History > 2006 > USA > Faith, Sects (V)

Monte Wolverton

The Wolvertoon        Cagle        18.12.2006

http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/wolverton.asp

Pope Benedict XVI

Faith brings people together

and tears them apart

Updated 12/28/2006 12:11 PM ET
USA Today

This year offered a window on religious faith at its most inspirational — as well as ample reminders of ideological conflict and garden-variety sexual scandals. USA TODAY's Cathy Lynn Grossman looks back:

•Forgiveness. The tiny Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pa., exemplified forgiveness after a neighbor opened fire on 10 schoolgirls in October, killing five. Their faith teaches submission to the will of God and compassion to all. So they lived it, quietly, devoutly. While the world watched in humble awe, mourning parents brought food and comfort to the killer's family, even as they buried their daughters.

•Apologies. In June, Mel Gibson, director of The Passion of the Christ, apologized profusely to the Jewish people for an anti-Semitic drunken rant after a police report leaked out detailing his comments to a Jewish police officer who stopped him for speeding. And Pope Benedict XVI apologized after angering Muslims worldwide with an academic speech in September quoting an ancient emperor who linked Islam and violence. In a visit this month to Turkey, he spoke well of Islam's moral message in a chaotic world and visited a mosque, only the second pope to do so.

•Episcopal divide. The split continued to widen between the Episcopal Church, which approved a gay bishop three years ago, and the Anglican Communion, which draws most of its global membership from conservative Third World churches.

At its triennial meeting in June, Episcopal lay leaders and clergy elected their first female president, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, a scientist turned priest who supports gay bishops and gay marriage. Her election drove more of the most conservative believers, about 10% of parishes and dioceses in the 2.3-million-member U.S. denomination, to withhold contributions. Nearly three dozen churches, including some of the USA's wealthiest and most historic, have withdrawn from the Episcopal Church to align with Anglican bishops in Africa.

•Scandal. Two Colorado pastors, the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Rev. Paul Barnes, pastor of an evangelical church in Denver, preached against homosexual behavior and then confessed it. Haggard resigned in November from his church after his secret life was revealed. A few weeks later, Barnes admitted sexual infidelity and resigned as well.

•Movie madness. Movies made news with overtly Christian films, but nothing matched the publicity barrage in May for The Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown's mega-selling book. Churches braced for the film, a thriller in which the heroes set out to find the descendents of Mary Magdalene, who supposedly fled to France and gave birth to Jesus' daughter. Debunking books were published by the crateload, but the movie turned out to be a cultural pop-gun: It came, bored and confused, and then it went off to DVD.

    Faith brings people together and tears them apart, UT, 28.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-12-27-faith_x.htm

A Rural Church Loses Its Old Moniker to Atlanta’s Growing Suburbs

December 25, 2006
The New York Times
By SHAILA DEWAN

DACULA, Ga., Dec. 24 — The Rev. Barney Williams has always been a modernizer. In the 1960s he razed the outhouses at Hog Mountain Baptist Church and installed indoor plumbing.

That move was controversial, but not nearly as divisive as his more recent big idea: renaming the 152-year-old country church after a posh new subdivision nearby, Hamilton Mill (“homes in the 300’s to 700’s,” the sign near the miniature spinning waterwheel reads).

To Pastor Williams, 81 and in his second stint as the church’s leader, the decision made perfect sense. The name Hog Mountain, which referred to a crossroads used by frontiersmen driving their pigs to market in Atlanta, is disappearing, he says. The school is called Fort Daniel Elementary, the shopping center is Mountain Crossing. The Hog Mountain Barber Shop recently closed.

And Sunday, the neat white church celebrated its first Christmas Eve as Hamilton Mill Baptist. “It was good for our mothers,” the members sang in a rendition of “Old Time Religion,” “and it’s good enough for me.”

On the steps before the service, Jeremy Swancey, 28, said, “This area’s not known as Hog Mountain anymore.”

Irma Cooper, a 92-year-old who joined the church decades ago, stood nearby in a bright blue suit. “I’m Hog Mountain,” she said.

Pastor Williams has complained that the name made him the object of ridicule. “A lot of people in the community resent the word hog; they don’t like it,” he said. “In reference to the Bible, swine is associated with sin.”

But for many people, Hog Mountain is nothing to be ashamed of. The name change, approved by a congregational vote, has raised an outcry among old-timers, current and former church members, and even the Gwinnett County Historical Society, which sent a chiding letter.

Robin Rundbaken, 36, who moved to the Hamilton Mill subdivision three years ago, said she had not heard about the hubbub at the church but would prefer that places kept their historic names. “I’m old-fashioned that way,” she said. “I would rather they do that than try to appeal to the yuppie prestigious name thing. And I would think it’s a slap in the face to the members that have grown up here.”

But Pastor Williams said he had no need to explain replacing such an ungainly moniker. “The general public knows why we changed the name,” he said. “I don’t think they’re interested in history.”

Hog Mountain, 40 miles from Atlanta, was never an official town, but the community began in the early 1800s. There was a fort, a trading post and an inn called the Hog Mountain House. The church was founded in 1854 by 11 members, led by Elders David H. Moncrief and Amos Hadaway, according to a historical marker near the front door. The current building was constructed in 1905.

Gwinnett County has changed drastically since then, especially in recent years, as farmland has been taken over by the spreading suburbs of Atlanta. Since 1990, the county has more than doubled in population, and traffic has become extremely heavy. “Some days it takes 10 minutes to get out of my driveway,” said Claudette Miller, a church member who opposed the name change.

Ms. Miller said she always thought it was cool to be from a place called Hog Mountain: “People would say, ‘You must be a hick,’ and I would say, ‘Yep!’ ”

She remembered the church’s recent celebration of its 150th anniversary. The women dressed in hoop skirts, the men in top hats. The children looked like little Pilgrims. “I thought we were so proud then,” Ms. Miller said. “What happened?”

Betty Warbington, a longtime member of the church who left in 1995, about the time Pastor Williams returned, has written passionate letters and a newspaper column criticizing the change as a crime against history.

She details how her husband’s father went to the church on wintry Sunday mornings and lighted the pot-bellied stove before the service. Ms. Warbington’s uncle was a chorister, and her aunt was the church pianist, a position Ms. Warbington herself held for more than two decades. She and her husband plan to be buried in the church’s cemetery.

Ms. Warbington said she suspected that the name was changed in retaliation against those who blocked Pastor Williams’s plan to sell the church ball field, next to the oldest part of the cemetery, to a strip mall developer. Pastor Williams said he intended to use the money to build a gym for younger church members. “If young people don’t take over the church, it will die,” he said.

Although the congregation voted 3 to 1 in favor of the name change, it was difficult to find proponents who would explain their reasons. Church members have tired of publicity and have been asked not to discuss the issue.

But evidently, the name is no more likely to appeal to the young than the old. Traci Drinkwater, 15, a member, and her friend Elyse Young, 17, a frequent visitor, said they preferred the name Hog Mountain.

“Everything’s changing to fit the Hamilton Mill folk,” Elyse said. “They’re snooty. Money’s what it’s all about.”

Traci added: “If they weren’t coming here with the old name, then they wouldn’t be coming here for the right reasons. It’s not the name, it’s what’s on the inside.”

    A Rural Church Loses Its Old Moniker to Atlanta’s Growing Suburbs, NYT, 25.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/us/25church.html

At Axis of Episcopal Split, an Anti-Gay Nigerian

December 25, 2006
The New York Times
By LYDIA POLGREEN and LAURIE GOODSTEIN

ABUJA, Nigeria, Dec. 20 — The way he tells the story, the first and only time Archbishop Peter J. Akinola knowingly shook a gay person’s hand, he sprang backward the moment he realized what he had done.

Archbishop Akinola, the conservative leader of Nigeria’s Anglican Church who has emerged at the center of a schism over homosexuality in the global Anglican Communion, re-enacted the scene from behind his desk Tuesday, shaking his head in wonder and horror.

“This man came up to me after a service, in New York I think, and said, ‘Oh, good to see you bishop, this is my partner of many years,’ ” he recalled. “I said, ‘Oh!’ I jumped back.”

Archbishop Akinola, a man whose international reputation has largely been built on his tough stance against homosexuality, has become the spiritual head of 21 conservative churches in the United States. They opted to leave the Episcopal Church over its decision to consecrate an openly gay bishop and allow churches to bless same-sex unions. Among the eight Virginia churches to announce they had joined the archbishop’s fold last week are The Falls Church and Truro Church, two large, historic and wealthy parishes.

In a move attacked by some church leaders as a violation of geographical boundaries, Archbishop Akinola has created an offshoot of his Nigerian church in North America for the discontented Americans. In doing so, he has made himself the kingpin of a remarkable alliance between theological conservatives in North America and the developing world that could tip the power to conservatives in the Anglican Communion, a 77-million member confederation of national churches that trace their roots to the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

“He sees himself as the spokesperson for a new Anglicanism, and thus is a direct challenge to the historic authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury,” said the Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.

The 62-year-old son of an illiterate widow, Archbishop Akinola now heads not only Nigeria — the most populous province, or region, in the Anglican Communion, with at least 17 million members — but also the organizations representing the leaders of Anglican provinces in Africa and the developing world. He has also become the most visible advocate for a literal interpretation of Scripture, challenging the traditional Anglican approach of embracing diverse theological viewpoints.

“Why didn’t God make a lion to be a man’s companion?” Archbishop Akinola said at his office here in Abuja. “Why didn’t he make a tree to be a man’s companion? Or better still, why didn’t he make another man to be man’s companion? So even from the creation story, you can see that the mind of God, God’s intention, is for man and woman to be together.”

Archbishop Akinola’s views on homosexuality — that it is an abomination akin to bestiality and pedophilia — are fairly mainstream here. Nigeria is a deeply religious country, evenly divided between Christians and Muslims, and attitudes toward homosexuality, women’s rights and marriage are dictated largely by scripture and enforced by deep social taboos.

Archbishop Akinola spoke forcefully about his unswerving convictions against homosexuality, the ordination of women and the rise of what he called “the liberal agenda,” which he said had “infiltrated our seminaries” in the Anglican Communion.

This view emanating from the developing world is hardly unique to the Anglican church. More and more, churches of many denominations in what many Christian leaders call the “global south,” encompassing Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia, which share these views, are surging as church attendance lags in developed countries.

Bishop Martyn Minns, the rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., who was consecrated by Archbishop Akinola this year to serve as his missionary bishop in North America, said Archbishop Akinola was motivated by a conviction that the Anglican Communion must change its colonial-era leadership structure and mentality.

“He doesn’t want to be the man; he just no longer wants to be the boy,” Bishop Minns said. “He wants to be treated as an equal leader, with equal respect.”

Even among Anglican conservatives, Archbishop Akinola is not universally beloved. In November 2005, he published a letter purporting to be from the leaders, known as primates, of provinces in the global south. It called Europe a “spiritual desert” and criticized the Church of England. Three of the bishops who supposedly signed it later denied adding their names. Some bishops in southern Africa have also challenged his fixation with homosexuality, when AIDS and poverty are a crisis for the continent.

He has been chastised more recently for creating a missionary branch of the Nigerian church in the United States, called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, despite Anglican rules and traditions prohibiting bishops from taking control of churches or priests not in their territory.

“There are primates who are very, very concerned about it,” said Archbishop Drexel Gomez, the primate of the West Indies, because “it introduces more fragmentation.”

Other conservative American churches that have split from the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion, have aligned themselves with other archbishops, in Rwanda, Uganda and several provinces in Latin America — often because they already had ties to these provinces through mission work.

Archbishop Gomez said he understood Archbishop Akinola’s actions because the American conservatives felt an urgent need to leave the Episcopal Church and were unwilling to wait for a new covenant being written for the Anglican Communion. The new covenant is a lengthy and uncertain process led by Archbishop Gomez that some conservatives hope will eventually end the impasse over homosexuality.

One of Archbishop Akinola’s principal arguments, often heard from other conservatives as well, is that Christianity in Nigeria, a country where religious violence has killed tens of thousands in the past decade, must guard its flank lest Islam overtake it. “The church is in the midst of Islam,” he said. “Should the church in this country begin to teach that it is appropriate, that it is right to have same sex unions and all that, the church will simply die.”

He supports a bill in Nigeria’s legislature that would make homosexual sex and any public expression of homosexual identity a crime punishable by five years in prison.

The bill ostensibly aims to ban gay marriage, but it includes measures so extreme that the State Department warned that they would violate basic human rights. Strictly interpreted, the bill would ban two gay people from going out to dinner or seeing a movie together.

It could also lead to the arrest and imprisonment of members of organizations providing all manner of services, particularly those helping people with AIDS.

“They are very loose, those provisions,” said Dorothy Aken ’Ova of the International Center for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, a charity that works with rape victims, AIDS patients and gay rights groups. “It could target just about anyone, based on any form of perception from anybody.”

Archbishop Akinola said he supported any law that limited marriage to heterosexuals, but declined to say whether he supported the specific provisions criminalizing gay associations. “No bishop in this church will go out and say, ‘This man is gay, put him in jail,’ ” the archbishop said. But, he added, Nigeria has the right to pass such a law if it reflects the country’s values.

“Does Nigeria tell America what laws to make?” he said. “Does Nigeria tell England what laws to make? This arrogance, this imperial tendency, should stop for God’s sake.”

Though he insisted that he was not seeking power or influence, he is clearly relishing the curious role reversal of African archbishops sending missionaries to a Western society he sees as increasingly godless.

Asked whether his installing a bishop in the United States violated the church’s longstanding rules, he responded heatedly that he was simply doing what Western churches had done for centuries, sending a bishop to serve Anglicans where there is no church to provide one.

Archbishop Akinola argues that the Convocation, his group in the United States, was established last year to serve Nigerian Anglicans unhappy with the direction of the Episcopal Church, and eventually began to attract non-Nigerians who shared their views. Other church officials and experts say Archbishop Akinola’s intention for the Convocation was to attract Americans and become a rival to the Episcopal Church.

“Self-seeking, self-glory, that is not me,” he said. “No. Many people say I embarrass them with my humility.”

Anyone who criticizes him as power-seeking is simply trying to undermine his message, he said. “The more they demonize, the stronger the works of God,” he said.

Lydia Polgreen reported from Abuja, and Laurie Goodstein from New York.

    At Axis of Episcopal Split, an Anti-Gay Nigerian, NYT, 25.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/world/africa/25episcopal.html?hp&ex=1167109200&en=ed16045828e5ecba&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Pastor at Haggard's New Life Church resigns over 'sexual misconduct'

Posted 12/19/2006 10:17 AM ET
AP
USA Today

COLORADO SPRINGS (AP) — A pastor who worked with young adults at New Life Church has admitted sexual misconduct and resigned just weeks after former church leader Ted Haggard stepped down over sexual immorality.

Christopher Beard, who headed the "twentyfourseven" ministry that taught leadership skills to young adults, resigned Friday, said Rob Brendle, an associate pastor at the 14,000-member church.

Brendle said Beard told church officials about "a series of decisions displaying poor judgment, including one incident of sexual misconduct several years ago."

The church said in a statement that the misconduct was with another unmarried adult several years ago. Beard, who worked at the church for nine years, has since married.

Brendle would not elaborate about the nature of the misconduct but said it did not involve Haggard, who acknowledged he paid a man for a massage and for methamphetamine but said he did not have sex with the man and did not use the drug.

Beard's resignation was first reported Monday by The Denver Post and The Gazette in Colorado Springs. The church said it wouldn't comment further. A residential phone number listed in Beard's name was disconnected.

The church's outside Board of Overseers was asked to examine the "spiritual character" of its 200 staff members after Haggard resigned last month from the church and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

"We recognize there will be increased scrutiny of our church in the wake of the scandal," Brendle said.

He said Beard discussed his "misconduct" during a meeting with the Board of Overseers, made up of four pastors from other congregations.

Beard was reprimanded by the church in 2002, when police broke up a twentyfourseven training exercise he led in a church parking lot involving fake assault rifles.

Haggard and his wife, Gayle Haggard, are undergoing three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed center in Arizona.

    Pastor at Haggard's New Life Church resigns over 'sexual misconduct', UT, 19.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-19-newlifechurch_x.htm

Episcopal Parishes in Virginia Vote to Secede

December 18, 2006
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Two large and influential Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly yesterday to leave the Episcopal Church and to affiliate with the Anglican archbishop of Nigeria, a conservative leader in a churchwide fight over homosexuality.

Five smaller churches in Virginia also announced yesterday that they had voted to secede, joining four others that have already left and three more expected to announce their decisions soon. Some affiliated with other archbishops in Africa.

The secessions could lead to battles over the churches’ property, although both sides say they want to avoid legal fights. The move is also likely to escalate divisions in the worldwide Anglican Communion, a 77-million-member alliance in which the Episcopal Church is the American branch.

The Rev. Martyn Minns, rector at one of the two large parishes, Truro Church in Fairfax, said at a news conference: “A burden is being lifted. There are new possibilities breaking through.”

Clergy members at some of these churches have for many years criticized what they regard as a leftward drift in the Episcopal Church and saw the consecration of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003 as the last straw.

Episcopal Church leaders tried to persuade them that the church could accommodate everyone. The conservatives are a minority in a denomination with 7,200 congregations in 100 dioceses in the United States. Since 2003, about 36 other churches have left, according to the Episcopal News Service. Several dioceses have also taken steps toward separation.

Most of the breakaway churches in Virginia are joining the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, an offshoot of the Nigerian church led by the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter J. Akinola.

But there is a dispute over whether other leaders in the communion will recognize the legitimacy of the convocation. Under Anglican rules and traditions, bishops are not to take control of churches outside their geographical boundaries from the recognized presiding bishops.

Father Minns was consecrated by Archbishop Akinola this year as a bishop in the Nigerian church to lead the convocation in the United States, in the hope that other disaffected churches would gather under that banner.

Bishop Peter James Lee of the Diocese of Virginia, where the Episcopal Church has had roots for nearly 400 years, said his diocese had worked to keep the disaffected churches in the fold.

“The votes today have compromised these discussions and have created Nigerian congregations occupying Episcopal churches,” Bishop Lee said. “This is not the future of the Episcopal Church envisioned by our forebears.”

The bishop also said that, under church law, parish property was “held in trust” for the denomination and the diocese. “As stewards of this historic trust, we fully intend to assert the church’s canonical and legal rights over these properties,” he said.

Ninety-two percent of the parishioners who cast ballots at Truro Church, and 90 percent at the Falls Church, which is in Falls Church, voted to pull out.

Sarah R. Bartenstein, a member of the standing committee for the Diocese of Virginia, said the diocese was concerned about the members of the departing churches who did not want to leave and had no other Episcopal parish in their community.

“They have been unfortunately overlooked in all of this,” Ms. Bartenstein said.

    Episcopal Parishes in Virginia Vote to Secede, NYT, 18.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/us/18episcopal.html

Episcopalians Are Reaching Point of Revolt

December 17, 2006
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

For about 30 years, the Episcopal Church has been one big unhappy family. Under one roof there were female bishops and male bishops who would not ordain women. There were parishes that celebrated gay weddings and parishes that denounced them; theologians sure that Jesus was the only route to salvation, and theologians who disagreed.

Now, after years of threats, the family is breaking up.

As many as eight conservative Episcopal churches in Virginia are expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to cut their ties with the Episcopal Church. Two are large, historic congregations that minister to the Washington elite and occupy real estate worth a combined $27 million, which could result in a legal battle over who keeps the property.

In a twist, these wealthy American congregations are essentially putting themselves up for adoption by Anglican archbishops in poorer dioceses in Africa, Asia and Latin America who share conservative theological views about homosexuality and the interpretation of Scripture with the breakaway Americans.

“The Episcopalian ship is in trouble,” said the Rev. John Yates, rector of The Falls Church, one of the two large Virginia congregations, where George Washington served on the vestry. “So we’re climbing over the rails down to various little lifeboats. There’s a lifeboat from Bolivia, one from Rwanda, another from Nigeria. Their desire is to help us build a new ship in North America, and design it and get it sailing.”

Together, these Americans and their overseas allies say they intend to form a new American branch that would rival or even supplant the Episcopal Church in the worldwide Anglican Communion, a confederation of national churches that trace their roots to the Church of England and the archbishop of Canterbury.

The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, is now struggling to hold the communion together while facing a revolt on many fronts from emboldened conservatives. Last week, conservative priests in the Church of England warned him that they would depart if he did not allow them to sidestep liberal bishops and report instead to sympathetic conservatives.

In Virginia, the two large churches are voting on whether they want to report to the powerful archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, an outspoken opponent of homosexuality who supports legislation in his country that would make it illegal for gay men and lesbians to form organizations, read gay literature or eat together in a restaurant. Archbishop Akinola presides over the largest province in the 77-million-member Anglican Communion; it has more than 17 million members, dwarfing the Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million.

If all eight Virginia churches vote to separate, the Diocese of Virginia, the largest Episcopal diocese in the country, will lose about 10 percent of its 90,000 members. In addition, four churches in Virginia have already voted to secede, and two more are expected to vote soon, said Patrick N. Getlein, secretary of the diocese.

Two weeks ago, the entire diocese in San Joaquin, Calif., voted to sever its ties with the Episcopal Church, a decision it would have to confirm in a second vote next year. Six or more American dioceses say they are considering such a move.

In the last three years, since the Episcopal Church consecrated V. Gene Robinson, a gay man who lives with his partner, as bishop of New Hampshire, about three dozen American churches have voted to secede and affiliate with provinces overseas, according to The Episcopal News Service.

However, the secession effort in Virginia is being closely watched by Anglicans around the world because so many churches are poised to depart simultaneously. Virginia has become a central stage, both for those pushing for secession and for those trying to prevent it.

The Diocese of Virginia is led by Bishop Peter James Lee, the longest-serving Episcopal bishop and a centrist who, both sides agree, has been gracious to the disaffected churches and worked to keep them in the fold.

Bishop Lee has made concessions other bishops would not. He has allowed the churches to keep their seats in diocesan councils, even though they stopped contributing to the diocesan budget in protest. When some of the churches refused to have Bishop Lee perform confirmations in their parishes, he flew in the former archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. George Carey, a conservative evangelical, to take his place.

“Our Anglican tradition has always been a very large tent in which people with different theological emphases can live together,” Bishop Lee said in a telephone interview. “I’m very sorry some in these churches feel that this is no longer the case for them. It certainly is their choice and their decision. No one is forcing them to do this.”

The Diocese of Virginia is also home to the Rev. Martyn Minns, a main organizer in the global effort by conservative Anglicans to ostracize the Episcopal Church. Mr. Minns is the priest in charge of Truro Church, the second of the two historic Virginia parishes now voting on secession.

Anglican rules and traditions prohibit bishops from crossing geographical boundaries to take control of churches or priests not in their territory. So Archbishop Akinola and his American allies have tried to bypass that by establishing a branch of the Nigerian church in the United States, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. Archbishop Akinola has appointed Mr. Minns as his key “missionary bishop” to spread the gospel to Americans on his behalf.

Mr. Minns and other advocates of secession have suggested to the voters that the convocation arrangement has the blessing of the Anglican hierarchy. But on Friday, the Anglican Communion office in London issued a terse statement saying the convocation had not been granted “any official status within the communion’s structures, nor has the archbishop of Canterbury indicated any support for its establishment.”

The voting in Virginia, however, was already well under way, with ballot boxes open for a week starting last Sunday. Church leaders say they need 70 percent of the voters to approve the secession for it to take effect.

If the vote is to secede, the churches and the diocese will fight to keep ownership of Truro Church, in Fairfax, and The Falls Church, in Falls Church, Va., a city named for the church.

Henry D. W. Burt, a member of the standing committee of the Virginia Diocese, grew up in The Falls Church and recently urged members not to secede. He said in an interview: “We’re not talking about Class A office space in Arlington, Va. We’re talking about sacred ground.”

Neither side says it wants to go to court over control of the church property, but both say the law is on their side.

At one of the four Virginia parishes that has already voted to secede, All Saints Church in Dale City, the tally was 402 to 6. But that church had already negotiated a settlement to rent its property from the diocese for $1 each year until it builds another church.

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, said in an e-mail response to a request for an interview that such splits reflect a polarized society, as well as the “anxiety” and “discomfort” that many people feel when they are asked to live with diversity.

“The quick fix embraced in drawing lines or in departing is not going to be an ultimate solution for our discomfort,” she said.

Soon, Bishop Jefferts Schori herself will become the issue. Archbishop Akinola and some other leaders of provinces in developing countries have said they will boycott their primates’ meeting in Tanzania in February unless the archbishop of Canterbury sends a second representative for the American conservatives.

“It’s a huge amount of mess,” said the Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina, who is aligned with the conservatives. “As these two sides fight, a lot of people in the middle of the Episcopal Church are exhausted and trying to hide, and you can’t. When you’re in a family and the two sides are fighting, it affects everybody.”

    Episcopalians Are Reaching Point of Revolt, NYT, 17.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/us/17episcopal.html?hp&ex=1166418000&en=0849e2dc5db0755e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Second Colorado evangelical resigns over gay sex

Tue Dec 12, 2006 9:00pm ET
Reuters

DENVER (Reuters) - A second Colorado evangelical leader in little over a month has resigned from the pulpit over a scandal involving gay sex, church officials said on Tuesday.

Paul Barnes has resigned from the 2,100-member Grace Chapel, a church he founded in suburban Denver, said church spokeswoman Michelle Ames.

Barnes' resignation follows last month's admission by high-profile preacher Ted Haggard that he was guilty of unspecified "sexual immorality" after a male prostitute went public with their liaisons.

Many evangelical Christians view homosexuality as a sin, though some are more strident on the issue than others.

Ames said Barnes told his congregation in a videotaped message on Sunday he had "struggled with homosexuality since he was five years old."

Barnes was confronted by an associate pastor of the church who received an anonymous phone call from a person who heard someone was threatening to go public with the names of Barnes and other evangelical leaders who engaged in homosexual behavior, Ames said.

Barnes, who is married with two grown daughters, then confessed to church elders.

Haggard had been a vocal opponent of gay marriage. He stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life "mega-church" in Colorado Springs.

    Second Colorado evangelical resigns over gay sex, R, 12.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-12-13T015957Z_01_N12378716_RTRUKOC_0_US-EVANGELICAL-SCANDAL-GAY.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-2

Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance

December 12, 2006
The New York Times
By NEELA BANERJEE

RALEIGH, N.C. — Justin Lee believes that the Virgin birth was real, that there is a heaven and a hell, that salvation comes through Christ alone and that he, the 29-year-old son of Southern Baptists, is an evangelical Christian.

Just as he is certain about the tenets of his faith, Mr. Lee also knows he is gay, that he did not choose it and cannot change it.

To many people, Mr. Lee is a walking contradiction, and most evangelicals and gay people alike consider Christians like him horribly deluded about their faith. “I’ve gotten hate mail from both sides,” said Mr. Lee, who runs gaychristian.net, a Web site with 4,700 registered users that mostly attracts gay evangelicals.

The difficulty some evangelicals have in coping with same-sex attraction was thrown into relief on Sunday when the pastor of a Denver megachurch, the Rev. Paul Barnes, resigned after confessing to having sex with men. Mr. Barnes said he had often cried himself to sleep, begging God to end his attraction to men.

His departure followed by only a few weeks that of the Rev. Ted Haggard, then the president of the National Association of Evangelicals and the pastor of a Colorado Springs megachurch, after a male prostitute said Mr. Haggard had had a relationship with him for three years.

Though he did not publicly admit to the relationship, in a letter to his congregation, Mr. Haggard said that he was “guilty of sexual immorality” and that he had struggled all his life with impulses he called “repulsive and dark.”

While debates over homosexuality have upset many Christian and Jewish congregations, gay evangelicals come from a tradition whose leaders have led the fight against greater acceptance of homosexuals.

Gay evangelicals seem to have few paths carved out for them: they can leave religion behind; they can turn to theologically liberal congregations that often differ from the tradition they grew up in; or they can enter programs to try to change their behavior, even their orientation, through prayer and support.

But as gay men and lesbians grapple with their sexuality and an evangelical upbringing they cherish, some have come to accept both. And like other Christians who are trying to broaden the definition of evangelical to include other, though less charged, concerns like the environment and AIDS, gay evangelicals are trying to expand the understanding of evangelical to include them, too.

“A lot of people are freaked out because their only exposure to evangelicalism was a bad one, and a lot ask, ‘Why would you want to be part of a group that doesn’t like you very much?’ ” Mr. Lee said. “But it’s not about membership in groups. It’s about what I believe. Just because some people who believe the same things I do aren’t very loving doesn’t mean I stop believing what I do.”

The most well-known gay evangelical may be the Rev. Mel White, a former seminary professor and ghostwriter for the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Mr. White, who came out publicly in 1993, helped found Soulforce, a group that challenges Christian denominations and other institutions regarding their stance on homosexuality.

But over the last 30 years, rather than push for change, gay evangelicals have mostly created organizations where they are accepted.

Members of Evangelicals Concerned, founded in 1975 by a therapist from New York, Ralph Blair, worship in cities including Denver, New York and Seattle. Web sites have emerged, like Christianlesbians.com and Mr. Lee’s gaychristian.net, whose members include gay people struggling with coming out, those who lead celibate lives and those in relationships.

Justin Cannon, 22, a seminarian who grew up in a conservative Episcopal parish in Michigan, started two Web sites, including an Internet dating site for gay Christians.

“About 90 percent of the profiles say ‘Looking for someone with whom I can share my faith and that it would be a central part of our relationship,’ ” Mr. Cannon said, “so not just a life partner but someone with whom they can connect spiritually.”

But for most evangelicals, gay men and lesbians cannot truly be considered Christian, let alone evangelical.

“If by gay evangelical is meant someone who claims both to abide by the authority of Scripture and to engage in a self-affirming manner in homosexual unions, then the concept gay evangelical is a contradiction,” Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, said in an e-mail message.

“Scripture clearly, pervasively, strongly, absolutely and counterculturally opposes all homosexual practice,” Dr. Gagnon said. “I trust that gay evangelicals would argue otherwise, but Christian proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from Scripture.”

In fact, both sides look to Scripture. The debate is largely over seven passages in the Bible about same-sex couplings. Mr. Gagnon and other traditionalists say those passages unequivocally condemn same-sex couplings.

Those who advocate acceptance of gay people assert that the passages have to do with acts in the context of idolatry, prostitution or violence. The Bible, they argue, says nothing about homosexuality as it is largely understood today as an enduring orientation, or about committed long-term, same-sex relationships.

For some gay evangelicals, their faith in God helped them override the biblical restrictions people preached to them. One lesbian who attends Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh said she grew up in a devout Southern Baptist family and still has what she calls the “faith of a child.” When she figured out at 13 that she was gay, she believed there must have been something wrong with the Bible for condemning her.

“I always knew my own heart: that I loved the Lord, I loved Jesus, loved the church and felt the Spirit move through me when we sang,” said the woman, who declined to be identified to protect her partner’s privacy. “I felt that if God created me, how is that wrong?”

But most evangelicals struggle profoundly with reconciling their faith and homosexuality, and they write to people like Mr. Lee.

There is the 65-year-old minister who is a married father and gay. There are the teenagers considering suicide because they have been taught that gay people are an abomination. There are those who have tried the evangelical “ex-gay” therapies and never became straight.

Mr. Lee said he and his family, who live in Raleigh, have been through almost all of it. His faith was central to his life from an early age, he said. He got the nickname Godboy in high school. But because of his attraction to other boys, he wept at night and begged God to change him. He was certain God would, but when that did not happen, he said, it called everything into question.

He knew no one who was gay who could help, and he could not turn to his church. So for a year, Mr. Lee went to the library almost every day with a notebook and the bright blue leather-bound Bible his parents had given him. He set up his Web site to tell his friends what he was learning through his readings, but e-mail rolled in from strangers, because, he says, other gay evangelicals came to understand they were not alone.

“I told them I don’t have the answers,” Mr. Lee said, “but we can pray together and see where God takes us.”

But even when they accept themselves, gay evangelicals often have difficulty finding a community. They are too Christian for many gay people, with the evangelical rock they listen to and their talk of loving God. Mr. Lee plans to remain sexually abstinent until he is in a long-term, religiously blessed relationship, which would make him a curiosity in straight and gay circles alike.

Gay evangelicals seldom find churches that fit. Congregations and denominations that are open to gay people are often too liberal theologically for evangelicals. Yet those congregations whose preaching is familiar do not welcome gay members, those evangelicals said.

Clyde Zuber, 49, and Martin Fowler, 55, remember sitting on the curb outside Lakeview Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, Tex., almost 20 years ago, Sunday after Sunday, reading the Bible together, after the pastor told them they were not welcome inside. The men met at a Dallas church and have been together 23 years. In Durham, N.C., they attend an Episcopal church and hold a Bible study for gay evangelicals every Friday night at their home.

“Our faith is the basis of our lives,” said Mr. Fowler, a soft-spoken professor of philosophy. “It means that Jesus is the Lord of our household, that we resolve differences peacefully and through love.”

Their lives seem a testament to all that is changing and all that holds fast among evangelicals. Their parents came to their commitment ceremony 20 years ago, their decision ultimately an act of loyalty to their sons, Mr. Zuber said.

But Mr. Zuber’s sister and brother-in-law in Virginia remain convinced that the couple is sinning. “They’re worried we’re going to hell,” Mr. Zuber said. “They say, ‘We love you, but we’re concerned.’ ”

    Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance, NYT, 12.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/us/12evangelical.html

Settlement Set in Oregon Priest Abuse Case

December 11, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:15 p.m. ET
The New York Times

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- About 150 people claiming they were sexually abused by priests have agreed to settle their lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, a federal judge announced Monday.

U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan declined to release the dollar amount, but he said all current and future claims could be covered by the archdiocese without selling off property held by parishes and schools.

All parties involved with the case have been under a strict gag order not to discuss it publicly.

The Archdiocese of Portland was the first in the nation to seek bankruptcy protection to head off a massive lawsuit claiming sexual abuse by priests. It had faced a $135 million lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by the late Rev. Maurice Grammond, a priest at the center of a number of Oregon abuse claims.

Three other dioceses -- Tucson, Ariz.; Spokane, Wash.; and Davenport, Iowa -- have also sought bankruptcy protection from a flood of lawsuits by people alleging sexual abuse by priests. Tucson emerged from the process in 2005.

Earlier this month, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said it would pay $60 million to settle 45 abuse lawsuits, possibly selling off some of its property in Southern California to help cover the cost.

Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States have paid an estimated $1.5 billion since 1950 to handle claims of sex abuse by its priests.

------

On the Net:

Archdiocese of Portland: http://www.archpdx.org

    Settlement Set in Oregon Priest Abuse Case, NYT, 11.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Church-Abuse-Settlement.html?hp&ex=1165899600&en=85c9988fff6c1512&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Religion for a Captive Audience, Paid For by Taxes

December 10, 2006
The New York Times
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES and ANDREW LEHREN

Life was different in Unit E at the state prison outside Newton, Iowa.

The toilets and sinks — white porcelain ones, like at home — were in a separate bathroom with partitions for privacy. In many Iowa prisons, metal toilet-and-sink combinations squat beside the bunks, to be used without privacy, a few feet from cellmates.

The cells in Unit E had real wooden doors and doorknobs, with locks. More books and computers were available, and inmates were kept busy with classes, chores, music practice and discussions. There were occasional movies and events with live bands and real-world food, like pizza or sandwiches from Subway. Best of all, there were opportunities to see loved ones in an environment quieter and more intimate than the typical visiting rooms.

But the only way an inmate could qualify for this kinder mutation of prison life was to enter an intensely religious rehabilitation program and satisfy the evangelical Christians running it that he was making acceptable spiritual progress. The program — which grew from a project started in 1997 at a Texas prison with the support of George W. Bush, who was governor at the time — says on its Web site that it seeks “to ‘cure’ prisoners by identifying sin as the root of their problems” and showing inmates “how God can heal them permanently, if they turn from their sinful past.”

One Roman Catholic inmate, Michael A. Bauer, left the program after a year, mostly because he felt the program staff and volunteers were hostile toward his faith.

“My No. 1 reason for leaving the program was that I personally felt spiritually crushed,” he testified at a court hearing last year. “I just didn’t feel good about where I was and what was going on.”

For Robert W. Pratt, chief judge of the federal courts in the Southern District of Iowa, this all added up to an unconstitutional use of taxpayer money for religious indoctrination, as he ruled in June in a lawsuit challenging the arrangement.

The Iowa prison program is not unique. Since 2000, courts have cited more than a dozen programs for having unconstitutionally used taxpayer money to pay for religious activities or evangelism aimed at prisoners, recovering addicts, job seekers, teenagers and children.

Nevertheless, the programs are proliferating. For example, the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest prison management company, with 65 facilities and 71,000 inmates under its control, is substantially expanding its religion-based curriculum and now has 22 institutions offering residential programs similar to the one in Iowa. And the federal Bureau of Prisons, which runs at least five multifaith programs at its facilities, is preparing to seek bids for a single-faith prison program as well.

Government agencies have been repeatedly cited by judges and government auditors for not doing enough to guard against taxpayer-financed evangelism. But some constitutional lawyers say new federal rules may bar the government from imposing any special requirements for how faith-based programs are audited.

And, typically, the only penalty imposed when constitutional violations are detected is the cancellation of future financing — with no requirement that money improperly used for religious purposes be repaid.

But in a move that some constitutional lawyers found surprising, Judge Pratt ordered the prison ministry in the Iowa case to repay more than $1.5 million in government money, saying the constitutional violations were serious and clearly foreseeable.

His decision has been appealed by the prison ministry to a federal appeals court and fiercely protested by the attorneys general of nine states and lawyers for a number of groups advocating greater government accommodation of religious groups. The ministry’s allies in court include the Bush administration, which argued that the repayment order could derail its efforts to draw more religious groups into taxpayer-financed programs.

Officials of the Iowa program said that any anti-Catholic comments made to inmates did not reflect the program’s philosophy, and are not condoned by its leadership.

Jay Hein, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said the Iowa decision was unfair to the ministry and reflects an “overreaching” at odds with legal developments that increasingly “show favor to religion in the public square.”

And while he acknowledged the need for vigilance, he said he did not think the constitutional risks outweighed the benefits of inviting “faith-infused” ministries, like the one in Iowa, to provide government-financed services to “people of faith who seek to be served in this ‘full-person’ concept.”

Crossing a Bright Line

Over the last two decades, legislatures, government agencies and the courts have provided religious organizations with a widening range of regulatory and tax exemptions. And in the last decade religious institutions have also been granted access to public money once denied on constitutional grounds, including historic preservation grants and emergency reconstruction funds.

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that public money could be used for religious instruction or indoctrination, but only when the intended beneficiaries made the choice themselves between religious and secular programs — as when parents decide whether to use tuition vouchers at religious schools or secular ones. The court emphasized the difference between such “indirect” financing, in which the money flows through beneficiaries who choose that program, and “direct” funding, where the government chooses the programs that receive money.

But even in today’s more accommodating environment, constitutional scholars agree that one line between church and state has remained fairly bright: The government cannot directly finance or support religious evangelism or indoctrination. That restriction typically has not loomed large when public money goes to religious charities providing essentially secular services, like job training, after-school tutoring, child care or food banks. In such cases, the beneficiaries need not accept the charity’s religious beliefs to get the secular benefits the government is financing.

The courts have taken a different view, however, when public money goes directly to groups, like the Iowa ministry, whose method of helping others is to introduce them to a specific set of religious beliefs — and whose success depends on the beneficiary accepting those core beliefs. In those cases, most of the challenged grants have been struck down as unconstitutional.

Those who see faith-based groups as exceptionally effective allies in the battle against criminal recidivism, teen pregnancy, addiction and other social ills say these cases are rare, compared with the number of programs receiving funds, and should not tarnish the concept of bringing more religious groups into publicly financed programs, so long as any direct financing is used only for secular expenses.

That concept has been embodied most prominently since 2001 in the Bush administration’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative, a high-profile effort to encourage religious and community groups to participate in government programs. More than 100 cities and 33 states have established similar initiatives, according to Mr. Hein.

The basic architecture of these initiatives has so far withstood constitutional challenge, although the Supreme Court agreed on Dec. 1 to consider a case on whether taxpayers have legal standing to bring such challenges against the Bush administration’s program.

Defenders of these initiatives say they are necessary to eliminate longstanding government policies that discriminated against religious groups — to provide a level playing field, as one White House study put it.

But critics say the “level playing field” argument ignores the fact that giving public money directly to ministries that aim at religious conversion poses constitutional problems that simply do not arise when the money goes elsewhere.

Converting Young People

Those constitutional problems sharpen when young people are the intended beneficiaries of these transformational ministries. In recent years, several judges have concluded that children and teenagers, like prisoners, have too few options and too little power to make the voluntary choices the Supreme Court requires when public money flows to programs involving religious instruction or indoctrination.

That was the conclusion last year of a federal judge in Michigan, in a case filed by Teen Ranch, a nonprofit Christian facility that provides residential care for troubled or abused children ages 11 to 17.

In 2003, state officials imposed a moratorium on placements of children there, primarily because of its intensively religious programming. Lawyers for the ranch went to court to challenge that moratorium.

“Teen Ranch acknowledges that it is overtly and unapologetically a Christian facility with a Christian worldview that hopes to touch and improve the lives of the youth served by encouraging their conversion to faith in Christ, or assisting them in deepening their pre-existing Christian faith,” observed a United States District judge, Robert Holmes Bell, in a decision released in September 2005.

Although youngsters in state custody could not choose where to be placed, they could refuse to go to the ranch if they objected to its religious character. As a result, the ranch’s lawyers argued, the state money was constitutionally permissible.

The state contended that the children in its care were “too young, vulnerable and traumatized” to make genuine choices. The ranch disputed that and added that the children had case workers and other adults to guide them. Judge Bell rejected Teen Ranch’s arguments. “Regardless of whether state wards are particularly vulnerable, they are children,” he wrote.

The ranch in Michigan has discontinued operations pending the outcome of its appeal, said Mitchell E. Koster, who was its chief operating officer. “We are confident that our argument will win,” Mr. Koster said. “It’s just a question of at what level.”

In another case early last year, a federal judge struck down a federal grant in 2003 to MentorKids USA, a ministry based in Phoenix, to provide mentors for the children of prisoners. In a case filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wis., the judge noted that the exclusively Christian mentors had to regularly assess whether the young people in their care seemed “to be progressing in relationship with God.” In a program newsletter offered as evidence, its director said, “Our goal is to see every young adult choose Christ.”

The federal government had been clearly informed in advance of the nature of the MentorKids ministry, said John Gibson, chairman of the group’s board. “The court’s decision meant that there were 50 kids we could have served that we were not able to serve.”

In another case, more than $1 million in federal funds went to the Alaska Christian College in Soldotna, Alaska, which says it provides “a theologically based post-secondary education” to teenage Native Americans from isolated villages. But an investigator from the Education Department who visited the school last year found a first-year curriculum “that is almost entirely religious in nature.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued to block the financing. The school promised to use government money only for secular expenses, and federal financing resumed last May, according to Derek Gaubatz, of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents the college.

A number of government grants to finance sexual abstinence education have been successfully challenged. For example, the Louisiana Governor’s Program on Abstinence gave federal money to several religious groups that used it for clearly unconstitutional purposes, a federal judge ruled in 2002, in a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

One grant went to a theater company that toured high schools performing a skit called “Just Say Whoa.” The script contained many religious references including one in which a character called Bible Guy tells teenagers in the cast: “As Christians, our bodies belong to the Lord, not to us.”

The federal judge said the grants were so poorly monitored that the state missed other clear signs of unconstitutional activity — as when one Catholic diocese sent monthly reports showing that it had used federal money “to support prayer at abortion clinics, pro-life marches and pro-life rallies.” Gail Dignam, director of the abstinence program, said that state contracts now emphasize more clearly that no grant money may be used for religious activities.

The Programs in Prisons

Programs like the one at the Iowa prison are a rare ray of hope for American prisoners, and governments should encourage them, their supporters say.

“We have 2.3 million Americans in prison today; 700,000 of them will get out of prison this coming year,” said Mark L. Earley, a former attorney general of Virginia. Many inmates come out of prison “much more antisocial than when they came in,” he added. He said he saw faith-based groups as essential partners in any effective rehabilitation efforts.

Mr. Earley is the president and chief executive of Prison Fellowship Ministries, based in Lansdowne, Va. With almost $56 million a year in revenue, the ministry oversees the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, which operates the Iowa program.

Since its birth in 1976, Prison Fellowship has been most closely associated with one of its founders, Charles W. Colson, who said in a 2002 newsletter that the InnerChange program demonstrates “that Christ changes lives, and that changing prisoners from the inside out is the only crime-prevention program that really works.”

In early 2003, Americans United for Separation of Church and State joined with a group of Iowa taxpayers and inmates to challenge the InnerChange program in federal court.

In ruling on that case, Judge Pratt noted that the born-again Christian staff was the sole judge of an inmate’s spiritual transformation. If an inmate did not join in the religious activities that were part of his “treatment,” the staff could write up disciplinary reports, generating demerits the inmate’s parole board might see. Or they could expel the inmate.

And while the program was supposedly open to all, in practice its content was “a substantial disincentive” for inmates of other faiths to join, the judge noted. Although the ministry itself does not condone hostility toward Catholics, Roman Catholic inmates heard their faith criticized by staff members and volunteers from local evangelical churches, the judge found. And Jews and Muslims in the program would have been required to participate in Christian worship services even if that deeply offended their own religious beliefs.

Mr. Earley said Judge Pratt’s decision was sharply inconsistent with current law and his standard for separating secular from religious expenses was so extreme that it would disqualify almost any faith-based program. He acknowledged that inmates, whatever their own faith, are required to participate in all program activities, including worship, but he insisted that a religious conversion is not required for success. InnerChange uses biblical references only to illustrate a set of universal values, such as integrity and responsibility, and not to exclude those of other faiths, he said, adding that it was “unfortunate” if any inmates felt the program denigrated Catholicism or any other Christian faith. Corrections officials in Iowa declined to comment on the case.

Not all programs in prisons are so narrowly focused. Florida now has three prisons that offer inmates, who must ask to be housed there, more than two dozen offerings ranging from various Christian denominations to Orthodox Judaism to Scientology. But at Newton, Judge Pratt found, there were few options — and no equivalent programs — without religious indoctrination.

“The state has literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one of its penal institutions, giving the leaders of that congregation, i.e., InnerChange employees, authority to control the spiritual, emotional and physical lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates,” Judge Pratt wrote. “There are no adequate safeguards present, nor could there be, to ensure that state funds are not being directly spent to indoctrinate Iowa inmates.”

InnerChange, which has been widely praised by corrections officials and politicians, operates similar programs at prisons in Texas, Minnesota, Kansas, Arkansas and, by next spring, Missouri. Officials in those states are monitoring the Iowa case, but several said they believed their programs were sufficiently different to survive a similar challenge.

A government-financed religious education program at a county jail in Fort Worth was struck down by the Texas Supreme Court more than five years ago, and more lawsuits are pending. Corrections Corporation was among those sued last year by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is challenging a Christian residential program at a women’s prison in Grant, N.M. The foundation has also sued the federal Bureau of Prisons over its faith-based rehabilitation programs. And Americans United, the Iowa plaintiff, and the American Civil Liberties Union have sued a job-training program run by a religious group at the Bradford County Jail near Troy, Pa.

Prison Fellowship Ministries is one of about a half-dozen Christian groups that operate programs at jails and prisons run by the Corrections Corporation. The company’s lawyers are studying the Iowa decision, said a spokeswoman, Louise Grant. “But we are not, at this time, changing or altering any of our programming based on that, or any other ruling.”

Inadequate Monitoring

Government agencies have been criticized repeatedly for inadequately watching these programs. Besides the criticism in various court decisions, the Government Accountability Office has twice raised questions about cloudy guidelines and inadequate safeguards against government-financed evangelism.

In its most recent audit released in June, the G.A.O., which examined faith-based organizations in four states, found that some were violating federal rules against proselytizing and that government agencies did not have adequate safeguards against such violations.

The problem is not that none of these programs are audited. Every group that gets a federal grant worth more than $500,000 has to pay a private auditor to examine its books and report to the government. Many federal programs, like those that provide Medicaid services or help the government allocate arts grants, require additional audits.

But no supplemental audits are required under the faith-based initiative — indeed, it would probably violate the Bush administration’s new regulations to do so, said Robert W. Tuttle, a professor of law and religion at George Washington University and co-director of legal research, along with Ira C. Lupu, for the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, a project of the Rockefeller Institute.

“The rules can be read to prohibit special audit requirements because that would be considered a stigma, which would be discriminatory,” Professor Tuttle said. “But that flies in the face of constitutional logic, because religion is special, and that special quality has to be reflected in program guidelines and audit rules.”

The G.A.O. also says the government cannot easily or accurately track either how much money is flowing to groups or whether they are using the funds in unconstitutional ways.

The Bush administration is already studying whether these constitutional problems can be resolved by reshaping many government grants into voucher programs under which the beneficiary decides where the money goes. But vouchers are a limited solution because most social service agencies need to know that a certain amount of money is assured before they can begin operations.

Mr. Hein, the White House official, agreed that vouchers could clarify the legal landscape. But even where they are not practical, he said, the Bush administration remains committed to keeping the doors to government financing open for as many religious groups as possible.

Donna Anderson contributed research.

    Religion for a Captive Audience, Paid For by Taxes, NYT, 10.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/business/10faith.html?hp&ex=1165813200&en=9d0e1451cc709fc2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions

December 7, 2006
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

The highest legal body in Conservative Judaism, the centrist movement in worldwide Jewry, voted yesterday to allow the ordination of gay rabbis and the celebration of same-sex commitment ceremonies.

The decision, which followed years of debate, was denounced by traditionalists in the movement as an indication that Conservative Judaism had abandoned its commitment to adhere to Jewish law, but celebrated by others as a long-awaited move toward full equality for gay people.

“We see this as a giant step forward,” said Sarah Freidson, a rabbinical student and co-chairwoman of Keshet, a student group at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York that has been pushing for change.

But in a reflection of the divisions in the movement, the 25 rabbis on the law committee passed three conflicting legal opinions — one in favor of gay rabbis and unions, and two against.

In doing so, the committee left it up to individual synagogues to decide whether to accept or reject gay rabbis and commitment ceremonies, saying that either course is justified according to Jewish law.

“We believe in pluralism,” said Rabbi Kassel Abelson, chairman of the panel, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, at a news conference after the meeting at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. “We recognized from the very beginnings of the movement that no single position could speak for all members” on the law committee or in the Conservative movement.

In protest, four conservative rabbis resigned from the law committee, saying that the decision to allow gay ordination violated Jewish law, or halacha. Among them were the authors of the two legal opinions the committee adopted that opposed gay rabbis and same-sex unions.

One rabbi, Joel Roth, said he resigned because the measure allowing gay rabbis and unions was “outside the pale of halachic reasoning.”

With many Protestant denominations divided over homosexuality in recent years, the decision by Conservative Judaism’s leading committee of legal scholars will be read closely by many outside the movement because Conservative Jews say they uphold Jewish law and tradition, which includes biblical injunctions against homosexuality.

The decision is also significant because Conservative Judaism is considered the centrist movement in Judaism, wedged between the liberal Reform and Reconstructionist movements, which have accepted an openly gay clergy for more than 10 years, and the more traditional Orthodox, which rejects it.

The move could create confusion in congregations that are divided over the issue, said Rabbi Jerome Epstein, executive director of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the movement’s more than 750 synagogues with 1.5 million members in North America.

“Most of our congregations will not be of one mind, the same way that we were not of one mind,” said Rabbi Epstein, also a law committee member. “Our mandate is to help congregations deal with this pluralism.”

Some synagogues and rabbis could leave the Conservative movement, but many rabbis and experts cautioned that the law committee’s decision was unlikely to cause a widespread schism.

Before the vote, some rabbis in Canada, where many Conservative synagogues lean closer to Orthodoxy than in the United States, threatened to break with the movement.

But Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, said: “I find it hard to buy the idea that this change, which has been widely expected, will lead anybody to leave, because synagogues that don’t want to make changes will simply point to the rulings that will allow them not to make any changes. This is not like a papal edict.”

The question of whether to admit and ordain openly gay rabbinic students will now be taken up by the movement’s seminaries. The University of Judaism, in Los Angeles, has already signaled its support, said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, its rector and the vice chairman of the law committee. He co-wrote the legal opinion allowing gay ordination and unions that passed on Wednesday.

The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the flagship school in Conservative Judaism, will take up the issue in meetings of the faculty, the students and the trustees in the next few months, Chancellor-elect Arnold Eisen said in an interview. Mr. Eisen said he personally favored ordaining gay rabbis as long as it was permissible according to Jewish law and the faculty approved.

“I’ve been asking the faculty, and time and again I got the same answer,” Mr. Eisen said. “People don’t know what they themselves think, and they don’t know what their colleagues are thinking. There’s never been a discussion like this before about this issue.”

The law committee has passed contradictory rulings before, on issues like whether it is permissible to drive to synagogue on the Sabbath. But the opinions it approved on Wednesday reflect the law committee’s split on homosexuality.

The one written by Rabbi Roth upholds the prohibition on gay rabbis that the committee passed overwhelmingly in 1992. Another rebuts the idea that homosexuality is biologically ingrained in every case, and suggests that some gay people could undergo “reparative therapy” to change their sexuality.

The ruling accepting gay rabbis is itself a compromise. It favors ordaining gay rabbis and blessing same-sex unions, as long as the men do not practice sodomy.

Committee members said that, in practice, it is a prohibition that will never be policed. The ruling was intended to open the door to gay people while conforming to rabbinic interpretations of the biblical passage in Leviticus which says, “Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination.”

The committee also rejected two measures that argued for a complete lifting of the prohibition on homosexuality, after deciding that both amounted to a “fix” of existing Jewish law, a higher level of change that requires 13 votes to pass, which they did not receive.

Rabbi Gordon Tucker, the author of one of the rejected opinions, said he was satisfied with the compromise measure. “In effect, there isn’t any real practical difference,” he said.

The Conservative movement was once the dominant stream in American Judaism but is now second in numbers to the Reform movement. Conservative Judaism has lost members in the last two decades to branches on the left and the right. Pamela S. Nadell, a professor of history and director of the Jewish Studies program at American University, said, “The conservative movement is wrestling with the whole question of how it defines itself, whether it still defines itself as a halachic movement, and that’s why there was so much debate and angst over this.”

    Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions, NYT, 7.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/us/07jews.html

Justices to Decide if Citizens May Challenge White House’s Religion-Based Initiative

December 2, 2006
The New York Times
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether private citizens are entitled to go to court to challenge activities of the White House office in charge of the Bush administration’s religion-based initiative.

A lower court had blocked a lawsuit challenging conferences the White House office holds for the purpose of teaching religious organizations how to apply and compete for federal grants. That constitutional challenge, by a group advocating the strict separation of church and state, was reinstated by an appeals court; the administration in turn appealed to the Supreme Court.

The case is one of three appeals the justices added to their calendar for argument in February. A question in one of the other cases is whether a public school principal in Juneau, Alaska, violated a student’s free-speech rights by suspending him from school for displaying, at a public off-campus event, a banner promoting drug use.

Together with a third new case, on whether federal land-management officials can be sued under the racketeering statute for actions they take against private landowners, the additions to the court’s docket raised the metabolism of what had begun to look like an unusually quiet term. It had been just short of a month since the justices accepted any new cases.

As in the case the justices heard on Wednesday on the administration’s refusal to regulate automobile emissions that contribute to climate change, the question in the White House case is the technical one of “standing to sue.” And as the argument on Wednesday demonstrated, standing is a crucially important aspect of litigation against the government.

In its lawsuit challenging the White House conferences, filed in Federal District Court in Madison, Wis., in 2004, an organization called the Freedom From Religion Foundation named as defendants more than a dozen administration officials who oversaw or participated in the conferences.

The lawsuit alleged that the officials were using tax dollars in ways that violated the separation of church and state required by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. For example, the complaint quoted Rod Paige, then the secretary of education, as telling the audience at a 2002 White House conference that “we are here because we have a president, who is true, is a true man of God” and who wanted to enable “good people” to “act on their spiritual imperative” by running social service programs with federal financial support.

Judge John C. Shabaz of Federal District Court dismissed the lawsuit for lack of standing, finding that the officials’ activities were not sufficiently tied to specific Congressional appropriations. Taxpayers’ objections to the use of general appropriations could not be a basis for standing, he said. The president’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative was created through a series of executive orders and not by Congress, he noted.

The decision was overturned, and the lawsuit reinstated, in a 2-to-1 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago. Writing for the majority, Judge Richard A. Posner said the distinction cited by Judge Shabaz made no difference. Judge Posner said the plaintiffs were entitled to challenge the conferences “as propaganda vehicles for religion,” even if they were neither financed through a specific Congressional appropriation nor made grants directly to religious groups.

As a general matter, people do not have standing, based solely on their status as taxpayers, to challenge the expenditure of federal money. The Supreme Court’s precedents have carved out religion cases as an exception to this general rule.

In its appeal, Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, No. 06-157, the administration is arguing the exception is a narrow one, “designed to prevent the specific historic evil of direct legislative subsidization of religious entities,” a definition that the administration says does not apply to the conferences. For the federal courts to permit such a lawsuit, its brief asserts, would upset “the delicate balance of power between the judicial and executive branches” and open the courthouse door to anyone with a “generalized grievance.”

The student free-speech case the justices accepted, Morse v. Frederick, No. 06-278, is an appeal by a high school principal, Deborah Morse, who suspended a student, Joseph Frederick, after an incident during the Olympic Torch Relay that came through Juneau in 2002. Students were allowed to leave class to watch the parade. Mr. Frederick and some friends unfurled a 20-foot-long banner proclaiming “Bong hits 4 Jesus,” a reference to smoking marijuana.

When the student refused to take down the banner, claiming a First Amendment right to display it off school property, the principal confiscated it and eventually suspended him for 10 days. Mr. Frederick filed a lawsuit, which the Federal District Court in Juneau dismissed.

But the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the punishment violated the student’s First Amendment rights and, further, that the principal was liable for damages, in an amount to be determined by the district court. Ms. Morse’s Supreme Court appeal challenges both the appeals court’s interpretation of the First Amendment and its refusal to shield her from financial liability through a doctrine known as qualified immunity.

The third new case, Wilkie v. Robbins, No. 06-219, is a government appeal on behalf of employees of the Bureau of Land Management in a dispute with a Wyoming landowner who charged them with using tactics amounting to extortion to get him to grant public access to his property. The federal appeals court in Denver held that a racketeering suit based on the extortion charge could proceed.

    Justices to Decide if Citizens May Challenge White House’s Religion-Based Initiative, NYT, 2.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/02/washington/02scotus.html

Archdiocese in Los Angeles Settles Claims of Sex Abuse

December 2, 2006
The New York Times
By CINDY CHANG

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 1 — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to a $60 million settlement of claims by 45 people against clergymen who had sexually abused them as children, the archdiocese announced Friday.

The average payment of about $1.3 million to each plaintiff is among the highest in a sexual abuse settlement involving clergy members. In October, the archdiocese settled seven other claims for a total of $10 million.

The archdiocese will pay $40 million of the settlement from its central operations fund with the rest coming from insurance money and the religious orders of the 25 accused clergymen. The money will not be taken from individual parishes, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the head of the archdiocese, said in a telephone interview.

Over 500 sexual abuse lawsuits are still pending against the archdiocese, the country’s largest. Payouts in those cases would come mostly from insurance, but the archdiocese may have to sell property or reduce ministry services to make up the difference, Cardinal Mahony said.

“Is it going to hurt? Oh sure, we could have used the money for other pastoral works,” he said. “But it’s also an acknowledgment and a recognition of our responsibility, that the church failed these people. The church accepts responsibility, and I accept responsibility.”

The settlement also involves the release of some documents related to the abuse cases, in a manner to be determined by a judge.

Raymond P. Boucher, a lawyer for 31 of the plaintiffs, criticized the archdiocese for announcing the settlement before the details were final, but he did not dispute its general terms. Payments to individual plaintiffs range from about $500,000 to as much as $3.5 million, Mr. Boucher said.

“You look at the 45 victims, and you see that almost all of them would have lived normal lives and normal healthy lives and had wonderful childhoods if the church had taken responsibility to stop these priests from molesting these children,” Mr. Boucher said. “It’s a clear indictment of the church and the pattern of cover-up they’ve engaged in for years and years.”

The earliest of the accusations dates from the 1940s and the most recent from the late 1990s. Many of the accused were repeat offenders, Mr. Boucher said, including Michael Wempe, a retired priest who was sentenced in May to three years in prison for molesting a boy.

Another accused priest in the settlement, according to Mr. Boucher, was the Rev. Michael Baker, who confessed to then-Archbishop Mahony in 1986 that he had had a sexual relationship with two young boys. After undergoing counseling, Father Baker was assigned to parishes where he still had access to young boys, according to files released by the archdiocese.

Prosecutors have charged Mr. Baker, who was removed from the priesthood in 2000, with sexually abusing a boy for 12 years beginning in 1984 when the victim was 7.

“Many years ago, we really believed that these offenders could be cured and we acted on that information,” Cardinal Mahony said in the interview. “We found out in the early 1990s that that was not true.”

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the archdiocese made “a business decision” to avoid the expense of going to trial. She said of the victims, “I don’t believe any amount of money can restore their shattered childhoods, the innocence that was destroyed or the emotional scars that haunt them today.”

    Archdiocese in Los Angeles Settles Claims of Sex Abuse, NYT, 2.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/02/us/02settle.html

Sen. Obama joins evangelicals in AIDS fight

Fri Dec 1, 2006 10:51 PM ET
Reuters
By Jill Serjeant

LAKE FOREST, California (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and a leading U.S. evangelical pastor pledged on Friday to work together in an unusual and controversial meeting of minds on the fight against AIDS.

Obama, an abortion rights supporter from Illinois and a potential presidential contender, and Rick Warren, leader of the Saddleback Valley Community Church, brushed aside criticism from some conservative church leaders angry at Obama's presence at an AIDS conference designed to rally Christians to fight the global pandemic.

"It is time for a coalition of civility. We can treat each other with respect and work together," said Warren, joining hands and standing in prayer with Obama and Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, another conference speaker and possible presidential contender.

"Our goal has been to put people together who normally won't even speak to each other," said Warren, author of a best-selling inspirational book, "The Purpose Driven Life."

Eighteen leaders in the anti-abortion movement sent Warren a letter this week saying Obama had no place at the Saddleback pulpit because of his stance on abortion.

"If Sen. Obama cannot defend the most helpless citizens in this country, he has nothing to say to the AIDS crisis. You cannot fight one evil while justifying another," said the letter signed by the presidents of the American Family Association, the American Life League and others.

Obama told the conference of some 2,000 Christians, AIDS organizations and church leaders from 18 countries that AIDS required a "change in hearts and minds, in cultures and attitudes."

"AIDS is a challenge not only of our willingness to respond but of our ability to look past the artificial divisions and debates that have often shaped that response," said Obama, winning a standing ovation from the audience.

'LATE TO THE PARTY'

The conference was organized on World AIDS Day by Warren's church in Southern California, which attracts some 22,000 people to services each week and is one of the largest churches in the United States.

Warren said evangelicals -- some of whom have regarded AIDS as God's punishment for gay sex -- had been "late to the party in this particular crisis."

"We have had to repent over that. But now we are here to stay," said Warren. "It is the church that needs to take the lead on HIV/AIDS."

Obama said he respectfully disagreed with people who oppose condom use as a means of HIV/AIDS prevention because they believe it encourages promiscuity.

"I do not accept the notion that those who make mistakes in their lives should be given an effective death sentence," he said.

The Saddleback church says the aim of the conference was to encourage millions of Christians in the United States and around the world to become caregivers, use churches as centers for help and campaign to prevent AIDS at home and in Africa.

In a bid to reduce the stigma of AIDS testing, Obama, Warren and Brownback each took a mouth swab test for the disease during a news conference. The results, back in 20 minutes, were negative for all three.

    Sen. Obama joins evangelicals in AIDS fight, R, 1.12.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-12-02T035038Z_01_N01387138_RTRUKOC_0_US-AIDS-EVANGELICALS.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-3

Mormon political clout grows

Posted 12/1/2006 5:43 PM ET
By Diana Marrero, Gannett News Service
USA Today

WASHINGTON — When Sen. Harry Reid becomes Senate majority leader next year, he will be the most powerful Mormon in Washington.
But that reign could be short-lived if Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney makes a bid for the presidency in 2008 and wins. Romney is considering a run in what is expected to be a wide-open field.

Reid is a Democrat from Nevada and Romney is a Republican. Though they have chosen different political stripes, they are bonded in a faith whose leaders encourage members to become active in public life.

Mormons are heeding the call. Typically conservative, they are more politically active than average Americans, according to a recent study. And the 15 Mormons in Congress is a slightly greater representation than the religious group's percentage of the general population.

"From the pulpit, they talk about the importance of being involved in the community, being involved in politics," said Dean Heller, a Mormon who was just elected to represent Nevada in the House. "They want members of the church to be integrated into society."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the church is officially called, believes the nation's founders were men of God and that the U.S. Constitution was divinely inspired.

But as politically active as Mormons may be, their faith is largely misunderstood by most Americans.

Some evangelical Christians consider the faith a cult, and 35% of Americans say they would not vote for a Mormon for president, according to a recent poll.

That presents a particular challenge for Romney, who so far has steered clear of any public discussion about his religion.

"Because religion matters in politics, it represents opportunities and challenges for candidates," said John Green, at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. "Candidates have to be very cautious when it comes to talking about their faith."

A Time magazine story set to hit the news stands next week features an article titled "Can a Mormon be president?"

Quin Monson, a political science professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, says Romney's faith would likely matter to only a minority of voters.

"If a Mormon can be elected as governor of Massachusetts and a Mormon can be Senate majority leader, certainly a Mormon can be president," he said.

A religious minority, Mormons represent less than 2% of the American population with 5.5 million members across the country. The church, which claims a total of 12 million members, is one of the fastest growing faiths in the world.

Roughly 80% of Americans consider themselves Christians, with Protestants making up about half of that group. About a quarter are Catholic.

Like Mormons, Jews and Episcopalians are also overrepresented in Congress. For example, Episcopalians make up less than 1% of the American population but 8% of Congress.

John M. Haddow, a former legislative director for Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, said the senator was always open about his Mormon faith. Hatch briefly ran for the GOP presidential nomination six years ago.

Mormons have come a long way since Joseph Smith founded the church in upstate New York in the early 1800s. An angry mob killed Smith shortly after he announced his candidacy for president in 1844.

Sixty years later, Utah Republican Reed Smoot became the first Mormon elected to the Senate. His arrival sparked congressional hearings on polygamy, a practice officially banned by Mormon leaders in 1890. Smoot, who was not a polygamist, served five terms.

Mormons still face questions about polygamy — fueled in part by the HBO show Big Love about a Utah man and his multiple wives. Recent news coverage of a rape trial against the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints, has also kept the issue in the public arena.

But church members and others say these associations are unfair.

They point to John F. Kennedy, who overcame questions about his religion to become the first Catholic elected president in 1960.

"He broke the ground for people like Romney to run without regard to their specific faith tradition," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, of the National Council of Churches and a former Pennsylvania congressman.

Reid, who attends a Mormon church just outside Washington and keeps the Book of Mormon in his office, was not born into the faith. He joined the church in college and raised his five children in the church.

"The church has been a wonderful thing in my life," he said. "It helps me try to always do the right thing, understand that what you do has consequences."

Still, he recently drew sharp criticism from church leaders by voting against a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. He thinks gay marriage is a states' rights issue.

Although Mormon religious leaders do not endorse specific candidates, the church has at times expressed its opinion on issues such as gambling and same-sex marriage, said church spokeswoman Kim Farah.

"We believe we have an obligation as members of the communities in which we live and as citizens of the nation to engage in the political process in an informed way," she said in an e-mail. "However, church members are to make their own choices and affiliations in partisan politics."

    Mormon political clout grows, UT, 1.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-12-01-mormons_x.htm

Bones of contention: Religious crusader battles auction giant

Posted 11/24/2006 8:21 PM ET
By Brian Murphy, Associated Press
USA Today

Hardly an hour goes by without Thomas Serafin or one of his cyber-sleuths checking what eBay has to offer.

They're not hunting for bargains and never place a bid. Their interest is bone shards, bits of wizened flesh and a contemporary twist on the sacred and the profane: How the ancient trade in the most coveted religious relics has moved into the global flea market of online bidding.

"You can find bone fragments supposedly from St. Augustine being hawked on the Internet along with trinkets and antiques. There is something very wrong here," said Serafin, a professional photographer and Catholic activist based in Los Angeles, who has led an expanding campaign since the late 1990s to block the online sale of objects purported to contain the remains of Christian saints.

Last month, Serafin's group, the International Crusade for Holy Relics, opened a new front that's truly worthy of a David and Goliath metaphor: a call to boycott eBay.

It seeks to pressure the world's largest online auction site to close alleged loopholes used to bypass its ban on allowing bids for human remains.

Hani Durzy, spokesman for eBay, said the San Jose, Calif.-based company is "very willing to reopen talks" with Serafin's group about its concerns after discussions broke off about a year ago.

"As far as the boycott, well, we've really seen no impact to speak of," said Durzy. "We don't know if it's even still in place."

But Serafin said the symbolism is what's important.

"Yes, it's just a blip on the screen," he said. "But we want to make a point. They are taking the same position as Judas. They are selling out the church."

Interest in religious patrimony of all types — from icons to stained glass — has soared in recent years, along with the blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code, the Christian-themed Left Behind series and major museum exhibits devoted to art and spirituality. At the same time, a flood of ecclesiastical items has entered mainstream antiquarian markets from once-flourishing churches that were closed because of shrinking congregations or population shifts away from older city neighborhoods.

But the sale of so-called "first-class relics" — bone, flesh, hair, nails and fragments of other body parts — remains a murky subculture, one that's increasingly shifting from the back rooms of dealers' shops to the Web's worldwide mall.

Dozens of religious items are on eBay at any time. Most are ordinary objects such as icons, medals or prayer cards. But Serafin believes the strongest interest is for the first-class relics, which he says has accounted for up to 40% of the eBay relic listings at times.

"This is where the real action is," he said. "This is where our fight is."

Serafin describes his motivation as part consciousness raiser and part consumer crusader.

He calls the sale of such relics deeply offensive to believers in their sanctity.

Then there is the caveat emptor — or "let the buyer beware" — factor. Clear documentation on a first-class relic is extremely rare and fraud is as old as faith — as noted more than 600 years ago in a scene from The Canterbury Tales in which pigs' bones and a pillow case are part of a cache of dubious religious relics brought from Rome.

Some recent offerings on eBay include "the air" that Christ breathed, the wing of the Holy Spirit and "the hand" of St. Stephen.

Serafin also says the rules — both canon and eBay's — are on his side.

Most churches with centuries-old traditions in the display and veneration of relics, including the Roman Catholic and Orthodox, prohibit the sale of any objects believed to hold body parts.

The extensive list of eBay's banned items include Nazi paraphernalia, firearms and ammunition and "human parts and remains."

Durzy said eBay has more than 2,000 people assigned to cull prohibited items, but noted that blanket enforcement is a challenge with up to 7 million new items going up for bid every day.

Sellers don't make it any easier.

Many now make a point of saying that the reliquary, or container, is for sale and the actual relic is a "gift." There are even conflicting linguistic signals. On Monday, a seller posted a relic of St. Eymard, a 19th century French priest, that was described as "ex ossibus," Latin for "from the bones." But the fuller text says the relic "does not contain any human parts."

Attempts by The Associated Press to reach the seller — and several other relic dealers on eBay — via e-mail contact information were unsuccessful.

"We just want the same rules that apply to guns, Nazi items or the bones of American Indians," said Serafin, whose group is a loose association of about 200 members around the world ranging from a Russian Orthodox archbishop to Catholic priests and lay people.

Across the time zones, they try to keep a round-the-clock vigil on eBay for any suspicious relics. They fire off e-mails to eBay and the seller — who is often known only by an online nickname and e-mail address — asking for the item to be withdrawn.

But it's a cumbersome process.

In late October, Serafin's group protested what they considered an "ex ossibus" relic of the 19th century St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. The sale went ahead, starting at $25. Twenty-seven bids later, an anonymous buyer picked it up for $565, plus $12 shipping.

    Bones of contention: Religious crusader battles auction giant, UT, 24.11.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-11-24-relics-ebay_x.htm

Is America ready for a Mormon president?

Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:28 AM ET
Reuters
By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) - A charismatic communicator with an actor's good looks, a glowing resume and socially conservative politics, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney could be a dream candidate for Republicans in the 2008 White House race.

But is America ready to elect a Mormon president?

Romney, a devout Mormon and former bishop of Massachusetts' temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is expected to announce in January he will join what is expected to be a crowded field of Republican White House contenders.

Faced with skepticism over what some Republicans call the "Mormon thing," Romney casts himself as a social conservative to the right of both Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, two of the early Republican favorites.

"He is doing all the right things for the social conservatives who drive the nomination process," said Dean Spiliotes, director of research at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.

"A lot of them find him an attractive candidate. But a lot of them can't get past the whole Mormonism aspect of his faith, which puts him in a difficult position," Spiliotes said.

Analysts say Romney, 59, who did not seek re-election to focus on his national ambitions, looks set to mount a well-funded campaign that could make him a top-tier candidate.

But a more realistic goal, some add, could be the vice presidency.

While traveling the nation as head of the Republican Governors Association, the former venture capitalist has taken increasingly conservative stands on hot-button issues -- gay marriage, abortion, stem-cell research and immigration -- that could appeal to his party's conservative base.

He has courted Republican donors, met with prominent evangelical leaders, huddled with lobbyists in Washington and recently hired attack advertising specialist Alex Castellanos, who worked on President George W. Bush's 2000 campaign.

On Sunday, Romney asked Massachusetts' highest court to order an anti-gay marriage amendment question onto the ballot if state lawmakers refuse to vote on the issue next year.

Stephen Wayne, a Georgetown University professor and author of "The Road to the White House," said the move "is obviously related to his desire to appeal to the Christian right in the Republican Party."

But Wayne noted a Gallup Poll in September found 66 percent of potential voters of both parties said the United States was "not ready" for a Mormon president, with only 29 percent saying the nation was ready.

"How will Protestant fundamentalists view a Mormon candidate? If the latest Gallup Poll on presidential candidates is any indication, the answer is with suspicion at best," Wayne said.

COUNTERING SUSPICIONS

Mormon leaders have spent decades countering critics who dismiss the faith as a cult and a threat to Christianity.

The once-isolated sect based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is one of the world's fastest growing and most affluent religions, with 12.3 million members globally. But its past could haunt a Romney presidential campaign, including its now-severed links to polygamy and a former ban on blacks from leadership roles.

Romney also must overcome suspicions in the South and Midwest on how he could be a genuine conservative while governing liberal Massachusetts.

He uses humor to try and dispel those fears, telling a South Carolina audience last year that being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts "is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention."

The son of former Michigan Gov. George Romney has several advantages, political analysts say. He gained national attention for turning around the scandal-plagued 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and earned degrees from both Harvard Business and Law schools before going on to make millions in business.

But he lacks foreign policy experience and has an inconsistent record on some issues like abortion, which he said in 1994 should stay "safe and legal" before more recently declaring himself "firmly pro-life."

The defeat of his lieutenant governor in the race to succeed him as governor this year also was a blow, as was the loss of six Republican governors seats in elections earlier this month while he headed the campaign effort.

"He's going to have to deal with the fact that a Republican couldn't follow him in Massachusetts and a Democrat was able to defeat his record," said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Boston University.

    Is America ready for a Mormon president?, R, 22.11.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-11-22T162544Z_01_N22451024_RTRUKOC_0_US-ROMNEY.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-2

Minister’s Own Rules Sealed His Fate

November 19, 2006
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

COLORADO SPRINGS, Nov. 15 — The four ministers who assembled here two weeks ago to decide the fate of the Rev. Ted Haggard were facing a painful choice.

A male prostitute had accused Mr. Haggard, one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical ministers, of engaging in a three-year affair with him and of using drugs. Then, in a private emergency meeting, Mr. Haggard promptly confessed to the ministers — his handpicked board of overseers — that he had engaged in sexual immorality.

Now, the question was, what punishment did Mr. Haggard deserve? The board had two options: discipline him or dismiss him as senior pastor of New Life Church. Could he take a leave of absence, repent, receive spiritual counseling and return to ministry?

The answer became clear the next morning, the overseers said, when Mr. Haggard gave an interview to a television news crew as he pulled out of his driveway with his wife and three children in the car. He denied having sex with the male prostitute, and said he had bought methamphetamine but never used it. The overseers said they watched Mr. Haggard, affable as ever, smile grimly into the television camera and lie.

“We saw this other side of Ted that Friday morning,” said the Rev. Michael Ware, one of the overseers. “It helped us to know whether this would be a discipline or a dismissal.”

The Rev. Mark Cowart, another overseer, agreed. “It was a defining moment.”

In many ways, Mr. Haggard had sealed his fate long before the driveway interview by establishing a mechanism for accountability in his church that gave a committee of his peers ultimate authority to remove him. Years ago, Mr. Haggard had asked four of his closest friends, all senior pastors of their own churches, to serve as a board of overseers. They had only one function: if Mr. Haggard was ever accused of immoral conduct, they would act as judge and jury.

Until the scandal that drove him from the pulpit, Mr. Haggard appeared to be a responsible steward and chief executive of New Life Church and the adjoining World Prayer Center — an evangelical empire that he built from nothing on a bare plateau with sweeping views of the Air Force Academy and Pikes Peak. He was sovereign over a 14,000-member church that answered to no denomination and was in many ways built on his charisma.

Mr. Haggard spelled out his system of checks and balances in bylaws that independent churches in the United States and overseas have adopted as a model. “All of our bylaws are really set up to protect our churches from us,” said Mr. Ware, the senior pastor of Victory Church in Westminster, Colo. “The same bylaws Ted wrote were the same laws by which he was dismissed.”

Unlike the televangelists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, who became mired in sexual and financial scandals in the 1980s, Mr. Haggard’s case was decided by his board with a haste that stunned many church members and employees.

“To watch his whole world evaporate in less than 24 hours is one of the most humbling and God-fearing experiences I’ve ever encountered,” Mr. Ware said in an interview over a motel breakfast of little but coffee with two other overseers.

Mr. Haggard could not have picked overseers with more potential conflicts of interests. Mr. Haggard, Mr. Ware and the Rev. Larry Stockstill started in ministry together 28 years ago in Baker, La., at Bethany World Prayer Center, where Mr. Stockstill is now the senior pastor.

Another member of the board, the Rev. Tim Ralph, the senior pastor of New Covenant Fellowship in rural Larkspur, has known Mr. Haggard since he founded New Life Church in his basement 21 years ago. Mr. Ralph’s son was a sound technician at New Life for six years.

Three of the overseers have their own boards of overseers at the churches they pastor, and Mr. Haggard was on all of them.

In 20 years, Mr. Haggard’s overseers had been summoned only once, to investigate an accusation of sexual impropriety that turned out to be a misunderstanding, overseers and staff members said. A church member reported to the elders in 2001 that he had seen Mr. Haggard in the church offices embracing a woman who was not his wife. The elders immediately called in the overseers to investigate, and they found that the woman was Mr. Haggard’s sister.

But the accusations that surfaced on Nov. 1 proved much more serious.

Mr. Ralph said the accusations left the overseers “holding nitroglycerine” in one hand. In the other hand, he said, they held “some very valuable life to the body of Christ,” referring not only to Mr. Haggard, but also to his wife, Gayle, who directed women’s ministries at New Life Church, and their five children, ages 13 to 25. The Haggards’ eldest son, Marcus, pastors a satellite congregation of New Life in downtown Colorado Springs.

The overseers gathered the next afternoon in the offices of the church’s lawyer, a bit stunned to be called into action, said Mr. Ralph, who likened the assignment to his second job as a firefighter.

“You don’t want to take the trucks out,” he said, “you want to keep shining the trucks.”

They reminded one another that despite their long ties to Mr. Haggard, the Bible says they are to judge accusations without partiality. On handheld computers, they pulled up another Scripture that says two or three witnesses are necessary when determining the guilt of an elder.

They considered the prostitute the first witness. When Mr. Haggard confessed that afternoon, he became the second. Within hours, he had resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

“He made it easy on us,” said another overseer, the Rev. Mark Cowart, the senior pastor of Church for All Nations in Colorado Springs. “We didn’t have to sort through everything.”

Mr. Ware said Mr. Haggard told them: “Ninety-eight percent of what you knew of me was the real me. Two percent of me would rise up, and I couldn’t overcome it.”

The harder decision was whether to dismiss him, but the overseers said Mr. Haggard’s lie in the television interview had deeply unsettled them. When they informed Mr. Haggard of their decision on Saturday, they said, he told them they had done the right thing.

The overseers also believed that Mr. Haggard needed more counseling, oversight and accountability than they could provide. They asked three of the country’s most renowned evangelical leaders — the Revs. Jack Hayford and Tommy Barnett and Dr. James Dobson — to serve as a “restoration team.” Dr. Dobson, the founder of the Focus on the Family ministry, soon excused himself, saying he could not devote adequate time and attention. He was replaced by the Rev. H. B. London Jr., a Focus on the Family vice president who runs a division that counsels clergy members and churches.

Mr. London said it could take at least three years before a fallen minister was “restored” to “spiritual, emotional and physical health,” with no assurance he could return to ministry.

He said Mr. Haggard’s former congregation had rallied around him, and church officials said they were negotiating a generous severance package.

There are mixed views on how well the overseer system Mr. Haggard put in place worked.

“From what I can tell, it was handled very well,” said Mark A. Noll, a historian at the University of Notre Dame who studies evangelicals. “If the accountability procedure is real, as this one seems to have been, it works well.”

But Eddie Gibbs, a professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calf., said Mr. Haggard’s accountability structure was a failure. The flaw, he said, was that it provided for intervention only when the pastor was about to crash and burn, rather than establishing a process to check on him routinely to prevent such an outcome.

“You’ve got to have the kind of people who will ask the awkward questions about every area of life,” Mr. Gibbs said, especially if for a high-profile pastor in a large church.

In the New Life executive suites, the Rev. Rob Brendle, Mr. Haggard’s young associate pastor, who said he had thought of himself as “Ted’s Karl Rove,” said he was so traumatized he could not yet ask himself if had seen signs of Mr. Haggard’s double life. But Mr. Brendle said he was comforted by the smooth handling of the crisis.

“I want everyone to see how evangelical Christians respond during adversity, and how we treat our wounded,” he said. “We aren’t interested in kicking someone to the curb when he shames our movement. We are committed to serving him.”

Last week, a young man working at the cafe of the World Prayer Center stripped Mr. Haggard’s books off a shelf. Mr. Brendle said he had approved the purge of books and of the sermon archives on the Web site because he did not want people “looking for clues.”

In his book “Foolish No More,” Mr. Haggard wrote that lying about a sexual affair produces “the stinking garbage of a rotting sin.”

“If a church leader sins,” he warned, “everyone within the church’s influence pays.”

    Minister’s Own Rules Sealed His Fate, NYT, 19.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/us/19haggard.html

Accuser Tells Clerical Court of Friendship With Priest

November 18, 2006
The New York Times
By ANDY NEWMAN

For four hours yesterday, in a classroom-size space in a church administration building near Erie, Pa., Daniel Donohue told three judges in clerical collars about his high school friendship with a charismatic priest who would become the chief fund-raiser for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

Mr. Donohue, who spoke by phone after testifying, told the panel of judges his version of how that friendship, with Msgr. Charles M. Kavanagh, grew abusive and manipulative, and said the priest twice crossed the line and sexually abused him by lying down with him and rubbing his face and body against him.

Mr. Donohue, 42, is the accusing witness in the church trial of Monsignor Kavanagh, the most prominent priest in the archdiocese named in the sexual abuse scandal and the only priest from the archdiocese who has been granted a canonical trial. Yesterday he was not present.

The trial, Mr. Donohue said, is hardly an ideal process. He was asked to swear an oath of silence, which he refused to do, he told the priests, on the principle that the church’s policy of silence is what has allowed priests to abuse young people with impunity for decades. Mr. Donohue chafes against his role as the star witness for the archdiocese, the very institution that he said protected Monsignor Kavanagh for years.

Nevertheless, Mr. Donohue said, the three priests in the tribunal struck him as men of sensitivity. When he turned the tables and asked them about their perspectives on clerical sexual abuse, they offered long, thoughtful answers, he said. And when Mr. Donohue broke down in tears during his testimony, he said, he saw the priests’ eyes well up, too.

“These men fully appreciated not just my story, but the opportunity to create a place of integrity between us,” Mr. Donohue said.

Secrecy has abounded at the trial. The Vatican moved it from New York at the request of the archdiocese, which said it feared a media circus. No reporters are allowed at canonical tribunals, and the New York Archdiocese has refused to comment on the trial.

Mr. Donohue’s sister Patricia Donohue testified on Thursday, and she said that when she refused to promise not to discuss the case outside the tribunal, the chief judge, who identified himself only as Father Mark, told her that her refusal would be referred to the Vatican for possible “disciplinary action.”

A spokesman for the Erie Diocese, Msgr. Thomas J. McSweeney, said, “I am certain that no one was threatened with any penalty during the process in Erie, Pennsylvania.”

Mr. Donohue said that when he refused to take the oath of silence yesterday, Father Mark simply noted it for the record.

“They asked me to take the oath of truth with my hand on the Bible, too,” Mr. Donohue said. “I asked if it would be O.K. if I put my hand on my heart instead, and they said fine.”

Monsignor Kavanagh was the rector of Cathedral Preparatory Seminary in Manhattan in the late 1970s, when Mr. Donohue was a student there, an accomplished athlete and a devout candidate for the seminary. Both men said their friendship grew intense and progressed to hand-holding and hugs, but Monsignor Kavanagh, now 69, denies there was any sexual component.

Mr. Donohue, who is married with four children and manages a restaurant in Portland, Ore., told his story to a church tribunal — the archdiocese’s own review panel — once before, in 2003. That panel found Monsignor Kavanagh guilty of sexual abuse, setting off the appeal process that led the Vatican to grant him this latest trial.

In some ways, this time was easier, Mr. Donohue said. In others, it was not. In recounting a night on a couch when, he said, Monsignor Kavanagh lay atop him and rubbed his face and lips against his, Mr. Donohue said that details of the encounter came back to him for the first time and overwhelmed him.

“I cried for minutes,” he said. “And after this emotional moment — and this demonstrates to me that Father Mark had been through this before, he said to me, ‘Daniel, are you with us, or are you still there?’ ” meaning back in the past. “I said, ‘I’m still there,’ and he said to take a little more time.”

For hours, Father Mark asked Mr. Donohue a series of questions, some submitted by the canon lawyers for the two sides, some devised by the judges themselves.

The session drew to a close. Father Mark had mentioned earlier that he thought the abuse scandal was a cross the Catholic Church needed to carry for as long as it took, Mr. Donohue said. Mr. Donohue, in closing, agreed. He said that the former head of discipline for the church, now Pope Benedict XVI, needed to carry the cross himself, feel its splinters on his spine, feel its crushing weight.

Father Mark listened, Mr. Donohue said. “Then they shook my hand, and we went on our way.”

    Accuser Tells Clerical Court of Friendship With Priest, NYT, 18.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/nyregion/18priest.html

Op-Ed Contributor

Putting Faith Before Politics

November 16, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID KUO

Alexandria, Va.

SINCE 1992, every national Republican electoral defeat has been accompanied by an obituary for the religious right. Every one of these obituaries has been premature — after these losses, the religious right only grew stronger. After the defeat of President George H. W. Bush in 1992, the conventional wisdom held that Christian evangelicals would be chastened. As one major magazine put it, Mr. Bush’s defeat meant that “time had run out on their crusade to create a Christian America.” Yet in the next two years, the Christian Coalition grew by leaps and bounds; in 1994, it helped usher in the Gingrich revolution.

In 1996, after Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole, Margaret Tutwiler, a Republican strategist, declared that in order for Republicans to win, “We’re going to have to take on the religious nuts.” Two years later, after Republicans failed to gain any ground on Democrats — despite Mr. Clinton’s impeachment — John Zogby, the pollster, concluded that “Christian absolutism” scared voters. Wrong again. Those same Christian “absolutists” helped sweep George W. Bush into office in 2000.

Jesus was resurrected only once. The religious right has been resurrected at least twice in just the past 15 years.

The conventional wisdom about the Democratic thumping of Republicans last week says something a little different about the religious right — that its members are beginning to migrate to the Democratic Party. The statistic that is exciting Democrats the most is that nearly 30 percent of white evangelicals, the true Republican base, voted Democratic. In addition, the red-blue split of weekly churchgoers has narrowed. Commentators are atwitter about the shrinking “God gap.”

Once again, the conventional wisdom is wrong. Yes, it is true that almost 30 percent of white evangelicals voted for the Democrats, up from the 22 percent Senator John Kerry received in the 2004 presidential race. But that 2004 number was aberrantly low. More typical were exit polls from the 1996 Congressional election, where 25 percent of white evangelicals voted for Democrats.

So before rearranging their public policy agenda in hopes of attracting evangelicals, the Democrats would be wise to think twice. There has been a radical change in the attitudes of evangelicals — it’s just not one that will automatically be in the Democrats’ favor.

You see, evangelicals aren’t re-examining their political priorities nearly as much as they are re-examining their spiritual priorities. That could be bad news for both political parties.

John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, the conservative Christian organization that gained notoriety during the 1990s when it represented Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton, wrote this after the elections: “Modern Christianity, having lost sight of Christ’s teachings, has been co-opted by legalism, materialism and politics. Simply put, it has lost its spirituality.”

He went on, “Whereas Christianity was once synonymous with charity, compassion and love for one’s neighbor, today it is more often equated with partisan politics, anti-homosexual rhetoric and affluent mega-churches.”

Mr. Whitehead is hardly alone. Just before the elections, Gordon MacDonald, an evangelical leader, wrote that he was concerned that some evangelical personalities had been seduced and used by the White House. He worried that the movement might “fragment because it is more identified by a political agenda that seems to be failing and less identified by a commitment to Jesus and his kingdom.”

Certainly, the White House showed the heartlessness of politics in Ted Haggard’s fall. Mr. Haggard had once been welcomed at the White House, relied on to rally other evangelicals and invited to pray with the president.

Yet his downfall provoked only this reaction from a low-level White House spokesman: “He had been on a couple of calls, but was not a weekly participant in those calls. I believe he’s been to the White House one or two times.” To evangelicals who know that this statement was misleading, and know from the Bible what being kicked to the curb looks like, it was a revealing moment about the unchristian behavior politics inspires.

Perhaps that’s why a rift appears to be growing in what was once a strong alliance. Beliefnet.com’s post-election online survey of more than 2,000 people revealed that nearly 40 percent of evangelicals support the idea of a two-year Christian “fast” from intense political activism. Instead of directing their energies toward campaigns, evangelicals would spend their time helping the poor.

Why might such an idea get traction among evangelicals? For practical reasons as well as spiritual ones. Evangelicals are beginning to see the effect of their political involvement on those with whom they hope to share Jesus’ eternal message: non-evangelicals. Tellingly, Beliefnet’s poll showed that nearly 60 percent of non-evangelicals have a more negative view of Jesus because of Christian political involvement; almost 40 percent believe that George W. Bush’s faith has had a negative impact on his presidency.

There is also the matter of the record, which I saw being shaped during my time in the White House. Conservative Christians (like me) were promised that having an evangelical like Mr. Bush in office was a dream come true. Well, it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. The administration accomplished little that evangelicals really cared about.

Nowhere was this clearer than on the issue of abortion. Despite strong Republican majorities, and his own pro-life stands, Mr. Bush settled for the largely symbolic partial-birth abortion restriction rather than pursuing more substantial change. Then there were the forgotten commitments to give faith-based charities the resources they needed to care for the poor. Evangelicals are not likely to fall for such promises in the future.

Don’t expect conservative Christians in politics to start to disappear, of course. There are those who find the moral force of issues like abortion and gay marriage equal to that of the abolition of slavery — worth pursuing no matter what the risks of politics are for the soul. But the advocates working these special interests may, I think, be far fewer in coming years than in years past. Gay marriage was a less mobilizing force in 2006 than it was in 2004. In Arizona the ballot measure to outlaw it was defeated. The South Dakota abortion ban failed.

We will have to wait until 2008 to see just how deep this evangelical spiritual re-examination goes, and how seductive politics will continue to be to committed Christians. Meanwhile, evangelicals aren’t flocking to the Democratic Party. If anything, they are becoming more truly conservative in their recognition of the negative spiritual consequences of political obsession and of the limitations of government power.

C. S. Lewis once warned that any Christian who uses his faith as a means to a political end would corrupt both his faith and the faith writ large. A lot of Christians are reading C. S. Lewis these days.

David Kuo, the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from 2001 to 2003, is the author of “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction.”

    Putting Faith Before Politics, NYT, 16.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/opinion/16kuo.html

Fugitives answer call to surrender

Posted 11/15/2006 10:46 PM ET
USA Today
By Dennis Wagner and Lindsey Collom

PHOENIX — Sean White, wanted on criminal warrants for a probation violation and failure to appear in court, went to church Wednesday morning to get right with the law.

The 32-year-old man was among the 120 suspects who turned themselves in during the first four hours of Fugitive Safe Surrender.

The program, which ends Saturday, basically is an invitation from federal and state authorities who are telling fugitives they might receive "favorable consideration" by turning themselves in at a makeshift justice center at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church.

Doug Weiner, a former Cuyahoga County, Ohio, prosecutor and co-founder of Fugitive Safe Surrender, said the long-term goal is to conduct programs nationwide. Plans already are underway for ones in Indianapolis; Rochester, N.Y.; Akron, Ohio; and Richmond, Va.

David Gonzales, U.S. Marshal for Arizona, said the program gives suspects a chance to deal with criminal warrants at a neutral site, which cuts costs for the public and reduces the chance of a dangerous situation for law officers.

Avoiding handcuffs

Defendants who show up at the Phoenix church find public defenders to represent them and judges to conduct hearings. Often, when fugitives are caught in traffic stops or tracked down by agents, they face the humiliation of being handcuffed in front of family and the hassle of going straight to jail.

Under Safe Surrender, Gonzales said, most of those wanted for non-violent offenses will be processed within hours and released without going behind bars. The fugitives who turned themselves in Wednesday morning were suspects in cases involving drunken driving, disorderly conduct and failure to pay fines.

A federal Office of Justice Programs grant for $600,000 is financing the development of Fugitive Safe Surrender. The grant is being supplemented with money, manpower and equipment from state and local agencies. Gonzales said he expects the effort in Phoenix to cost about $75,000.

"We think it's a win-win situation for the community," Gonzales said.

The Safe Surrender concept was first tried 13 months ago in Cleveland. Over a four-day period, more than 840 people visited a church to resolve criminal warrants. Although most were wanted for non-violent misdemeanors, the lineup included 324 felony suspects, with "some wanted for rape, robbery, assault and drug offenses," said Peter Elliott, the U.S. Attorney for northern Ohio.

Elliott said he hit upon the idea for Safe Surrender last year. He said he realized suspects might turn themselves in if they could do so safely, and he figured churches would be good safe havens.

When the suspects in Cleveland were asked why they surrendered, Gonzales said, "The overwhelming response was they were tired of running. ... It's stressful."

Sean White had been on the run since 2002, when he walked away from a work-release program. At the time, White was 20 days into a 40-day DUI sentence at a Maricopa County jail. It was the wrong decision, he said, and life hasn't been easy since.

White lost a construction job because his driver's license was suspended, he said, and lack of income led his family of five to move from a three-bedroom home to a pay-by-week hotel.

Even more, he said, the main motivation for surrendering is to help solve his half brother's murder. Robert Dickey, 40, was driving to work when someone he stopped to help along the roadway fatally stabbed him in June 2005, White said. He said he hasn't been involved for fear of arrest.

"It's pretty much weighed me down every single day," White said. "Whatever I have to serve, pay, I want to get it over with so I can get on with my life."

Earn goodwill, but not amnesty

In Maricopa County, where there are about 70,000 criminal warrants waiting to be served, according to Gonzales and county law enforcement, the operation was preceded by a media blitz featuring newspaper ads, church fliers and public service announcements on radio and television. In the days leading up to the roundup, Gonzales said, the marshals' phone line was "ringing off the hook" with calls from fugitives wanting details.

Gonzales, along with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Attorney Andrew Thomas, stressed that defendants are not being offered amnesty — only a promise that prosecutors will consider the voluntary surrender.

White said he believes that turning himself in helped his case: He was free to leave after the proceedings. A county commissioner at the church quashed one of his warrants; the other will be addressed in a municipal court.

On Wednesday, Gonzales said he was surprised by the turnout so early in the program. "I thought it would start off slow and build up. This is good," he said. "It just shows the desperation."

Despite the program's initial success in Ohio, there have been problems. In Albuquerque, authorities abandoned plans because they lacked resources. And a surrender program in Camden, N.J., was canceled after the state Supreme Court balked because of concerns about mixing church and state.

Elliott and Gonzales said that while ministers support the program and churches provide a venue, Fugitive Safe Surrender doesn't involve preaching or proselytizing.

"This is all about trust," Elliott said. "It's not a faith-based program. It is a law enforcement program that is faith-based in nature."

Wagner and Collom report daily for The Arizona Republic in Phoenix.

    Fugitives answer call to surrender, UT, 15.11.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-15-fugitives_x.htm

Minister Admits Buying Drug but Denies Tryst

November 4, 2006
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and NEELA BANERJEE

After denying that he had ever met a gay escort who claimed to have had a three-year sexual relationship with him, the Rev. Ted Haggard admitted yesterday that he had summoned the escort to give him a massage in a Denver hotel room and bought methamphetamine from him.

But Mr. Haggard, one of the nation’s leading evangelical ministers, maintained that the two men never had sex and that he threw out the drugs without using them.

“I never kept it very long because it was wrong,” Mr. Haggard said, smiling grimly and submitting to questions from a television reporter as he pulled out of his driveway yesterday, his wife, Gayle, silent in the passenger seat. “I was tempted, I bought it, but I never used it.”

Mr. Haggard’s explanation came two days after the male escort, Michael Jones, stepped forward to claim that Mr. Haggard was a monthly client for the last three years. On Thursday, Mr. Haggard had resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and stepped down as pastor of his 14,000-member Colorado Springs megachurch, pending an independent investigation of the accusations.

The escort failed a lie detector test on Friday that he had volunteered to take, but the man who administered the test said the results might have been skewed because Mr. Jones had slept little and was suffering from a migraine. Mr. Jones insisted he was telling the truth and said he would take another lie detector test.

Mr. Haggard’s difficulties are bound to echo beyond his own church, especially on the eve of the midterm elections. He is at the center of several intersecting evangelical power circles and has ties to the Bush administration.

He was an ambassador representing the interests of evangelicals to Washington, and vice versa — participating in the White House’s Monday conference calls with conservative Christian leaders. He was also politically active, championing the fight against same-sex marriage in Colorado and other states.

And Mr. Haggard, 50, was elected president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group that represents 45,000 churches.

The association’s executive committee unanimously accepted Mr. Haggard’s resignation on Friday after learning that he had admitted that some of the accusations were true, said the Rev. L. Roy Taylor, chairman of the board of directors and the stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America.

“It’s personally difficult to believe, knowing Ted, but theologically, we recognize that we all struggle with a dark side and that sinful behavior is possible for anyone,” Dr. Taylor said.

When Mr. Haggard was elected three years ago as the National Association of Evangelicals’ president, the magazine Christianity Today hailed him as a new kind of evangelical who could revive a flagging organization.

He was younger, less formal and more moderate than many of the bigger names in conservative Christianity. He was soon pushing to add issues like global warming, poverty and genocide in Darfur to the movement’s traditional agenda of opposition to homosexuality and abortion.

“Pastor Ted was a symbolically important figure and a very public figure, so I think the ramifications could be enormous,” said Randall Balmer, a professor of American religious history at Barnard College. “Among evangelicals, there is such a cult of personality that grows up around these various figures.”

In Colorado, Mr. Haggard was a leader in the campaign for Amendment 43, which would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Mr. Haggard’s accuser said this was his main motivation for going public with his account of having sex with Mr. Haggard.

In a telephone interview from Denver, Mr. Jones, 49, said, “When the federal marriage amendment came up before the Senate earlier this year, I wanted to see the stance of his church, and the more I read about it, the angrier I got.”

“He’s preaching against homosexuals and yet he’s having gay sex behind people’s backs,” Mr. Jones said.

In an interview with MSNBC, Mr. Jones denied selling methamphetamine to Mr. Haggard, saying he “met someone else that I had hooked him up with to buy it.”

Experts on evangelicals were uncertain how the revelations about Mr. Haggard would affect the midterm elections, and evangelicals’ involvement in politics in the long term. Some experts said accusations that such a politically involved pastor was a closet homosexual could further alienate evangelicals from political involvement, while others said it could motivate them.

Members of Mr. Haggard’s church were stunned by the accusations.

“This is inconsistent with everything that I know of him,” said Patton Dodd, Christianity editor at the Web site Beliefnet, who edited seven of Mr. Haggard’s books, attends his church and considers him a close friend. He said Mr. Haggard had close family ties, taking a Sabbath day at home every Saturday to be with his wife and five children.

Elizabeth Miller, a 46-year-old mother of three who has been a member of the church for almost six years, said she was so upset that she took the day off from work to pray.

“It’s like a death in the family, except it’s not that clear,” Ms. Miller said. “It’s more like having someone slowly dying from a painful illness.”

She said that she and the other church members believed in redemption and forgiveness and would stand by Mr. Haggard.

In the past, Mr. Haggard proved more accepting of gay men and lesbians than some of his evangelical colleagues. He did not publicly oppose another measure on the November ballot, Referendum 1, which would give same-sex couples some legal rights and benefits.

The Rev. Nori Rost, executive director of Just Spirit, a watchdog group that monitors the religious right, recalled that Mr. Haggard’s church once invited the choirs from other churches in town to perform at an ecumenical Easter service. At the time, she was the pastor of a predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church. When some other evangelical churches learned that the gay church had also been invited, they refused to sing unless Mr. Haggard retracted the invitation to the gay church. Mr. Haggard refused, and the gay choir sang, she said. In the impromptu interview in his car, Mr. Haggard said that he stayed at hotels in Denver because he wrote books there, and that he met the male escort through a hotel referral for a massage.

Mr. Jones had a different version of the story. He said he began advertising on the Internet as a male escort, and was called by a man who identified himself as Art from Kansas City. He said they met about once a month for a relationship Mr. Jones said was purely physical.

“I had no impression of him, other than that he was a nice guy,” Mr. Jones said. “The only thing of a personal nature he ever volunteered was that he was married.”

Mr. Jones said he discovered Mr. Haggard’s true identity about six months ago when he saw him on television two days in a row, first, on a special about “The DaVinci Code” and then on a Christian station that a TV in his gym was tuned to.

“When I saw him, I didn’t say, ‘Oh, that looks like Art,’ ” Mr. Jones said. “I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s Art.’ ”

After Mr. Jones looked up his alleged client on the Internet and learned of his stature in the evangelical community, he said he was amazed. “I thought this guy is really taking a big chance,” he said.

Mr. Jones maintained that his decision to speak out about the relationship was not suggested by any gay rights groups. He also said the decision was not based on financial motives, though Mr. Jones did file for bankruptcy in April 2005. “If I’d wanted to make money, I could have blackmailed him,” he said.

Mr. Jones said he hoped that his assertions would convince the religious right to rethink their opposition to same-sex marriage.

Conservative Christian organizations reacted with both sympathy and dismay. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said in a statement, “The situation has grave implications for the cause of Christ and we ask for the Lord’s guidance and blessings in the days ahead.”

Katie Kelly contributed reporting from Colorado Springs.

    Minister Admits Buying Drug but Denies Tryst, NYT, 4.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/us/04minister.html?hp&ex=1162702800&en=28b1bf8a61849d63&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Church Leader Resigns Amid Gay Sex Claim

November 3, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:29 a.m. ET
The New York Times

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has given up his post while a church panel investigates allegations he paid a man for sex.

The Rev. Ted Haggard resigned as president of the 30 million-member association Thursday after being accused of paying the man for monthly trysts over the past three years.

Haggard, a married father of five, denied the allegations, but also stepped aside as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church pending an investigation.

''I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity,'' he said in a statement. ''I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date. In the interim, I will seek both spiritual advice and guidance.''

Carolyn Haggard, spokeswoman for the New Life Church and the pastor's niece, said a four-member church panel will investigate the allegations. The board has the authority to discipline Haggard, including removing him from ministry work.

The acting senior pastor at New Life, Ross Parsley, told KKTV-TV of Colorado Springs that Haggard admitted that some of the accusations were true.

''I just know that there has been some admission of indiscretion, not admission to all of the material that has been discussed but there is an admission of some guilt,'' Parsley told the station.

He did not elaborate, and a telephone number for Parsley could not be found late Thursday.

The allegations come as voters in Colorado and seven other states get ready to decide Tuesday on amendments banning gay marriage. Besides the proposed ban on the Colorado ballot, a separate measure would establish the legality of domestic partnerships providing same-sex couples with many of the rights of married couples.

The allegations stunned church members.

''It's political, right before the elections,'' said Brian Boals, a New Life member for 17 years.

Church member E.J. Cox, 25, called the claims ''ridiculous.''

''People are always saying stuff about Pastor Ted,'' she said. ''You just sort of blow it off. He's just like anyone else in the public eye.''

The accusations were made by Mike Jones, 49, of Denver, who said he decided to go public because of the political fight over the amendments.

''I just want people to step back and take a look and say, 'Look, we're all sinners, we all have faults, but if two people want to get married, just let them, and let them have a happy life,''' said Jones, who added that he isn't working for any political group.

Jones, who said he is gay, said he was also upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.

''It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex,'' he said.

Jones claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. He said he advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and was contacted by a man who called himself Art, who snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.

Jones said he later saw the man on television identified as Haggard and that the two last had sex in August.

He said he has voice mail messages from Haggard, as well as an envelope he said Haggard used to mail him cash. He declined to make the voice mails available to the AP, but KUSA-TV reported what it said were excerpts late Thursday that referred to methamphetamine.

''Hi Mike, this is Art,'' one call began, according to the station. ''Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply.''

A second message, left a few hours later, began: ''Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever.''

Haggard, 50, was appointed president of the evangelicals association in March 2003. He has participated in conservative Christian leaders' conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied members of Congress last year on U.S. Supreme Court appointees after Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement.

After Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, Haggard and others began organizing state-by-state opposition. Last year, Haggard and officials from the nearby Christian ministry Focus on the Family announced plans to push Colorado's gay marriage ban for the 2006 ballot.

At the time, Haggard said that he believed marriage is a union between a man and woman rooted in centuries of tradition, and that research shows it's the best family unit for children.

Associated Press Writer Dan Elliott contributed to this report from Denver.

    Church Leader Resigns Amid Gay Sex Claim, NYT, 3.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Haggard-Sex-Allegations.html