Sin, safety, candor and free speech

The landscape was buried in snow, but there wasn't a ski slope in sight.

The 19,000 students gathered on the University of Illinois campus last week were asking what to do with their lives, but they weren't networking with corporate recruiters. A multi-racial rock band was shaking the concrete clamshell called Assembly Hall, but the lyrics were not MTV-friendly.

"Oh God, break our hearts," sang the standing-room-only crowd at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's 19th Urbana Mission Convention. "For the sin in our lives ... for the sin in our land, break our hearts. We cry out. We need your help. Come back to our land."

This five-day conference drew college students from 100 lands and would have attracted CNN and USA Today if its emotional rallies and 1,200 hours of seminars had focused on sexuality, the environment or even world trade. But it isn't news when students spend Christmas break on a frozen prairie talking about world missions, racial reconciliation and poverty.

Then again, "sin" talk may soon be newsworthy. InterVarsity and other such groups are, in fact, becoming controversial. Missionaries are under attack around the world and, in America, even careful believers can get caught in crossfire from the culture wars.

Right-wing pro-lifers picketed many Urbana 2000 sessions, claiming that InterVarsity has softened its opposition to abortion. Meanwhile, InterVarsity leaders are ramping up to respond to attacks from the left by homosexual activists. These are tense times.

"We have had more challenges to our basic right to exist in campus settings during the past two years than in the previous 55 combined," said Steve Hayner, president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA. "It's not just us. ... This is hitting Catholics and Muslims and others. What we are seeing is a growing challenge to religious free speech -- period."

Last spring, a confidential debate inside one campus chapter lurched into the news when a lesbian student told the Tufts University student judiciary that she had, under a campus nondiscrimination policy, been unfairly denied an InterVarsity leadership role. The Tufts Christian Fellowship was first banished, then placed on probation and finally allowed to re-draft its charter to state that its leaders "must seek to adhere to biblical standards and belief in all areas of their lives."

InterVarsity created a "Religious Liberties Crisis Team" in response to this dispute and similar cases on five other campuses. Then attorney David French of Cornell Law School and Tufts InterVarsity staff member Curtis Chang produced a sobering handbook for others who will face similar conflicts.

French and Chang noted: "In a free country, individuals or groups are permitted to form schools that serve only Christians, or only Jews, or only Muslims, or only gays." For traditional Christians at private schools, the "sad reality is that there may come a time when you are no longer welcome... and there is nothing that any lawyer can do to change that decision."

After all, if Christian colleges can create lifestyle codes that support their beliefs and reject others, then secular private colleges are free to create codes that support their beliefs and reject other beliefs -- such as the doctrine that sex outside of marriage is sin.

Nevertheless, believers can insist that colleges play fair when enforcing written rules, noted French and Cheng. The Tufts handbook clearly said it was university policy not to "discriminate on the basis of religion." InterVarsity could quote this early and often.

Campus ministry leaders are learning that good intentions are not enough. They must be proactive and stop trying to gloss over conflicts about doctrine, said Gregory Fung, a Harvard University graduate who currently leads the Tufts fellowship. Truth is, there's no non-controversial way to discuss subjects such as sin and repentance. It's better to state a ministry's beliefs clearly, rather than trying to play it safe.

Safety is hard to find, these days.

"We did what they asked us to do. We went to their tolerance classes," said Fung. "You think the institutions that teach tolerance won't turn around and bite you. But they do. We thought the people who taught all those classes would be tolerant. ... No way. They were determined to cure us of our intolerance."

Red states, blue states, me states, you states

The Year of our Lord 2000 was the year of The Map.

You know the one: red states, blue states, false states, true states, me states, you states.

No, this isn't one of those fake Dr. Seuss poems that flooded the Internet during the White House war that threatened to steal Christmas. This column is about the annual Religion Newswriters Association poll to determine its top 10 news stories.

Religion specialists in the secular press said the top story was the selection of U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, "an observant, yet modern, Orthodox Jew" as the first Jew nominated by a major U.S. party to serve as vice president. Both parties courted religious voters, this time around. I agreed, but added a sentence on my ballot noting that exit polls later showed that the greatest divisions in American life still center on clashing moral, cultural and religious beliefs.

Which brings us back to The Map, the amazing USA Today graphic that showed the 676 Al Gore counties in blue and the 2,436 George W. Bush counties in red. It was a refined version of the election-night television maps that started pundits chattering about big states vs. small states, big-city life vs. small-town values, East and West coasts vs. the Heartland.

"The divide went deeper than politics. It reached into the nation's psyche," said Washington Post sage David Broder, on Nov. 8. Gore won by 27 percent among voters who praised the economy. Bush won by 30 percent among those worried about spiritual decay. Broder concluded: "It was the moral dimension that kept Bush in the race."

The national psyche? This election cut America's soul. It pitted a resurgent Religious Left vs. a demure Religious Right, oldline churches vs. megachurches. It wasn't secularists vs. the religious, as the Democratic duo of a Southern Baptist and an Orthodox Jew made clear. But clearly there were religious overtones in the hot cultural issues.

This election was Hollywood vs. Nashville, "Sex in the City" vs. "Touched by an Angel," National Public Radio vs. talk radio, "Doonesbury" vs. "B.C.", "Hotel California" vs. "The Okie From Muskogee." It was The New York Times vs. National Review Online, Dan Rather vs. Rush Limbaugh, Rosie O'Donnell vs. Dr. Laura, Barbra Streisand vs. Dr. James Dobson, the Supreme Court vs., well, the Supreme Court.

It was hard to ignore exit-poll questions about "religious observance," noted conservative Kate O'Beirne. "About half of the Republicans attend church at least once a week; nearly half of the Democrats go to church seldom or never. ... Married folk in the countryside who attend church have more conservative views on abortion, gun ownership, gay rights and the role of government."

What happens next? Keep studying The Map.

The other top stories in the RNA 2000 poll were:

2. In a historic pilgrimage, Pope John Paul II prays at Jerusalem's Western Wall and, meeting with Holocaust survivors, expresses deep sadness at acts of hatred against Jews by Christians. He holds strategic meetings in Jordan and in Palestinian territories.

3. Hopes for an agreement between Jews and Palestinians dim after Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount spark waves of violence between Israel and Palestinians. Talks at Camp David break down over control of the Old City in Jerusalem.

4. Vermont approves same-sex unions despite protests by state's Catholic bishop and other clerics. The United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) defeat proposals to bless gay unions. Episcopalians pledge "pastoral care" for those living in "life-long committed relationships" outside marriage.

5. The Southern Baptist Convention bans women from serving as church pastors and adds more conservative language to its Baptist Faith and Message doctrinal statement.

6. Vatican issues Dominus Iesus, restating Catholic doctrine that salvation comes through Jesus Christ, alone, and that the true church "subsists"' in its fullness only in the Catholic Church. Many criticize the document's tone as anti-ecumenical.

7. Former President Jimmy Carter exits the Southern Baptist Convention, citing its swing to the doctrinal right. Also, the Texas Baptist Convention votes to withhold more than $5 million from SBC seminaries and executive committees.

8. Pope John Paul II, in a solemn penitential rite, asks God's pardon for sins committed against other groups by members of the Catholic Church.

9. The Episcopal Church's General Convention approves pact with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, clearing the way for mutual recognition of clergy and hierarchies.

10. The Rev. Vashti McKenzie of Baltimore becomes the 2.3-million-member African Methodist Episcopal Church's first female bishop.

Oh joy, a Christmas vision

There are only 365 shopping days, give or take a few, until next Christmas.

And all the people said, "Oh joy."

"Honestly, there's an argument to be made for Christians pretty much conceding Dec. 25th -- just handing it over to the secular world -- because we're just not getting anywhere," said Dan Andriacco, communications director for the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati. "I'm not saying that we give up on Christmas. I'm saying that we need to stop thinking of Christmas as what happens on Dec. 25th."

In a recent St. Anthony Messenger article, Andriacco joined a growing chorus of Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox Christians and others urging churches to skip "The Holidays" and start following centuries of Christian traditions. At the very least, this would mean honoring the four-week penitential season of Advent (Nativity Lent) preceding Dec. 25 and then celebrating the 12-day Christmas festival that continues until the Jan. 6th Feast of the Epiphany.

What would this mean? Here are some tips, from Andriacco and others.

* Here's a tough one: Invite St. Nicholas into the Advent season, rather than Santa Claus. As a rule, Americans ignore the Dec. 6th feast of St. Nicholas of Myra, the 4th-century patron saint of endangered children and the poor.

"The real guy is a better example than Old Goodiebags," writes Beliefnet.com columnist Frederica Mathewes-Green. "He's a man of courage and compassion, and the kind of person you'd like your children to know."

A renewed St. Nicholas emphasis would offer wonderful opportunities to share stories and gifts with children, but also to emphasize another tradition -- gifts for the needy. My suggestion? Churches could, on the Sundays between St. Nicholas Day and Christmas, collect diapers and blankets for new mothers who need help.

* It's crucial, said Andriacco, to celebrate Christmas during Christmas, instead of during Advent. This may mean avoiding shopping malls or taping favorite Christmas movies and specials to watch later, to avoid the tidal wave of ads. It will mean going against the flow.

"If we are really going to get into the spiritual disciplines of a season of waiting, a season of rest, then we will simple have to slow down and party less," he said.

* The season offers deadly traps, even for the idealistic. Some have tried to replace expensive gifts with handcrafts and keepsakes. Writer Julie McCarty noted that this, ironically, may require busy people to pour more time into preparations. The last thing many people need right now is even higher expectations. The goal is to save time for faith and family, not to create more work in the name of simplicity.

"Experience has taught me that I am simply not going to stitch a quilt, stencil homemade Christmas cards, or assemble a memory book for each niece and nephew," she confessed. "My closets stand as witnesses to my unfinished projects from Christmases past. If Martha Stewart enjoys making her own wrapping paper, let her do it."

* The days before Christmas are a traditional time to go to confession, for those in sacramental churches. This is highly appropriate today, since "The Holidays" produce more than their share of burdens. Christmas also should be a time for reconciliation with family members, rather than drowning out their voices with waves of football games and movies.

* The December calendar in most homes and parishes is a train wreck, with concerts, parties and services competing with the private schedules of singers, volunteers and clergy. Then many people have to travel. By mid-month, folks are wiped out.

Here's a radical idea: Put some of next year's concerts and parties in the actual 12-day season after Dec. 25. Take your choir caroling on the 10th day of Christmas and you'll be the only show in town. You might get arrested for being subversive, but it would be worth the effort.

"If we take the church calendar seriously, then that will automatically steer us away from many of the trappings of the secular season," said Andriacco. "So we're not saying that people should skip Christmas. Just the opposite! We're saying, 'Let's celebrate all of it. We want the real Christmas.' "

Hanukkah -- freedom or death

It's almost time to fire up the big menorah in the public square.

It's time for office workers to mix blue-and-silver Hanukkah decorations with symbols of Christmas, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice and, this year, Ramadan. It's time for school children to fry potato-and-onion pancakes and spin four-sided dreidels with Hebrew letters that stand for "a great miracle happened here." It's time for parents to max out their charge cards.

Party planners can find many alleged "carols" on the Internet, such as this revised Santa Claus verse: "They're grinding their swords, sharp as a pin, a guerilla war, they're going to win. Maccabees are coming to town." Let's skip the even sillier "Eight Days of Fire," sung to the Jerry Lee Lewis classic.

The bottom line is that the eight-day "festival of lights" begins at sundown on Thursday, Dec. 21. For millions this has evolved into a super-holiday matched one-on-one in a cultural showdown with Christmas.

Hanukkah is here, but what are folks all fired up about?

"The problem, as any rabbi will tell you, is that Hanukkah has traditionally been a minor Jewish festival," observed Columbia University historian David Greenberg, at Slate.com. "It commemorates the successful Israelite revolt in the second century B.C. against their Syrian oppressors, and their refusal to assimilate into the prevailing Hellenistic culture. Specifically, it celebrates the miracle in which, according to lore, a day's worth of oil fueled the candelabra of the Jew's rededicated temple for eight days."

Hanukkah has a unique message, but one that often is drowned out as millions -- of all races and creeds -- stampede to the shopping mall. Many say that Hanukkah celebrates religious liberty and religious pluralism. Others emphasize its message that Jews must defend the purity of their faith, when they are tempted to assimilate into a dominant culture.

I found myself dwelling on this second Hanukkah theme during a Dec. 8 press conference by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. This was not a Hanukkah event -- but it could have been. Around the world, religious minorities are under attack when they refuse to buckle under to oppressive majority regimes.

This commission accused U.S. officials of timidly defending religious liberty. For example, a State Department report in 1999 criticized seven "countries of "particular concern" -- Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and particular movements in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. The commission pressed, unsuccessfully, for the inclusion of four more in the 2000 report -- Laos, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan. It must be hard for U.S. diplomats to admit the situation is getting worse, instead of better.

The commission's Dec. 8 critique included reports on abuses in all of those lands and more. In Iran, four Baha'is have been sentenced to death for apostasy and "Zionist Baha'i activities." In China, violent crackdowns continue on the Falun Gong movement and Protestant and Catholic churches that refuse to kneel before state. Regional officials in China executed at least eight Uigher Muslims on charges of "splitting the country."

The list goes on and on. Efforts to control religious minorities can be seen in Russia, where legislation threatens to the "liquidation" of thousands of small religious groups. Even the French National Assembly has created a list of 173 "dangerous sects" -- including the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Unification Church and even some Baptists -- that could be shut down if believers are caught committing crimes of "mental manipulation."

"Even the Europeans are headed in the wrong direction," said Jewish conservative Elliott Abrams, chairman of the religious freedom commission. "What's even worse is how that is going to be cited by (regimes) that are aggressively oppressing their religious minorities. They'll be saying, 'Look, we're modeling parts of our laws on what they're doing in Belgium and France.' "

The most appropriate time to remember the plight of oppressed religious minorities is the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, said Abrams. But it sure wouldn't hurt if this solemn, and historically accurate, theme appeared amid the glitter of "the holidays."

"Hanukkah is the festival of freedom," he said. "But what often gets lost is that this meant freedom or DEATH. ... Millions of believers around the world face the same choice today."

Martin Marty and the soul of DC

A glance down from an incoming airplane is all it takes to see that Washington, D.C., is messed up.

Long ago, architect Pierre L'Enfant had of vision of grand plazas combined with a simple, logical grid of streets. But now visitors see politics all over the place. The Supreme Court sits in judgment across the street from the U.S. Capitol, which wrestles with the White House for symbolic supremacy on the map. Highways run into rivers and the National Mall, while cathedrals gaze down from distant hills at memorials to the secular saints.

Where is the heart of Washington? And if a city doesn't have a heart, where is its soul?

"We are in a society called 'pluralist,' "said historian Martin Marty, during a recent speech entitled "Building the Holy City on the Hill" for the College of Preachers at National Cathedral. "Our cities don't have that single axis. They don't have walls. They may have beltways, but they keep no one out. Commerce, industry, religion, academic life, media life, malls, all ... throw this off."

So Washington is not a New England village, in which all roads and energies converge on one marketplace, one government hall and one church, he said. People inside the Beltway worship all kinds of things in all kinds of places. Thus, it's hard to pinpoint the "soul" of America's complex and fragmented capital.

"It is a secular city," said Marty. "Believers may interpret it as God's gift, but it's not organized on those lines."

Nevertheless, he insisted that Washington does have a "soul," which he defined as: "The integrated vital power of any organic body that is full of awareness, openness to possibilities, expressive of freedom and having purpose." The good news for the city is that powerful displays of "soul" often follow moments of pain, conflict, sickness and anger. So he urged his listeners to keep their eyes open, right now.

During his 35-year career at the University of Chicago, Marty has been much more than a scholar whose 50 books and 40 years of Christian Century essays helped define an era of church history. His work has repeatedly bridged the wall between academia and the news. Any mention of his name is usually accompanied by the Time magazine quotation proclaiming him America's "most influential living interpreter of religion."

And Marty remains the master of finding grace in chaos -- such as the storms currently gathering over Washington. For starters, he said, it's safe to say that no one on Capitol Hill is talking about building utopia anytime soon, in this day of almost supernaturally thin voting margins, non-existent mandates and bitter 50-50 splits over virtually every moral, cultural and political issue in sight.

This is good, he said, since most attempts to build utopias lead to bloodshed and war. Often, people who are divided, and know it, manage to get more work done than the people plagued by delusions of unity and perfection. The most crucial, creative decisions are almost always made right after the best-laid plans fall apart, after the utopian quests go astray. That is when progress often takes place in a fallen world full of flawed people.

"I am assuming," said Marty, "that the search for the holy city of Washington is going to go wrong, because you have to work with the crooked timber of humanity -- conflicting interests, conflicting wills, conflicting visions of the good. ... We never say that we learn by trial and rightness, nor by trial and triumph. No, we learn by trial and error."

It's true that anyone searching for "soul" in Washington can look in churches. There are, he noted, 92 brands listed in the Yellow Pages -- between "chiropractors" and "cigars." But they also should search in schools, where a janitor may help a student through a troubled day. They should visit an unheralded recovery program for prostitutes. "Soul" may even show up in efforts to replace out-of-date voting machines. Angels live on many of the city's forgotten streets.

Washington isn't perfect. That's the good news. And don't worry, said Marty, about times of conflict. Never forget that " you can't get justice without argument."

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."