Faith and terror in Indonesia

One wave of warriors came out of the mountains while another came in boats from the sea, crushing the harbor villages on the island of Haruku.

"I heard a grenade and the house went up in an explosion at about 5:30 a.m.," said an Indonesian pastor, in testimony read in the British House of Lords. "Nine people died at the football pitch. ... Some were injured, but still alive, when the military came with bayonets and stabbed them in the neck."

Similar attacks have destroyed hundreds of churches and mosques during the past two years in the Maluku Islands, which were once known as the romantic "Spice Islands."

"Those who died were beheaded," he said. "We have not been able to find their heads, because the soldiers take them."

Hacking off the heads makes it harder to identify victims in the jungles far from modern Indonesia's cities. Witnesses say the raiders wear white jihad robes, often over military uniforms.

There was much, much more, but Baroness Caroline Cox didn't read all the gory details to the lords and ladies last summer. Next week, the controversial nurse that many call the "battling baroness" will take this issue back into Parliament as Indonesia limps into a tense season of Ramadan and Christmas.

"The world is looking the other way, because the world does not know what is happening," said Cox, during a recent tour of Southeast Asia. "There is no longer a universal acceptance of fundamental principles of human rights. ... There are groups in certain parts of the world that no longer see these as binding. They will even say that the U.N. universal declaration was a product of a particular culture and of its Judeo-Christian background."

But the Indonesia crisis is not a simple clash between Islam and Christianity. Cox said she has seen evidence of Muslims dying to defend the homes and churches of neighbors.

The Republic of Indonesia is stunningly complex, a 3,500-mile crescent of 17,670 islands straddling the equinox between the Indian and Pacific oceans. The world's largest archipelago is nearly three times the size of Texas and the population of 225 million includes 300 ethnic groups. The population of 225 million is 88 percent Muslim and 8 percent Christian, with smaller communities of Hindus, Buddhists and others.

It's crucial that President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was elected in 1999, is associated with a school of Islamic renewal that stresses education and culture, over political power. As a Muslim moderate, Wahid openly called for religious toleration during a meeting of the Christian Conference of Asia.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Islamic land and it has historically been the most tolerant of minority faiths. What happens there will impact -- for better or worse -- other nations and cultures. This fragile religious environment was attacked during the three-decade regime of former President Suharto, who encouraged more Muslims to settle in predominately Christian areas. Years of bloodshed in heavily Catholic East Timor horrified the world.

Meanwhile, rapid growth in Jakarta and other cities pulled millions away from island villages and into a global economic marketplace. They gained cell telephones, but lost their roots. This may actually have increased the power of ancient faiths in many lives.

"Whereas in the past ... their identity and culture lay in their village, now it is to be found round the mosque and church," said Oxford Bishop Richard Harries, in the House of Lords.

Now, Indonesian media debate the creation of an explicitly Islamic state that would overturn laws protecting religious toleration. A group called Laskar Jihad has issued a call for violent change and recruited outside help. Observers report that at least 2,000 jihad warriors have been involved in recent campaigns in the Malukus.

"What are those 2,000 armed people doing there?", asked Harries. "How are they allowed to be armed and trained? Why is no one stopping them? ... If it were left up to the local people, I do not believe that there would be these clashes."

At the moment, the villagers feel abandoned. Cox urged the House of Lords to remember the simple words of that village pastor: "If we don't get any help, we will die."

Candlestick holders in Russia

Russians use a special term to describe the state officials who pay brief visits to the glorious liturgies that mark the holy days of Orthodox Christianity.

This politician is called a "podsvechnik," or "candlestick holder."

"He walks in, lights a candle at an icon, stands around awhile, makes the sign of the cross, and he usually messes that part up, and then leaves as soon as the photographers have taken his picture," said journalist Lawrence Uzzell, who leads the Keston Institute at Oxford University, which monitors religious-liberty issues in Russia and the old Communist bloc.

"He's paying his respects to the church, but he's just going through the motions."

These "photo-ops" are especially poignant when they occur during news events that offer glimpses into the Russian soul. Witness the recent funeral of Lt. Capt. Dmitri Kolesnikov, who wrote a note describing the last moments of 23 doomed sailors trapped near the rear of the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk.

The funeral was a cathartic moment for millions as they wrestled with their grief and fears about the state of their country and its military. The candlestick holders had to be there.

It's easy to be cynical. But the truth is that the ancient symbols of Orthodoxy continue to hold great power, even if Russia and its leaders are not completely sure what they mean or why they matter so much. It's true that 1 percent of Russia's 146 million citizens regularly attends church, said Uzzell. But it also is true that 50 percent now claim some link to Orthodoxy.

"Russia today is much more like Sweden than America," said Uzzell, who frequently works out of Keston's Moscow office. "Russia still is profoundly secular. ... At the same time, it's clear that modern Russia is a nation of spiritual truth-seekers. People are asking the big questions and searching for answers. There is a sincere spiritual hunger there."

And Russian Orthodoxy? "Serious Orthodox Christianity is a counter-cultural movement inside modern Russia," said Uzzell.

Outsiders must remember that this is taking place only a few generations after the Communists closed 98 percent of Russia's churches and, in one brief period, killed 200,000 bishops, priests and nuns and then sent another 500,000 believers to die in labor camps. Millions later died in Stalinist purges. KGB records indicate that most clergy were simply shot or hanged. But others were crucified on church doors, slaughtered on their altars or stripped naked, doused with water and left outdoors in winter.

The KGB records also contain the stories of clerics who yielded. Russian Orthodoxy was a complex mosaic of sin and sacrifice, during the era of the martyrs. The Keston Institute has been at the center of efforts, for example, to document the complex interactions between the KGB and the Russian church's current leader, Patriarch Alexy II.

Many ask, in effect, if some of the church's bishops are mere candlestick holders -- or worse. Two weeks after the 1991 upheaval that ended the Soviet era, I visited Moscow and talked privately with several veteran priests.

It's impossible to understand the modern Russian church, one said, without grasping that it has four different kinds of leaders. A few Soviet-era bishops are not even Christian believers. Some are flawed believers who were lured into compromise by the KGB, but have never publicly confessed this. Some are believers who cooperated with the KGB, but have repented to groups of priests or believers. Finally, some never had to compromise.

"We have all four kinds," this priest said. "That is our reality. We must live with it until God heals our church."

This analysis is sobering, but the facts back it up, said Uzzell, who is an active Orthodox Christian.

"There are signs of hope, mostly at the local level," he said. "There are wonderful priests and wonderful parishes, if you know where to look. But you will find ice-cold parishes and others that are vital and alive, in the same city or town. ... I think the Russian Orthodox Church has a glorious future, just as it has had a glorious past. But I must admit that I'm not terribly optimistic about the near-term prospects."

God and man, and The Simpsons

The King James Version of the Bible is a masterpiece of the English language and one of the cornerstones of Western Civilization, as we know it.

So sociologist John Heeren perked up when he was watching The Simpsons and heard a reference to a "St. James Version." Was this a nod to an obscure translation? An inside-baseball joke about fundamentalists who confuse the King James of 1611 with the ancient St. James?

Eventually he decided it was merely a mistake, a clue that the writers of that particular script didn't excel in Sunday school. But with The Simpsons, you never know.

"You only have to watch a few episodes to learn that there's far more religious content in The Simpsons than other shows, especially other comedies," said Heeren, who teaches at California State University, San Bernardino. And the masterminds behind Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie are not doing "a slash-and-burn job, while working in as much blasphemy as possible. ... They show a surprising respect for the role that religion plays in American life."

Eventually, Heeren became so intrigued that he analyzed 71 episodes of the animated series, taping re-runs at random. Now in its 12th season, The Simpsons just aired its 250th episode. This milestone came shortly after Heeren presented his findings before the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. He found that 69 percent of the episodes contained at least one religious reference and, in 11 percent, the plot centered on a religious issue.

But the hot question is whether the show's take on religion is "good" or "bad." Of course, the whole point of The Simpsons is to satirize American life -- from TV to public education, from politics to fast food, from rock 'n' roll to religion. Faith is just part of the mix.

But this is where things get complicated, said Heeren. The show specializes in mocking the generic pseudo-religion found in American popular culture.

"It's really about the religion that we see through the filter of the movies and television," he said. "So we are dealing with a copy of a copy. ... This only raises a bigger question. When you have a satire of a satire, does that mean that you are actually being positive?"

Several religious themes appear over and over, said Heeren. One is that God has a plan -- even for Homer and Bart. This concept appears so often that it cannot simply be dismissed as a joke. It also is clear that God is omnipresent and, to one degree or another, omnipotent.

In the "Homer the Heretic" episode, do-gooder daughter Lisa proclaims that a fire in the family's house is evidence that God wants Homer to return to church, instead of practicing a do-it-yourself faith called "Homerism." Heeren notes: "Homer wonders why a fire that began at his house spread to the house of his devout neighbor, Ned Flanders, or 'Charley Church.' ... Homer asks why God didn't save Flanders' house. At that moment a cloud appears above the Flanders house, puts out the fire, and is punctuated by a rainbow."

The show's writers also consistently contrast two symbolic characters, said the sociologist. On one side is Pastor Timothy Lovejoy, an often cynical, world-weary mainline shepherd who uses the public library's Bible and says that the world's religions are "all pretty much the same." On the other side is Flanders, a born-again nerd who, nevertheless, is one of the only inspiring characters in the series.

Lovejoy, Homer and many other characters appear to be making up their religious beliefs as they go along, said Heeren. But Flanders is a true believer. What is fascinating is that the other characters often "see the light" and eventually try to act a little more like Flanders. As a result, the Simpsons almost always ends up affirming some element of a generic Judeo-Christian American creed -- honesty, family, community, selflessness and love.

"I'm not sure what that says, but it says something," said Heeren. "What remains is that strange kind of respect that is so hard to pin down. ... God is real. God hears prayers and prayers are answered. People go to church. Faith matters. Let's face it: this is not what you normally see in prime-time television."

Mount Sinai remains on the political map

One thing is certain amid the chaos and nail biting of the White House race -- the religious left now knows that Mount Sinai has not been erased from the political map.

"The tablets that Moses brought down from the top of Mount Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions. ... (They) were the Ten Commandments. But more and more people feel free to pick and choose from them," said Sen. Joe Lieberman at Notre Dame University, in a key speech during the home stretch.

"Without the connection to a higher law, we have made it more and more difficult for people to answer the question why it is wrong to lie, cheat or steal; to settle conflicts with violence, to be unfaithful to one's spouse, or to exploit children; to despoil the environment, to defraud a customer or to demean any employee."

But wait. This week's soap opera also demonstrated that America remains divided right down the middle on issues rooted in morality and religion. There is a chasm that separates the heartland and the elite coasts, small towns and big cities, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, those who commune in sanctuary pews and those who flock to cappuccino joints.

The divide in this election went "deeper than politics. It reached into the nation's psyche," noted David Broder of the Washington Post, one of the patriarchs of political journalism. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney defeated Al Gore and Lieberman by 30 percentage points among voters who were worried about the nation's moral health.

But let's face it. Some of the Ten Commandments fare better in focus-group surveys than others, decades after Woodstock and the sexual revolution. Americans yearn for a sense of right and wrong, but flinch when it comes time to post moral codes in the public square.

At Notre Dame, Lieberman did everything he could to chart a centrist moral path for those on the political left, as he looked into the future. Tolerance is one thing, he said. "Moral ambivalence" is another.

Lieberman's speech ranged from 18th Century's Great Awakening to the Civil Rights movement, from the prophet Hosea to America's Founding Fathers, from the wisdom of the Koran to the follies of Hollywood. He quoted Catholic conservative Michael Novak, as well as liberal evangelical Jim Wallis. He tried to cover the whole map.

So what does America need to do to exercise the "moral muscles" that Lieberman said are so important? How can we fill the "values vacuum" that has so many citizens nervous about any and all truth claims?

America, he said, must once again commit itself to a "civic religion" that is "deistic, principled, purposeful, moral, public and not least of all inclusive." At the heart of this vague creed is a core of shared values, such as "faith, family and freedom; equal opportunity, respect for the basic dignity of human life; and tolerance for individual differences."

But government cannot "nourish our souls" or "control all of our behavior," stressed Lieberman. Religious institutions and families must do that. But what the government can affirm that the "inviolability of our rights and the mission of our republic" have been "inextricably linked to our belief in God and a higher law."

The problem is that the higher laws handed down by Judaism, Christianity and Islam include doctrines about what behaviors are right and what behaviors are wrong. Meanwhile, it's inevitable that the government will come down on one side or the other when dealing with moral issues that affect education, tax laws, social policies and free speech. Tax dollars will be used to endorse some moral laws and undercut others.

It will be impossible to avoid these debates, on the left and the right.

"Despite our material abundance, there is a persistent sense of unease about our moral future," said Lieberman. "As people peer into the national looking glass, they do not like the reflection of our values they see -- the continued breakdown of families, the coarsening of our public life, the pollution of our culture. ...

"To most of us, this America, particularly the fearful America of Columbine and Jonesboro and Paducah, is not the America we knew, nor is it the America we want to be."

Sex, drugs & Catholic education

It's hard to talk about college life without covering sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

But face it, America's Catholic bishops had other problems in the 1990s. They had to find a way to embrace the pope's "Ex corde Ecclesia (From the Heart of the Church)," a manifesto on Catholic education, while trying not to fan fires of dissent in faculty lounges.

The last thing they wanted to discuss was Friday-night dorm life. So bishops didn't ask and campus leaders didn't tell.

"We know that where most students are losing their faith is not so much in the classroom as in the social atmosphere that dominates their campuses," said Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society, a pro-Vatican think tank on education. Curriculum and faculty issues matter, but the "parts of Catholic education that have changed the most have all been related to campus life. ... The culture of students sleeping around and getting drunk is just as big a problem at many Catholic universities as it is at state schools."

There have been some public fights, with headlines about administrators removing crucifixes from classrooms or asking lawyers to finesse questions about campus funds supporting groups that promote anti-Catholic stands on abortion and gay rights.

Other issues loom in the background. Like their secular counterparts, most of America's 235 Catholic colleges and universities now bombard students with information and questions about safe sex, drug abuse, date rape, eating disorders and sexual harassment. These subjects are no longer controversial.

But Catholicism itself is controversial. What would happen if colleges merely taught the church's moral doctrines and asked -- using an honor code -- Catholic students to obey them? What about promoting confession and fasting? Could colleges even try?

That's what the Cardinal Newman Society (www.newmansociety.org) will ask Nov. 10-12, during a conference at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. One session will focus on a "working draft" of principles to guide Catholic campus life. One passage soberly notes: "It is not enough that colleges and universities bearing the name Catholic should cease to serve the culture of death, although merely attaining that goal may prove to be the lifework of Catholic educators of this generation."

An earlier draft even included an "attire" clause opposing "dress that is sexually suggestive or otherwise disrespectful of other students' efforts to live chastely." Another passage said constant "electronically-offered sensory stimulation is a distraction to the mind and, hence, must be subject to regulation."

That kind of language had to go, because it's important to remain realistic, said Reilly. After all, many campus leaders will fight to keep traditionalists from taking any of these "minimalist rules" to Rome.

The document's bottom line: "Catholics abide by rules and standards defined by the Church." Other principles in the 6,000-word draft include:

* "The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco or medicine."

* "The university ... should help students identify alternatives to 'partying' " and find "alternatives to contemporary styles of dating and courtship." Co-ed dorms don't help.

* While allowing lively political discussions, schools "should be careful not to diminish known truth by encouraging debate on settled issues (such as the morality of abortion)."

* "In no case should the university health service, or any campus personnel, encourage or facilitate abortion or the use of artificial contraceptives, nor should students be referred to non-campus" facilities that do.

* "For unmarried students, the state of life should be virginity, primary or secondary." While it's hard to enforce such laws, universities should "forbid extramarital sexual activity by students on and off-campus."

Reilly knows that many Catholic educators will "accuse us wanting to go back to a 'nanny culture.' " Many were "furious that the Vatican thought it had the right to define what a Catholic college is, or is not, in the first place. Now they're going to say we want the bishops to police what goes on in dorm rooms as well as classrooms," he said.

"All we are saying is that our colleges and universities should help students live Catholic lives, or at least stop attacking students that try to do so."

What's so special about Jesus?

Every summer, lots of religious people sit in lots of national conventions and hear lots of leaders with impressive titles deliver lots of long speeches about complicated theological issues.

After a few weeks, people forget 99 percent of what's said during this siege.

But people are still talking about the Rev. Dirk Ficca's "Uncommon Ground" sermon at the Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference in Orange, Calif. It has sparked something unusual -- a hot mainline Protestant story that isn't about sex.

The sound bite was a stunner: "What's the big deal about Jesus?"

Why do so many Christians, asked Ficca, think they need to convert people in other religions to Christianity? Don't they believe their God is powerful enough to work however He sees fit, even through other faiths? Don't they believe in the "sovereignty of God"?

"God's ability to work in our life is not determined by being a Christian," said Ficca, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister who directs the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago. "OK ... if God is at work in our lives whether we're Christian or not, what's the big deal about Jesus?"

Ficca has seen traditional Christian missionary work and he rejects it, outright. Members of other faiths, he said, testify "that when Christians approach them with the sole purpose of converting them to Christianity, it feels like ... a kind of ethnic cleansing. What (missionaries) are saying is: Your religious identity is not acceptable and my job is to eliminate it from the face of the earth."

Presbyterian evangelicals are crying, "foul" -- early and often.

The result has been a clash between traditionalists and leaders of the denomination's progressive establishment. Much of the heat is in cyberspace, but there have been flare-ups in public meetings. Many documents linked to the July 29 sermon can be found through the "Jesus Debate" link at the WWW.PresbyWeb.com news site.

Conservatives are quoting centuries of doctrine and catechisms, such as the Scots Confession, which proclaims: "... For there is neither life nor salvation without Christ Jesus; so shall none have part therein but those whom the Father has given unto his Son Jesus Christ, and those who in time come to him, avow his doctrine, and believe in him." And, of course, they are quoting the Gospel of John: "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' "

Ficca reads those passages differently. He dedicated much of his address to undermining what he called the "instrumental view" of Jesus and salvation.

It teaches that "Jesus is the sole and only instrument of God's salvation -- through one person at a certain point in history, who lived and died in a certain way, only through this person does God's salvation come into the world," he said. "Here the Gospel is about Jesus; Jesus, himself, is the Good News. ^?And if Jesus is the sole instrument of God -- if it is only through Jesus that salvation comes -- then the only way for the world to be saved is for everyone to become a Christian."

In place of this view, Ficca advocated a "revelatory view." It teaches that the "Good News is not the good news so much about Jesus, but the good news of Jesus: The Good News that Jesus preached. What this view says is that Jesus reveals how God has been at work in all times in all places throughout history in all people to bring about salvation."

Thus, Christians no longer have to engage in "proselytizing ... for the purpose of converting people to Christianity." God offers believers many religious paths to reach one eternal destination, said Ficca.

Presbyterian evangelicals are urging their denomination to publicly reject this approach -- doctrinally and financially -- as soon as possible.

"Apart from God's unique act of self-identification with fallen humanity in Jesus ... the Christian faith simply has nothing else to say about 'salvation,' " said the leaders of the powerful Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas. "There is no 'Good News' apart from what God has done for us in the life, death and resurrection of Christ."

This is not a religion story

This was the 12th time that Linda Gibbons had violated the 18-meter "bubble zone" that surrounds Canadian abortion clinics, so all the players in the scene knew their roles.

The tiny grandmother sat down and silently began to pray as Toronto police moved in. Sue Careless and two other journalists maneuvered to record the arrest. Careless concentrated on Gibbons, framing her in the camera's viewfinder between a church steeple and the clinic door. She heard an officer reading the familiar pre-arrest litany.

Then a policeman said, "You have to leave." Careless explained that she was a journalist and kept clicking. The last photo she took, before the handcuffs went on, showed the police starting to drag Gibbons across the street. The police confiscated her film.

"In the police van, I kept saying, 'I'm a journalist. ... I had a right to be there,' " said Careless. "One of the officers finally asked me, 'What's your name?' I said, 'Why don't you read it off my press card?' ... So that's what he did."

The police arrested one demonstrator and three freelance journalists.

"The math just didn't add up," said Careless.

But her legal bills quickly started to add up. Careless endured 13 court appearances before the Crown withdrew the charges. Oct. 15 marked the one-year anniversary of the arrests and her lawyer is still working to retrieve her mug shots and fingerprints from police files.

Careless has credentials from the Periodical Writers Association of Canada and the Canadian Association of Journalists and, in the past decade, has written 300-plus articles for 22 secular and religious publications. She is best known for her Canadian Church Press work and, when arrested, was on assignment for The Interim -- a national pro-life newspaper.

"It seemed like nobody, at least in the secular press, wanted to cover this," said Careless. "People said it was just a religion story or it was an abortion story. I kept saying, 'No! This is about freedom of the press. ... I had a press card and they arrested me. That's a story.' "

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects journalists, whether they work in powerful newsrooms or for smaller organizations. The same is true under U.S. law. But police on both sides of the border seem to be cracking down, said Paul McMaster, the First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va.

"A journalist is a journalist," he said. "It's not the government's job to credential some journalists and not others. ... Clearly, the whole point was to intimidate Sue Careless and the other journalists who were out there covering a controversial event."

Sadly, he added, this is probably a "win-win situation for the police. After all, who cares what happens to reporters?"

Careless noted that many other journalists -- even some who defend abortion rights -- cared enough to contribute to her legal defense fund. After all, there is nothing unusual about journalists getting caught in the tense territory between police and demonstrators. And the number of "alternative journalists" is rising, since the World Wide Web is allowing many secular and religious advocacy groups to create their own niche-news operations.

If a pro-life journalist could get arrested at an abortion-clinic protest, then a Mennonite journalist might be arrested outside a nuclear-weapons plant. A Wiccan website reporter might get handcuffed because she saw police break up a sit-in that was stopping loggers from entering a sacred forest. A Southern Baptist journalist might face arrest for photographing gay and lesbian protestors that disrupted a convention of evangelical sex therapists.

"It does not matter which media outlet sends the reporter, or what the personal sympathies are of the photographer, or what the politics are of the demonstration," argued Careless, in an essay for the Globe and Mail in Toronto. "As long as the journalist is working as a professional journalist, and not an activist, the police should not interfere with the news-gathering process.

"I and other freelance journalists must not be so intimidated by these arrests that we will retreat to only the safe subjects or flower shows. We must continue to gather news in the danger zones of public opinion."

Prophets and politicos in the public square

In the summer of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson sent his right-hand man to visit Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

It was a high-stakes trip, because Hamer and her flock were challenging the state's all-white slate of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Johnson feared an ugly floor fight and hoped that Hubert Humphrey could convince Hamer to back down.

The future vice president opened the negotiations by asking what she wanted.

"The beginning of a New Kingdom, right here on earth," replied Hamer.

Anyone looking for the line between political rhetoric and Christian prophecy can find it right there, argues Yale Law professor Stephen Carter, in "God's Name in Vain," his latest book on modern tensions between church and state.

The stunned Humphrey pleaded with Hamer. Couldn't she see that her stance would hurt the Democrats? "Fannie Lou Hamer, who had survived beating and torture in a Mississippi jail for insisting on her constitutional rights, was unimpressed," noted Carter. "Hamer sought justice. Humphrey sought political victory (with justice as a possible, but not certain, side effect)." Hamer concluded: "I'm gonna pray to Jesus for you."

American politicians always get nervous when passionate religious voices start preaching in the public square, noted Carter, in a recent the Ethics and Public Policy Center forum called "Does God Belong on the Stump?" But there's no reason for religious people to be singled out for condemnation by the powers that be in media, academia and politics, said Carter.

Some folks get especially nervous when mainstream political candidates start spouting "God talk" during national campaigns. This time around, the designated preachers are Gov. George W. Bush and Sen. Joseph Lieberman. This controversy flares up, like clockwork, every four years. And, every four years, the experts are shocked -- shocked -- to discover that faith plays a major role in American life and, thus, in politics.

But if politicians are going to talk about their faith, it's crucial for someone to push them to probe deeper, past sound bites about compassion, values and spirituality.

"I think the candidate who is going to talk about his own faith owes us more than just saying, 'Isn't it neat that I'm a religious guy?' That candidate owes us at least some discussion of how that religiosity affects his decision-making, his reasoning, his thinking about public issues. It is only in that way that we can judge its relevancy," said Carter.

This is crucial, because if religious faith is real, "if it has bite," then that tradition will affect how a person lives his or her life, he said. A faith that does not affect actions and decisions is meaningless. This means there will be times, unless a politician "is a member of a extraordinarily convenient religion," when tensions exist between his beliefs and the policies he must accept or advocate.

Yet candid discussions of these tensions are politically risky -- entering the minefield between politics and prophecy.

The British writer C.S. Lewis once noted that it would be unwise to attempt to form a "Christian political party," noted Carter. If it were truly Christian, it would preach the whole package of the Christian faith and, thus, would be too demanding to succeed at the ballot box. But if it were truly a political party, added Lewis, it would be driven to make the kinds of compromises that were necessary to win elections. Thus, it would not be truly Christian.

It's spiritually dangerous for prophets to try to function as politicians. Carter noted that the lofty and idealistic vision of the Civil Rights Movement faded when the black church all but married the Democratic Party. Today, it's clear that the Religious Right has watered down its prophetic moral messages in an attempt to please the Republican hierarchy.

"The world of politics tends to be the world of the short run, the compromise that lets you win in the here and now," said Carter, after the forum. "Prophets rarely win in the short run. But, thank God, prophets are rarely the kind of people who focus on the short run. They tend to care about the long run -- eternity."

The confessions of Harry Stein

Life was simpler back when journalist Harry Stein knew his place.

If asked to define "politically correct," he could quickly answer: "A term used by the right to smear decent people working hard for social change." The religious right? "A bunch of crazed zealots out to impose their repressive, intolerant theocratic values on the rest of us."

That was the old Harry Stein, a hipper-than-thou child of the 1960s and '70s. Everyone he knew believed the world's problems could be solved with liberal doses of compassion, tax dollars and sex, although not always in that order.

Then Stein got married, became a father and discovered that his wife wanted to stay home with the baby. Soon, strange words started coming out of his mouth. Today, the new Stein defines "politically correct" as a "term properly describing a 'progressive' worldview of litmus tests for right thinking." The religious right is "a bunch of crazed zealots who pretty much kept to themselves until 'progressive' zealots started imposing THEIR values on them and theirs via popular culture and the schools."

Life grew more complex. Friends and family didn't know what to think, especially when Stein came out of the closet with a riotous memoir called "How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace)." And to tell the truth, Stein isn't always sure what he thinks, these days.

Take the God question. Please. Stein is a conservative and a Jew, but that doesn't mean he is a conservative Jew. He's worried that Americans are befuddled on moral issues, but he isn't sure what he thinks about "sin," "repentance" and "atonement." He didn't know what he would be doing during the High Holy Days, which end with Yom Kippur on Monday.

"It would be incorrect to say that I am religious," said Stein, after a recent speech to the Independent Women's Forum. "After all, I grew up as an agnostic and my parents were Communists. But I am more spiritual now than I used to be, it's safe to say. ... And to the extent that I was totally skeptical before, I'm not anymore."

Stein said he realized that his moral and cultural views were changing while he was writing an ethics column for Esquire magazine, creating a witty persona that his editor once dubbed "Shecky Spinoza." By it's very nature, this assignment forced him to ask probing questions and to seek ethical standards that have stood the test of time.

In his book, Stein concedes: "Subtly, though even I was unaware of it at the time, a theme began to run through those pieces: that some of the moral precepts people like me had so casually jettisoned in the sixties as woefully antique -- like, oh, the more demanding of the Ten Commandments -- have served humanity pretty well, after all."

Before he knew it, the questions raised by his day job and the lessons he was learning as a father pulled him into a stream of hot social issues -- such as debates about day care and the so-called "Mommy Wars." Then his wife dropped out of "Women Against Right-Wing Scum," a support group for New York media professionals. Then stunned colleagues started calling them "a traditional family."

Then, at a dinner party, Stein said he believed it's bad for children to grow up without fathers. A friend went nuclear, exclaiming: "Jesus Christ, when did you become a fascist?!" There was no turning back after that.

Stein also began to ask what happens when a culture loses its ability to teach that some acts are always evil, no matter what the cultural context or the circumstances. But if there are eternal rights and wrongs, where do such standards come from?

"I do believe that each of us has an innate sense of what is right and wrong," he said. "But there has to be more to this than feelings. This must be predicated on traditional moral truths. ... I think we all know, deep in our hearts and our souls, that it is these bedrock truths are what make it possible for us to have happy and productive lives. To deny that is insane."