TruthBook Religious News Blog

Every three weeks or so, Buddy Brandt, a partner at the Manhattan law firm of Brandt, Steinberg & Lewis, closes the door to his office, turns off the phone and sits down to study a facet of Judaism.

Mr. Brandt said this kind of study - it might be a book in the Old Testament, the history of Zionism or an aspect of Jewish law - brings "peace and relief" in the middle of a hectic day. On a deeper level, he said, "It fills an important spiritual niche in my life. And it helps put life's difficulties in proper perspective."

With Americans spending so much time on the job, some of them are finding ways to bring spirituality to the office, rather than relegating it to weekend religious services. This can mean simply tr! ying to treat others well, saying a prayer to start the day or thinking about the sermon heard on Sunday.

This phenomenon is virtually impossible to quantify, but studies by the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, as well as the Harris Poll and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, suggest that religion is increasingly important to Americans, both in private life and in public. "We know the percentage of Americans that identify themselves as religious and God-believing is probably the highest in the developed world: 90 percent," said Georgette F. Bennett, a sociologist and the founder of the Tanenbaum Center. "And we know from our surveys that as people get older, religion becomes more important to them." The work force is aging, so it would not be surprising to find religion playing a larger role in the workplace, she said.

Several organizations exist to help make that mixing of faith and work easi! er, like Spirit at Work in East Haven, Conn., an information clearinghouse for people and organizations interested in spirituality in the workplace. In addition, groups like Forum for Faith in the Workplace in Columbus, Ohio, and Marketplace Network in Boston aim to motivate and equip Christians to apply biblical principles in their work.

Christopher Scott, executive director of Forum for Faith in the Workplace, said interest in spirituality has grown tremendously. "It's a very uncertain world, and people are looking for an anchor to hold onto," he said. "We find people increasingly feel they can't live two lives: doing one thing on Sunday and something else the rest of the week."

The organization, which serves Central Ohio, holds an annual dinner honoring those in the secular workplace who exemplify "living out their faith," and attendance has risen in the last four years to just under 300 from 50, Mr. Scott said.

Many experts on religion and culture say the desire to incorporate personal religious faith into work has been rising for at least a decade, but some also say there was a burst of interest after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

David W. Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, whose research specializes in ethics and spirituality in the workplace, helped edit a list of groups like Spirit at Work or Forum for Faith in the Workplace well before Sept. 11. "After the attacks, the growth of these groups was simply exponential," he said.

Ken Blanchard, co-founder and chief spiritual officer of the Ken Blanchard Companies, a management consulting firm based in Escondido, Calif., exemplifies the intertwining of religion and work. He says he is a devout Christian and uses Jesus as his leadership model.

Each morning, Mr. Blanchard sends an inspirational voice mail to all 250 employees. Th! e message includes prayer requests from employees but no actual praying. "I also praise people for a job well done,'' he said. "I quote from the New and Old Testaments, Buddha, Moses, Martin Luther King. I talk about movies I've seen, books I've read."

Mr. Blanchard said employees who are not religiously or spiritually inclined are not treated differently from those who are. "Everyone here knows I think they should have something in their life that is bigger than themselves, but that's it."

There can be a fine line, however, between religious self-expression and proselytizing. Christy Munger, an associate publicist at Ruder Finn in Manhattan, recalled a conversation that began when a colleague asked about Ms. Munger's occasional use of alcohol. Ms. Munger, who describes herself as an evangelical Christian, said she answered with an explanation about using the Bible as a guide in life. Ms. Munger told her colleague that the Bible "teaches us not to rely on things, but to rely on God for strength and joy."

Ms. Munger said she considered her explanation "standing up for truth," not proselytizing. "I haven't made anyone uncomfortable - I think maybe angry - and I hope, perhaps, have caused some questioning," she said.

In general however, complaints about proselytizing and other forms of religious discrimination have risen substantially over the last decade. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 2,532 complaints of religious discrimination in 2003, an increase of 75 percent from 1993, said Dianna Johnston, assistant legal counsel for the agency. Those complaints run the gamut from proselytizing to failing to accommodate someone's religious beliefs.

Employees who are uncomfortable in a workplace where faith is frequently discussed can simply steer clear of those discussions. But that can mean missing out on office gossip and networking opportunities.

"It's hard to have a pot-luck Bible study with fellow employees and not talk about work; if you aren't there, you will wind up missing out on important information,'' said Myrna Marofsky, president of ProGroup, a diversity consulting firm in Minneapolis and author of "Religion in the Workplace: A Guide to Navigating the Complex Landscape.''

Employees who feel uncomfortable with visible expressions of faith at work should confront the situation head on, Ms. Johnston said. "You should always handle the situation immediately and very directly, whether it's a colleague or your employer," she said. "You can say, politely, 'When you talk to me about the Bible, it makes me uncomfortable.' "

Still, some employees feel that they can manage in an overtly religious work environment even if their views differ sharply from those of their co-workers. Or the boss.

When Madelin! e Homan joined the Blanchard Companies four years ago as a vice president, she worried about the atmosphere. Friends who had heard Mr. Blanchard speak told her he was "over-the-top Christian," she said, and she opposes all organized religion.

"I told Ken's son, whom I worked with, that I was worried," she said. "There must have been discussions among the leadership, because after that, Ken confined talk about Jesus or being saved to his dealings with the Christian community."

Ms. Homan said she had never been offended by Mr. Blanchard's morning messages. "I was very skeptical at first, but now, that voice mail is a minute or two of my day where I stop and connect with the better part of myself."

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Cell Phone Users Are Finding God

Once merely a useful tool for keeping in touch on the go, the mobile phone is fast finding a new niche as an instrument of spiritual enlightenment.

From Muslims who use their phones to point them toward Mecca, to Roman Catholics who collect text messages from the Vatican, religious observers across the globe are turning to their cell phones for aid and inspiration in practicing their faith.

Today's the Day. In response, service providers and religious institutions are rolling out a host of services to attract the growing ranks of spiritually oriented phone users.

For followers of Islam, companies such as LG Electronics and Dubai-based Ilkone Mobile Telecommunications make phones that aid Muslims in their daily practice by indicating the direction of Mecca, providing the call to prayer or even incorporating the Quran within the phone. Even those with a regular phone can augment it with a religious ring tone or download a lunar calendar.

The text message, a dominant method of communication in many parts of the world, has also become a valuable religious tool. Indian operator BPMobile lets customers send prayers by SMS to a Bombay temple where they are offered to the Hindu god Ganesh.

In a similar vein, subscribers in the United States and several European countries can receive a daily text message from the pope.

The Pope's Thought of the Day is so popular that the Vatican is testing a more advanced multimedia messaging, or MMS, service that provides text, audio, images and video of the pope's weekly service from St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

Multimedia spiritual guidance can also be had in the United States by people who subscribe to a daily service called The Seven Spiritual Laws, which features the holistic teachings of Deepak Chopra. Currently available from two U.S. mobile operators, the service provides daily aphorisms as well as diet tips and an inspiring image.

"It's amazing that people can find solace in something so short. People just need a little nudge so that they can have a reflective experience," observes Chopra.

Chopra is not the only spiritual leader to see the value of the mobile phone as a tool for enlightenment.

"I think it is excellent," enthuses Rabbi Emanuel Carlebach of the House of Israel Congregation in Ste Agathe, Quebec. Carlebach himself downloads "Psalms in his Palm" and excerpts from scripture through PilotYid.com, a Judaism-oriented service for users of Palm OS devices that seeks to cover costs with voluntary donations.

"There is a principle that the Torah teaches us: We are supposed to utilize everything in the world to serve God," he says.

Carlebach also sees no ethical conflict in the fact that many of these religious services are for profit.

"One is entitled to make an honest living," he says, characterizing the payment as a means of thanking the provider for the convenient service.

But even the for-profit services are treated carefully. Andy Nulman, president of Airborne Entertainment, the company behind Chopra's service, says the price it charges subscribers, $3.25 a month, is about midrange for a mobile-entertainment subscription service.

Neither Acotel, the company that handles the technical side of the Pope's Thought of the Day service, nor the Vatican makes a profit from the daily messages. However, subscribers do pay a fee to read the messages. Acotel is not allowed to promote the service -- you'll find no mention of it on the company's website -- but works with local Christian organizations to promote it.

A British service has taken a third route. MS Wireless Marketing sends the money raised from daily Islamic text messages to humanitarian charities in the United Kingdom. Saadi Hussain, managing director, says it has raised 17,000 pounds ($31,000) in 17 months.

"The mobile phone is a perfect solution," Hussain says, "because it allows you to do micropayments. Over the year people are spending 70 pounds ($128), but they don’t realize it because they are spending 25 pence (46 cents) a day." Not only do his customers receive holy verses and prayer times on a daily basis but they are fulfilling their Muslim duty for charitable donation, Hussain says.

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Thursday, August 19, 2004

Boom in UK religious studies in the wake of September 11

Record numbers of sixth-formers sat A-levels in religious studies this summer, according to official statistics published yesterday.

The dramatic rise was attributed to teenagers' desire to understand world religions in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks and the Iraq war, according to headteachers and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Government's exam regulator.

The students who will receive their A-level results today were the first to choose their courses after the 11 September terrorist attacks in 2001.

Religious studies A-level showed the biggest percentage increase in candidates of any subject this summer. Nearly 14,500 students sat the exam this summer, up from 12,671 last year, a rise of 13.8 per cent.

A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority attributed the increase to interest in world affairs following the 11 September attacks.

"Obviously, religion is playing an increased role in world affairs and I think students are choosing to take religious studies because they see that it will give them a greater understanding of the world we live in."

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said international Islamic terrorism and the Iraq war were likely to be fuelling students' hunger for knowledge about world religions. "I think they are genuinely concerned about stability in the world."

He said the increase in the number of religious studies A-level candidates probably did not mean students were becoming "more religious".

"It may well reflect a genuine interest in world religion and studying why these conflicts seem to have their roots in religious tension," he said.

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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Pennies for heaven : Boomers more likely to buy religious products than elders

Whether it's evidenced by the bottled Kabbalah water that pop-star Madonna demands backstage, the box-office success of "The Passion of the Christ" or the $3.5 billion religious books industry, it's clear Americans are more than willing to bulwark their faith with cash outlays.

But some are more willing than others: 46 percent of religious-book buyers are 35- to 54-years old, while just 28 percent are 55 years and older, according to a new report by Packaged Facts, a subsidiary of MarketResearch.com.

And the younger set, those aged 35 to 54, are more likely than other age groups to tune in to religious media, with 44 percent watching faith-based television programs and 51 percent listening to religious radio, according to the report.

But it's older Americans -- those aged 65 and older -- who are more apt to profess religious belief and attend services.

About 47 percent of those aged 65 and older say it's important to attend religious services, compared with about 30 percent of those in the 35-to-54 group and 35 percent of those aged 55 to 64, according to the report, which compiles information from multiple sources, including survey firm Harris Interactive, the Christian Booksellers Association, Simmons Market Research Bureau's surveys of more than 25,000 adults and companies' annual reports.

'Shopping for spirituality'

The findings don't surprise religion experts. "This reflects what many churches are experiencing," said Bill Leonard, dean and professor of church history at Wake Forest University's Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"The older, more traditional constituents continue to participate in traditional ways. Younger constituents, even if they consider themselves active members of a congregation, are attending less than their elders," said Leonard, who is not associated with Packaged Facts.

The younger generations' penchant for moving and a greater sense of individualism are contributing to the trend, Leonard said.

"One tends to identify less with a community than with whether that community 'meets my individual needs,'" he said. "That may mean a formal denomination, it may mean a weekly bible study, it may mean a weekly yoga class."

Meanwhile, older churchgoers often get their spiritual appetites whetted through materials they receive in church.

"They may still be getting those materials, but they come through the traditional venue of the churches rather than, say, shopping at the local Christian bookstore or the local New Age shop at the mall," Leonard said.

Consumers drove $6.8 billion in religious-product sales last year, up from about $5.7 billion in 1999, according to the Packaged Facts report.

Religious books top the market, with $3.5 billion in sales last year, compared with $2.6 billion in 1999; stationery, gifts and merchandise brought in $1.9 billion, up slightly from $1.6 billion, and religious-themed music, video and software products elicited $1.4 billion in sales, about even with 1999 sales, according to the report.

Retailers are taking note

Retailers haven't hesitated to jump into the religious-book market.

"It used to be the only place where you could find these books was in religious bookstores," Montuori said. "Wal-Mart's bucked that a little bit. They've always been a little more upfront about stocking religious titles."

More than 27,000 titles popped up in a recent search for "Christian books" on Wal-Mart's Web site. And the same search on Target.com elicits more than 7,000 titles, while a search for "Kabbalah," the ancient mystic Jewish religion practiced by Madonna and other celebrities, brings up 490 titles.

The category "religious books," however, is broad and includes tomes such as Dan Brown's bestseller "The Da Vinci Code," though some readers may not consider such titles religious.

Book titles focusing on Christian living are "one of the fastest growing segments," Montuori said. "The overall theme is applying some form of religiosity to everyday life."

Robbing Peter to pay Paul?

The trend is bad news for churches seeking donations. "It represents the loss of what ... we call the tithing generation, those who consistently give a significant amount of money through their local denomination," Leonard said.

"You can get people to give for specific causes -- send the kids on a mission trip, buy a new church van, fund a homeless shelter -- but giving for the annual budget that takes care of the church structure is increasingly difficult to secure," he said.

"I used to tease people in church [by saying] 'there's a verse in the bible that says yuppies don't tithe. It's in the book of James. It's very obscure.'"

By Andrea Coombes, CBS.MarketWatch.com

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Monday, August 16, 2004

John the Baptist's cave 'found' in Jerusalem

London - A British archaeologist is set to reveal what he believes to be the location of John the Baptist's cave to the west of Jerusalem, The Times reported on Monday.

Shimon Gibson, 45, has found a cave with a ritual baptism pool, rock carvings and pottery, which he linked to John the Baptist and his followers, the newspaper said.

According to the New Testament, John baptised Jesus in the River Jordan.

The Times said Gibson would reveal details at a press conference on Tuesday to be held at the cave, near the village of Ain Karim, which Christian tradition regards as John the Baptist's birthplace.

'I am now certain that this cave was connected'
Gibson said a figure holding a staff reminiscent of representations of John the Baptist in early Byzantine art was among images incised into the rock during the fourth and fifth centuries, by which time the cave had become a shrine to the Baptist.

"I am now certain that this cave was connected with the ancient cult of John the Baptist. Indeed, this may very well be the cave of the early years of John's life, the place where he sought his first solitude in the wilderness and the place where he practised his baptisms," Gibson told The Times.

Access to the cave has been restricted for fear pilgrims would hamper excavation.

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Saturday, August 14, 2004

Hundreds more North American Jews immigrate to Israel

Hundreds of North American Jews immigrated to Israel on Wednesday, the second such single-day mass immigration in the past month.

The recent arrivals mark what Israel hopes will be a revival of immigration from the West, which dropped sharply after Israeli-Palestinian violence escalated four years ago and the Israeli economy plummeted.

The group was brought to Israel by the Nefesh B'Nefesh, "Jewish Souls United Group," working with the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government. Offering financial support and planning, the program set a target of bringing 1,500 U.S. and Canadian Jews to Israel before the end of the summer.

The newcomers were greeted by Trade and Industry Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at a welcoming ceremony in a decorated airplane hangar.

Daniel Farahan, a 22-year-old political science graduate from Indiana blew a shofar and kissed the tarmac as he disembarked from the El Al flight from New York.

"The security situation worries us," said Mark Rothenstein, a stockbroker from New Jersey who arrived with his wife and three daughters. But he said he was encouraged that the frequency of Palestinian attacks inside Israel had fallen.

"Worldwide it seems like the lines have been drawn," said David Miller, a lawyer from Denver, who arrived with his family and small dog. "Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise, and I think Israel needs new blood and new faces."

Three weeks ago, the same organization brought 500 immigrants from North America. It expects another planeload of immigrants next week.

Separately, 200 French Jews immigrated to Israel last week, many of them complaining of rising anti-Semitism in France. American Jews have not been similarly threatened.

Israeli government statistics show the number of new immigrants dropped by nearly two-thirds between the years 2000 and 2003, to less than 25,000 compared with 61,000.

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The divine feminine: Historical depictions of faithful women are influencing modern religious worship

Dan Brown's best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" and Mel Gibson's excruciating film "The Passion of the Christ" have put a new spotlight on both Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary who gave birth to Jesus Christ. Add the exploration of the "sacred feminine" embodied in these women now under discussion among female biblical scholars through the lens of ancient extrabiblical texts, and the broad-based societal anger over orchestrated priestly sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Mix them all together, and you have an expanded discussion that began four decades ago about women's spirituality and how historical depictions of faithful women influence modern religious worship — and how both men and women are exploring the divine in new ways.

Locally, there have been a series of discussions about such issues this summer, including several sessions at the annual Sunstone Symposium devoted to the topic of feminine spirituality. Margaret Starbird, whose early books on Mary Magdalene were cited as providing fodder for "The Da Vinci Code," told scores of Sunstone participants on Thursday that Brown's book brings truth regarding the "myth of the sacred marriage" between Jesus and Mary to light.

The legend that they were married and had a child was "kept alive by an underground stream of art and artifacts in Western Europe" over the centuries, she said. Terming the supposed union "the most important secret of the Middle Ages," Starbird said the marriage represents God in the form of "male and female symbiosis" that goes beyond mere sexuality.

As concern grew over her role as "apostle to the apostles," the one that Jesus loved more than his male apostles, early church leaders set out to suppress her role and voice in Christian tradition, Starbird said.

Ancient texts discovered and translated within the past century — including the "Gnostic gospels" named after Christ's disciples including Thomas, Philip and Mary — have rekindled debate not only about Mary's relationship with Christ and her life after his death, but whether he told her information before his crucifixion that had been withheld from his apostles. Much of the book's conjecture about Mary comes from such noncanonical texts, including the "Gospel of Mary."

While many Christian traditions have struggled in the past half century with the changing role of their own female membership — and whether to ordain women — at least one major faith tradition has elevated a historic female figure to the status of near divinity.

Mary, mother of Jesus, is such a central figure in Catholic worship that she has been given the title "queen of heaven," and many consider her a "co-redeemer" with Christ in his mission to bridge the gap between God and humanity, though there has been no papal pronouncement formalizing that status. Prayer, procession, music, devotions and special Masses are devoted to her worldwide, and many of the most famous cathedrals and basilicas in the world are devoted to her special place within the faith.

Some within the church have sought to expand that focus on the "divine feminine" in recent years by sponsoring special celebrations of "the Feast of St. Mary of Magdala" during July in parishes, convents, Catholic schools, retreat houses, private homes and small faith communities. Sponsored by a group of Catholics called FutureChurch, the celebrations "make available contemporary biblical scholarship about Jesus' inclusive practice and provide a venue for Catholic women to serve in visible liturgical roles," according to a press release.

FutureChurch director Sr. Christine Schenk said the move is a way to continue lifting up women in public roles within the faith.

"A number of bishops wouldn't allow women's feet to be washed last Holy Thursday," she said. "This is especially ironic when we remember the prominent role Mary of Magdala and the other women played in accompanying Jesus through crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection while the male disciples fled to Galilee. The Mary of Magdala celebrations help heal some of the effects of such absurdity."

Some believe there was an conspiracy among early Christian hierarchy to downplay the role of women at the time of Christ, particularly Mary Magdalene, whose reputation over the centuries grew to include the inference that she had been prostitute.

Most biblical scholars now agree she was a strong leader, a close companion of Jesus and the first to witness the Resurrection. FutureChurch and other scholars of early Christian women maintain she is likely one of the most misunderstood of all of the figures in the Gospels.

Another group sponsoring working with FutureChurch to sponsor the seminars on Mary is Call to Action. Spokeswoman Linda Pieczynski said she believes "it is especially important for Catholics to celebrate this great woman of faith at a time when it is so clear that church needs the nurturing witness of women. If women and mothers had been integrated into our church's decision-making structures we would not be facing the cover-up of clergy sex abuse that we face today."

While Catholic leaders have not embraced the move among Protestant faiths in recent decades to ordain women, the centrality of and worship that includes Mary provides a female presence that is celebrated. In fact, the assumption of Mary will be celebrated by Catholics this Sunday. It marks the advent of Mary's body and soul being taken into heaven and her coronation as the queen of heaven. In some European cities, the journey is symbolized by carrying her statue through town, as huge candles are lighted in a procession and the blessing of herbs is performed.

By Carrie A. Moore
Deseret Morning News

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Thursday, August 12, 2004

Is God reshaping -- and reviving -- his church?

OVER ADVENT, people across Germany did something very out-of-character for most of them: they went to church. What drew them was the novelty of stepping inside the world's first polyvinyl inflatable church. Invented by a British entrepreneur, The Daily Telegraph reported, it "has a blow-up organ, altar and candles, and plastic 'stained-glass' windows."

Although its original intent was to promote a chain of nightclubs, a German priest who bought one of them discovered that it drew people who had perhaps not darkened the door of a traditional church for years. He decided to take it on tour.

"It allows us to take God's message everywhere, and reach people who usually don't go to church," said Gerhard Maier, the bishop of Stuttgart. "The whole idea is to surprise people and meet them at places where they wouldn't expect to find a house of God."

And while the thought of worshipping in an inflatable church may seem undignified to some, its success underscores a growing universal awareness that God is leading his church in some new and surprising directions, as it seeks to reach a postmodern culture. The end result, say many observers, may well be a radically transformed church.

"People have rejected what we've shown them as the church, but I'm not sure what we've shown them has to be the only way that we do church, says Cam Roxburgh, senior pastor of Southside Community Church in Surrey and B.C. regional coordinator of Church Planting Canada.

"For too long we've defined 'local church' as a place where I go on Sunday morning to attend a religious service, and oftentimes the bigger the better.

"I don't want to rip that apart, because so many good things have been done through that model, but I'm not sure that's the approach that's going to win the day in our country over the next generation or two."

Recent polling bears out that concern. According to one survey, 77 percent of Canadians said that having an inner spiritual life was important. But only 48 percent agreed it was important to belong to a religious group--a figure that rose to 65 percent among young adults.

"We must learn to live without a building," says Vancouver-area church planter Tom Tan. "Right now, churches are leaving the city. We have to go back to the city to reach the lost there. And facilities are expensive for a city church."

It is a way of 'doing church' that can take many forms.

One approach is to meet in people's homes, often with a meal being part of the worship. "It's a growing thing," says Ken Stade, the Winnipeg-based Prairie regional coordinator of the recently formed Canadian House Church Network.

"Many people who are committed to community, to deeper relationships and more accountability in their lives are finding this is a very effective way to meet together as the body. Church programs and big, slick services and so on aren't really that exciting to them. Just because there are lots of people doesn't guarantee relationship."

Currently, there are only about 125 house churches in all of Canada. But Stade believes the movement is uniquely designed for dramatic growth.

"The house church has a ready-made discipleship factor built in, and has the ability to multiply rapidly," he says. "We believe that there's going to be 10,000 house churches here in Winnipeg in the next 10 years."

In Montreal, meanwhile, a group of Quebec Roman Catholics began meeting in October with the blessing of the archdiocese for a non-traditional mass called the 'Repas de Fraternite.' As The Montreal Gazette reported, they gather for "family-like meals" which also include Bible readings, singing and discussion, "often in the absence of a priest."

Eddie Gibbs, who teaches church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, says such "intensely eucharistic" meals -- in homes, but also in restaurants and cafés -- are becoming a key feature of these new churches.

"In the context of the meal, the bread is broken and the wine is blessed," he says. "It is a participation; it is a means of grace. It can be powerfully evangelistic.

New churches are also springing up on university campuses, as students show a renewed interest in developing their spirituality.

"It is quite broadly characteristic of post-modernity and the emerging generation, where the skepticism of all things institutional -- government, business and the church -- continues to be very high," says Murray Moerman, director of national church planting strategy for Outreach Canada.

"God's doing something. There are stirrings, and that's very exciting," says Roxburgh.

"I think the culture is ready and poised for some new things."

Ray Bakke, executive director of International Urban Associates, echoes that sentiment. "I thought the barriers to mission were the big, bad cities," he writes. "But 90 percent of the barriers to reaching cities are not in the city at all; they are inside our churches, things like, 'Our bishop would never let us get away with that,' or, 'They'll call us liberal if we do that' or 'We can't do that, the seminary didn't prepare me for that.' The barriers are inside our structures."

For Glenn Gibson, Outreach Canada's director of church revitalization ministries in Kitchener, Ontario, the issue is ultimately not what the church of tomorrow will look like. The much more crucial issue is that change -- indeed, radical change -- must occur.

"We're in a time when there is a whole new type of church that needs to emerge," he says. "To use Jesus' metaphor of the wine and wineskins, people still have a taste for the wine. But we have problems with our containers."

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US researcher says baby boomers remain churchgoers

A researcher base in Georgia in the US says that the baby boomer generation is continuing to attend churches, although "boomers" who previous left have apparently now quit for good.

Religion News Service quotes an article in a newsletter from the Visions-Decisions church demography consultancy that is says may be good news for churches because the departure of Boomers would have had a deep impact on membership and finances.

The newsletter says that older Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1955 have nearly completed child-raising and their households are emptying of children.

Previous generations of Americans had slumped in religious attendance after their children had left. But older Boomers are still attending at about the same rate as they always have. Having made a choice, they are sticking to that choice.

The conclusions follow a preliminary analysis of data from the General Social Survey at the University of Chicago.

But the bad news for churches is that some older Boomers have cut their ties with religious bodies.

"Many of these Boomers identified themselves with particular denominations but never really participated in those bodies. Though they have not given up on religious beliefs, they now no longer claim any affiliation."

It says the decision may be motivated by displeasure in the conservative religious turn of the nation, as two University of California sociologists recently have indicated, or because those Boomers are finding that religious communities are "too strict and rule-bound for their taste".

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Monday, August 09, 2004

Martyrs, Virgins and Grapes

The virgins are calling you," Mohamed Atta wrote reassuringly to his fellow hijackers just before 9/11.

It has long been a staple of Islam that Muslim martyrs will go to paradise and marry 72 black-eyed virgins. But a growing body of rigorous scholarship on the Koran points to a less sensual paradise - and, more important, may offer a step away from fundamentalism and toward a reawakening of the Islamic world.

Some Islamic theologians protest that the point was companionship, never heavenly sex. Others have interpreted the pleasures quite explicitly; one, al-Suyuti, wrote that sex in paradise is pretty much continual and so glorious that "were you to experience it in this world you would faint."

But now the same tools that historians, linguists and archaeologists have applied to the Bible for about 150 years are beginning to be applied to the Koran. The results are explosive.

The Koran is beautifully written, but often obscure. One reason is that the Arabic language was born as a written language with the Koran, and there's growing evidence that many of the words were Syriac or Aramaic.

For example, the Koran says martyrs going to heaven will get "hur," and the word was taken by early commentators to mean "virgins," hence those 72 consorts. But in Aramaic, hur meant "white" and was commonly used to mean "white grapes."

Some martyrs arriving in paradise may regard a bunch of grapes as a letdown. But the scholar who pioneered this pathbreaking research, using the pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg for security reasons, noted in an e-mail interview that grapes made more sense in context because the Koran compares them to crystal and pearls, and because contemporary accounts have paradise abounding with fruit, especially white grapes.

Dr. Luxenberg's analysis, which has drawn raves from many scholars, also transforms the meaning of the verse that is sometimes cited to require women to wear veils. Instead of instructing pious women "to draw their veils over their bosoms," he says, it advises them to "buckle their belts around their hips."

Likewise, a reference to Muhammad as "ummi" has been interpreted to mean he was illiterate, making his Koranic revelations all the more astonishing. But some scholars argue that this simply means he was not "of the book," in the sense that he was neither Christian nor Jewish.

Islam has a tradition of vigorous interpretation and adjustment, called ijtihad, but Koranic interpretation remains frozen in the model of classical commentaries written nearly two centuries after the prophet's death. The history of the rise and fall of great powers over the last 3,000 years underscores that only when people are able to debate issues freely - when religious taboos fade - can intellectual inquiry lead to scientific discovery, economic revolution and powerful new civilizations. "The taboos are still great" on such Koranic scholarship, notes Gabriel Said Reynolds, an Islam expert at the University of Notre Dame. He called the new scholarship on early Islam "a first step" to an intellectual awakening.

But Muslim fundamentalists regard the Koran - every word of it - as God's own language, and they have violently attacked freethinking scholars as heretics. So Muslim intellectuals have been intimidated, and Islam has often been transmitted by narrow-minded extremists.

Still, there are encouraging signs. Islamic feminists are emerging to argue for religious interpretations leading to greater gender equality. An Iranian theologian has called for more study of the Koran's Syriac roots. Tunisian and German scholars are collaborating on a new critical edition of the Koran based on the earliest manuscripts. And just last week, Iran freed Hashem Aghajari, who had been sentenced to death for questioning harsh interpretations of Islam.

"The breaking of the sometimes erroneous bonds in the religious tradition will be the condition for a positive evolution in other scientific and intellectual domains," Dr. Luxenberg says.

The world has a huge stake in seeing the Islamic world get on its feet again. The obstacle is not the Koran or Islam, but fundamentalism, and I hope that this scholarship is a sign of an incipient Islamic Reformation - and that future terrorist recruits will be promised not 72 black-eyed virgins, but just a plateful of grapes.

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