TruthBook Religious News Blog

More Britons believe in ghosts than in God, according to an informal survey published Monday.

Of 2,012 people who completed a questionnaire,
* 68 percent said they believed in the existence of ghosts and spirits, while
* 55 percent said they believed in the existence of a god.

The Halloween survey was carried out by retailer ChoicesUK. But since it was not a random sample, its findings do not represent a statistically valid barometer of British opinion.

* Some 26 percent said they believed in the existence of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, while
* 19 percent believed in reincarnation.
* Just 4 percent admitted believing that the Loch Ness Monster was more than a myth.

Of those who believed in ghosts,
* 12 percent said they had actually seen an apparition and
* 76 percent said that TV reality shows about the supernatural and films like the spooky "Blair Witch Project" had played a part in convincing them that ghouls exist.

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Saturday, October 29, 2005

Churches go high tech

A new study indicates Protestant congregations are embracing new technologies quickly.

The Barna Group survey shows that, since 2000, many congregations across regional, denominational and sociological categories have embraced the Internet, videography and other high-tech methods of carrying out their ministries.

For example, the study revealed 57 percent of Protestant churches now have a website--up from only 34 percent in 2000. The greatest increases in that category came among mainline Protestant churches, 70 percent of which now have a presence on the Internet.

The study also found that churches located in the Western states, churches with large congregations and churches with mostly white parishioners are most likely to have websites.

The survey also determined that 62 percent of Protestant churches use large-screen projection technology. In 2000, only 39 percent used large screens.

Once again, large congregations and predominantly white churches were most likely to use projection screens.

One technological area in which the study found little growth among Protestant churches was in use of electronic funds-transfer technology for contributions. Twelve percent of congregations use that service, up from 7 percent in 2000. However, churches in the Northeast have been much more open to the technology, with 28 percent embracing it.

George Barna, who directed the study, expects churches to embrace further technological trends in the next five years.

"During the next half of this decade, we expect increased broadband access, podcasting and ubiquitous adoption of handheld mobile computing devices by consumers to further alter the way churches conduct ministry," he said.

By Robert Marus

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Friday, October 28, 2005

Is the US becoming hostile to science?

A bitter debate about how to teach evolution in U.S. high schools is prompting a crisis of confidence among scientists, and some senior academics warn that science itself is under assault.

In the past month, the interim president of Cornell University and the dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine have both spoken on this theme, warning in dramatic terms of the long-term consequences.

"Among the most significant forces is the rising tide of anti-science sentiment that seems to have its nucleus in Washington but which extends throughout the nation," said Stanford's Philip Pizzo in a letter posted on the school Web site on October 3.

Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his "state of the university" address last week, spoke about the challenge to science represented by "intelligent design" which holds that the theory of evolution accepted by the vast majority of scientists is fatally flawed.

Rawlings said the dispute was widening political, social, religious and philosophical rifts in U.S. society. "When ideological division replaces informed exchange, dogma is the result and education suffers," he said.

The issue of whether intelligent design should be taught, or at least mentioned, in high school biology classes is being played out in a Pennsylvania court room and in numerous school districts across the country.

Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes the rhetoric of the anti-evolution movement has had the effect of driving a wedge between a large proportion of the population who follow fundamentalist Christianity and science.

"It is alienating young people from science. It basically tells them that the scientific community is not to be trusted and you would have to abandon your principles of faith to become a scientist, which is not at all true," he said.

AMERICANS DON'T ACCEPT EVOLUTION

Polls for many years have shown that a majority of Americans are at odds with key scientific theory. For example, as CBS poll this month found that
* 51 percent of respondents believed humans were created in their present form by God.
* A further 30 percent said their creation was guided by God.
* Only 15 percent thought humans evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years.

Other polls show that only around a third of American adults accept the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, even though the concept is virtually uncontested by scientists worldwide.

"When we ask people what they know about science, just under 20 percent turn out to be scientifically literate," said Jon Miller, director of the center for biomedical communication at Northwestern University.

He said science and especially mathematics were poorly taught in most U.S. schools, leading both to a shortage of good scientists and general scientific ignorance.

U.S. school students perform relatively poorly in international tests of mathematics and science. For example, in 2003 U.S. students placed 24th in an international test that measured the mathematical literacy of 15-year-olds, below many European and Asian countries.

Scientists bemoan the lack of qualified U.S. candidates for postgraduate and doctoral studies at American universities and currently fill around a third of available science and engineering slots with foreign students.

"The 21st century will be the century of biology and we are going to be confronted with hundreds of important public policy issues that require some understanding that all life is interconnected," he said.

By Alan Elsner

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Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Inspirational quotes at Starbucks start storm in a coffee cup

Starting in the spring, Starbucks is reportedly planning to include a spiritually-inspired quotation on its coffee cups.

The coffee company wants customers to think as they drink, but the words, which will come from Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the inspirational best-seller “The Purpose-driven Life,” look set to take the strategy to a higher level by invoking the name of the Almighty for the first time.

“This is not putting churches, or synagogues, or mosques out of business, it’s simply a smaller kind of daily delivery of spirituality,” notes Laura Nash, a lecturer at Harvard Business School. “People are hungry for that at work.”

Corporate America has traditionally maintained a strict separation between church and office. But in a growing number of firms, that wall is coming down.

“We’ve treated religion or spirituality as a personal thing for so long, when the reality is people do not check their souls at the door when they go to work,” says B.J. Gallagher, author of “What Would Buddha Do at Work?”

In fact, you can find a reference to the Book of John on drink cups from fast food chain In-N-Out Burger. And you can also find a religious quotation on shopping bags from fashion retailer Forever 21 — a subtle, yet significant testament to the higher values that guide both companies.

And at Chicago law firm Mauck & Baker, religious values are central to the practice according to attorney John Mauck.

At a time when 98 percent of Americans say they believe in God, and 46 percent of those who work say they are dispirited, it's not surprising that more companies are embracing spiritual or religious values.

But in so doing, companies run a real risk of appearing to pander to customers who are religious, or risk offending those who are not.

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Sunday, October 23, 2005

The Gospel According to Anne Rice

The queen of the occult has been gone awhile. What's Anne Rice been up to? Getting healthy, finding God—and writing her most daring book yet.

After 25 novels in 25 years, Rice, 64, hasn't published a book since 2003's "Blood Chronicle," the tenth volume of her best-selling vampire series. They may have heard she came close to death last year, when she had surgery for an intestinal blockage, and also back in 1998, when she went into a sudden diabetic coma; that same year she returned to the Roman Catholic Church, which she'd left at 18. They surely knew that Stan Rice, her husband of 41 years, died of a brain tumor in 2002. And though she'd moved out of their longtime home in New Orleans more than a year before Hurricane Katrina, she still has property there—and the deep emotional connection that led her to make the city the setting for such novels as "Interview With the Vampire." What's up with her?

"For the last six months," she says, "people have been sending e-mails saying, 'What are you doing next?' And I've told them, 'You may not want what I'm doing next'."

We'll know soon. In two weeks, Anne Rice will publish "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," a novel about the 7-year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. "I promised," she says, "that from now on I would write only for the Lord."

To render such a hero and his world believable, she immersed herself not only in Scripture, but in first-century histories and New Testament scholarship. She can cite scholarly authority for giving her Christ a birth date of 11 B.C., and for making James, his disciple, the son of Joseph by a previous marriage. But she's also taken liberties where they don't explicitly conflict with Scripture. No one reports that the young Jesus studied with the historian Philo of Alexandria, as the novel has it—or that Jesus' family was in Alexandria at all. And she's used legends of the boy Messiah's miracles from the noncanonical Apocrypha: bringing clay birds to life, striking a bully dead and resurrecting him.

Rice already has much of the next volume written. ("Of course I've been advised not to talk about it.") But what's she going to do with herself once her hero ascends to Heaven? "If I really complete the life of Christ the way I want to do it," she says, "then I might go on and write a new type of fiction. It won't be like the other. It'll be in a world that includes redemption." Still, you can bet the Devil's going to get the best lines.

By David Gates
Newsweek

Click here to read entire article

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Friday, October 21, 2005

Poll: Americans Idealize Traditional Family, Even as Nontraditional Families Are More Accepted

To Most Americans, "Moral Values" Means Personal Honesty and Responsibility

In a recent poll on religion and the family conducted for RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc., almost three quarters of all Americans agree that "God's plan for marriage is one man, one woman, for life." A strong majority of Americans (71%) idealize the traditional family even as divorce, cohabitation, and nontraditional family situations are becoming more accepted across religious groups. Only 22% of Americans think that divorce is a sin and almost half (49%) say that cohabitation is acceptable.

According to the survey, the growing acceptance of divorce is also occurring among religious conservatives. Only 34% of evangelical Christians and 30% of traditional Catholics say that divorce is a sin.

On the question of "moral values," the survey found that most American families place a higher priority on personal values than on divisive social issues. In the 2004 national election exit poll, about one fifth of voters said moral values mattered most in deciding how to vote for president. In the RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY survey, roughly the same proportion -- 18% -- named moral values as the concern that worries them the most. But when asked what "moral values" means to them, the largest number of respondents -- 36% -- said personal values such as honesty and responsibility. Only 10% of respondents said "moral values" means opinions on a social issue, such as abortion or gay marriage. One quarter said "family values," such as protecting children.

The survey also compared the religious commitments and practices of traditional and nontraditional families. For example, 50% of traditional parents say they attend religious services once a week or more, but only 36% of nontraditional parents say the same. On the other hand, 49% of both traditional and nontraditional families say they read religious scriptures every week; 45% of traditional families and 42% of nontraditional families say they have devotions with their families every week.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there has been enormous growth in the number of nontraditional families over the past 40 years in America. In 1970, traditional families (married couples with their own children) made up 40% of American households. By 2000, they comprised only 24%. From 1960 to 2000, the number of unmarried couples living together increased tenfold; about 10 million people (8% of U.S. coupled households) are cohabiting with a partner of the opposite sex.

Other highlights from the RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY poll include:

* 80% of Americans agree it is better for children if their parents are married, but 55% also agree that "love is what makes a family";

* 49% of Americans agree that married people are happier than unmarried people;

* 97% of Americans in traditional families and 88% in nontraditional families say they are satisfied with their family life;

* 49% of nontraditional families and 37% of traditional families say they worry a lot about their children learning the right values;

* 29% of nontraditional families and 25% of traditional families say they worry a lot about their children maintaining the religious faith they were brought up in;

* 42% of evangelical Protestants agree that a family suffers if the woman has a full-time job, yet nearly half (48%) of evangelicals in traditional families have two adults who work full time versus 40% of all traditional parents;

* 64% of Americans agree that it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good hard spanking;

* 79% of evangelicals and 70% of traditional Catholics say the law should define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, compared to 53% of mainline Protestants and 35% of liberal Catholics;

* 77% of Americans say sex education classes should provide information about condoms, contraception, and how to make responsible decisions about sex; 18% say abstinence is best and sex ed classes should not provide information about contraception;

* 82% of Americans say the government should not be involved in programs that encourage marriage.

The nationwide survey of 1,130 adults was conducted July 25-August 7, 2005 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

The survey will be the basis of a four-part RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY series, "Faith and Family in America," to be broadcast over consecutive weeks on PBS stations beginning the weekend of October 28, 2005 (check local listings for broadcast date and time).

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New Harris Poll Finds Different Religious Groups Have Very Different

A new Harris Poll finds that large majorities of the U.S. adult public support each of 12 different healthcare policies, programs and practices, including some which are highly controversial. However, people who consider themselves "very religious" or born-again Christians and, particularly, those born-again Christians who describe themselves as Evangelicals, have very different attitudes on some of them.

In total, the survey measured attitudes to the following 12 issues, listed in order of their overall popularity (i.e. the percentage of all adults who strongly or somewhat favor them).

   1. Medicare (health insurance for the elderly and disabled). Fully 96
      percent of adults support Medicare, including 92 percent or more of 
      all religious categories.
   2. Birth control/contraception is supported by 93 percent of all adults,
      including 90 percent of Catholics and 88 percent of born-again
      Christians, the "very religious" and Evangelicals.
   3. Condom use to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is
      supported by 92 percent of adults, including 93 percent of Catholics,
      82 percent of born-again Christians, 83 percent of the "very
      religious" and 81 percent of Evangelicals.
   4. Medicaid (health insurance for people with very low incomes) is
      supported by 91 percent of all adults, including 88 percent of all
      religious categories.
   5. Sex education in high schools is supported by 87 percent of the
      public, but only by 76 percent of born-again Christians, 77 percent of
      the "very religious" and 72 percent of Evangelicals.
   6. Funding of international HIV prevention and treatment programs is
      supported by 87 percent of the public, including not less than 82
      percent of all religious categories.
   7. Universal health insurance is favored by 75 percent of all adults,
      including 63 percent or more of all religious groups.
   8. Embryonic stem cell research is favored by 70 percent of all adults,
      including 70 percent of Catholics.  However, it is supported by only
      45 percent of born-again Christians, 38 percent of Evangelicals and 51
      percent of the "very religious."
   9. Funding of international birth control programs is supported by 70
      percent of the public, including 66 percent of Catholics, but only 53
      percent of born-again Christians and 48 percent of Evangelicals.
  10. Withdrawal of life support systems/food for those in a vegetative
      state is supported by 68 percent of the public, but by only 47 percent
      of born-again Christians and 45 percent of Evangelicals.
  11. Abortion rights (which were not defined) are supported by 63 percent
      of the public, including 56 percent of Catholics, but by only 30
      percent of born-again Christians, 39 percent of the "very religious"
      and 28 percent of Evangelicals.
  12. Abstinence from sex before marriage is supported by 63 percent of the
      public, but by fully 85 percent of born-again Christians, 85 percent
      of the "very religious" and 91 percent of Evangelicals.

One very interesting finding is that the attitudes of Catholics are generally very similar to those of all adults and, on some issues, very unlike the official position of the Pope and the Church. For example, overwhelming majorities of Catholics favor contraception (90%), condom use to prevent HIV and STD infections (93%), the funding of international birth control programs (66%), embryonic stem cell research (70%) and the withdrawal of life support for those in a vegetative state (68%). A majority (56%) also supports abortion rights.

On the other hand, born-again Christians, adults who think of themselves as "very religious" and Evangelicals are much less supportive of all of these programs and policies, with Evangelicals being the least likely to support them. For example, only 28 percent of Evangelicals support abortion rights (compared to 63% of all adults) and only 38 percent of Evangelicals support embryonic stem cell research (compared to 70% of all adults).


                                 TABLE 1
   Support And Opposition to 12 Health Programs, Policies or Practices
       "Please indicate whether you support or oppose the policy."

  Base: All Adults


                % Strongly/                   Strongly/
                  Somewhat          Somewhat  Somewhat Somewhat Strongly Not
                  Favor    Strongly           Oppose   Oppose   Oppose  Sure
                 (NET)     Favor    Favor     (NET)

  Medicare
  (health
   insurance
   for the
   elderly
   and
   disabled)    %   96      80       16         3        2         1       2
  Use of birth
   control/
  contraception %   93      79       14         4        2         2       3
  Condom use to
   prevent HIV
   and other
   STDs         %   92      82       10         5        3         2       3
  Medicaid
  (health
   insurance for
   people with
   low incomes) %   91      63       28         7        5         2       2
  Sex education
   in high
   school       %   87      68       19        10        5         4       3
  Funding of
   international
   HIV prevention
   and treatment
   programs     %   87      60       27        10        7         3       3
  Universal health
   insurance    %   75      52       23         7        8         9       9
  Embryonic
   stem cell
   research     %   70      48       22        19        8        11      11
  Funding of
   international
   birth control
   programs     %   70      45       24        21       11        10       9
  Withdrawal of
   life support
   systems/food
   for those in
   vegetative
   state        %   68      40       28        17        8         8      15
  Abortion
   rights       %   63      46       17        32       11        21       5
  Abstinence
   from sex
   before
   marriage     %   63      32       31        27       18         9      10

   Note: Percentages may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.


                                 TABLE 2
Those in Favor of 12 Health Programs, Policies or Practices - By Religion
       "Please indicate whether you support or oppose the policy."
                Percent saying strongly or somewhat favor

  Base: All Adults

                   Total  Catholic Episcopalian/ Lutheran Methodist Non-
                                   Anglican                         Denomi-
                                                                    national
               (n=2,242) (n=403)    (n=53)      (n=115)  (n=147)    (n=174)
                    %        %         %            %        %           %
  Abortion
   rights          63       56        83           67       75          50
  Use of birth
   control/
   contraception   93       90       100           95       95          92
  Abstinence
   from sex
   before
   marriage        63       66        44           72       65          86
  Condom use
   to prevent
   HIV and
   other STDs      92       93        99           96       94          84
  Funding of
   international
   HIV prevention
   and
   treatment
   programs        87       86        86           82       90          84
  Funding of
   international
   birth control
   programs        70       66        79           75       75          61
  Universal health
   insurance       75       76        65           71       66          68
  Sex education
   in high school  87       89        92           94       91          83
  Embryonic stem
   cell research   70       70        88           70       77          59
  Withdrawal of
   life support
   systems/food
   for those in
   vegetative
   state           68       68        80           75       77          58
  Medicare (health
   insurance for
   the elderly
   and disabled)   96       98        93           96       97          96
  Medicaid (health
   insurance for
    people with
    low incomes)   91       92        95           91       91          91


                      Total  Presbyterian  Baptist  Other  Jewish  Agnostic/
                                                   Christian       Atheist
                   (n=2,242)    (n=85)     (n=221) (n=215) (n=75)  (n=199)
                         %         %          %       %       %        %
  Abortion rights       63        72         53      49      83       90
  Use of birth control/
   contraception        93        99         94      89      97       99
  Abstinence from sex
   before marriage      63        63         75      76      44       31
  Condom use to prevent
   HIV and other STDs   92        99         91      84      98       99
  Funding of
   international HIV
   prevention and
   treatment programs   87        89         87      85      92       95
  Funding of
   international birth
   control programs     70        81         62      62      79       87
  Universal health
   insurance            75        80         76      68      68       89
  Sex education in
   high school          87        90         83      81      94       94
  Embryonic stem cell
   research             70        82         62      58      95       96
  Withdrawal of life
   support systems/
   food for those in
   vegetative state     68        80         64      61      75       86
  Medicare (health
   insurance for the
   elderly and
   disabled)            96        97         97      96      92       97
  Medicaid (health
   insurance for
   people with
   low incomes)         91        88         92      88      90       91


                                 TABLE 3
 Those in Favor of 12 HEALTH Programs Policies or Practices - by Religion
       "Please indicate whether you support or oppose the policy."
                Percent saying strongly or somewhat favor

  Base: All Adults

                                        Born-                    Evangelical
                                        again         Very       Born-again
                          Total        Christians    Religious  Christians
                        (n=2,242)      (n=413)        (n=448)     (n=202)
                               %            %            %            %
  Abortion rights             63           30           39           28
  Use of birth control/
   contraception              93           88           88           88
  Abstinence from sex
   before marriage            63           85           85           91
  Condom use to prevent
   HIV and other STDs         92           82           83           81
  Funding of international
   HIV prevention and
   treatment programs         87           82           86           82
  Funding of international
   birth control programs     70           53           57           48
  Universal health insurance  75           63           71           66
  Sex education in
   high school                87           76           77           72
  Embryonic stem cell
   research                   70           45           51           38
  Withdrawal of life
   support systems/food
   for those in vegetative
   state                      68           47           56           45
  Medicare (health insurance
   for the elderly
   and disabled)              96           96           96           98
  Medicaid (health insurance
   for people with
   low incomes)               91           89           92           90

About Harris Interactive(R)

Harris Interactive Inc. (www.harrisinteractive.com) is the 13th largest and fastest-growing market research firm in the world, perhaps best known for The Harris Poll(R) and for pioneering and engineering Internet-based research methods. The Rochester, New York-based global research company blends premier strategic consulting with innovative and efficient methods of investigation, analysis and application, conducting proprietary and public research globally to help clients achieve clear, material and enduring results.

Blending science and art, Harris Interactive combines its intellectual capital and one of the world's largest online panels of respondents, with premier Internet survey technology and sophisticated research methods to market leadership through its US, Europe (www.harrisinteractive.com/europe)
and Asia offices, its wholly owned subsidiary, Novatris in Paris (www.novatris.com),
and through an independent global network of affiliate market research
companies.

Source: Harris Interactive Inc.

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Thursday, October 20, 2005

U.S. view of family 'idealized'

Americans have an "idealized" view of family not reflected in their daily lives, according to a "Faith and Family in America" poll released yesterday.

Although three-quarters of the 1,130 adults polled this summer agreed that "God's plan for marriage is one man, one woman, for life," the amount of adults who are single -- 50 percent -- is at a record high, according to the survey.

According to the poll,
* only 22 percent of the populace say divorce is a sin, and
* 49 percent say cohabitation is acceptable.

Even the very definition of "family" is up for grabs, according to the poll, which said
* only one-third of Americans define a family as having two parents and children.
* Fifty-five percent agreed with the statement "Love is what makes a family, and it doesn't matter if parents are gay or straight, married or single."

"Nearly everyone supports an idealized plan for a family," said Anna Greenberg, vice president of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Inc., which conducted the poll for the PBS show Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.

But Americans' "romanticized vision" of the family, she said, is not squaring with a reality that shows
* only 24 percent of all adults are married parents with children at home.

One of the biggest purveyors of this ideal is the church, "which with other institutions has been fairly successful in maintaining this idea even though they can't live it out," said John Green, professor of political science and director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.

The divorce rates drop by as much as 8 percentage points for people who attend religious services at least once a week.

Americans are becoming more unchurched, Mr. Wilcox said, with weekly attendance dropping from
* 41 percent of the populace in 1972 to
* 31 percent in 2002.

This is a result of shifting family demographics, he said, with there being fewer married couples with children, the group most likely to attend church.

Single adults especially have fled houses of worship, with only 15 percent of single men without children and 23 percent of childless single women saying they attend church, according to the survey.

White men had the lowest church attendance rates among singles, with 14 percent, while Hispanic and black women had the highest rates, respectively, polling at 31 percent and 32 percent.

The poll also showed a contradiction in attitudes toward women in the workplace, with
* 42 percent of evangelical Protestants saying a family suffers if the mother works full time. Yet,
* 48 percent of evangelicals conceded their family includes two adults working full time.

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

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[WCC] Worldwide Survey Launched on Interfaith Education

Learning about, from and with peoples of other faiths is increasingly being recognized as a vital aspect of education in faith communities and education systems. A newly launched web-based survey on interfaith education aims to discover examples of good practice across the world.

The World Council of Churches' Education and Ecumenical Formation program and Hartford Seminary, USA, have created the interactive survey on interfaith education to catalogue what is taking place in international communities. The survey is part of the larger Interfaith Education Project (IEP) sponsored by the two organizations.

Taking seriously the diversity of religious faith and practice to build positive understanding and attitudes, the IEP is a contribution to reflection and action on education in the ecumenical movement. The project has two objectives - (1) to survey and analyze the global field of interfaith education; (2) to produce a resource based on the results of that survey which would assist educators in faith communities and education systems develop interfaith education appropriate to their context.

Project Coordinator Christy Lohr said, "The IEP is a noteworthy endeavor that recognizes the importance of religious diversity around us today. The launch of the survey is really exciting as it provides a means for individuals from around the world to be involved and provide input on ways to shape future resources to support educational outreach."

Ms. Lohr, along with Heidi Hadsell, president of Hartford Seminary and members of the EEF Commission, will discuss initial findings of the survey in a workshop during the World Council of Church's 9th Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in February.

Both Hartford Seminary and the World Council of Churches have a long history in fostering quality interfaith relations. Hartford Seminary is a non-denominational graduate-level theological educational institution that is committed the understanding of religion and spirituality as they are played lived out in today's multifaith world. With a strong program in Christian-Muslim relations, it is also the only Christian seminary in the United States to offer an Islamic chaplaincy certification.

The WCC brings together more than 340 churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 100 countries and territories throughout the world, representing 400 million Christians and including most of the world's Orthodox churches and denominations.
If you are someone who is actively involved in interfaith endeavors, the World Council of Churches and Hartford Seminary invite you to share the good news of your work. Please fill out the survey by logging onto http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB224NRA5G9EM.

For more information, please visit http://www.hartsem.edu/events/news_HSWCCprogram.htm
or contact Christy Lohr, christylohr@hartsem.edu.

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Surveys find church attendance strengthens marriage

New surveys on marriage and religion find that regular church attendance strengthens marriage and makes divorce more unlikely.

University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox found that couples who go to church at least once a week are happier about their marriages, their families and their lives in general.

Researcher Anna Greenberg says most Americans still consider the ideal family to be a husband and wife raising their own children, although only a minority live up to that ideal themselves.

Their research was conducted for the PBS program "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly."

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Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Hollywood trend: targeting religious blacks

When Tyler Perry's film adaptation of his play "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" opened earlier this year and pulled in $22.7 million in its first weekend despite less-than-stellar reviews, jaws dropped. Almost immediately, film studios began looking for something else that could bring what many consider to be a long-ignored audience into movie megaplexes — religious blacks.

No fewer than five similar-themed projects are on the horizon.

"The Gospel" is the most recent movie that focuses on faith and spirituality, what happens when you lose it and how life changes for the better when you get it back. The film, which only cost $4 million to make, originally was slated for video, but after "Diary" took in more than $50 million at the box office, Sony/Screen Gems decided to put "The Gospel" on the big screen.

According to boxofficeguru.com, "The Gospel" opened on just 969 screens its first weekend and raked in an impressive $7.5 million.

"The key is it has been an unrecognized and untargeted market," says Holly Davis-Carter, executive producer of "The Gospel." "There are Christian households that are looking for something wholesome to do on a Friday or Saturday night with their family."

The formula for gospel-themed theatrical productions is similar: Someone grows up in the church. Someone goes astray. Someone finds the Lord. Someone comes back home to the church.

The plays, which cater primarily to the black community, have toured nationwide for decades.

In the past 15 or so years, play production has increased, and the quality of both the acting and writing has made significant gains. But the audience doesn't view the shows through a theater or film critic's eye.

Instead, they go for what you can't get at a Broadway-style production and what has been missing in most mainstream film releases. They go for an extension of church. For some, it is church.

"There's a psychology behind it. Most of our people in middle America are looking for some kind of escape," says Nia Hill, CEO of Momentum Experience, an L.A.-based film company that is a mixture of live theater and independently financed black films. "We want to laugh really hard. We want to hear some good singing and we want to find Jesus in the end. Our hopes and dreams are rooted in "Jesus is going to make our lives better.' That's always been a part of our culture."

"Hollywood has a tendency of following trends and not creating them," Hill says. "I don't think there was this epiphany of "Wow, we need to spread this great thing.' It was "Wow, it makes a lot of money.' They realized that there was money there and they wanted to make that happen."

BY KELLEY L. CARTER
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

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Monday, October 17, 2005

Survey says most kids have been bullied

Bullying at school may be a bigger problem than many people suspect.

More than two-thirds of teen-agers surveyed say they've been verbally or physically harassed during the past year. The biggest reasons seem to be gender, race, sexual orientation or the way they look, but also religion and even disability.

The survey was commissioned by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Educational Network. Executive Director Kevin Jennings says there's a big difference between teasing and bullying. He says bullying is when someone is singled out for a particular characteristic and is targeted with threats, taunts and intimidation.

He says the survey also finds that bullying goes down when schools have clear-cut policies against it.

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Thursday, October 13, 2005

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic religiosity

Faith in a higher being is as old as humanity itself. But what sparked the Divine Idea? Did our earliest ancestors gain some evolutionary advantage through their shared religious feelings? In these extracts from his latest book, Robert Winston ponders the biggest question of them all

Many years ago, a team of researchers at the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota studied certain fringe religious groups, such as fundamentalist Baptists, Pentecostalists and the snake-handlers of West Virginia, to see if they showed the particular type of psychopathology associated with mental illness. Members of mainstream Protestant churches from a similar social and financial background provided a good control group for comparison. Some of the wilder fundamentalists prayed with what can only be described as great and transcendental ecstasy, but there was no obvious sign of any particular psychopathology among most of the people studied. After further analysis, however, there appeared a tendency to what can only be described as mental instability in one particular group. The study was blinded, so that most of the research team involved with questionnaires did not have access to the final data. When they were asked which group they thought would show the most disturbed psychopathology, the whole team identified the snake-handlers. But when the data were revealed, the reverse was true: there was more mental illness among the conventional Protestant churchgoers - the "extrinsically" religious - than among the fervently committed.

A Harvard psychologist named Gordon Allport did some key research in the 1950s on various kinds of human prejudice and came up with a definition of religiosity that is still in use today. He suggested that there were two types of religious commitment - extrinsic and intrinsic.

* Extrinsic religiosity he defined as religious self-centredness. Such a person goes to church or synagogue as a means to an end - for what they can get out of it. They might go to church to be seen, because it is the social norm in their society, conferring respectability or social advancement. Going to church (or synagogue) becomes a social convention.

* Allport thought that intrinsic religiosity was different. He identified a group of people who were intrinsically religious, seeing their religion as an end in itself. They tended to be more deeply committed; religion became the organising principle of their lives, a central and personal experience. In support of his research, Allport found that prejudice was more common in those individuals who scored highly for extrinsic religion.

:: The evidence generally is that intrinsic religiosity seems to be associated with lower levels of anxiety and stress, freedom from guilt, better adjustment in society and less depression.

:: On the other hand, extrinsic religious feelings - where religion is used as a way to belong to and prosper within a group - seem to be associated with increased tendencies to guilt, worry and anxiety.

Although religion might be useful in developing a solid moral framework - and enforcing it - we can quite easily develop moral intuitions without relying on religion. Psychologist Eliot Turiel observed that even three- and four-year-olds could distinguish between moral rules (for example, not hitting someone) and conventional rules (such as not talking when the teacher is talking). Furthermore, they could understand that a moral breach, such as hitting someone, was wrong whether you had been told not to do it or not, whereas a conventional breach, such as talking in class, was wrong only if it had been expressly forbidden. They were also clearly able to distinguish between prudential rules (such as not leaving your notebook next to the fireplace) and moral rules.

This would suggest that there is a sort of "morality module" in the brain that is activated at an early age. Evidence from neuroscience would back this up, to a degree. In my last book, The Human Mind, I noted that certain brain areas become activated when we engage in cooperation with others, and that these areas are associated with feelings of pleasure and reward. It also seems that certain areas of the brain are brought into action in situations where we feel empathy and forgiveness.

Click Here to Raed Entire Article

· The Story of God by Robert Winston is published by Transworld at £18.99. Winston's new series of the same name will be broadcast on BBC TV, starting in December.

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New Poll Says Black Coeds Practice Religion More Than Other Students

When it comes to raising the praise, black college students practice religion more than students of other races, according to a new study from the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California. http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/heri.html

One-third of the black students contacted for the survey said that spiritual growth and following religious teaching are essential, compared with less than one-fifth of the white and Asian students polled. Black students also reported higher levels of church attendance, prayer and belief in God.

Of the 112,232 students surveyed, 76 percent were White, eight percent African-American, seven percent Asian-American, five percent Latino, two percent American Indian/Alaska Native, and one percent Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.

Blacks registered as the highest scorers on seven of the 12 overall measures of spirituality and religiousness studied -- religious commitment, compassionate self-concept, spiritual quest, equanimity, religious engagement, ethic of caring, and religious/social conservatism -- compared to all the other races.

Whites had the lowest scores on five of the 12 scales: ethic of caring, ecumenical worldview, charitable involvement, spiritual quest, and compassionate self-concept.

Latinos were the least likely overall to demonstrate high levels of religious engagement and, along with Asian-Americans, religious/social conservatism. Asian-Americans were the highest scorers on religious skepticism and the lowest on spirituality, equanimity, and religious commitment.

The study also found that:

* 95 percent of blacks believe in God, compared to
- 84 percent of Latinos,
- 78 percent of whites, and
- 65 percent of Asian-Americans.
* 91 percent of blacks pray, compared to
- 75 percent of Latinos and
- 67 percent of whites.
* 53 percent of blacks attend religious services frequently, compared to
- 42 percent of whites,
- 39 percent of Latinos and
- 35 percent of Asian-Americans.
* 47 percent of blacks have a high level of religious commitment, compared to
- 25 percent of whites and
- 22 percent of Asian-Americans.
* 32 percent of blacks have high levels of religious engagement, compared to
- 16 percent of Latinos and
- 19 percent of whites.

Sherrel Wheeler Stewart

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Geography matters in marriage age

Couples in the Northeast are hearing wedding bells later than men and women elsewhere in the country, especially in Utah, where younger newlyweds are the norm.

A Census Bureau study being released Thursday found many regional differences in the marrying habits of Americans, with those near the East and West coasts generally waiting longer to get married than those in Middle America. The study also found that Southerners are the least likely to live together without getting married.

"Later marriage is very strongly associated with higher levels of education," said David Popenoe , co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. "That's why people in the Northeast have such a late age of marriage."

The age when couples get married can also be influenced by religion and whether they are willing to live together without getting married, Popenoe said.

"It delays marriage," Popenoe said of living together before marriage. "Men marry too late from the point of view of women, especially educated men. It leaves more women single or marrying beyond the age of childbirth."

The median age for first marriages in the United States is 26.7 years for men and 25.1 for women. That is roughly a year older than a decade ago for both, said Martin O'Connell, chief of the Census Bureau's fertility and family statistics branch.

Men wait longer than women to marry in every state, and no one gets married younger than couples in Utah, where the median age is 21.9 for women and 23.9 for men. At the other end of the spectrum, men and women in Washington, D.C., wait until they are about 30.

"Big cities tend to have high ages for marriage," said Zhenchao Qian, associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

The Census Bureau analyzed data from the American Community Survey from 2000 to 2003, developing state-by-state averages on marriage and fertility for the first time.

Among the study's findings: 29 percent of all new mothers were unmarried. Among the unmarried mothers, half were poor, compared with 12 percent of married mothers who lived in poverty.

The states with the most unwed new mothers also tended to be the ones with the highest percentage of new mothers living in poverty.

"Single parenthood and poverty are about as closely related as you can get," Popenoe said.

Washington, D.C., had the highest percentage of new mothers who were unmarried, at 53.4 percent. The city also had the highest percentage of new mothers living in poverty, at 36.3 percent. West Virginia, Mississippi and Louisiana also had high percentages of unwed mothers living below the poverty line.

Among the study's other findings: Maine had the highest percentage of households with unmarried couples, at 7.3 percent, while Alabama had the lowest, at 3 percent.

One-fifth of all new mothers in California either did not speak English well or did not speak it at all.

Fifteen percent of all new mothers in the U.S. were not citizens.

Hispanics had the highest birth rates, while non-Hispanic whites had the lowest.

By Stephen Ohlemacher | Associated Press

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Returning to God moment by moment

Repentance demands a sincere determination to change one's mind and behavior - transformation, not just lip service. Teshuvah, one of the Hebrew words for repentance, literally means "return," describing an experience that's meant to bring about a return to one's true self. With this recognition of our atonement - our "at-one-ment" - with God, the letting go of sins becomes a daily process of reconciliation and renewal.

Mary Baker Eddy, who founded Christian Science, often declared our natural oneness with God in her major work, "Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures." In the chapter titled "Atonement and Eucharist" she defined atonement as "the exemplification of man's unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love." She continued: "... if the sinner continues to pray and repent, sin and be sorry, he has little part in the atonement, - in the at-one-ment with God, - for he lacks the practical repentance, which reforms the heart and enables man to do the will of wisdom" (pp. 18, 19).

What she called "practical repentance" I understand to be a moment-by-moment "returning" to the truth of my oneness with God, a daily striving to act according to my highest sense of what's right.

The New Testament's book of James reflects the thought of an early Christian resolutely devoted to the Judaic law. It states: "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does" (James 1:23-25, New International Version).

Our duty to forgive and be forgiven becomes joyful and makes us feel lighter. We can cast off one at a time our wounds, grievances, and resentments.

Also in the book of James is the description of pure and undefiled religion as visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keeping oneself "unspotted from the world" (see 1:27).

Each of us is called to act upon this simple acceptance of our atonement with God. May we discover new ways to lift up our thoughts and to see our neighbor and all humanity in God's loving arms.

Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?
shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves
of a year old?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly
with thy God?
(Micah 6:6, 8)

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Friday, October 07, 2005

God cre8s da world in txt 4m

“IN DA Bginnin God cre8d da heavens & da earth.” Thus begins the latest version of the Bible, translated into text messages for mobile phones. It also tells us “da earth was barren, wit no 4m of life”.

The Bible Society in Australia unveiled yesterday its translation of all 31,173 verses of the Bible in text message, which can be accessed free of charge over the internet.

The aim was to help to spread the word of God, Michael Chant, the society’s spokesman, said. “The old days when the Bible was only available within a sombre black cover with a Cross on it are long gone.

“We want to open it up for people of all ages, backgrounds and interests, and the text message version is a logical extension of that.”

It took one person about four weeks to convert the Old and New Testaments to text. The society used the International Contemporary English Version of the Bible, and remained true to the grammar, changing only the spelling. Sending the entire Bible would take more than 30,000 text messages.

See: http://www.biblesociety.com.au/smsbible/

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Thursday, October 06, 2005

Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible

THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.

The Catholic bishops of England, Wales and Scotland are warning their five million worshippers, as well as any others drawn to the study of scripture, that they should not expect “total accuracy” from the Bible.

“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision,” they say in The Gift of Scripture.

The document is timely, coming as it does amid the rise of the religious Right, in particular in the US.

Some Christians want a literal interpretation of the story of creation, as told in Genesis, taught alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools, believing “intelligent design” to be an equally plausible theory of how the world began.

But the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be “historical”. At most, they say, they may contain “historical traces”.

The document shows how far the Catholic Church has come since the 17th century, when Galileo was condemned as a heretic for flouting a near-universal belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible by advocating the Copernican view of the solar system. Only a century ago, Pope Pius X condemned Modernist Catholic scholars who adapted historical-critical methods of analysing ancient literature to the Bible.

In the document, the bishops acknowledge their debt to biblical scholars. They say the Bible must be approached in the knowledge that it is “God’s word expressed in human language” and that proper acknowledgement should be given both to the word of God and its human dimensions.

They say the Church must offer the gospel in ways “appropriate to changing times, intelligible and attractive to our contemporaries”.

The Bible is true in passages relating to human salvation, they say, but continue: “We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters.”

They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.

“Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.”

Of the notorious anti-Jewish curse in Matthew 27:25, “His blood be on us and on our children”, a passage used to justify centuries of anti-Semitism, the bishops say these and other words must never be used again as a pretext to treat Jewish people with contempt. Describing this passage as an example of dramatic exaggeration, the bishops say they have had “tragic consequences” in encouraging hatred and persecution. “The attitudes and language of first-century quarrels between Jews and Jewish Christians should never again be emulated in relations between Jews and Christians.”

As examples of passages not to be taken literally, the bishops cite the early chapters of Genesis, comparing them with early creation legends from other cultures, especially from the ancient East. The bishops say it is clear that the primary purpose of these chapters was to provide religious teaching and that they could not be described as historical writing.

Similarly, they refute the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation, the last book of the Christian Bible, in which the writer describes the work of the risen Jesus, the death of the Beast and the wedding feast of Christ the Lamb.

The bishops say: “Such symbolic language must be respected for what it is, and is not to be interpreted literally. We should not expect to discover in this book details about the end of the world, about how many will be saved and about when the end will come.”

In their foreword to the teaching document, the two most senior Catholics of the land, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, and Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrew’s and Edinburgh, explain its context.

They say people today are searching for what is worthwhile, what has real value, what can be trusted and what is really true.

The new teaching has been issued as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council document explaining the place of Scripture in revelation. In the past 40 years, Catholics have learnt more than ever before to cherish the Bible. “We have rediscovered the Bible as a precious treasure, both ancient and ever new.”

JOIN THE DEBATE
www.timesonline.co.uk/debate

By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

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Chicago Sun-Times staffer named religion writer of the year

Chicago Sun-Times religion reporter Cathleen Falsani has won the Religion Newswriters Association's James O. Supple religion writer of the year award.

The award, named for a founder of the group, is given for a body of work, especially "a reporter's writing skill and grasp of the range of issues."

"This entry was produced by a writer with a great voice," the contest judges wrote. "It showcases work of both depth and breadth. This writer has command of the material and a sprightliness that, while never out of place, made these stories an enjoyable read. The writer is a gifted storyteller."

Falsani, a Sun-Times reporter since 2000, picked up the award Saturday in Miami Beach, Fla., at the association's annual banquet.

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Looking for God by temperament

Although we have shared bed and board for almost half a century, my husband and I live in two different worlds. His sphere is what most people call reality: the world of rational observation. Mine is a different realm. I recognize truth when something resonates with my experience somewhere deep inside me. Both are valid methods of reaching conclusions, however different they may be. Although we have learned over the years (very slowly) that pooling our views yields better insights, we still sometimes have difficulty communicating what we know.

Brennan Manning and Molly Wolf write about discovering God’s will for us and come to pretty much the same conclusions. Nevertheless, they are inhabitants of the same different worlds in which my husband and I live, and their approaches differ accordingly.

In The Importance of Being Foolish, Brennan Manning depends on revealed truths -- the words of scripture, especially the Gospels -- and the observations of other well-known spiritual writers. He keeps his eyes fixed on the life of Jesus as he challenges the way we live. He contrasts Jesus’ “relentless passion for the truth” with our own talent for self-deception. He points to Jesus’ single-minded focus on God and our constant concern for lesser things. However Christian we think we may be, he insists, to most of us the material world is more real than the realm of God. We spend our energy in the pursuit of security, pleasure and power. To test his thesis, he asks what made us happiest in recent weeks and what saddened us the most.

Pointing to Jesus’ habit of frequent withdrawal into prayer, Mr. Manning stresses the importance of achieving balance between prayer and action because “God knows each of us by name and is deeply involved in the dramas of our personal existence.” We have access to the same intimate divine guidance Jesus depended on.

Like St. Paul (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-25), Mr. Manning believes that only the sheer folly of Jesus’ cross fully reveals the power and wisdom of God. This is the “foolishness” his title invites us to imitate. He never says it is easy, but “everything we have given up is given back [his italics]. Our worries concerning security, pleasure and power fall away in the recognition that all is well in the kingdom of God.” Drawing frequently on the experience of 12-step programs, which he knows from personal experience, he offers that program as a model for shattering illusions and coming to peace with helplessness.

In White China, Molly Wolf’s approach is much more searching and intuitive. “You will find major doubt in these pages,” she admits in the introduction. “All I can do is to show you how I struggle with belief -- and I struggle a lot.” An Episcopalian, she has a keen sense of the sacramentality of creation. Yielding to her half-grown cat’s demand for her attention, she reflects that God has hard-wired a sense of entitlement into the feline personality and left humans to struggle to accept their need for divine grace and mercy. She watches light play across the ruffled surface of a lake and realizes that she, too, stands bathed in light.

She counts on others to keep her going in the right direction, clinging to the comfort offered by members of her community in times of darkness or doubt. She, too, believes in the power of prayer, but warns that it may take us to places we never wanted to go.

Ms. Wolf is certain that Christians who take their calling seriously can never turn a blind eye to suffering, however inadequate we feel. Like Mr. Manning, she acknowledges how difficult it is to drop our self-deceitful sense of ourselves as virtuous people and accept that God loves us, warts and all. She admits that her own failures can spark self-hatred, but tells of a challenge that rose from deep within her where God dwells: “If you can’t love yourself as you are, how can you love anyone else?” And what is the Christian vocation if not love?

With Mr. Manning, Ms. Wolf is appalled by our attachment to the ways of this world. Jesus is, she says, a “scandalous figure ... who could, quite possibly, stride through the local shopping center with a club, bashing at the plate glass windows and bellowing at the shoppers to wise up as to who their real gods are.”

Each of these books sets before us a rich feast of food for thought. Both authors seem to be firmly centered in God’s loving acceptance. And both their books, like the words of the Master himself, offer both challenge and comfort. They are similar in their content even while they are radically different in their approach.

Which one will you enjoy the most? The answer to that question probably lies in your own method of searching for truth. If you prefer to approach your questions in an intellectual way, as my husband does, Brennan Manning will probably speak most clearly to you. If your preferred method of working things out is mostly intuitive, as mine is, you will find Molly Wolf a delightful companion for the journey. Or maybe you should read both of them. As the two of us are still learning after all these years, combining our gifts yields the best results.

Reviewed by CAROL LUEBERING
Carol Luebering is a freelance writer in Cincinnati and a consultant on serving the sick and shut-in.

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Scientist defends Big Band and God

Dr. Henry “Fritz” Schaefer, the Graham Perdue professor of Chemistry and the director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia, gave a presentation Tuesday night about the convergence of science and Christianity.

Schaefer is a five-time Nobel Prize nominee, according to The U.S. News and World Report. He is the sixth most-cited scientist in the world, and he is the author of more than 1,000 scientific publications.

He lectured on the Big Bang Theory, Stephen Hawking and God to a crowd of nearly 800 people at the Seretean Center Concert Hall.

“I hope that this lecture would remove intellectual barriers to faith for Jesus Christ,” Schaefer said.

He said he became a Christian at the age of 28 when he was in his fourth year as a professor at Berkeley. He said he believes you can be both a Christian and a scientist.

He took a look at Stephen Hawking’s book “A Brief History of Time” and the Big Bang Theory from a scientific and philosophical approach. He used Hawking to help prove his point because Hawking has focused his studies on black holes and the beginning of time.

He said that a heavily debated question was whether the universe is finite or infinite.

“Many atheist scientists have had a history of being resistant to the idea of the beginning of the universe,” Schaefer said.

He said 1992 was a big year for science.

George Smoot, a professor at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, developed the Big Bang Ripples Theory and this helped prove the Big Bang Theory to Schaefer.

Schaefer said if the Big Bang Theory is true then there are two things that are concluded: God and the universe are not the same thing, and God is not contained in this universe.

Schaefer told his own personal views on the beginning of time as he talked about what he believed. He mentioned several things specifically.

A creator must exist; he must have awesome power and wisdom; he has a loving nature; he requires justice as he is just; we all fall short of the creator’s standards; God made a way to save us and if we trust in him, our lives are spared.

Micah Ownbey

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Science and religion can coexist

No less a religious authority than the late pope, John Paul II, said that evolution is more than just a hypothesis. It is a thrilling theory that has demonstrated its explanatory power over and over again in diverse scientific disciplines. Intelligent design theory has no such record. Why then, do some religious parents want intelligent design theory taught alongside evolution in America's public school classrooms?

For some religious fundamentalists, this may indeed be a way of making room for God in science classes. But for many parents, who are legitimately concerned about what their children are being taught, I suspect that it is a way of countering those proponents of evolution - and particularly of evolutionary biology - who go well beyond science to claim that evolution both manifests and requires a materialistic philosophy that leaves no room for God, the soul or the presence of divine grace in human life.

It is one thing to bracket the divine in pursuit of scientific truth - after all, there is no way to include God as a factor in a scientific experiment. But it is something else to suppose that scientific methods and the truths thus arrived at constitute the only kind of knowledge we can have.

In science, as in other practices, there are those whose world views are shaped entirely by the methods and disciplines of their work. Thus the Nobel laureate James Watson, co-discoverer of the molecular structure of DNA, declares that "one of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural." A historian of ideas would immediately recognize this perspective as an echo of the 19th-century clash between proponents of science and religion.

And then there are evolutionists of a more philosophical bent, like Michael Rose of the University of California at Irvine, who use evolution to explain everything, including religion. The penchant to make evolution the intellectual linchpin of a wholly atheist outlook is manifest in the writings of Richard Dawkins, professor of public understanding of science at Oxford University, whose public understanding of human beings is that they are "survival machines" for genes.

It is unlikely that parents who want intelligent design taught on an equal footing with evolution read books by Wilson, Rose or Dawkins. Chances are they are among the Americans who are more likely to believe in the Virgin Birth than in evolution. That tendency appalls some people but should surprise no one.

Most Americans, as they go about constructing lives and building families, making choices and exercising free will, do not think of themselves as gene survival machines or as random products of an impersonal process that whispers, in effect, "I am all that is."

And most Christians do accept the Virgin Birth as part of a larger religious narrative that tells them there is a God who created the world - one who cares so passionately about humankind that his only son took human form.

Simply put, belief in evolution does not compel anything like the personal commitment demanded by religious faith in a divine creator and redeemer. Thus, while it is tempting to pit Genesis against evolution as competing myths of human origins, many Christians, including scientists and theologians, do embrace evolution.

The danger in intelligent design is not just that it is bad science, but that it seeks to enlist evidence from science in the service of religious truth while denying evolutionary processes like mutation and natural selection.

But the designer God of intelligent design is no more necessary to Christianity (or other monotheisms) than was the deistic God of Newtonian physics. In both cases, God ends up being made in the image of an intellectual system, much like Aristotle's unmoved mover. That is not the God of revelation.

One way out of America's classroom conflict over teaching evolution would be to devise courses that examine the cultural uses to which evolution is put. But such courses would inevitably involve dialogue with religious concepts and perspectives - and thus raise further objections from those who see no place at all for religious ideas in public education.

And so, while I think intelligent design is the wrong approach, I sympathize with those parents who object to the materialist assumptions that can easily color the teaching of evolution, absent any acknowledgment of the claims of religion. Those parents are smart enough to know that, like nature, some teachers abhor a vacuum.

By Kenneth L. Woodward The New York Times
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2005
(Kenneth L. Woodward, a contributing editor at Newsweek, is working on a book about religion and American culture since 1950.)

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Kids Believe Diversity Makes America Stronger

Only one out of five kids today believe Americans are very accepting of all racial/ethnic and religious groups, according to a new youth survey conducted by Boys & Girls Clubs of American. While a majority of respondents (64 percent) agree that a diverse population makes America stronger, a notable consensus (47 percent) still believe that ethnic-religious background is the main factor in achieving financial success.

Fall 2005 Youth-Diversity Survey Conclusions:

-- Tolerance in America: Forty-one percent polled perceive that U.S. citizens are only somewhat accepting of all racial/ethnic and religious groups. Twenty-one percent felt people were very accepting.

-- Girls versus Boys: Girls are more comfortable than boys around people from other racial, ethnic or religious groups (55 percent versus 44 percent).

-- Kids versus Parents: The vast majority of youth surveyed have friends from other ethnic/religious groups (84 percent). Sixty-four percent of the same respondents noted their parents have friends with different racial/ethnic backgrounds, and 58 percent of respondents' parents have friends with different religious beliefs.

-- Dating: Sixty-six percent indicated they would date someone from a background different from their own however less than half (46 percent) thought their parents would be accepting of their dating someone from a racial/ethnic or religious group different from their own.

-- Mixed Families, Mixed Perceptions: Approximately 25 percent of total respondents (228 youth) indicated their parents are from two different religious and/or ethnic backgrounds. Of those, 80 percent said they themselves would date someone from a different religious and/or ethnic background. However, one in three (34 percent) didn't think, or didn't know, if their parents would approve. This data may imply that "leading by example" is not enough and even parents who "live" a lifestyle open to diversity need to engage in active dialogue with their children to align perceptions.

"This poll suggests that our society is in real transition," says Roxanne Spillett, president, Boys & Girls Clubs of America. "Minority groups continue to drive population growth in the U.S., so kids today see a different 'America' than mom and dad. The time to teach tolerance to our youth is now so that as adults, they can thrive in an increasingly complex America."

Now Piloting: Youth for Unity

To address the diversity "generation gap" illustrated by these survey findings, BGCA is now piloting a new diversity curriculum that invites kids and parents to confront their own biases. The curriculum, called "Youth for Unity," was first introduced to youth (ages 6-18) at 15 Clubs in 2004, followed by a formal program-pilot evaluation. The second phase of field-testing involves 30 Clubs across the country through December 2005.

Parents play a critical role in helping their children develop positive attitudes about inclusion, re-emphasizing the lessons learned in school or programs like "Youth for Unity." To further guide parents and caregivers in adopting consistent non-bias behaviors at home, 15 of the 30 Boys & Girls Club pilot sites are testing a new parent curriculum. The remaining 15 pilot locations are focusing on the youth component.

"Youth for Unity" is a comprehensive, multi-faceted program that is building the capacity of local Clubs to help more than four million young members nationwide to appreciate their own heritage while embracing the unique background of others. The program, which will be available to Clubs across the country in 2006, is designed to help children, teens and caregivers:

-- Appreciate themselves as unique and special individuals;

-- Understand society's diversity;

-- Recognize bias and unfairness; and

-- Take personal leadership in confronting bias.

The "Youth for Unity" program is part of a larger Boys & Girls Clubs of America diversity initiative funded by a $4.5 million commitment from The Allstate Foundation.

About Boys & Girls Clubs of America

For almost a century, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) has been recognized as community-based organizations that welcomes all youth, regardless of their race, religion or gender. BGCA (www.bgca.org) comprises a national network of some 3,400 neighborhood-based facilities annually serving more than four million young people, primarily from disadvantaged circumstances. Known as "The Positive Place for Kids," the Clubs provide guidance-oriented character development programs on a daily basis for children 6-18 years old, conducted by a full-time professional staff. Key Boys & Girls Club programs emphasize character and leadership development, education and career development, health and life skills, the arts, sports, fitness and recreation.

Alumni

Bill Cosby… Alex Rodriguez... Brad Pitt… Michael Jordan… President Clinton… Jackie Joyner-Kersee… Martin Sheen… Derek Jeter… Neil Diamond… Denzel Washington.