TruthBook Religious News Blog

New Survey Says 36% Admit Stress is a Problem in Their Lives

16% of Americans have considered suicide at one time, while 13% use medication to try to lift their mood. And 5% say stress is so severe they don't know what to do.

Strong warning signs seemed to be flashing for the youngest age group surveyed, those aged 18 to 24. In that age group, 11% surveyed said their life was so stressful they couldn't cope -- well over twice the national average. An astounding 21% of 18-to-24-year-olds said they had thought of killing themselves.

According to the survey, 55% of Americans say they are able to achieve that peace or serenity through the practice of their religion.

But 82% say they are able to achieve a calm or serene state as a result of practices unrelated to religion. "That's very significant," says Hale Dwoskin, president of Sedona Training Associates in Sedona, Arizona.

The strength of an individual's religious belief plays a much less clear role than other variables in the creation of happiness: only 50% of happy people said they were "very religious" -- a much lower correlation than was found with other significant factors surveyed. But 27% of unhappy people also said they were "very religious."

"According to the survey, religious practices were an effective way for many Americans to achieve the calmness and serenity that seem to be key to achieving happiness, but non-religious methods worked just as well," said Dwoskin.

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Monday, August 25, 2003

Saudi Muslim Clerics Condemn Terror Attacks by Islamic Extremists

Leading Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia have issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, calling terror attacks by Islamic extremists "serious criminal acts," the BBC reported.

"Theses acts have nothing to do with jihad for the sake of God," the Council of Senior Clerics said, the BBC reported. "We must rally around the leadership of this country and its scholars, especially in this time of dissent."The council, which is headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Azez al-Sheikh, the kingdom's highest religious authority, said it supported the Saudi authorities in their fight against militant extremists carrying out bombings and murders in the country.

Previously, the Saudi government faced criticism from U.S. politicians that it was not doing enough to fight terrorism.

Senior clerics on the council said those who committed violence under the guise of holy war were "ignorant and misguided," adding that those who supported or sheltered the militants were also guilty of "great sin."

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Thursday, August 21, 2003

Some Doctors Taking 'Spiritual Histories' to Aid Medical Healing

A small but growing number of physicians are taking patient "spiritual histories," according to Dr. Harold G. Koenig of Duke University.

By collecting information about each patient's religious or spiritual beliefs, he believes doctors can make more informed treatment decisions and help patients rally spiritual resources to aid healing. "Neglecting the spiritual dimension is just like ignoring a patient's social environment or psychological state, and results in failure to treat the `whole person,"' Koenig said.Koenig described the emerging technique in a manual for health care professionals, "Spirituality in Patient Care" (Templeton Foundation Press)

A spiritual history might include questions such as: Does the patient rely on religion or spirituality to help cope with illness? Is the patient a member of a supportive spiritual community? What spiritual questions, if any, does the patient find most troubling?

Dr. Robert Fine, director of clinical ethics at Baylor Healthcare Systems in Dallas, believes spiritual histories can help. He cited an example of a patient who insisted on aggressive treatment, even though her advanced breast cancer was clearly terminal and she was in terrible pain. Puzzled, her doctors called in Fine, who learned that fear of going to hell kept her from accepting the inevitable. After a conversation with a chaplain, she was able to face death peacefully.

Koenig estimated that between 5 percent and 10 percent of doctors take some form of spiritual history; he expects the number to grow as graduating students join the field. Nearly two-thirds of American medical schools in 2001 taught courses on religion, spirituality and medicine.

Koenig believes spiritual histories are especially useful with patients facing surgery or life-threatening, chronic or disabling conditions. With so much recent research pointing to potential benefits of spirituality to physical health, a spiritual history gives the doctor a practical way to harness those benefits. "If I know a person's spiritual background, I might ask something like `Would a short prayer help in this situation?" he said. "Knowing that a person is religious frees me to be more forward in using a spiritual intervention that might bring comfort."

Koenig added that the histories allow doctors to counter potential negative effects of spirituality, citing a study suggesting that patients struggling with spiritual crises tend not to heal as well. Doctors can't help, he said, if they don't know. "Sometimes just listening and validating will give comfort and will make the patient more likely to accept a referral to a chaplain who can help," he said.

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Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Positive Effects of Meditation Proven

A new study shows people who underwent meditation training produced more antibodies to a flu vaccine than people who did not meditate.

Those who took part in the meditation study also showed signs of increased activity in areas of the brain related to positive emotion, as compared to people who did not meditate.The data comes from a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Richard Cavisdson of the University of Washington, the principal author of the study, says it is the first to link meditation to changes in brain activity associated with positive feeling and the first to demonstrate mediation can affect immune function.

"Our findings indicate that a short training program in mindful meditation has demonstrable effects on brain and immune function and underscores the need for additional research on the biological consequences of this intervention," Davidson said.

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Christianity in China Growing Rapidly

Under the Chinese Communist Party, the number of Christians in China has grown 15-fold to the current total of more than 30 million. In spite of strict Government regulations and alleged persecution, the number of Christians is growing, with an estimated 25,000 persons putting their faith in Christ every day.

``And about seven churches are built every day. The total number of Christians in China is more than their population in India,'' said Philip L Wickeri, who has been working as an evangelist in China for the last 25 years.

China is a paradox in that some churches are able to worship freely, while other church leaders face persecution. And, although not always enforced, all churches have legal restrictions regarding worship gatherings, evangelism and education for their children.

But the religion has grown tremendously under the Communist rule. After the Communists took over China, the oppression suffered by the Chinese Christians helped them strengthen their faith. An unofficial survey shows that within 50 years under the Communist's government, the Christian population grew to more than 30,000,000, he said.

While an older generation embraced Christianity considering it a panacea, the youth, perhaps, accepted it as a post-modernist concept. ``But the growth is mainly because of the involvement of Chinese Christians in missionary work. And this has helped dispel all apprehensions about a foreign ideology being inculcated among the conservative population. But Roman Catholics still face problems,'' he said.

Philip feels that the situation has dramatically changed after 1982 ``when they stopped equating religion with opium.'' Today there are no visible anti-Christian movements like those witnessed in the 1920s. ``Christianity is considered a vehicle of development. The Communists still don't like the Church. But they too are changing with the times,'' he said.

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Sunday, August 17, 2003

Selling a selfless Christian life to a materialistic society is a nightmare

AT FIRST glance a Biblical prophet and the designer of an advertisement might appear to have little in common.

One sought to communicate revelations of the divine; the other seeks to sell cornflakes and coffee.

But each person is communicating a message and trying to inspire a response from the man, or woman, in the street.

With fewer than eight out of a hundred people in Britain crawling out of bed on a Sunday morning to go to church, more and more Christians are looking to the world of advertising for ways to spread what they believe is very Good News.

There are two reasons for this. One is that members of any organisation are distressed when branches are forced to close, and the instinctive response to a decline in numbers is a recruitment drive.

Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the finest graphic designers of the day, men with names like Botticelli and Michelangelo, devoted their talents to turning doctrines and stories into spellbinding imagery.

Christianity+Renewal, a magazine devoted to detailing new ideas of how the church should fulfil its commission to reach the world, recently set marketing and communications agencies the challenge of creating a campaign which would capture the imagination of unchurched Britain.

The design team at Link ICA, which claims to be the nation's fastest-growing ad agency initially found the task daunting.

Joint creative director Jonathan Wilcock said, "We even asked ourselves whether this was the sort of thing that should be advertised. Compared to the usual brief of advertising soap, toothpaste, baked beans or holidays it was tricky."

None of the team were churchgoers, but, after talking to friends and family, inspiration finally struck and they seized upon the slogan "Get a life - Go to church."

Whether conscious of doing so or not, the designers at Link ICA were picking up on the notion of the "God-shaped hole" expressed by the 17th century French philosopher, Blaise Pascal. He argued that human beings are born on earth needing the divine in their lives; if it is not present, they become aware of something missing.

Their posters depict an ambulance, a hospital drip, and a doctor's suitcase, all emblazoned with a cross. The images suggest that deciding what one believes is a matter of life and death, and one that needs to be urgently resolved.

The second agency approached by Christianity+Renewal was Khameleon, who took a radically more relaxed approach to revamping Christendom.

Managing director Guy Lupton explained, "We don't think people like to be preached at, and we don't want traditional images like a picture of Jesus or a cross. We felt the key was to get people through the door of the church and let them make their own mind up."

Khameleon's images celebrate the community that can be found in a church, rather than attempt to present doctrinal creeds in poster form.

But, as Lupton was quick to point out, such a campaign will only be successful if the church matches the expectations the posters have raised.

He said, "We are selling a concept that applies to some churches. The advert aims to get a person to consider church, to try it out, and then it's down to the church to try and sell the concept. Advertising can raise awareness and create interest, but ultimately it can't make the sale."

Valerie Cordell of Wrexham's Creative Public Relations agreed that efforts to improve the image of churches could only go so far.

"At the end of the day the church is about worshipping God and living a godly life, so you can't get too bogged down in fetes and things."

Cardiff Journalism School Professor Ian Hargreaves, former editor of The Independent and the New Statesman and Director of BBC News and Current Affairs, points out that one of the greatest and simplest communicators in the history of humankind stands at the centre of the Gospels.

Just as Christ dispensed with jargon and instead explained his mission in parables and exhortations to "consider the lilies of the field." so Christians today should be able to make the Gospel explicable.

"I think you can strip down to simplicity most complexities and still have something which is worth saying," he said.

This is a challenge, he admits.

The Rev Roy Jenkins supports advertising but maintains it is no substitute for human interaction.

He said, "At the end of the day the most effective communication will always be on a one-to-one basis. The Christian message will be conveyed by people. That's on a personal basis and by people experiencing living communities of faith.

"The media can always be useful as a step towards that needed personal contact."

His greatest concern about what may happen when Christians embrace the power of Madison Avenue is that the message which ends up being sent to the world may bear little relation to the one preached by a man who suffered terribly and called on others to be prepared to sacrifice their own wealth and ambition. "This is an advertising agent's nightmare," he admitted.

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Friday, August 15, 2003

83% of Americans believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus

Americans are three times as likely to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus (83 percent) as in evolution (28 percent).

Americans believe, 58 percent to 40 percent, that it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. In contrast, other developed countries overwhelmingly believe that it is not necessary. In France, only 13 percent agree with the U.S. view.

The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time. The percentage of Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth actually rose five points in the latest poll.

Mainline Christians are vanishing, replaced by evangelicals. Since 1960, the number of Pentecostalists has increased fourfold, while the number of Episcopalians has dropped almost in half.

The result is a gulf not only between America and the rest of the industrialized world, but a growing split at home as well. One of the most poisonous divides is the one between intellectual and religious America.

The Virgin Mary is an interesting prism through which to examine America's emphasis on faith because most Biblical scholars regard the evidence for the Virgin Birth, and for Mary's assumption into Heaven (which was proclaimed as Catholic dogma only in 1950), as so shaky that it pretty much has to be a leap of faith. As the Catholic theologian Hans Küng puts it in "On Being a Christian," the Virgin Birth is a "collection of largely uncertain, mutually contradictory, strongly legendary" narratives, an echo of virgin birth myths that were widespread in many parts of the ancient world.

Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Yale historian and theologian, says in his book "Mary Through the Centuries" that the earliest references to Mary (like Mark's gospel, the first to be written, or Paul's letter to the Galatians) don't mention anything unusual about the conception of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do say Mary was a virgin, but internal evidence suggests that that part of Luke, in particular, may have been added later by someone else (it is written, for example, in a different kind of Greek than the rest of that gospel).

Yet despite the lack of scientific or historical evidence, and despite the doubts of Biblical scholars, America is so pious that not only do 91 percent of Christians say they believe in the Virgin Birth, but so do an astonishing 47 percent of U.S. non-Christians.

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Thursday, August 14, 2003

What would Jesus Eat?

If doctors had to identify the deadliest sin affecting Americans today, they would probably name gluttony as the No. 1 killer. As obesity in the United States reaches epidemic proportions, with more than 60 percent of adults weighing in as overweight or obese, public policy makers and health officials are scrambling over ways to improve the American diet.

But Dr. Don Colbert, physician and nutritionist, thinks the obesity crisis could be solved if Americans would pause before inhaling a super-sized fast food meal and ask themselves a simple question: "Would Jesus eat this?"

If it's loaded with saturated fats, sugar or artificial ingredients, the answer is no, says Colbert, whose recent book "What Would Jesus Eat?," combines biblical scholarship with conventional dietary wisdom. "The gluttonous spirit is deadly," he said. "I've seen so many diseases related to dietary excess, so why not go back to the owner's manual, the Bible,to see what Jesus ate?"

Jesus essentially ate a Mediterranean diet rich in whole grains, fish, fruit and vegetables and modest amounts of olive oil, meat and wine, Colbert says. Anything the Old Testament blacklists in its dietary prescriptions is out, including shellfish, pork products, horses, camels, birds of prey and other carnivores.

Colbert, a Mississippi native who studied for a year at a Bible college as well as training at medical school, said he wrote the book and its companion, "The What Would Jesus Eat Cook Book," both published by Thomas Nelson, after realizing that many of the fattest Americans are dedicated fundamentalist Christians. "Most people say, `Hey, it's important that I live a Christian life, but my body's not that important,"' he said. "They'll go to heaven, the only problem is, if they neglect their bodies, they'll go to heaven a lot faster."

Some, however, say it's impossible to extract a dietary ethic from the New Testament, citing a lack of scriptural evidence. "No diet should invoke Jesus," says Russell Moore, assistant professor of theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. "He nowhere universalizes his diet any more than he advocates wearing robes and sandals."

But although Jesus' eating habits may not offer up an obvious set of guidelines, any philosophy that will help Americans lose weight should be counted as a blessing, said Caplan, who also directs the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "Putting aside theology, if you can motivate people to eat better by saying Jesus ate a moderate diet, that's not a bad thing, even if the textual support isn't there," he said. "Getting someone to drop 20 pounds in the name of Jesus is not the worst heresy."

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Americans practice what they are preached

Americans on average give selflessly of themselves more than 100 times a year, with religiousness being the strongest determinant of how often people reach out to help, according to a study the National Opinion Research Center has conducted.

In the survey, the first national study ever conducted to measure altruism and empathy, NORC found that while people who never attend religious services perform on average 96 acts of helping others, people who attended religious services weekly and take part in other religious activities report performing 128 acts of kindness.

The study asked about 15 different acts of altruism, including talking with someone who is depressed, helping with housework, giving up a seat to a stranger, giving money to a charity, volunteering, helping someone find a job, or helping in another way, such as lending money. The connection between religious observance and charitable behavior was consistent across religious groups in the study, “Altruism in Contemporary America: A Report from the National Altruism Study”.

Before he began the survey, author Tom Smith, Director of the General Social Survey at NORC, expected to find that people who are more socially involved, as well as those who support spending on social welfare programs, would be more likely than others to be altruistic. Those attitudes made little difference, however, in predicting who would be more charitable.

There also were no major demographic differences. The study disputes the idea that people in small towns are more likely than people in big cities to perform acts of kindness. The size of a person’s community had no relationship with the number of times a person acted in kindness.

The report found that acts of kindness consistently increased with the number of times people attended religious services. Other measures on the survey also underlined the role of religion in promoting altruism. People with strong religious faith and who prayed daily were more likely to help others.

On many attitudes and values the General Social Survey shows little difference in the views of men and women. However, the altruism research showed a large difference between men and women on questions related to empathy, with women being much more empathetic. For example, while 46 percent of the women surveyed reported feeling disturbed by other people’s misfortunes, only 25 percent of the men shared that perspective, Smith found.

The altruism questions were asked of 1,366 people.

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Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Publishing Your Own Scriptures

According to scholars and industry observers, the reading public has greater access than ever before to books claiming or seeming to be divine revelation, that is, God's own words.

Despite small odds for success, growing opportunities for self-publishing have enabled the genre of new revelation to balloon with contenders to be the next big seller--or the text that births a new religion.

"Ongoing revelation is something that people have always claimed," said Rebecca Moore, associate professor of religion at San Diego State University and co-editor of Nova Religio, a journal of new religions. She notes, for instance, Anne Hutchinson whose claims to hear God's voice directly in her ear but not through Scripture led to her persecution in Puritan New England.

"Publication of the revelations," Moore said, "is what seems to be new."

Publishers have traditionally brought a skeptical eye to manuscripts claiming to be divine revelation, according to Lynn Garrett, religion editor at Publisher's Weekly. That's because, she says, most are poorly written and have little new content of value to offer.

Nevertheless, the number of published authors who claim to be speaking for God continues to grow.

"I seem to get more self-published submissions than ever before," Garrett said. Though numbers in this "new revelation" genre are not officially tracked, she said, "there are always a few" that would fall into the category.

America is uniquely disposed at this point in time to welcome new revelations and possibly use them as foundational texts for successful new religions, according to religion scholars. One major reason: Americans no longer depend on established religious authorities for spiritual guidance.

"Religion has become deregulated," said John Berthrong, dean of the School of Theology at Boston University and author of "The Divine Deli: Religious Identity in the North American Cultural Mosaic" (Orbis, 2000). "There's just much more freedom to express yourself without fear."

In this deregulated religious climate, readers have shown a fascination with ancient writings that might have become scripture had authorities not rejected them from a religious canon. The Gospel of Thomas, for instance, has remained in print for more than a decade.

To base a new religion on a newly written, sacred text is more the exception than the rule in the eye of history. The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, for instance, gives accounts of religious experience that preceded the establishment of any sacred writings. Yet there are examples of prophets recording revelation first and then going on to found a great movement upon the text's code for life. Muhammed founded Islam in this manner in the 7th century. Joseph Smith began Mormonism by the same method in the 19th.

Scholars declined to speculate on which writings or types of writings could be candidates to give birth to a new religion with staying power. But they also declined to discount any contenders as hopeless.

"Some of them really do become large mass movements," Berthrong said. Especially if the future brings disaster or a great deal of uncertainty, he said, "I would not be at all surprised to see that."

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Tuesday, August 12, 2003

In Europe, a decline in productivity and religion

In Europe the love of leisure has surpassed the love of God, threatening the economy of the expanding European Union. Niall Ferguson, writing in the The New York Times, credits the Protestant work ethic with America's relative affluence.

A century ago the German sociologist Max Weber argued that modern capitalism was "born from the spirit of Christian asceticism." In short, self-denial rooted in religion led to hard work and success.

Three out of five Americans now work more than 50 hours a week, more than their grandparents in the 1920s. Alone among the world's industrialized nations, the U.S. has no law requiring a minimum annual paid leave. Indeed, some 13 percent of American companies offer no paid vacation at all.

Whereas the average American works just under 2,000 hours every year, the typical German works 22 percent fewer hours, and the Dutch and Norwegians even fewer. Not only is the European work week shorter than ours, but our trans-Atlantic neighbors typically enjoy month-long annual vacations plus other holidays.

Ferguson observes that "the declines in working hours in northern Europe coincide almost exactly with precipitous declines in religious observance there. Fewer than one in 10 Dutch, Swedish, British, German, and Danish citizens attend church at least once a month. Majorities in these countries told the Gallup Millennium Survey that God did not matter to them at all. By contrast, 82 percent of American respondents insisted that God was "very important" to them.

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Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census - Religion

A new survey has revealed that although many gay people belong to a certain religion, few are actually practicing that religion.

More than 6 out of 10 (63.7%) respondents say they are affiliated with a particular religion but only 38% say they are practicing members.

The largest segment is Catholics (17.2%), although only 29.5%t of those members say they are practicing. Six percent of respondents say they are atheists and almost a third (30.3%) say they have no religious preference.

With 8,831 respondents, the 2002-2003 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census is the largest and most comprehensive GLBT consumer study ever conducted.

Of those respondents who answered both the religious affiliation and currently practicing questions, there are 11 religions with 200 or more members. Among these, the highest percentage of those saying they are practicing members of their respective religions are: Pagan (84.6%), Metropolitan Community Church (79.4%), Unitarian (66.7%), Episcopal (57.6%) and Jewish (47.5%).

Jeffrey Garber, the founder of the GLCensus Partners’ study, said: "The gap of those who practice their religion verses those who don’t appears to vary based on how various religious sects are perceived of as being more embracing of the GLBT community than those which are not.”

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Sunday, August 10, 2003

Clash over keys to Christ's birthplace

An unholy row has erupted at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, believed to stand on the site of Jesus's birth, after Greek Orthodox monks changed the locks and refused to share the keys.

The monks insist that they are entitled to exclusive possession of keys to the sacred shrine, a stance that has incensed leaders of the rival Catholic and Armenian churches, which have claimed rights of ownership and access to the church for more than 150 years.

Under the terms of an Ottoman edict - the "Status Quo", dating from 1852 - the Greek Orthodox monks are responsible for opening and closing the church doors each day but the Catholics and Armenians are entitled to have keys.

The origins of the squabble can be traced back to a siege in the church last year, when a group of Palestinian militants took refuge in the church for several weeks.

Several gunmen were killed by Israeli forces, and their bodies removed by Catholic Franciscan priests. The problem, according to the Armenians, arose when the Greeks objected to the doors being opened for the bodies to be removed.

Bethlehem residents say that the Greek monks were incensed when Franciscan monks allowed Muslim prayers to be said over one of the dead men within the Greeks' section of the church.

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Catholic Hispanics born again as evangelicals

The Hispanic Churches in American Public Life research project, a three-year study released this year that examined the impact of religion on Hispanic communities, said about 23 percent of the nation's 37 million Hispanics identify themselves as Protestant.

The percentage who identify themselves as Catholic has remained at 70 percent over the past decade, but researchers believe that's because of the constant flow of immigrants from Latin America, especially from Mexico, where 87.9 percent of the population practices Catholicism.

HCAPL directors randomly selected 2,310 Hispanics from cities throughout the nation, including San Antonio and Houston, to participate in a national phone survey, which was conducted between Aug. 21 and Oct. 31, 2000.

The research project also included a national mail survey of 436 Hispanic political, civic and religious leaders, and community profiles of 268 religious and lay leaders from 45 congregations.

This study and another done by the Barna Research Group in 2000 found that when Hispanics leave the Catholic Church, many choose to worship at evangelical and charismatic churches, especially Pentecostal churches. The HCAPL study found 88 percent of Latino Protestants describe themselves as evangelical or "born again."

Father Virgilio Elizondo, co-director of the research project and the founder of San Antonio's Mexican American Cultural Center, said the aggressive outreach efforts of many evangelicals and their exciting church services, dynamic Bible preaching and emphasis on Hispanic culture appeal to many Hispanics.

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Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Majority of Americans OK With Ten Commandments, Pledge in Public

More than 60 percent of Americans think government officials should be able to post the Ten Commandments in government buildings and believe it is constitutional for teachers to lead the recitation of "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, according to a survey.

The "State of the First Amendment 2003" survey, released Aug. 1, was jointly commissioned by the First Amendment Center and the American Journalism Review.Sixty-eight percent of respondents said teachers leading the pledge with the words "one nation under God" were not violating the principle of separation of church and state, while 26 percent said they were.

Sixty-two percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that government officials should be allowed to post the Ten Commandments within government buildings, while 35 percent said they should not.

Researchers found that 60 percent of respondents favored allowing the government to give money to churches or other religious institutions to help them operate programs that aim to prevent drug abuse, even if they include a religious message in their program.

Thirty-six percent opposed such funding.

The Center for Survey Research & Analysis at the University of Connecticut surveyed 1,000 Americans during June 3-15. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

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American attitudes on rights continue to evolve

Study suggests Americans are rethinking their willingness to sacrifice fundamental rights.

Are the American people starting to come back to their senses? Maybe. A new study of public opinion regarding the First Amendment at least suggests that Americans are less willing today to sacrifice some of their most important freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.

The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center and American Journalism Review commissioned a survey by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis. It was part of an annual series of surveys intended to track public attitudes regarding First Amendment rights (religion, speech, press and assembly) and the news media.

Look how public sentiment has varied over the years in response to this statement: "The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees."

In 2000, 10 percent of survey respondents "strongly agreed" with that statement. In 2001, that percentage climbed to 29 percent. Then came the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The 2002 survey found an astounding 41 percent of Americans strongly agreeing that the First Amendment gives people too much freedom.

This year's survey found 19 percent strongly agreeing that the First Amendment goes too far.

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Monday, August 04, 2003

Mongolia's return to religion

At the Great Ganden Monastery outside Ulan Bator, the people of Mongolia are searching for their past.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, more than half the male population of this landlocked country lived as monks in places like Ganden.

But then came communism. During the Soviet takeover in the 1920s, local communist leaders backed by Stalin sought to eradicate all traces of religion with a bloody purge.

The great monasteries were smashed, their content looted and their monks dispersed.

Buddhism in Mongolia has been strangled by communist rule

"They destroyed everything," said Puravbat, one of the senior monks at Ganden.

"The sutras were burned, the monasteries closed. We have had to start again from scratch, retranslate the sutras and rebuild the old learning."

Christian groups are proliferating so fast that they now outnumber official Buddhist organisations.

Will traditional Buddhism, in its critically weakened state, withstand the foreign onslaught - or will Christianity peacefully succeed where communism so brutally failed?

But to Mongolia's conservative Buddhist elite, such rapid growth is deeply troubling.

Some Christian groups now accuse the government of orchestrating a campaign to prevent them gaining new converts.

It is a charge which Mongolia's devoutly Buddhist Prime Minister Enkbayar strongly denies.

But he did acknowledge concern about the arrival of these new foreign religious groups in his once Buddhist country.

"Religious differences are very difficult to solve, because all religions express themselves in terms of ultimate truth," he said.

These young Mongolians have found their truth, and it lies in a new foreign god.

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Friday, August 01, 2003

Retreats Help Rabbis, Cantors Reclaim Their Spirituality

The program, which is presented by the Spirituality Institute, consists of four retreats over 18 months, with participants given text assignments to be read and discussed, often over the phone in weekly sessions, between meetings.

The Institute, established in 1999, also offers programs for cantors and lay people, in answer to what many see as the Jewish community's yearning for not only religion, but spirituality at the synagogue.

The Spirituality Institute is not the only Jewish spiritual retreat center, but is one of the few catering specifically to rabbis, and the only such organization that is cross-denominational. Faculty members come from Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist backgrounds, and an Orthodox instructor has also joined the faculty.

Pulpit rabbis can feel beset by the demands of balancing family and the many needs of their congregations, and they often say that they sacrifice something of their own inner lives to meet those needs.

"One very easily loses touch with one's own spiritual center," said Rabbi Nancy Flam, director of the Institute.

Glanzberg-Kranin, who is on the board of the Spirituality Institute, said rabbis, just like anyone else, must make a concerted effort to lead spiritual lives.

"One has to really prioritize making a commitment to their inner religious and spiritual life," he said.

"The goal of the program is really to help nourish Jewish religious leaders' inner lives so that the strength of their leadership can come from the strength of their own inner spirituality," said Flam.

Many of the teachings included in the curriculum come from 18th to 20th century Hasidic sources, which may be a new area of exploration for some rabbis. Some say the structure of the Institute's program, which boasts noted scholars including Brandeis professor Arthur Green, helps guide them through unfamiliar territory.

The rabbis who participate in the Institute's program, Ochs said, "are doing what their congregations are doing," which is reaching out for spiritual practices that are personally meaningful while also being traditionally authentic from a Jewish perspective.

Flam, a university chaplain at Brown University in Providence, R.I., said his participation in the Institute helped him see his commitment to Jewish life in a new way.

"It makes it clear that the purpose of our existence is uniting with God," he said. "That's what we're doing together; the sense of that endeavor has been powerful for me."