TruthBook Religious News Blog

Nearly 70% Want Their Church or Synagogue to Teach Children to Respect Other Faiths

A scientific survey conducted by Harris Interactive from May 25-27, 2004 determined that the majority of adult Americans (69 percent) believe that religious differences are the biggest hurdle to achieving global peace.

While opinions appeared to be mixed as to how tolerant Americans feel they are when it comes to religious views other than their own (only 46 percent considered Americans very tolerant), nearly three in five (59%) said that they personally take the time to learn about other religions. More than two-thirds of Americans (69 percent) were in favor of having their children learn about other faiths in their chosen house of worship, and half (50%) said they actively teach their children to respect other faiths.

The survey found that 78 percent of U.S. adults believe that Christians and Jews can find common ground between their faiths to develop a mutually respectful relationship. Goldhirsh hopes to cultivate this belief into a stronger understanding between the two faiths.

Other Factors in Religious Tolerance

Interestingly, the survey found that older Americans tend to be more open to and interested in other faiths. Americans 45 years and older are more likely to take the time to learn about different religions.

Nearly two in three adults in the 45-54 age bracket (63%) and the 55+ age bracket (64%) said they take time to teach their children about other faiths versus 30% of the 18-34 bracket and 48% of the 35-44 bracket. Similarly, 73% of the 45-54 bracket and 79% of the 55+ bracket believe their church or synagogue should teach children about other faiths whereas only 58% of the 18-34 bracket and 65% of the 35-44 bracket agreed.

Another age-related aspect is the way Americans feel about religious tolerance. Fifty-eight percent of the 55+ bracket believe that Americans are very tolerant of different religious perspectives while only 38% of the 18-34 bracket felt so.

Older Americans are also more likely to believe that religious differences are the biggest hurdle to global peace. Yet they seem to have more faith in our ability to overcome these differences, with more than four in five adults in the 45-54 bracket (84%) and 55+ bracket (82%) believing that Christians and Jews can find a common ground for a respectful relationship compared to only 72 percent of the 18-34 bracket and 75 percent of the 35-44 bracket.

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Poll: U.S. sees itself as religious

A majority of U.S. residents regard themselves as religious in ways both practical and political, the Washington Times reported Friday.

A Gallup poll found six out of 10 Americans said religion is "very important" to them in daily life, a steadfast figure that has remained virtually unchanged in the past decade, Gallup officials said.

Religion was "fairly important" to 26 percent, and 15 percent said it didn't matter.

The survey, which has a margin of error of three percentage points, questioned 1,000 adults June 3-6.

Sixty-one percent said faith can solve "all or most of today's problems," while just 24 percent said faith was "old-fashioned and out of date."

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Thursday, June 24, 2004

Logging On to Find God

God does not have an Internet address, at least not yet, but many of his earthly disciples do.

Christians, Jews and Muslims -- established denominations and nondenominational affiliates alike -- are faithfully embracing the Internet.

"The Internet is the great missionary territory," said Sister Angela Ann Zukowski, director of the Institute for Pastoral Initiatives at the University of Dayton in Ohio. "It is the great green field."

Experts say the use of the Internet for religious purposes may rival that of popular online activities such as dating or shopping. Research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project demonstrates millions of Americans receive spiritual and religious material every day through the Internet, and more than 28 million Americans have, at some time, used the Web for a religious purpose. That is about 25 percent of all of those who have gone online for any reason.

Websense Inc., an online content-filtering software developer in San Diego, has more than 77,105 sites in its database of universal resource locators (URLs) -- Internet addresses -- that are classified as being produced by traditional religions, from Buddhists to Bahai to Christians and Sikhs, spokeswoman Jennifer Culter told UPI.

The materials range from e-mail with "thoughts of the day," to e-newsletters with more in-depth material, to a complete catechism of a particular faith. That is changing the nature of theology, often called the queen of the sciences.

"Some people may not walk through the doors of a temple, but they will go to sites online to find religious information," said Yosef Abramowitz, chief executive officer of Jewish Family & Life, a religious publisher, based in Boston. That publisher offers a number of online services -- from JewishFamily.com to shma.com to Babaganewz.com -- designed to bring Judaism into the cyber era. The interactive technology is helping spread the word about the Jewish faith like nothing before in history, Abramowitz said.

"For the first time in 2,000 years, because of the Internet, Jewish ideas and values are playing on a level playing field with other religions," Abramowitz told UPI. "There is a democratization of religion."

Abramowitz said that historically only certain rabbis, and others recognized as learned in the Jewish faith, could select materials for learning, and the process was quite lengthy. Internet technologies now enable the swift dissemination of messages about rituals or liturgies.

"There is something very Jewish about the notion of hyperlinking," Abramowitz said. "Hyperlinking is something that was done by the rabbis in their memory when they composed the works of the Talmud. They would cite something from the Bible or another side of the paper that they were reading from, and reference the source document."

Individuals now can hyperlink to source materials on the Internet, on their own, and pick the liturgy they find inspiring.

"This is something that is deeply theological, but that religions haven't wrestled with before," Abramowitz said. "There is no hierarchy in the access to God or holy writings on the Internet."

For Christians, Internet technology also is causing something of a revolution, akin to changes wrought 500 years ago when theologians in Europe embraced the printing press as a missionary tool.

"This is the second Reformation," said Steve Farrell, a coordinator at Humanity's Team, an online, nondenominational ministry, and a former Silicon Valley high-tech chief executive officer. "In the case of the first Reformation, it wouldn't have happened without the printing press. Martin Luther stated that. Without the Internet, projects like ours would not exist."

The anonymous nature of the Internet, expressed via technologies such as chat rooms, bulletin boards and e-mail, is a key factor for many seeking spirituality or truth online.

"The anonymity breeds intimacy," Steven Waldman, Beliefnet.com's editor in chief, told UPI. "People will open up to each other spiritually much faster online, for better or worse. Mostly it is positive. Also, they're asking questions they might not ask of other faiths, like Muslims, 'Why do you pray five times a day?'"

Some people are embarrassed to ask about their own religion -- to fill gaps in their knowledge. Being online allows them to seek answers and avoid feeling uncomfortable, said Waldman, who is based in New York City.

Waldman started the site with venture-capital funding in the late 1990s, after stints at U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek. He had noticed every time a religious topic was on the cover of the magazines, sales would skyrocket. "There is a hunger for knowledge of religion," he said.

At the University of Dayton, for example, new Roman Catholics can learn the tenets of their faith online, through the offerings of the Institute for Pastoral Initiatives. Others who are more experienced can learn to lead catechism classes through online training.

Other faiths offer even more advanced training online. The Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, near Pittsburgh, offers an online diploma that many dioceses are using for training of deacon candidates, and Liberty University, a Baptist bible college, even offers a Master of Divinity degree online.

Elsewhere on the educational spectrum, parents can learn online how to incorporate spiritual teachings into the raising of their young children.

"We try to support parents as they nurture children, and help them learn about the consciousness that relates us to God," said Mimi Doe, producer of Spiritualparenting.com, in Concord, Mass.. "This is not dogma. It can be whatever you want to call it. God, Allah, or nature," she told UPI. The site features groups for parents to meet and share ideas, as well as a free electronic newsletter.

These new developments online are only the beginning of a wave of religious projects on the Internet.

"We really haven't come near to tapping the potential of methodologies for use of the Internet," said Zukowski, the Roman Catholic nun. "We're living in a time of a great spiritual quest, triggered by the world situation that we're in, with Sept. 11, 2001, and the war on terror. Many people do not have the resources at their fingertips. So they are going out and searching in cyberspace, exploring places they've never been before."

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Thursday, June 17, 2004

Networks Seek Ratings in Higher Power

Sitcoms are running out of laughs, cop dramas are a dime a dozen and reality shows are all starting to look alike. Now U.S. television networks are turning to a higher power in their quest for loftier ratings.

Inspired by the runaway success of religion-themed novels like the "Left Behind" series and Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," broadcasters are devoting more of their prime-time schedules to shows dealing with God, faith and the afterlife.

Two such shows, "Joan of Arcadia," the story of a teen-age girl who speaks to God, and "Tru Calling," about a clairvoyant young morgue attendant with the power to "relive" the previous day and help prevent deaths, are coming back for second seasons this fall on CBS and Fox, respectively.

They will join the return of the WB network's veteran drama "7th Heaven," centered on the family of a minister, and Showtime's darkly comic afterlife series "Dead Like Me."

And NBC is launching two new spiritual dramas of its own -- "Medium," starring Patricia Arquette as a suburban housewife who helps solve crimes by communicating with the dead, and "Revelations," an apocalyptic thriller featuring Bill Pullman as a scientist racing to thwart Armageddon.

It's not as big a trend as the TV westerns that galloped over the small screen during the 1960s or the "reality" craze of recent years, but the upcoming batch of faith-oriented series marks a new high point in prime-time piety.

Della Reese, an ordained minister and former gospel singer who starred in the CBS hit "Touched an Angel," sees it as a sign that spirituality has finally become "fashionable."

"We think this is something that's been out there for years and has actually been untapped," NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said. "The world is in turmoil right now, and when it is, you tend to see people going for conspiracy theories, going to apocalyptic stories and spirituality."

He cited the growing popularity of books like the "Left Behind" novels, a 12-part drama about the second coming drawn from the Book of Revelation in the New Testament that has sold more than 60 million copies worldwide.

But religion also figures prominently in a host of bestsellers ranging from Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," a modern thriller steeped in purported secrets about the early Christian church, to Bruce Wilkinson's "The Prayer of Jabez: How to Get God to Bless Your Life."

At the same time, inspirational and religious-themed music has become a growing pop genre in the recording industry.

Jana Riess, the religion book review editor for Publishers Weekly and author of "What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide," said the notion of a divine approach to TV ratings growth makes sense.

"If they're looking for an untapped market, this is it," she said, noting polls that show most Americans profess a belief in God and nearly half counting themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians.

"Americans are a very religious people, but our popular culture expressions have not always reflected that," she said.

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Friday, June 11, 2004

Study: Cancer patients turn to prayer, herbs

Eighty-five percent of U.S. cancer patients turn to prayer when they learn they have cancer, U.S. researchers said.

A study of 750 patients around the country found that most use prayer, relaxation techniques, exercise and sometimes herbs or megavitamins on top of their medical therapies.

"We were a bit surprised by how many people were using these techniques," said Jennifer Yates, an information analyst at the University of Rochester in New York who led the study.

"And we don't really know why they're using them -- to beat the cancer or to ease the side effects of treatment. Those are questions we still have to ask."

Speaking Sunday to a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in New Orleans, Yates said 85 percent of the patients surveyed used prayer as a cancer treatment technique.

Just last week the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, one of the the National Institutes of Health, released a report saying more than 60 percent of Americans overall used prayer or other alternative or complementary therapies.

But most of the patients said they never mentioned these outside techniques to their doctors.

"The typical doctor-patient encounter often leaves no room or time for a discussion of alternative and complementary therapies," said Rochester oncologist Dr. Jennifer Griggs.

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Buddhists across nation mark `Change Your Mind Day'

A diverse group of Buddhist teachers from around the country led meditation, gave talks and played music. The afternoon event, called "Change Your Mind Day," was held in nearly 50 cities in North America, Ireland and Australia. Washington's event marked the first time the 10-year-old event has been held in the nation's capital.

Though some have called the event an anti-war protest, Byrne said "Change Your Mind Day" is instead a way to cultivate a change of mind that can lead to a change in the world.

"The central theme is peace in our hearts, peace in the world," Byrne said.

"I began looking for a more Buddhist way to respond to the war," said Hugh Byrne, a Buddhist minister at Georgetown University and meditation teacher at the Smithsonian Institution. "Buddhists don't look for peace in the world, they look for peace in themselves."

Byrne got together with some like-minded friends and created the Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship in early 2003. The group's first public event was a silent peace walk from the Washington National Cathedral to the White House last year. Its second and larger event took place Saturday (June 5) amid a steady drizzle in downtown Washington.

Virginia psychologist Lorne Ladner spoke about the importance of compassion in realizing peace in the world.

"People think of compassion as being sweet, friendly, not hurting anyone's feelings," said Ladner, director of the Guhyasamaja Center, a Tibetan Buddhist teaching center near Washington. "But it takes real power and strength to be compassionate. It's about having the courage to speak the truth."

Judy Lief, former dean of Naropa University in Boulder, Colo., said one of the most remarkable things about "Change Your Mind Day" is that it joins such a diverse group of Buddhists.

“We call it `ri-me,"' Lief said. "It's about getting wisdom in various, unbiased and nonsectarian ways."

"I went to the anti-war march this morning," said Jenna Foust, a northern Virginia Web developer. "There were people jumping out at you, saying you should be angry. I said, why? There are better ways to do things."

This is exactly the message Byrne was hoping people would take home from "Change Your Mind Day."

"It's unproductive to bring anger and greed to our work for peace," Byrne said. "Buddhism is not unique in acknowledging this idea. It's just that Buddhism articulates it most clearly."

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Sunday, June 06, 2004

Religious patients fare better, studies indicate

In a recent study published in the "Journal of the American Geriatrics Society," Duke University's Dr. Harold Koenig found that in a survey of 838 Duke hospital patients 50 and older, those who categorized themselves as religious or spiritual were less depressed, more cooperative and had "better cognitive function and greater cooperativeness."

In "Handbook of Religion and Health" (Oxford University Press, $72), researchers Koenig, David B. Larson and Michael E. McCullough found that more than 1,200 studies had been conducted about the impact of religion on mental and physical health.

In a random national sample of 21,204 adults from 1987 to 1995, researchers found that of the 2,016 who had died, the religious lived an average of seven years longer. Those who never attended religious services lived to an average age of 75.3 -- compared with an average age of 81.9 for those who attended services once a week and 82.9 for people who went more than once a week.

In 1998, researchers published results of a random sample of 1,931 residents 55 and older living in Marin County, Calif. There were 454 deaths during a five-year follow-up period, and those who attended even an occasional service were 36 percent less likely to have died than those who never went.

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Friday, June 04, 2004

Power of prayer

Scientists are increasingly taking note of the connection between faith and health. Private and public money is beginning to flow in, with one branch of the National Institutes of Health more than doubling such research funding in the past five years. Researchers are studying a broad range of issues, trying to determine if faith can lengthen lives, strengthen the immune system, lower stress and blood pressure as well as decrease the odds of heart disease and dying from cancer.

"It gives people a sense of peace and optimism," said Gail H. Ironson, a University of Miami professor of psychology and psychiatry. "It gives them hope. They have less anxiety and depression."

UM has two nationally recognized faculty members in the forefront of spirituality-health research. Ironson and Michael E. McCullough, a psychologist, recently were named to a $3.5 million research team to study how the spirituality transforms, particularly how it appears to keep many people healthier, even during life-threatening illnesses.

Different angles

Ironson is studying HIV patients to see whether their spirituality helps slow the progression of the virus.

McCullough is looking at the spiritual transformation across the life span of 1,200 people -- and how that affects their long-term health. For example, he plans to look at whether those who go back to religious services in midlife live longer than those who don't.

Previous research has shown that "the religious tend to reap benefits: They live longer and better," McCullough said.

A study led by Robert Hummer of the University of Texas at Austin looked at 21,204 adults selected randomly across the country from 1987 to 1995. Those who attended a religious service at least once a week lived on average almost seven years longer than those who didn't.

The study found an average life span of 75.3 years for non-attenders compared with 81.9 for those who attend services once a week and 82.9 for people who went more than once a week.

Ironson found people didn't have to go to formal services to get a health benefit.

For the past seven years, Ironson has studied how Kaplan and more than 500 other HIV/AIDS patients -- most from Miami-Dade and Broward -- cope with their illness. Her studies involve about 70 percent men and 30 percent women, some of whom have been HIV-positive since the early 1980s.

She found that having faith in God or a sense of peace lowers the stress hormone cortisol and has been linked to the long-term survival of HIV/AIDS patients, she said.

For decades, doctors and scientists shied away from considering that spirituality might have an impact on health. Indeed, many doctors say Americans shouldn't equate prayer with Prozac.

Nevertheless, the spiritual-health hypothesis has piqued the interest of many in the scientific community, and research money has begun to flow.

Over the past five years, the federal National Institutes of Health's Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine has more than doubled the dollars spent on research on religion, spirituality and meditation -- from $1.4 million in fiscal 1999 to $3.2 million in fiscal 2003, said Dr. Stephen E. Straus, director of the center.

More than a fourth of all research dollars for mind-body research goes into studying how religion, spirituality and meditation affect people.

"We've begun to understand how the mind interacts with the body," Straus said. "The mind does send chemical messages to the body."

Studies have shown that positive attitudes strengthen the immune system, which helps fight off infection. Meanwhile, depression and stress lower resistance, Straus said.

Harold G. Koenig, a Duke University professor and psychiatrist who in 1998 started the country's first Center for Religion/Spirituality and Health, said his center has studied a wide range of topics, finding that faith lowers blood pressure, helps the hospitalized cope with their illness and is linked to longevity.

"Faith and medicine work beautifully together," he said.

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Thursday, June 03, 2004

Religion: The Pop Prophets

"They're an odd couple, for sure: Tim LaHaye, the golden-ager in polyester, veteran culture warrior and cofounder of the Moral Majority; Jerry B. Jenkins, the bearded baby boomer in jeans, best known (until now) for channeling the autobiographies of such Christian athletes as Orel Hershiser. They're also, arguably, the most successful literary partnership of all time. And if you define success in worldly terms, you can drop the "arguably." Their Biblical techno-thrillers about the end of the world are currently outselling Stephen King, John Grisham and every other pop novelist in America. It's old-time religion with a sci-fi sensibility: the Tribulation timetable comes from LaHaye; the cell phones, Land Rovers--and characters struggling with belief and unbelief--come from Jenkins. And their contrasting sensibilities suggest the complexities of the entire evangelical movement, often seen as monolithic.

The first volume, "Left Behind" (1995), kicks off with the Rapture--the sudden snatching up of millions of the faithful into heaven--and subsequent volumes follow airline pilot Rayford Steele and journalist Buck Williams, left behind to tough it out down here on earth through the seven-year Tribulation and the rule of the Antichrist. The 12th and final installment (not counting a planned sequel and prequel), called "Glorious Appearing," has the return of Jesus, the battle of Armageddon and the Judgment. It sold almost 2 million copies even before its March publication; it's still tied for No. 2 on The New York Times's list--which doesn't count sales at Christian bookstores. In all, the "Left Behind" books have sold more than 62 million copies.

Who's buying? Jenkins recalls a puzzled Chris Matthews asking a "Hardball" guest the same question. "I'm sure I don't have the quote exact, but it was something like 'Certainly not the people in the cities and the suburbs.' And I'm thinking, 'What does that leave? Barefoot people in the hollers handling snakes?'" Jenkins takes issue with a previous NEWSWEEK piece that called "Left Behind" a "Red State" phenomenon, but statistics from the publisher, Tyndale, bear this out: 71 percent of the readers are from the South and Midwest, and just 6 percent from the Northeast. (Hence Tyndale's sponsorship of a NASCAR racer, with the unlucky logo LEFT BEHIND.) The "core buyer" is a 44-year-old born-again Christian woman, married with kids, living in the South. This isn't the "Sex and the City" crowd--which helps explain why it took so long for the media to notice that one in eight Americans was reading all these strange books about the end of the world.

And why are so many people eager to do that? Well, check the news tonight. As the world gets increasingly scary, with much of the trouble centered in the Mideast--just where you'd expect from reading the Book of Revelation--even secular Americans sometimes wonder (or at least wonder if they ought to start wondering) whether there might not be something to this End Times stuff. After September 11, 2001, there was such a run on the latest "Left Behind" volume, "Desecration," that it became the best-selling novel of the year. And it's no coincidence that the books are a favorite with American soldiers in Iraq.

LaHaye and Jenkins--the prophecy teacher and the pop novelist--combine the ultimate certainty the Bible offers with the entertainment-culture conventions of rock-jawed heroism and slam-bang special effects. "Left Behind" gives believers an equivalent of such secular sagas as the "Lord of the Rings" books: a self-contained, ordered world with a wealth of detail in which a reader can become blissfully immersed, and the assurance that good must win out--but not so quickly that the audience can't indulge the human fascination with evil. Scholars reconstructing the popular history of the first years of the 21st century--if there still are any--will have to grapple with the phenomenon of "Left Behind." In an age of terror and tumult, they may find, these books' Biblical literalism offered certitude to millions of Americans amid the chaos of their time.

The many critics of the series see a resonance between its apocalyptic scenario and the born-again President Bush's apocalyptic rhetoric and confrontational Mideast policies. And they see LaHaye's far-right political agenda behind having fetuses Raptured from pregnant women's wombs, and making the Antichrist the secretary-general of the United Nations. Roman Catholics aren't happy that the Antichrist's assistant is the pope, and while "Left Behind" shows the common evangelical sympathy for Jews, they exist to be converted and to fulfill Christian prophecy. (For Jenkins and LaHaye, of course, so does everyone else.) And minorities may find the books' attempts at multiculturalism condescending. "I ain't seen no Bible for years," says one character, a "heavyset Latina." "What got me was that it wasn't fancy, wasn't hard to understand... All them Scriptures sounded true to me, 'bout being a sinner."

The other principal critique comes from some of Jenkins's and LaHaye's fellow Christians, who find the books more interested in God's wrath than God's love--as well as scripturally questionable. "It's pulp fiction, based on a particular reading of the Bible," says Randall Balmer, chair of the religion department at Barnard College. "It diverts attention from the mandate of the New Testament to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself." According to Tyndale's research, more Jews, agnostics and atheists read the series than mainline Protestants, and back in 2000 even the president of the Lutheran Church's conservative Missouri Synod denounced the "Left Behind" series as "an unbiblical flight of fancy." Most establishmentarian Christians agree with Tina Pippin, a professor of religious studies at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga., in saying "Left Behind" "encourages people to see the world in terms of black and white, good and evil, with us or against us."

LaHaye won't be along next month when the genial Jenkins appears at the secular BookExpo America's first-ever Religion Day. They may not be quite ready for LaHaye. With Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, he was one of the most divisive figures of the 1980s religious right, and he's still a loose cannon. He can't resist an opportunity to get in a dig about school prayer, the United Nations, homosexuals or "libertine living"--or to question a NEWSWEEK reporter about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

LaHaye's common-sense reading of the Bible is also tied up with a still-aggrieved sense of social class. "Those millions that I'm trying to reach take the Bible literally. It's the theologians that get all fouled up on some of these smug ideas that you've got to find some theological reason behind it. It bugs me that intellectuals look down their noses at we ordinary people." His family had been hard-pressed when his father lost his job at a Ford plant in Michigan during the Depression; his widowed mother worked in factories while going to night school to become a Bible teacher, and gave a tenth of her income to the church. ("Can you imagine? She made 60 cents an hour.") LaHaye worked himself through Bob Jones University; his first pastorate, in Pumpkintown, S.C., paid him $15 a week. "I wake up every morning," he says, "and I see this beautiful place, and that drop-dead gorgeous view of the mountains, and I think, 'This is fantastic.' Because God is faithful." How does he reconcile that with Jesus' injunction to sell all you have and give to the poor? "I can accomplish far more from my present lifestyle and the giving that I do to Christian work," he says. "If I just sold everything and gave it to the poor, I can't see where that would advance the Gospel as much as I'm doing." But wouldn't it advance the poor? "Well," he says, "you know how much I pay in taxes?"

To LaHaye, spreading the Good News is far more compassionate than redistributing the wealth. This is the motivation behind his conservative politics--for him, traditional moral values are a matter of spiritual life or death--and the "Left Behind" books, which he and Jenkins credit with bringing some 3,000 people to Christ. As Jenkins puts it, "Whatever people say about Dr. LaHaye--he's polemical, he's not politically correct--he really cares about souls." It's why he never gives up, even with that unsaved NEWSWEEK reporter, to whom he gives a copy of "Glorious Appearing" to pass along to his mother. There's that smile.

At first Jenkins had purely professional doubts about LaHaye's project. And what was the intended audience--the evangelical market or a mass readership? Both, LaHaye told him. Bearing in mind the Epistle of James' warning not to be a "double-minded man," Jenkins tried to talk him out of it with a witticism. "A double-minded book," he told LaHaye, "is unstable in all its ways."

Readers identify with the "Left Behind" characters in part because they seldom speak in Christian cliches: as Jenkins says, starting out with the Rapture means "anybody who would use evangelical lingo is gone after the first chapter of the first book." More important, Jenkins uses such characters as Rayford Steele's daughter Chloe to voice his own wrestlings with his faith. "To me there's a value in questioning, and even doubting sometimes. Chloe's big deal is, how does this sound like a loving God? People disappear, planes crash, people die--even people who might have believed, but it's too late. There is indication in the prophecies that God will harden some people's hearts. I don't get it myself; I don't understand how that fits in with God's plan. Yeah, those are hard things." Jenkins is nearly as troubled as his critics by the apparently vengeful elements in the books, such as that episode in "Glorious Appearing" in which too-late penitents are sent to hell vainly bleating, "Jesus is Lord." "One of the toughest things I deal with is that there are some evangelicals, with familiar faces, who seem to like that part of it. You know, 'We're right, you're wrong, that's what the Bible says, someday you're going to kneel and admit it.' That should break our hearts."

Still, Jenkins knows that is what the Bible says, at least as he and LaHaye read it, and "we sort of have a responsibility to tell what it seems to say to us." For them--just as for Christians who think LaHaye and Jenkins have it all wrong--this is ultimately about love, for God and for their fellow humans. As they see it, they're on a rescue mission, with time running out. "We don't know when the Lord's going to come," LaHaye admits, and he likes to quote Matt. 24:35: "Of that day and hour no one knows, no, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only." But don't the signs seem to be coming thick and fast? Even for evangelical Christians, of course, LaHaye and Jenkins's uncompromising reading of Scripture and of current events isn't the only choice. But if you assume, with them, that it's all true, the end won't be pretty for those left behind. While for those who listen up in time, it'll be a whole other story.

(This story has been edited from the original)

Newsweek
Title: Religion: The Pop Prophets
Date: May 24, 2004
Copyright (c) 2004 Newsweek, Inc.