those charges by saying his actions, especially his miracles, are not those of a madman. The debates rage on, today. Some critics -- such as British author A. N. Wilson now suggest that Jesus was a skilled hypnotist.

What's impossible to find is a safe niche in the muddy middle, said Strobel.

"We have so many people today who say they believe, but they live their lives like atheists," he said. "They want to say that Jesus' teachings were nice and that he was wise and compassionate, but then they don't follow through and make a decision about his central claim. At some point an honest person has to ask -- was Jesus the Son of God, or a madman?"

Year 12 -- Microsoft, Mozart & hell

For the principalities and powers at Microsoft, these are the times that try geeks' souls.

Then again, maybe an even more serious judgment day lies ahead.

Not long ago, Microsoft's advertising team came up with a cheery slogan to assure consumers that the software giant understands the daily challenges faced by ordinary people. One of these spots features a snippet of Mozart's Requiem, juxtaposed with Microsoft's omnipresent question, "Where do you want to go today?"

A recent issue of the journal InfoWorld noted that this was a strange question to ask while the choir urgently sang: "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis (The damned and accursed are consigned to the flames of hell)."

But there is hope. A friend who is a classics scholar, Father Patrick Henry Reardon, informs me that these lines from the "Dies Irae" are composed, grammatically speaking, in the "ablative absolute." This is a dependent clause and, thus, the thought should be completed with its principal clause, which is: "Voca me cum benedictis (Summon me with the blessed)."

So who is blessed and who is cursed? In this case, a federal judge will make that decision.

This bizarre anecdote can only mean one thing. Every year I mark the anniversary of the birth of this column -- this is No. 12 -- by offering a buffet of my favorite off-beat leftovers from my mailbox. It's that time again, so dig in.

* Columns about church-music trends always provoke reactions. My commentary on "post-contemporary worship" inspired several readers to send the same parable, which explained the difference between "hymns" and "praise choruses."

"It's like this," a farmer explained to his wife. "If I were to say to you, 'Martha, the cows are in the corn,' that would be a hymn. If, on the other hand, I was to say to you, 'Martha, Martha, Martha, oh Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black-and-white cows, the COWS, COWS, COWS, are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn,' that would be a praise chorus."

* A personal request: Please, do not send more updates about the photograph of Shirley MacLaine in Los Angeles that is supposedly weeping tears that heal people. That is so 1980s.

* Six prominent ministers recently gathered in Virginia Beach, Va., for a rite to renew religious broadcaster Pat Robertson's vows as an ordained minister, a role which he surrendered in 1988 to run for president. Among the clergy who placed his hands on Robertson's shoulders during the ordination prayers was Episcopal Bishop John Howe of Orlando. So I'm curious. Historically speaking, are we talking about the Rev. Pat Robertson or Father Pat Robertson?

* A reader's list of possible titles for Jewish country-western songs began with "I Was One of the Chosen People ('Til She Chose Somebody Else)." It ended with "Mamas Don't Let Your Ungrateful Sons Grow Up to Be Cowboys (When They Could Very Easily Have Just Taken Over the Family Business that My Own Grandfather Broke His Back to Start and My Father Built Up Over Years of Effort Which Apparently Doesn't Mean Anything Now That You're Turning Your Back on Such a Gift)"

* The end is near. Apparel Industry magazine noted that the peek-a-boo trend of girls flaunting ritzy bras, or faux bra-strap headbands, has reached some pews. "Even Mennonite girls are wearing it at church functions," wrote the editor.

* You have to admit that it took guts for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to put up a "Jesus was a vegetarian" billboard -- with an image of Christ with an orange-slice halo -- in cattle-crazy Amarillo, Texas. No, this had nothing to do with Oprah.

* If you get this joke, you probably grew up in the Bible Belt. "You might be a Southern Baptist if ... you know that Lottie Moon is not a member of the Unification Church."

* For those who remain anxious about the millennium, the Daystar International Ministry still has its 24-hour-a-day Webcam aimed at Jerusalem's Eastern Gate. The faithful can watch for the Second Coming at http://www.messiahcam.org.

* A reader passed along this puzzler: "Can atheists get insurance for acts of God?"

Why churches are silent on sex

All David Morrison has to do to find out what gay activists and religious conservatives are saying about each other is open his own mail.

"I guess the only way to end up on all the mailing lists that I'm on is to have lived my life," said Morrison, a thirtysomething journalist in Washington, D.C.

In college, he was a homosexual activist who specialized in arguing with Christians. Then he graduated into volunteer work with AIDS networks. In 1992, he burned out and embraced a gay-friendly brand of liberal Christianity. Today, Morrison is devout Roman Catholic who affirms all of his church's teachings on sex and marriage, including its stance that homosexuality is an "objective disorder." He has written an unusually candid book called "Beyond Gay" that challenges many dogmas on the religious right as well as on the lifestyle left.

As he reads his mail, Morrison said he is struck by a sad and ironic fact: He doesn't recognize the people that these culture warriors keep writing about.

"When you read the stuff on the gay mailing lists, conservative Christians are 10 feet tall and all-powerful and on a crusade to crush their enemies and destroy the freedoms that all Americans hold dear," he said. "But if you read what the conservative Christians are writing, it's the gays who are 10 feet tall and all-powerful and ruthless and they're taking over America. ... I always wonder: Who are these all-powerful people?"

Obviously, homosexuality remains a hot-button issue in most religious groups, from the Southern Baptist Convention to Reform Judaism and all points in between. There's no sign this will change anytime soon. But Morrison said he senses a radically different reality at the local level. In pulpits and pews, there is silence.

Why is this? Morrison has some theories of his own.

* Congregations rarely welcome realistic discussions about sex, whether from the pulpit or in religious education classes. Talking about heterosexual sex is bad enough. If they were honest, said Morrison, most conservatives would have to admit that they want gays and lesbians to simply go away, not to share their tough questions and painful life stories. This code of silence also applies to the parents of homosexuals, especially workaholic fathers, with their feelings of guilt and dread.

* As a rule, religious groups have trouble addressing feelings and issues faced by single adults -- period. "Few people," he said, "ever stop and ask: What does God want single people to do with their lives? What is their unique, God-given role in the body of Christ?"

* Militants on both sides hate to admit it, but many questions about the roots of sexual orientation remain unanswered. In his book, Morrison admits that some homosexuals, through prayer and therapy, are able to take significant changes toward heterosexual orientation. But this doesn't seem to be true for all -- including himself. The reality is that many people struggle to define themselves, as they experience both heterosexual and homosexual feelings.

"I think this is liberating, in a way," he said. "It means that everybody faces temptations. It means that feelings of confusion about sex are more common than some people want to admit. But this also means that more people find the subject threatening."

* Many clergy are afraid to admit that some married people wrestle with homosexuality, a fact that Morrison regularly encounters in Internet correspondence linked to a chastity-based Catholic support group called Courage. Of course, some pastors also fear confronting the reality of heterosexual sin in their flocks.

* Finally, many conservatives -- in their hearts -- believe that same-sex sins are truly more sinful than heterosexual sins, or non-sexual sins, for that matter. They believe that God considers gay sex more sinful than adultery or pre-marital sex. But they don't want to confess that this is what they believe.

So they remain silent.

"Let's face it," said Morrison. "It's always harder to confront the sins that are in our own lives or in the lives of people in our own families. That's just they way we are. That is what makes sin, sin, and so very personal."

Jerusalem, the in-between city

JERUSALEM -- Hidden in the maze of passageways and shrines that is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the Chapel of St. Nicodemus.

In this lesser-known sanctuary there is an electric light.

The intricate details of life in Jerusalem's holiest Christian site are governed by a Turkish "Status Quo" declaration from 1852, which tells the Roman Catholics, Greeks, Armenians, Copts, Syrians, Jacobites and Ethiopians what they can and can't do in their corners of the church. But tensions remain, along with scores of unanswered questions.

So Daniel Rossing knew he was in trouble when his telephone rang at Israel's Ministry for Religious Affairs and a caller said that the light in St. Nicodemus chapel had burned out. He quickly confirmed that both the Syrians and Armenians were claiming the right to do this simple maintenance task. Leaders on both sides warned him: We will fix the light in the morning.

"I had to do something -- fast," the veteran diplomat told a pack of journalists, during a recent walking tour of the Old City.

A reporter called out: "So, how many patriarchs does it take to change a light bulb?"

"No, no, that's not the point," said Rossing. "Let me finish."

Before dawn, Rossing slipped into the church and, when no one was watching, did what he had to do. Then he called the Syrian Orthodox bishop and, raising his voice in mock anger, told him that he had dragged himself out of bed to inspect the Chapel of St. Nicodemus only to find that the light was working just fine. Then he called the office of the Armenian patriarch and yelled exactly the same message.

Did Rossing change the bulb? In Jerusalem, it's best not to answer this kind of question.

"Yes, it was a game," said Rossing, who now serves as director of the Jerusalem Foundation's Christian Communities desk. "But there are a lot of dangerous conflicts and divisions in this city. ... In the end, I will always advocate that people learn how to play games, if they possible can."

Jerusalem is an ancient city with modern problems and a modern city with ancient problems. It is a Jewish city, a Christian city and a Muslim city. Everyone is part of a majority group, when viewed from one perspective, and a minority group, when viewed from another perspective. Police regularly encounter people claiming to be Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Mohammed or all of the above. The experts call this "Jerusalem syndrome."

The bottom line, said Rossing, is that Jerusalem is stuck at "a point of confusion somewhere between heaven and earth."

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a perfect example. Many pilgrims are disappointed when they enter and discover that, instead of one unified sanctuary, the church is like a liturgical chess board, on which players representing many church traditions move in intricate patterns that symbolize ancient divisions as well as common roots. Visitors expect to find perfection. Instead, they find the human as well as the holy.

"Holy Sepulcher isn't perfect. But it's real," said Rossing. "The same thing is true of Jerusalem. Many of this city's problems have no solution. ... We have to live in the in-between-ness of this city. Jerusalem is a laboratory of the in-between."

Rossing told a dozen true-life parables that made the same point. For example, an Eastern Orthodox church once received a donation to add two ornate domes, topped with Byzantine crosses. The problem was that this sanctuary was across the street from an enclave of ultra-Orthodox Jews. When the Jews looked up, to pray toward the Temple Mount, they could not avoid seeing these crosses. This was awkward, to say the least.

Israeli officials knew they could not require the Christians to remove the crosses. So Rossing asked them to turn the crosses -- a one-quarter turn. For the Jews across the street, the crossbeams vanished. All they saw were poles pointing up.

"Jerusalem is not a city that needs, and I know I am using loaded, provocative language, final solutions to these kinds of problems," said Rossing. "We have to take little steps. We have to learn to turn the crosses 90 degrees."

The pope, the rabbi and a story from the past

JERUSALEM -- In Pope John Paul II's first Christmas sermon, he shared his dream of making a pilgrimage to Israel, Jordan and the painful patchwork of land in between.

Any papal trip is a big news story. But the best way to grasp the historic nature of this pope's journey into the spiritual minefield called the Holy Land is to see it as a global story built on generations of personal stories -- some beautiful, some horrific. It's like an ancient mosaic that includes many shattered pieces, but the image is still there for all to see.

Here is one of those stories. It's a story that even brought tears to the eyes of some journalists, when told by the chief rabbi of Israel.

"The pope and I, we have some memories that we share ... about the time of Holocaust in the city of Krakow," said Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, who was an 8-year-old orphan when liberated from the Buchenwald death camp. "The pope even knew my grandfather. ... He told me he remembers seeing him walking to the synagogue on Shabbat, surrounded by children."

It was these roots that reminded the chief rabbi of a story, one documented in historian Martin Gilbert's classic volume "Holocaust Journey."

In the winter of 1942, Jewish parents were forced to make agonizing choices as the Nazis swept through the ghettos of Poland. Moses and Helen Hiller rushed in secret -- carrying 2-year-old Shachne -- to the home of some family friends, a childless Catholic couple named Jachowicz. The mother begged them to take the boy and gave them the address of family members in Washington, D.C.

The Hillers were taken to a camp that was only 40 minutes away -- Auschwitz.

"Three years passed," said Rabbi Lau. "World War II ended and they did not come back. The boy was a very Catholic boy and, by the age of four, he knew by heart all of the prayers of the church on Sunday. He understood that he was a Catholic boy, the child of the Jachowiczes. Nobody knew any different."

Finally, they decided to have Shachne baptized. They went to the nearest church in the village of Wadowice, where a young priest was completing his training. But before the rite was performed, Mrs. Jachowicz confessed the details of the boy's past. They loved the child, she said. They wanted him to stay in their home and in their church.

Father Karol Wojtyla listened and then asked one question: What do you think the boy's parents would want you do?

This devout Catholic woman was honest, said Rabbi Lau. She said, "I don't have to imagine. I know. I will never forget. My friend, Helen Hiller, my neighbor, stood at the door, giving the last look on her baby, which was in my arms, and she said to me ... 'In case, God forbid, that we will not come back, please, do all the efforts to give Shachne back into Jewish arms.' "

The priest was gentle, but firm. He would not baptize the child. Father Wojtyla, of course, became a bishop, then an archbishop, a cardinal and, in 1978, Pope John Paul II.

During an historic meeting at the pope's mountain retreat, Castel Gandolfo, the chief rabbi said he had a chance to ask John Paul -- almost 50 years later -- if the story was true. Yes, this was one of several such cases, said the pope. Also, the pontiff knew that the boy made it to America, where he had, in fact, become an observant Jew.

A story of this kind does not answer all of the questions that loom over dialogues between Catholics and Jews, or erase centuries of misunderstandings and betrayals, said Rabbi Lau. But what it does is suggest why this pope has made so many efforts to reach out to Jews, which John Paul calls the "senior brothers" of a monotheistic family.

"What I believe is this," said the chief rabbi. "John Paul knows, in his very heart, through his own experiences, our sufferings in the darkest time of history. I understand that he understands us."

The gospel according to Grisham

Something mysterious happened in the wilds of Brazil when the morally bankrupt lawyer Nate O'Reilly finally found missionary Rachel Lane, the illegitimate heir of a one of America's richest men.

She didn't want $11 billion. Instead, she wanted him to repent, be healed of his alcoholism and claim an outrageous gift -- new life. The lawyer confessed his sins and then prayed his way through a case of jungle fever. But weeks later, he sat shaking in a pew, wracked by doubt. He wept and listed his many sins, one more time.

The story continues: "Nate closed his eyes ... and called God's name. God was waiting. ... In one glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God. He held nothing back. He unloaded enough baggage to crush any three men. ... 'I'm sorry,' he whispered to God. 'Please help me.' As quickly as the fever had left his body, he felt the baggage leave his soul. With one gentle brush of the hand, his slate had been wiped clean."

For decades, Christian writers have called this kind of plot twist the "Billy Graham scene," referring to the moments in Graham's old movies where the music swells and the protagonist gets born again. One reason "Christian" fiction is supposed to be so bad -- and noncommercial -- is that the genre's unwritten rules require zap-the-sinners conversion scenes.

These folks need a new excuse. The scene described above is from "The Testament," the 10th bestseller by John Grisham, that Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher with all the super-sized sales statistics. His new legal thriller, "The Brethren," can be found anywhere on the planet -- except in "Christian bookstores."

So far, three of his 11 novels include conversions of this sort, said Grisham, during a recent "Art & Soul" conference at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. The novelist rarely speaks publicly -- his family lives quietly on farms near Charlottesville, Va., and Oxford, Miss. -- and he knew his appearance in such a high-profile Southern Baptist venue would take him into the tense turf between the Bible and the New York Times bestseller list.

"I am a Christian who writes novels. I'm not a Christian writer," he explained. "I'm not writing Christian literature. When I was a lawyer, I was a Christian who was a lawyer and tried to live my faith -- not just in my profession, but in every thing that I would do. I think God is involved in (my writing), as with all the other aspects of my life."

When asked the source of his writing skills, Grisham noted that he studied accounting in college -- drawing a roar of laughter. In law school, he emphasized tax law. He has never taken a creative writing course. But it was crucial, he said, that his mother "didn't believe in television." Instead, their family faithfully took three steps after each move -- joining a Southern Baptist church, getting new library cards and finding a little league baseball diamond. The books soaked in and so did the sermons.

Later, Grisham's courtroom experience inspired his first novel, "A Time To Kill," especially the soul-searing testimony of a young rape victim. Church mission trips to Brazil inspired "The Testament." Another church project led to "The Street Lawyer," which was written in a 51-day frenzy after a freezing night in a homeless shelter.

The key, said Grisham, is that people who want to write suspense novels have to master that craft, with all of its ironic details and elaborate plot devices. Writers either learn how to do that, or they don't. Once someone has mastered the craft, then he can try to weave in a deeper message. It rarely works the other way around.

"Sometimes when I finish a book, I know I've done the best I can do. I know the story works," he said. "I know that the people are real and their problems are real. When I finished 'The Testament,' I was very proud. I'll do more books like 'The Testament.' I go back to those themes. I can see a few coming down the road.

"But I can't do it every time out. I have to watch it, because I'm writing popular fiction and you can't preach too much."

Bauer's sojourn in e-mail hell

The walls and shelves in Gary Bauer's new office are bare, since he only left the presidential campaign trail a few primaries ago.

But his e-mailbox is bursting and his fax machine is still humming, after his endorsement of Sen. John McCain's long-shot insurrection.

Bauer has been hearing from Christians "in Timbuktoo" who hope he spends eternity in a sizzling location -- ASAP. But he has been just as stunned by the reaction of Beltway insiders, folks he has known since his Reagan White House days. They accuse him of being a schismatic heretic. Apparently, many GOP strategists believe the so-called Religious Right is exactly what journalists and Democrats say it is -- a voting bloc that obeys a few all-powerful masters.

Read Bauer's lips: There is no monolith.

"I can't tell you how many times Republican leaders have said, 'GARY, where are these people going to GO? Wait a minute, you don't think they'll go vote for AL GORE?'," he said, mimicking a dismissive tone of voice.

"I say, 'Yes, some of them will.' There's this idea that evangelicals are conservative across the board, when, in fact, many are working class and lower middle-class people who ... would be liberal on some economic issues," added Bauer, who grew up in blue-collar Newport, Ken. "If they go to the polls thinking about abortion and gay rights, they'll vote Republican. But if they go to the polls wondering who's going to preserve their social security and who wants to make sure they have legal redress if their HMO mistreats them, then they may vote Democratic."

Politicos can't jam millions of white Protestants into a box plastered with a "Religious Right" label, said Bauer. Meanwhile, morally and culturally conservative voters also can be found among traditional Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Hispanics (Catholic and Protestant), black evangelicals, Jewish conservatives and in other pews.

It's also crucial to remember that the media hellfire that followed Gov. George W. Bush's South Carolina win didn't take place in a vacuum. It followed two remarkable years of bitter debate about the role that Christian leaders, especially clergy, should play in politics.

Focus on the Family patriarch James Dobson kicked things off in 1998 by accusing the GOP establishment of betraying Christian voters and said it might be time to abandon the party, even if that meant handing Democrats the White House and Congress. Dobson noted that he could not bring himself to vote for Sen. Bob Dole.

A year later, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation wrote a much-quoted epistle arguing that while religious activists have won a few political victories, they have done little to cleanse the "ever-wider sewer" of American culture. His bottom line: It's sinful to put too much faith in politicians, including Republicans.

Then two former Moral Majority leaders wrote a controversial book in which they said ministers and the ministries that they lead should flee partisan politics and focus on the spiritual needs of their flocks and of nonbelievers. Journalist Cal Thomas and the Rev. Ed Dobson of Grand Rapids, Mich., stressed that they believe many Christians must be active in the political arena -- but not clergy.

Now, Bauer's open rejection of Bush -- the establishment candidate -- has provoked a fiery rebuke from James Dobson, including digs about McCain's personal life. Clearly, Dobson and his former Family Research Council colleague are not on the same map.

The ground is moving. But while Bauer stressed that is in full-time politics to stay, he isn't ready to say that the church and other religious institutions should be silent when America's hottest political debates veer into religious territory.

"All of the issues that really matter -- whether its racial reconciliation, rebuilding the family, how we treat the poor, setting a place at the table for all of our children -- center on profoundly moral questions," he said. "If they're going to be dealt with without having American citizens who come from a faith perspective leading the charge, then we're unlikely to come up with the right answers."

However, he said he has seen more evidence lately of "politics transforming Christians, than of Christians transforming politics."

Just another Sunday at Saddleback

LAKE FOREST, Calif. -- The Saddleback Community Church bleachers were still filling up when the jazzy Latino pre-service music faded and, with a "One, two, three!" countdown, the 13-piece band rocked into their opening hymn.

"I wanna be like You. Live everyday, the way that You want me to," sang the throng, watching the JumbroTrons. "It's getting better. I read Your letter. These are the words you said to me. Love the Lord with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. These are the things that you must do, and my grace will see you through. ... It's all about love. Hey!"

Saddleback looks like a textbook megachurch, the kind that keeps inspiring sociologists to rush to their computers. The Rev. Rick Warren and friends mailed 15,000 invitations to their first service in 1980 and the church had 10,000 members before it built a sanctuary. Today, 15,000 or more attend five "seeker friendly" weekend services. The sunny baptismal pool welcomes a river of newcomers, with 1,638 baptized in 1999.

Outside the 3,000-seat worship center, booths offered programs for families, blended families, single parents, separated men, separated women and people struggling with almost every difficulty life can offer. Inside, the choir bounced through a reggae chorus, an oldie from 1979 and a gospel-rock anthem. Then Warren took center stage, dressed down in khakis and a black knit shirt.

"We've been looking at thinking clearly about your problems, about your relationships, about change, about sex, about stress," he said, starting one of many strolls away from the traditional pulpit. "But there's one area where people are more confused than probably any other area. It causes more divorces than sex. And it is finances, it's 'Til debt do us part.' "

The crowd laughed, because Warren is a witty storyteller and commentator on Orange County life. On this day, he told many in his flock: "You're spending money you don't have on things that you don't need to impress people you don't even like." This creates Saddleback Valley syndrome, with dreams and debts creating workaholism, then exhaustion, then depression, then shopping sprees, then more debt.

But this wasn't a megachurch sermonette for folks used to clutching a TV remote. Warren regularly preaches between 50 minutes and an hour, working his way through a dozen scripture passages and waves of illustrations from the news and daily life. Seeker-friendly sermons do not have to be short and shallow, he said.

"The idea that postmodern people will not listen to a 'talking head' for 45 minutes is pure myth," he said. "Of course, most people, including many preachers, couldn't hold an audience for 10 minutes. But that's due to their communication style, not the supposed short attention span of unbelievers. Any communicator who is personal, passionate, authentic and applies the scriptures to real life will have no trouble holding the attention of our generation."

Critics may scoff, but this Southern Baptist congregation is committed to developing techniques to help churches with 150 members, as well as 15,000. Saddleback services rarely include comedy and drama, because small churches struggle to find talented writers and actors. Saddleback rarely uses high-tech media in its services, because small churches don't have the resources to do so.

That's OK. Warren said that "if all seekers were looking for was a quality production, they'd stay home and watch TV, where millions are spent to produce half-hour programs."

But most of Warren's sermons do include breaks in which church members offer testimonies -- sometimes chatty, sometimes wrenching -- about how their lives have been changed by prayer, Bible study, giving and service. Why do this? Because all churches can ask members to offer testimonies.

Churches don't have to be shallow to appeal to the heads and hearts of unbelievers, stressed Warren. In fact, just the opposite is true.

"Unbelievers wrestle with the same deep questions believers have," he said. "Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Does life make sense? Why is there suffering and evil in the world? What is my purpose in life? How can I learn to get along with people? These are certainly not shallow issues."