Building a faith-based prison?

Bill Robinson walked through prison doors many times in the 1960s, during the bad times when he bounced in and out of white-collar crime.

It was different the first time he did it as a free man.

"I didn't want to smell that smell, again, or hear that door slam," he said. "I only did it because I thought that's what God wanted me to do. ... Then I lead my first prisoner to Jesus and I've never been the same."

Scores of prison ministers across America can give the same testimony -- men and women who found God and then dedicated their lives to reaching other prisoners. But Robinson's story has taken a unique turn, in part because of a dream born during a series of prison revivals in the mid-1980s.

What would happen, he wondered, if prison reformers, converted convicts, criminologists and clergy got together and built a prison? What if they hired Christian guards and counselors and developed a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week rehabilitation program that offered prisoners a chance to repent of their sins and pay restitution to their victims?

The principalities and powers in Texas prisons didn't like that idea very much back then and, apparently, they still don't today.

But Robinson hasn't given up and the team behind his latest drive to build a faith-based corrections facility includes some unusual players -- from a former director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to the former warden of Fort Leavenworth Prison. Their goal is to convince officials in Texas and nearby states to push the "go" button and assign qualified inmates to a 624-bed unit that's waiting to be built in Coleman, three hours west of Dallas.

It also doesn't hurt that many politicians, including both White House candidates, have been calling for more church-state cooperation of this kind. Meanwhile, journalists have been dedicating lots of ink and air time to Texas prisons -- for other reasons.

"We all know the system we have right now isn't getting the job done," said Charles Terrell, the former prison official whose effort to have his name removed from the dedication plaque at the East Texas death-row facility has made headlines. "I know this system inside-out. Look, I was chairman of the board of this system. ...

"We have to try something new. What this Coleman project can be is a tiny piece of frontier, a place where we can touch a few people right before they get out of prison. If you don't change a man's heart, then you haven't changed him. And if you don't teach him how to earn a living, then he's just going to go back to doing what he was doing before you locked him up."

Organizers stress that only medium- to low-security prisoners who are serving the last 12 to 30 months of their sentences and are eligible for release during that time can volunteer to be transferred to the prison managed by Born Again Incorporated. Inmates must agree to participate in intensive education, therapy and employment programs. This includes signing a contract to direct chunks of their salaries to pay some of their own room and board, support their families and pay restitution to their victims. Religious activities would be voluntary.

Hopefully, said Robinson, all kinds of religious leaders -- not just evangelicals -- will step forward to help meet today's prison crisis, in which more and more convicts, serving longer sentences, are being poured into a slowly growing pool of prison cells. While officials say the recidivism rate is about 50 percent, Robinson said insiders say it's 70 percent.

Believers must get involved, he said. Try to imagine America without all the hospitals that religious groups built after World War II. Now they should consider building prisons, even if this will unnerve all kinds of people.

"I don't know why this Coleman thing threatens some people so much," said Robinson.

Then he paused to think.

"Well, maybe I do. The other day a warden told me, 'If you guys are successful, we might have to close down some prisons.' I thought to myself, 'Dear Lord, now wouldn't that be something.' "

Billy and the anti-Billy

The Rev. Billy Graham doesn't have to worry about his legacy.

For millions, he remains the dignified evangelist who stood tall in the pulpit, offering his open Bible to the world as a bridge between an awesome God and lost sinners. Graham has preached in person to more people than anyone in history and has, for half a century, been one of America's most admired leaders.

This weekend, his third conference for itinerant evangelists will draw 10,000 men and women from 190 countries to Amsterdam. Many will come from the Third World's rapidly growing churches, which have been a major focus of Graham's work in the past three decades.

Graham is man of integrity who has touched many lives. But, ultimately, he is a pathetic figure, an unimpressive shepherd with an irrelevant, dying faith. It's sad that there are millions of sheep that flock to hear his simplistic answers to complex questions.

Wait a minute. Who would dare to say that?

The Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, that's who.

America's most famous Episcopal bishop is a radically different kind of preacher from North Carolina and he all but calls himself the anti-Billy. As a boy, Spong used to deliver the Charlotte Observer to the Graham family's dairy. Today, he is the rare liberal Christian who openly says he believes Graham and his disciples are ancient history.

"Billy Graham possessed the enormous power present in the conviction, or the delusion, that he had in his possession the ultimate truth of God, enabling him to assume the reality of that ultimate divide between the saved and the unsaved," said Spong, in a recent Diocese of Newark newspaper column.

"I am confident both that he was sincere in these convictions and that this is the kind of pre-modern, religious conviction that will never carry the day in this world. Modern hearts cannot worship that which modern minds reject and I do not believe it is possible for an educated person to accept the Bible today as the literal word of God. Even if I did, I could never worship the God who is defined by many of those literal words."

Spong is no longer a diocesan bishop, but he remains busy in academia, talk shows and publishing. He also has explored cyberspace by writing about spirituality for Beliefnet.com and sexuality for ThePosition.com, a soft-core sex site. Critics note that membership declined 38 percent in his churches during his 24-year episcopate.

Meanwhile, the 81-year-old Graham continues to wrestle with Parkinson's disease and other problems that have put him in the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., since early June. While doctors are evaluating his condition on a day-to-day basis, the evangelist's staff has prepared for him to reach Amsterdam 2000 through a satellite-television connection. One way or another, Graham will speak in the finale on Aug. 6.

"I am disappointed at this turn of events, but I have great peace that this is God's plan for me and for the Amsterdam 2000 conference," he told the media.

That spiritual equation perfectly symbolizes what someone like Graham believes and what someone like Spong does not.

Spong attacks Graham and those who "envision God as a supernatural parent" who plans lives and heeds prayers. The bishop has said: "Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way." He rejects the virgin birth, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as historical events. Third World Christians? Most are locked in superstition.

"I do not believe that God is a Being sitting above the clouds pulling strings. ... I do not believe that human beings are born evil and that only those who come to God through the 'blood of Jesus' will be saved," concludes Spong. "If Christianity is to survive ... it will have to evolve radically beyond the images employed by Billy Graham. It will be forced to become something new and different. It will have to surrender its claims to miracle, magic and exclusiveness."

Graham obviously disagrees. And while some may dismiss him, he is ready to pass his torch to evangelists in the Third World -- or die trying to do so.

Charting the sex wars, Pt. II

"Monogamy" isn't such a scary word, once people get the hang of redefining it to fit the realities of modern life, according to gay provocateur Dan Savage.

"The sexual model that straight people have created really doesn't work," said the nationally syndicated columnist, in a New York Times Magazine piece on post-modern sex. "All it does is force people to lie. ... In this society, we view monogamy like we view virginity, one incident and it's over, the relationship is over."

Heterosexual couples, he said, should relax and learn from homosexuals. Relationships must grow and evolve. "I know gay couples who have been together for 35 years. They have separate bedrooms. Sometimes they sleep together and sometimes they sleep with other people, but they're a great couple," he said.

Is this "monogamy"? That depends on how the word is defined.

Many homosexuals agree with Savage. But some gays and many lesbians embrace a more traditional definition. Then again, many self-proclaimed "queer theologians" reject "monogamy" and "fidelity" altogether and insist that any hint at limiting sex to one partner is taboo, a lingering symptom of Judeo-Christian heterosexism.

"These debates rage on, but they haven't received much attention outside the gay community," said Larry Holben, author of "What Christians Think about Homosexuality." He is a gay Christian who is best known for writing "The Hiding Place," a classic evangelical film.

"But I think that's changing," he added. "It's getting harder to deny that internal conflicts exist, among homosexuals as well as among conservatives."

Mere word games? Last week, the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops acknowledged that many believers live in "life-long committed relationships," outside of Holy Matrimony. The vote was 119 to 19, with four abstentions. The bishops denounced "promiscuity," and said they expected such relationships to be characterized by "fidelity, monogamy" and "holy love." They pledged to provide "prayerful support" and "pastoral care" for these relationships, but stopped just short of calling for rites to bless same-sex unions or extramarital heterosexual unions.

"Once again, you have to ask what all these words mean," said Stanton Jones, co-author of the upcoming "Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church's Moral Debate." He is provost of Wheaton College near Chicago.

"Some people simply define 'promiscuity' as sex that is careless, abusive or dishonest, with no other questions asked. ... Or 'monogamy' merely means a sense of emotional fidelity to one person, not an exclusive sexual fidelity. It means that you have one stable, ongoing relationship, but that doesn't have to be your only sexual relationship."

In his book, Holben meticulously draws lines between three liberal Christian stances.

* One group argues for "pastoral accommodation" that views homosexual acts "not so much as intrinsically evil as essential imperfect," writes Holben. But in a fallen world, homosexuals may justify some sexual activity, just as other Christians now justify divorce and remarriage. This stance emphasizes monogamy.

* An "affirmation" camp goes beyond tolerating gay and lesbian relationships, saying they hold the same "potential for a self-transcending exchange of love as heterosexual unions." These Christians believe that the morality of "homosexual acts are to be evaluated exactly as are heterosexual acts," writes Holben. Monogamous, committed, homosexual relationships are truly sacred unions. But what does "monogamy" mean?

* Finally, there is "liberation." As the Rev. Canon Elizabeth Kaeton of Newark once told the Episcopal Church's homosexual caucus, the task for gays and lesbians, "our specific charism, is to help ourselves and the church reclaim the erotic as a central part of our lives." A one-night stand may be a holy act, if the sex is honest, loving and not abusive. This camp argues that monogamy may, in fact, be a mask for jealousy and spiritually destructive forms of idolatry.

The big question: Are sexual acts sacramental, in and of themselves, or is marriage, alone, a sacrament?

"For many on the left the Holy Spirit is equated, quite literally, with the erotic," said Jones. "Sex is a vehicle for touching the divine. ... Sex becomes a spiritual discipline and it's wrong -- a sin even -- to put any limits on the work of the Holy Spirit."

Charting the sex wars, Pt. I

You know the Episcopalians are in town when insiders do double takes at announcements for "Bishops Outings" or the "Orientation of Bishops and Deputies." Are those scenic "outings" or revelatory exits -- voluntary or involuntary -- from sexual closets? And who would dare ask "orientation" questions these days?

Words are tricky things. Thus, conservatives made a fervent attempt, during the 73rd General Convention of the Episcopal Church, to seize the high ground with a campaign entitled "God's Love Changed Me." It centered on testimonies by people who said they had been healed of racism, alcoholism and various sexual sins, including homosexuality.

But everyone was reading between the lines during the July 5-14 gathering in Denver. Soon, gay, lesbian and bisexual Episcopalians took to wearing shirts that said, "Oppose hate language, no matter how it is disguised." Write it down -- healing equals hate.

The Denver events were par for the course, said writer Larry Holben of San Francisco, author of "What Christians Think about Homosexuality." He is best known for writing the script for "The Hiding Place," a classic evangelical film. But he wrote his meticulously balanced book as part of his own pilgrimage as an Episcopalian who also is gay.

The religious sex wars rage on, but no one seems to be learning much, he said.

"Sure there's homophobia out there," said Holben. "But it has now become a given that any one to the right of center is automatically coming at this from a position of hate and stupidity. ... They're labeled as right-wing demons, which means they can be trivialized and treated with contempt. Nobody has to listen to what they're actually saying."

Meanwhile, conservatives often assume everyone on the left "either doesn't know what the Bible says or don't care what the Bible says," said Holben.

Face it -- these people have honest disagreements about doctrinal issues. Also, liberals and conservatives rarely acknowledge the schisms within their respective camps. This makes it even harder to find common ground or, when necessary, for people of good faith to break communion with one another.

Holben's book covers a spectrum of viewpoints, seeking answers to 12 basic questions, such as "What is the God-given intent or design for human sexuality?" and "What is the spiritual significance of homosexuality?" He never settles for a simplistic left vs. right showdown.

There are, for example, at least three conservative camps, he said.

* The "condemnation" camp notes that the Bible contains zero positive references to homosexuality. Its leaders deny that a unique homosexual orientation exists and insist that homosexuals, at some point, make conscious decisions to sin, which leads to addiction and then to self-fulfilling homosexual identities. Same-sex desires are as sinful as sex acts. Holben said this camp "honestly believes that sexual sins are the worst sins, anyway. ... Then, homosexual sins are the worst of the worst."

* The "healing" camp says homosexual orientation is real, even if its origins remain mysterious. It's crucial that many who take this position can testify that they have changed their "orientation" or at least their "sexual behavior." At the same time, some concede that they continue to experience same-sex temptations and that "healing" is a life-long process. While viewing all sex outside of marriage as sin, they stress that same-sex desires, alone, are not sinful and that homosexual sin is no worse than other sin.

* Many groups, including the Vatican, now believe that same-sex orientation is an imperfection or impairment, but rarely the result of a conscious choice. Since healing does not always occur, many homosexuals face what Holben describes as "A Call to Costly Discipleship." This camp urges homosexuals to live chaste lives and, thus, honor centuries of unbroken Christian tradition that all sex outside of marriage is sinful. This approach emphasizes that life in a sinful, fallen world is often painful and complex.

"We all love magic stories ... where a person was sinful or broken and now they're totally healed," said Holben. "That's one of THE most powerful kinds of magic stories for Christians. ... Yet that's rarely what we see in real life, even in the lives of the saints. We see people struggling to deal with their sins and seeking forgiveness. That's life."

Doing conjugal evangelism

The nightmare begins when the Rev. Joe McKeever turns and faces the bride and groom.

He smiles. They smile. The family, friends and faithful smile. Then McKeever begins reciting the lovely words he has said hundreds of times in nearly four decades of ministry. Only this time, he hears a voice inside his head saying something radically different.

"Dear friends, we have gathered here today to witness a disaster in the making," says the voice. "Martha here has decided she wants to marry Chester. Martha -- church-goer, hymn-singer, happy, raised right -- is throwing it all away in order to marry Chet here, a smug, ungodly rascal. ... Why Chester and Martha want to lock themselves into marriage is beyond me."

And so forth. Then one day, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Kenner, La., did a strange thing. He wrote down what that voice was saying and sent this warped wedding rite to a Southern Baptist newspaper, assuming the editors wouldn't publish it. They did.

Some folks weren't amused. They accused him of saying that inter-faithless marriages are doomed and that the unbelieving spouses are automatically going to hell.

"The whole thing is a satire," said McKeever. "I know it isn't funny. But I'm not laughing, either. What I'm saying is that this seems to be happening more often. ... What we're doing is marrying two people who are like trains running in different directions or even on tracks that cross. We're causing train wrecks."

After all, he said, St. Paul warned people who were getting married in the early church: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what ... communion hath light with darkness?"

So why do Bible-preaching pastors do all of these weddings?

In McKeever's satirical ceremony, that inner voice answers: "Probably because Martha's folks are leaders in our church, and I thought it would anger them if I declined. And some people think, maybe we can reach Chester this way. Frankly, I'm not too sure that disobeying the clear teaching of scripture is a good way to reach anybody for the Lord."

And once today's pastors start asking this kind of tough pre-wedding question, others are sure to follow. What if Martha and Chester are living together? What if Martha's pregnant? What if Chester says he's a believer, but doesn't act like it? What if the bride or groom is divorced? What if they sit in the pastor's study, during the obligatory three premarital counseling sessions, and say they know they're supposed to get married "because it just feels right?"

Meanwhile, some of America's most conservative church leaders are wrestling with a report released last year by the evangelical number-crunchers at the Barna Research Group. It said 27 percent of born-again Christians are now or have been divorced, compared with 24 percent of other Americans. For Baptists, the number was 29 percent and it's 34 percent in non-denominational churches.

That could mean these churches are doing a good job of reaching people who are already divorced, said McKeever. But surely it also means that many pastors are doing lots of weddings that they should't be doing.

It doesn't help that preachers can stand in their pulpits and spot a few rascals who have, in fact, been converted through conjugal evangelism.

"It all works out just enough to keep that myth alive," he said. "We keep telling women not to go into marriage thinking they're going to fix those guys. But nine times out of 10, it just doesn't work. Then they get hurt. The kids get hurt. Everybody gets hurt."

But that train wreck comes long after the end of McKeever's bizarre wedding ceremony, after the soprano sings that "Titanic" song. First, the pastor has to wrap things up.

"I'll say some religious words over you as we all pretend that somehow God is blessing what He has forbidden," says the anti-pastor. "You will exchange rings and vows and saliva and leave here seeking the lowest common denominator in your values, your beliefs and your convictions. ... So let us pray, and pray, and pray."

Return to Potter's field

It was Harry Potter's 13th birthday and, since he was surrounded by his occult-o-phobic relatives, the high point was a trio of owls arriving with cards from his best friends at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The big news was that Ron Weasley's family had won a pile of gold and was investing its grand prize in a pilgrimage to Egypt. Classmate Hermione Granger was happy for him, but added: "I bet he's learning loads. I'm really jealous -- the ancient Egyptian wizards were fascinating."

Millions of readers may have passed over this early detail in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," book three in the omnipresent series by British author Kathleen Rowling. But out in fly-over country between New York and Los Angeles, these words led many to search the Book of Exodus for its account of a showdown between God, Moses and Aaron and the "sorcerers," "magicians" and wizards of ancient Egypt.

More than a few proceeded to ask their local librarians a loaded question: Whose side is Harry Potter on, anyway?

Obviously, critics will dissect each of the 752 pages in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," 5.2 million copies of which will roll through American and British bookstores and World Wide Web portals after midnight on July 8. Its release is being hailed as the biggest publishing event in the English-speaking world, the planet, the universe -- pick a venue, any venue.

This much is certain: Harry Potter IV will make millions of people happy and others very worried. The first crowd will be greeted warmly when it visits public libraries and schools. The odds are good the critics will not.

"Anyone who has had any experience in library work and with children's literature could see that these books were going to be hot," said Kimbra Wilder Gish, a librarian at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She recently published an article entitled "Hunting Down Harry Potter" in The Horn Book, a prestigious journal of children's literature.

"These books had everything -- witches, warlocks, magic, evil spirits, the whole lot. So I wasn't shocked by the controversy. I was shocked that so many librarians WERE shocked by the controversy. ... It's like they were saying, 'Haven't all of those intolerant fundamentalists been wiped out, by now?' "

This worried Gish, because she is proud of being both a librarian and a fifth-generation member of an evangelical family. She believes fervently in the free exchange of ideas and information, but she also believes that public institutions should handle the wishes and fears of their patrons in a respectful manner -- even religious conservatives.

Two years ago, she read one too many Internet postings by librarians attacking the motives of believers who were worried about Harry Potter. Her response covered many Bible verses that address this topic, especially a Deuteronomy passage that calls an "abomination" anyone that "useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer."

That covers just about everything in the Harry Potter books. Yet, in Rowling's work these elements are woven into the lives of witty characters those adventures have millions of young people turning pages instead of switching TV channels. The books also have been praised by religious leaders, including the moderate evangelical editors of Christianity Today, who called the series "a Book of Virtues with a preadolescent funny bone."

But public officials must realize that there are scores of others who simple don't think it's appropriate for their children to be exposed to books that portray magic in a "cool," winsome manner, said Gish. Some even criticize the work of Christian authors such as C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Madeleine L'Engle.

What should librarians do? It would help, she said, if they didn't act like the Harry Potter books are the only works of children's literature in existence. Displays and promotional events for classic works of religious fiction wouldn't hurt, either.

"We must strive for balance," said Gish. "We must stop acting like every conservative Christian who walks in the library door is an alien from another planet."

A Baptist facing East

The Romanesque sanctuary of South Main Baptist Church near downtown Houston may seem like a strange home for the Gen-X faithful in the Ecclesia Christian Community.

The church holds 1000, which means there are acres of empty oak pews when the 250-plus in the Rev. Chris Seay's new congregation gather on Sunday nights. But the sanctuary with the giant rose window has one essential element welcomed by the singles, artists and seekers in trendy urban neighborhoods -- beauty.

"It's as close to a Baptist cathedral as you can get," said Seay. "It may not be the right size for us, right now, but it still feels right. ... It has amazing stained-glass windows. You can look around and see the whole life of Christ. It feels like a real church, a sacred space."

But this is tradition-PLUS. The sanctuary also has room for three projection screens and an arc of television monitors. Seay and his team of Ecclesia (Greek for "church") musicians and artists use these multi-media tools to surround worshippers with a swirling sea of visual art during their worship services, which can last nearly two hours.

Sometimes the images connect with the words of the sermon, music, prayers or scriptures. But often they do not. Then there are times when worshippers are free to drift over to "creative spaces" in which they can paint or sculpt their impressions of what is happening in the service. Seay invited a painter to work behind him at Easter, so that his flock could watch as an impressionistic image entitled "The Body of Christ" developed during the sermon.

The point of all this, said Seay, is to tell a story that touches hearts and invites people into a community, not to conquer unbelievers through a barrage of Western rationalism and legal arguments. He is part of a growing movement of postmodern church leaders who want to blend past and present, the ancient and the digital, to create new forms of worship that appeal to all the senses -- sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

"Most of us have grown up with worship that is like a one-lane highway," said Seay, who is 28. "You get one message at a time, one after another, either a hymn or a prayer or a sermon. That isn't how people live today. ... We want to create a multi-lane highway during worship, because we know that people -- especially young people -- can handle many different messages, even if they are stacked on top of each other."

Seay is a Baptist, but his sponsors and co-workers in this project range from conservative Presbyterians to mainline Methodists. They want to build a congregation that is truly "multi-denominational" and linked to other bodies, not one of the free-floating, "non-denominational" churches that have radically altered the face of contemporary American Protestantism.

The Ecclesia fellowship doesn't want to be "contemporary" because its leaders believe "contemporary" religious groups are fighting for deck space on a sinking ship. Americans who watch MTV and live on the World Wide Web are not hungry for "the whole Western, modern, scientific model" of truth and salvation, said Seay. Postmodern seekers are increasingly turning to Buddhism, Hinduism and other Eastern, mystical, traditions.

Church leaders must realize that they, too, are heirs to a religious tradition that began in the East, he said. Christianity's roots are in Eastern culture, language and faith. It would help, he said, if future church leaders were required to read Saint John of the Cross and the Desert Fathers, as well as Martin Luther and John Calvin.

The goal is Protestantism-PLUS. Believers must experience truth, he said, as well as hear truth preached.

"Truth cannot be limited to propositions. Christ said, 'I AM the truth.' If the truth of the Gospel is to be experienced, the church must embody it," argued Seay, writing in Leadership magazine. "In a postmodern culture, the effort to know Christ must fully engage the head and the heart. ... We are moving toward a more spiritual world, one that faces East. The question is whether Christ or karma will be the focus of our spirituality."

Squinting into the entertainment future

Steve Taylor and his Chagall Guevara colleagues were fired up when they arrived in Los Angeles to do the cover for the band's first and only album for MCA Records.

They also were hungry, so they promptly called Domino's Pizza. Trouble was, one MCA executive didn't think much of Domino's leaders. Taylor distinctly remembers the words: "They support those pro-life Nazis."

"We did have a rather spirited argument," confessed Taylor, describing that infamous clash in 1990. "It started in one room, continued all the way down the hall and, eventually, somebody had to call a truce in the artist's studio so we could get some work done."

Offered a chance to re-visit that scene, Taylor said he would "try to bite my tongue, a little. I wasn't exactly thinking strategically."

That may not sound much like the raging rocker who rained sarcastic songs on the lords of Contemporary Christian Music and flirted with secular stardom. But Taylor wears a suit and tie these days and runs a company that is erasing old boundaries in the marketplace -- Squint Entertainment. He knows that it's important to build relationships in high places.

That's why Taylor and a crowd of politicians, artists, educators and business leaders gathered last week in a U.S. Senate hearing room to rally support for efforts to produce faith-friendly music, movies and television that can compete in the mainstream. The event marked the release of an album honoring media executive Bob Briner, whose 1993 book "Roaring Lambs" questioned the wisdom of Christian artists hiding in Christian companies that sell Christian products to the Christian consumers.

Briner died a year ago of cancer, but his business savvy and the books he wrote in the 1990s continue to influence work in many corporate offices, especially in Nashville. In addition to his books, Briner was best known as an Emmy-winning producer and sports executive who worked with Arthur Ashe, Dave Dravecky, Michael Jordan and others.

Taylor turned to Briner for advice when he began dreaming of an artist-friendly company that could cut a middle-way between religious and secular entertainment. The goal was to sign a roster of artists who were united both by Christian convictions and a commitment to build honest relationships with producers and promoters in the big leagues of secular music and video.

The result was Squint, with was built on a foundation of mainstream cash from the Gaylord Entertainment. This Oklahoma-based corporation operates the Opryland Hotel and a cluster of other Nashville institutions, both secular and religious.

Taylor hit it big when he signed Sixpence None the Richer, a folk-rock band that has, with three long years of national and global promotion, become a platinum-level act with hit singles such as "Kiss Me" and "There She Goes." Someday soon, if he survives in the dangerous corporate waters of buy-outs and mergers, Taylor wants to finish writing and directing "Saint Gimp," his first feature film.

"I want to work with other Christians," he stressed. "But I also want to work with people who want to work at the highest possible level of excellence. ... Bob Briner always used to say that excellence speaks for itself and that God deserves our best."

The rock showman turned businessman stopped and mulled this over for a moment. On the new "Roaring Lambs" tribute disc, Taylor has written and performed a song that pictures his mentor as a skilled baseball shortstop who tried to plug a gap between two worlds. The chorus is punchy, but haunting: "Lord, who will rise up when that number's retired?"

"There are just going to be days when we need advice from someone like Bob Briner," said Taylor. "He was a man of principle and he knew how to make a stand. But he also knew how to think strategically and be patient and work with all kinds of people.

"It's hard to do both, sometimes. ... You can fool yourself into believing that you're thinking strategically, when in reality, you're just being a coward. Then there are other times when you want to think you're being a man of principle, when you're really just being a jerk."

Doubting the death penalty

Bud Welch was driving his daughter Julie-Marie home from college when a radio signal drifted over the Iowa plains and started another talk about the big issues in life.

It was a report about another execution in Texas. Welch said his daughter's response was blunt: "Dad, all they're doing is teaching hate to their children. ... It has no social redeeming value." This remark was not surprising, since this whole Catholic family was opposed to the death penalty.

"I didn't think a hell of a lot of it at the time," admitted the Oklahoma City gas-station owner, in a speech recorded at Harvard University.

But Welch remembered her words after the Oklahoma City Federal Building blast, when he wanted to kill her killers. He wanted vengeance. Later, he realized that what he really wanted was for Timothy McVeigh to repent and somehow honor his victims. McVeigh couldn't do that if he was dead. Later, Welch promised the bomber's family he would do what he could to save McVeigh's life.

That's an inspiring story, but it stirs both anger and appreciation in churches and legislatures. Ask Al Gore. Ask George W. Bush. The death penalty issue just won't die and there are many good reasons for that, according to Cardinal Roger Mahony. This pope links it to a broader "culture of death."

"It's reflected in our movies and music, our television and video games, in our homes, schools and on our streets. More ominously, our society is tempted to solve some of our more significant social problems with violence," said Mahony, who leads the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles

"Abortion is promoted to deal with difficult or unwanted pregnancies. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are suggested as a remedy for the burdens of age and illness. Capital punishment is marketed as the answer to deal with violent crime. A nation that destroys its young, abandons its elderly and relies on vengeance is in serious moral trouble."

Mahony admitted, in a National Press Club address, that support for the death penalty unites legions of politicians who rarely agree on anything else. Some people say opposing the death penalty is "liberal," while others call it "conservative." In Catholic circles, some insist that abortion and the death penalty are unique and totally separate issues. Others admit they are different, but insist that they share common roots.

The Catholic Catechism of 1997 acknowledges that "the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty," if this is the "only possible way" to effectively defend citizens. However, many Catholics insist this statement must now be read in the light of 1999 statements made by Pope John Paul II.

Today's church, he said, in St. Louis, needs witnesses "who are unconditionally pro-life. ... 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. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform."

Police also have access to remarkable new forms of technology to investigate who is guilty and who is not. But these techniques are often leading to hotter debates, not agreement. This is not a simple left vs. right debate, either.

Conservative pundit George Will recently noted that, in "the 24 years since the resumption of executions under Supreme Court guidelines, about 620 have occurred, but 87 condemned persons -- one for every seven executed -- had their convictions vacated by exonerating evidence. In eight of these cases ... the evidence was from DNA. One inescapable inference from these numbers is that some of the 620 persons executed were innocent."

There are 565 inmates on death row in California. The cardinal can do the math.

"I believe that the Gospel teaches that people are responsible for their actions," said Mahony. "I believe that the reality of sin demands that those who injure others must make reparation. But I do not believe that society is made safer, that our communities are made whole, or that our social fabric is strengthened, by killing those who kill others. Instead, the death penalty perpetuates an insidious cycle of violence that ... diminishes all of us."