TruthBook Religious News Blog

People strive for contact with God

By K. Connie Kang
Originally published November 25, 2006

For years, surveys have shown that more than 80 percent of Americans pray regularly.
They pray in homes, houses of worship and on the Internet. They pray behind the wheel, while walking the dog, standing in line at banks. They pray alone and with others. And they regularly propel books on prayer onto the best-seller lists, with millions of copies sold.

Why? The answer, scholars of religion say, reflects not just formal theology but the nature and needs of humankind.

Human beings want to communicate with God, says the Rev. Siang-Yang Tan, a professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.

"Prayer is a powerful means to experience God's presence, God's peace, God's grace and God's wisdom," said Tan, senior pastor of the First Evangelical Church in Glendale, Calif., who is also a practicing clinical psychologist.

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, rector at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, says the instinct is part of what makes humans human. "Their prayer may not be liturgically appropriate, and it probably does not come out of thoroughly developed theology, but the instinct to pray is universal and natural for all," Dorff wrote in Knowing God: Jewish Journeys to the Unknowable.

People also pray because faith traditions require it.

Christians are told to "pray without ceasing." With the start of Advent on Dec. 3, they will offer many prayers in preparation for Christmas. Muslims are commanded to pray five times a day, and Jews three times a day.

It is in prayer that people interact with God "most intensely," said Dorff, who is also a philosopher and ethicist.

"The regimen of prayer forces us to stop our normal activities and to take a serious look at life, and that alone may enable us to strengthen our moral resolve," said Dorff. Like a close friendship, an intimate relationship with God also requires constant communication, the rabbi said.

Muslim scholar Muzammil H. Siddiqi, of the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove, Calif., said, "Prayer is nourishment for the soul."

The meaning of - and desire for - prayer has long intrigued religious figures. Perhaps no one has expressed that longing for the divine, in the Christian context, better than St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), the first philosopher of Christianity and author of The Confessions.

"You awaken us to delight in your praises," he wrote, "for you made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it reposes in you."

But what do people pray for?

Gratitude is the most common expression of prayer, and not just during the Thanksgiving season. Ninety-five percent of the time people are thanking God, according to a survey done in the 1990s by the Barna Group, an independent marketing research firm based in Ventura, Calif., that has tracked trends related to beliefs, values and behaviors since 1984.

People also ask for forgiveness (76 percent of the time), acknowledge God's unique and superior attributes (67 percent) or make requests (61 percent).

In the Christian context, prayers generally fall under the acronym ACTS - adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication.

Supplication has two components: praying for oneself (prayer of petition) and for others (intercessory prayer).

Though ACTS is a Christian guideline for prayer, it can be "generalized" to non-Christian religions, too, Tan said, because they also adore and worship God, confess their sins and seek forgiveness, thank God for blessings and pray for themselves and others.

Muslims have two types of prayer: salat and du'a.

"We make salat to establish our contact with Allah," said Siddiqi, an expert on comparative religion. "We glorify him, praise him and express our obedience to him. When we make du'a, we call upon our Lord and ask him for health, healing, protection, prosperity, love, mercy and many of his gifts for ourselves, our families, friends and others."

In their longing to connect with the divine, human beings also pray to mark holy days, blessings of marriage and births. And they pray for the dying and the dead.
Kaddish is the Jewish mourner's prayer, but it is all about God - not a word is mentioned about the dead.

"Let God's name be made great and holy in the world that was created as God willed," it begins. Kaddish ends with adoration: "May the one who created harmony above, make peace for us and for all Israel, and for all who dwell on earth. And say: Amen."

The method of prayer is as diverse as the intent. Prayers are spoken, sung, written and silent - what Roman Catholics call "interior prayer." The aim in interior prayer is simply to rest in the presence of God. Since the 1980s, there has been a surge of interest, especially among Protestants, in such meditative prayer - learning to sit quietly and go deep into the silence.

Since prayer can be a dialogue with God, another form involves both speaking and listening.

At the Saint Andrew's Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Valyermo, Calif., monks practice lectio divina, an ancient technique of a slow contemplative praying by reading of the Scriptures. The technique allows the faithful, as St. Benedict said, to hear with the "ear of our hearts."

The abbot of Saint Andrew's, the Rev. Luke Dysinger, writes that such prayer "enables the Bible to become a means of union with God."

K. Connie Kang is a writer for the Los Angeles Times.

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Don't Secularize Christmas, Says Christian-Muslim Dialogue Group

Kevin McCandless
Correspondent

London (CNSNews.com) - As religious groups here decry what they see as the increasing secularization of Britain, prominent Muslims and Christians are collaborating in a campaign to retain the holiday's religious association.

Charging that only atheists benefit from keeping Christian references out of Christmas, the Christian Muslim Forum issued a statement condemning efforts to secularize the holiday.

Launched earlier this year by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at a function addressed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, the forum is a non-profit group that says its aim is to foster dialogue between the two religions.

In its statement, the forum decried moves by town councils across the United Kingdom to rename Christmas as "Winterval."

Although the measure is designed to avoid offending adherents of other faiths, the forum said the councils doing so were providing racist groups with ammunition to attack British Muslims.

"Those who use the fact of religious pluralism as an excuse to de-Christianize British society unthinkingly become recruiting agents for the extreme right," it said. "They provoke antagonism towards Muslims and others by foisting on them an anti-Christian agenda which they do not hold."

Forum spokesman Julian Bond said that by sidelining Christmas, the government was also marginalizing the role that faith and religion played in society as a whole.

Bond said devout Muslims and Christians shared many of the same values, including respect for the family, clean living and the need for education.

With Islam becoming the second-largest faith in Britain, many Muslim students were being educated in schools run by the Church of England, which gave them an intimate knowledge of Christian traditions, he said.

The forum, which is co-chaired by an Anglican bishop David Gillett and Islamic scholar Ataullah Siddiqui, is also welcoming the public recognition of Eid al Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Islamic fast month of Ramadan.

Islam recognizes Jesus Christ as a historical figure and regards him as a prophet - one among many. It rejects the Christian belief that Jesus is God incarnate, who was crucified and rose from the dead.

Secularization trend

The annual controversy over Christmas and political correctness reared its head even earlier than usual this year.

This month, the Church of England attacked Britain's Post Office for not including any Christian imagery on its annual holiday stamps. The staff at Inland Revenue, the national tax agency, protested at not being allowed to hold Christmas parties.

Bill Purdue, co-author of "The Making of the Modern Christmas," told Cybercast News Service that although efforts to secularize the holiday began in the United States several years ago, they became more intense when they reached Britain, a country that is in general a lot less religious than America.

Nonetheless, wide-scale efforts to ban Christmas in England were made as long ago as the 17th century.

In 1647, during the latter days of the English Civil War, the Puritan-dominated government outlawed Christmas on the grounds there was no reference in the Bible to celebrating the day.

Purdue said the government had trouble keeping ordinary citizens from observing the holiday, however, both as a religious festival and as a time of feasting and dancing.

Christmas was officially restored in 1660, because Cromwell never quite succeeded in the bid to kill it off.

"They sent troops around London, making sure the shops were open, making sure that it was treated as a normal day, but they never suppressed the appetite for Christmas," Purdue said.

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The Christmas Miracle

Most Americans believe the virgin birth is literally true

Seventy-nine percent of Americans believe that, as the Bible says, Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, without a human father, according to a new NEWSWEEK poll on beliefs about Jesus.

Sixty-seven percent say they believe that the entire story of Christmas—the Virgin Birth, the angelic proclamation to the shepherds, the Star of Bethlehem and the Wise Men from the East—is historically accurate. Twenty-four percent of Americans believe the story of Christmas is a theological invention written to affirm faith in Jesus Christ, the poll shows. In general, say 55 percent of those polled, every word of the Bible is literally accurate. Thirty-eight percent do not believe that about the Bible.

In the NEWSWEEK poll, 93 percent of Americans say they believe Jesus Christ actually lived and 82 percent believe Jesus Christ was God or the Son of God. Fifty-two percent of all those polled believe, as the Bible proclaims, that Jesus will return to earth someday; 21 percent do not believe it. Fifteen percent believe Jesus will return in their lifetime; 47 percent do not, the poll shows.

When asked if there would be more or less kindness in the world today if there had never been a Jesus, 61 percent of all those polled say there would be less kindness. Forty-seven percent say there would be more war if there had never been a Jesus (16 percent say less, 26 percent say the same); 63 percent say there would be less charity; 58 percent say there would be less tolerance; 59 percent say there would be less personal happiness and 38 percent say there would be less religious divisions (21 percent say more and 26 percent say the same).

Just 11 percent of those surveyed say American society as a whole very closely reflects true Christian values and the spirit of Jesus; 53 percent say it somewhat reflects those values. But 86 percent say they believe organized religion has a “a lot” or “some” influence over life in the United States today. Nine percent say it has “only a little” influence.

Sixty-two percent say they favor teaching creation science in addition to evolution in public schools; 26 percent oppose such teaching, the poll shows. Forty-three percent favor teaching creation science instead of evolution in public schools; 40 percent oppose the idea.

For this NEWSWEEK Poll, Princeton Survey Research Associates interviewed by telephone 1,009 adults, aged 18 and older on Dec. 2 and Dec. 3. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Editor's note: In one part of the this story, preliminary results were used, instead of final numbers. The paragraph on creation science should have said: "Sixty percent say they favor teaching creation science in addition to evolution in public schools; 28 percent oppose such teaching, the poll shows. Forty percent favor teaching creation science instead of evolution in public schools; 44 percent oppose the idea."

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

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Monday, November 27, 2006

Researchers seek routes to happier life

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer
Sun Nov 26, 12:54 PM ET

NEW YORK - As a motivational speaker and executive coach, Caroline Adams Miller knows a few things about using mental exercises to achieve goals. But last year, one exercise she was asked to try took her by surprise.

Every night, she was to think of three good things that happened that day and analyze why they occurred. That was supposed to increase her overall happiness.

Miller was assigned the task as homework in a master's degree program. But as a chronic worrier, she knew she could use the kind of boost the exercise was supposed to deliver.

She got it.

"The quality of my dreams has changed, I never have trouble falling asleep and I do feel happier," she said.

Results may vary, as they say in the weight-loss ads. But that exercise is one of several that have shown preliminary promise in recent research into how people can make themselves happier — not just for a day or two, but long-term. It's part of a larger body of work that challenges a long-standing skepticism about whether that's even possible.

There's no shortage of advice in how to become a happier person, as a visit to any bookstore will demonstrate. In fact, Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues have collected more than 100 specific recommendations, ranging from those of the Buddha through the self-improvement industry of the 1990s.

The problem is, most of the books on store shelves aren't backed up by rigorous research, says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, who's conducting such studies now. (She's also writing her own book).

In fact, she says, there has been very little research in how people become happier.

Why? The big reason, she said, is that many researchers have considered that quest to be futile.

For decades, a widely accepted view has been that people are stuck with a basic setting on their happiness thermostat. It says the effects of good or bad life events like marriage, a raise, divorce, or disability will simply fade with time.

We adapt to them just like we stop noticing a bad odor from behind the living room couch after a while, this theory says. So this adaptation would seem to doom any deliberate attempt to raise a person's basic happiness setting.

But recent long-term studies have revealed that the happiness thermostat is more malleable than the popular theory maintained, at least in its extreme form. "Set-point is not destiny," says psychologist Ed Diener of the University of Illinois.

One new study showing change in happiness levels followed thousands of Germans for 17 years. It found that about a quarter changed significantly over that time in their basic level of satisfaction with life. (That's a popular happiness measure; some studies sample how one feels through the day instead.) Nearly a tenth of the German participants changed by three points or more on a 10-point scale.

Other studies show an effect of specific life events, though of course the results are averages and can't predict what will happen to particular individuals. Results show long-lasting shadows associated with events like serious disability, divorce, widowhood, and getting laid off.

The boost from getting married, on the other hand, seems to dissipate after about two years, says psychologist Richard E. Lucas of Michigan State University.

What about the joys of having children? Parents recall those years with fondness, but studies show childrearing takes a toll on marital satisfaction, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert notes in his recent book, "Stumbling on Happiness." Parents gain in satisfaction as their kids leave home, he said.

Gilbert says people are awful at predicting what will make them happy. Yet, Lucas says, "most people are happy most of the time." That is, in a group of people who have reasonably good health and income, most will probably rate a 7.5 or so on a happiness scale of zero to 10, he says.

Still, many people want to be happier. What can they do? That's where research by Lyubomirsky, Seligman and others comes in.

The think-of-three-good-things exercise that Miller, the motivational speaker, found so simplistic at first is among those being tested by Seligman's group at the University of Pennsylvania.

People keep doing it on their own because it's immediately rewarding, said Seligman colleague Acacia Parks. It makes people focus more on good things that happen, which might otherwise be forgotten because of daily disappointments, she said.

Miller said the exercise made her notice more good things in her day, and that now she routinely lists 10 or 20 of them rather than just three.

A second approach that has shown promise in Seligman's group has people discover their personal strengths through a specialized questionnaire and choose the five most prominent ones. Then, every day for a week, they are to apply one or more of their strengths in a new way.

Strengths include things like the ability to find humor or summon enthusiasm, appreciation of beauty, curiosity and love of learning. The idea of the exercise is that using one's major "signature" strengths may be a good way to get engaged in satisfying activities.

These two exercises were among five tested on more than 500 people who'd visited a Web site called "Authentic Happiness." Seligman and colleagues reported last year that the two exercises increased happiness and reduced depressive symptoms for the six months that researchers tracked the participants. The effect was greater for people who kept doing the exercises frequently. A followup study has recently begun.

Another approach under study now is having people work on savoring the pleasing things in their lives like a warm shower or a good breakfast, Parks said. Yet another promising approach is having people write down what they want to be remembered for, to help them bring their daily activities in line with what's really important to them, she said.

Lyubomirsky, meanwhile, is testing some other simple strategies. "This is not rocket science," she said.

For example, in one experiment, participants were asked to regularly practice random acts of kindness, things like holding a door open for a stranger or doing a roommate's dishes, for 10 weeks. The idea was to improve a person's self-image and promote good interactions with other people.

Participants who performed a variety of acts, rather than repeating the same ones, showed an increase in happiness even a month after the experiment was concluded. Those who kept on doing the acts on their own did better than those who didn't.

Other approaches she has found some preliminary promise for include thinking about the happiest day in your life over and over again, without analyzing it, and writing about how you'll be 10 years from now, assuming everything goes just right.

Some strategies appear to work better for some people than others, so it's important to get the right fit, she said.

But it'll take more work to see just how long the happiness boost from all these interventions actually lasts, with studies tracking people for many months or years, Lyubomirsky said.

Any long-term effect will probably depend on people continuing to work at it, just as folks who move to southern California can lose their appreciation of the ocean and weather unless they pursue activities that highlight those natural benefits, she said.

In fact, Diener says, happiness probably is really about work and striving.

"Happiness is the process, not the place," he said via e-mail. "So many of us think that when we get everything just right, and obtain certain goals and circumstances, everything will be in place and we will be happy.... But once we get everything in place, we still need new goals and activities. The Princess could not just stop when she got the Prince."

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Wednesday, November 22, 2006

What we think, what we believe, how we act

This article first appeared in the News Watch column of the Christian Research Journal, volume 25, number 1 (2002).

The good news? Faith is “in.” The bad news? Discernment is apparently “out.” Many people, including many Christians, think faith and reason are mutually exclusive; the truly “spiritual” among us experience God, we don’t presume to test our faith. This should concern Christians who believe that one must test what one believes by critical inquiry and evidence; in other words, one must have a reasonable faith.

Christians Among Us.

An ABC News/Beliefnet poll shows that 83 percent of American adults are Christians. A comparable Barna poll affirms that the percentage of Christians in America is about the same as it was in the 1990s, with three important rises: (1) weekly church attendance is up at 43 percent of adults, (2) weekly Bible reading (excluding during church) is up at 42 percent, and (3) adult Sunday School attendance is higher at 25 percent than it has been since the late 1980s.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll on American faith showed most people (67 percent) believe the United States is a Christian nation and that America’s strength is based on religious faith (58 percent); nevertheless, in a seemingly contradictory finding, a much higher majority (84 percent) say religious belief isn’t necessary for good citizenship. A U.S. News and World Report/PBS’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly poll says that “nearly two-thirds” of Americans say religion is very important in their lives, while “more than 4 out of 5” say they have “experienced God’s presence or a spiritual force.” More than 75 percent of Americans say that our nation’s religious diversity is a source of strength.

When it comes to particular faiths, according to Barna a high majority of Americans (75 percent)1 say “many religions can lead to eternal life,” while a slim majority (54 percent) consider atheism “unfavorable.” According to the U.S. News poll, 70 percent of Americans say “spiritual experiences” are the most important part of religion. Pollster George Gallup thinks this strong affirmation of religious pluralism accounts for some seemingly contradictory polling results: “In some polls, you have Christians saying, ‘Yes, Jesus is the only way’ and also ‘Yes, there are many paths to God.’ It’s not that Americans don’t believe anything; they believe everything.”

More than 80 percent think religion should have a greater influence in American life, while a scant majority (52 percent) says religious influence in America is waning. A Barna poll showed that Protestants are still far more populous in America than Catholics, although Protestants account for only 53 percent of the population, down from nearly 70 percent 25 years ago.

Religious pluralism in America remains more talk than fact: only 6.5 percent of Americans are non-Christian, according to the U.S. News poll, although that percentage is growing and Buddhists outnumber Presbyterians while Muslims are nearly as numerous as Jews, who account for around two percent of the American population. According to U.S. News and World Report (6 May 2002), the decline in the Jewish population is due, in large part, to 51 percent of Jews marrying outside their faith, and to Judaism’s rejection of proselytizing.

Muslims Among Us.

The Pew survey, conducted after the terrorist attacks of September 11, indicated that most Americans (54 percent) have a favorable opinion of Muslim Americans and believe that Islam does not encourage violence (51 percent). The U.S. News poll says 37 percent of Americans have an “unfavorable” view of Islam, and 40 percent say Islam has more “violent extremists” than other religions.

The number of Muslims in the United States is evidently much lower than often reported in the popular press. Two surveys correct previous broad assumptions by careful polling and statistical analysis. Tom W. Smith, of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, says the results of their study pins the actual number of Muslims in America to between 1.9 and 2.8 million, compared to the 7 million or so usually reported. Another study, by a sociologist at City University of New York, produced a similar, though smaller, statistic — 1.1 million adults and 650,000 children. Sociologist Egon Mayer says this shows a doubling of the American Muslim population in the 1990s.

Previous estimates, more than three times the number generated by the new studies, were criticized for unwarranted assumptions and guesses not backed up by field research. The American Muslim Council (AMC) denounced the NORC survey as evidence of Jewish groups “persecuting the persecuted,” noting that discrimination against Muslims has increased since September 11. The NORC survey, published by the American Jewish Committee, polled 50,000 American households over six months and confirmed the polling results by INS data and census records for “country of origin.”

The “Mosaic” Generation on Life, Morality, and Faith.

The generation in high school and college today, dubbed the “mosaic” generation, is a surprising mix of conservative and liberal, religious and not so religious. Drug, alcohol, and cigarette use among high schoolers is lower than at any time in the past 15 years. When the statistic is broken down, illicit drug use is down to 22.3 percent, alcohol 65 percent, and cigarette smoking 36 percent. The 2001–2002 Pride Survey polled 101,882 students in 21 states. The survey also found that kids who are warned away from drugs and encouraged to engage in extracurricular activities were less likely to use drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. Another strong factor was church attendance: 13 percent of those who attended religious services “a lot” were users, while 36 percent used among kids who “never” attended religious services.

According to another national study, “Youth and Religion: A Nation of Young Believers,” 83.7 percent of young people said religion was “important” in their lives, 45.6 percent said they had attended a worship service three or more times in the previous month, and 41.2 percent participated in a religiously organized activity (such as youth group or Bible study).

Similar research by the Barna Research Group discovered that more than 60 percent of teens identify themselves as “spiritual,” but spiritual goals and life outcomes are surprisingly not among the top-rated goals teens have. Teens identifying themselves as born again account for 33 percent of those polled, while only 4 percent also affirm the evangelical standards of the accuracy of the Bible, responsibility to evangelize, salvation by grace alone, and orthodox views on God, Jesus, and Satan. Barna attributes this low figure to “growing numbers of teenagers who accept moral relativism and pluralistic theology as their faith foundation.” Barna polls also indicate that only 32 percent of those who are born again said they believe in moral absolutes.

Moral Relativism Tops the Charts. The influence of moral relativism among teens is evident on the college level, too. While a Zogby International poll of college seniors found that 97 percent said their college studies had prepared them to be ethical in their careers, a stunning 73 percent said the ethics instruction they received was decidedly pluralistic. They were taught that what is right and wrong depends on individual values and cultural diversity.

No wonder, then, that a New York professor’s study of his own students a few years ago uncovered a 10 to 20 percent segment that could not define the Nazi extermination of the Jews as “wrong.” Their refusal to brand those actions morally wrong came from a belief that, despite their personal dislike of such actions, the Nazis could not be judged from those outside their own culture, and no one can successfully challenge another’s moral worldview.

Among older adults, according to two Barna polls, 60 percent of people 36 and older held to moral relativism, while 75 percent of the adults 18 to 35 did so. Among teens, only nine percent of born-again respondents affirmed moral absolutes (compared to four percent of the non-born-again teens).

Small wonder, then, that Stanley Fish, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, recently argued for a postmodern approach to political analysis in the quarterly political journal The Responsive Community.2 Fish argued that a postmodern approach to the terrorist acts of September 11 would focus not on the inherent moral wrong of the acts, but instead on the “competing claims” on both sides. The claims would not be supported by evidence or objective standards, but by “received authorities, sacred texts, exemplary achievements, and generally accepted benchmarks.” According to Fish, postmodernists don’t deny the existence of truth, or of objective morality, but they deny that such truths can be known or, even if known, they could not be communicated convincingly to an opponent. Truth, for Fish, is acknowledged by societies not on the basis of undisputed truth, but on “power, reward, or rhetoric.”

According to Barna, the most common basis for moral decision-making among teens is “doing whatever feels right or comfortable in a given situation.” This view was affirmed by 38 percent of teens and 31 percent of adults. Only 7 percent of teens and 18 percent of adults said the Bible was their basis for morality. George Barna noted, “Substantial numbers of Christians believe that activities such as abortion, gay sex, sexual fantasies, cohabitation, drunkenness and viewing pornography are morally acceptable. The result is a mentality that esteems pluralism, relativism, tolerance, and diversity without critical reflection of the implications of particular views and actions.”

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Monday, November 20, 2006

How do you pray?

Nation
Posted on Sun, Nov. 19, 2006

Study of prayer shows how similar - and how different - Americans are

By TERRY LEE GOODRICH
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Eyes open -- or closed?

Heavenly Father? God through Jesus? Adonai? Allah? Or the Goddess?

Family prayer at Thanksgiving?

Quick prayer at bedtime?

Asking through clenched teeth for divine aid to control road rage?

Prayer is getting a lot of attention these days: in polls, in labyrinths, in conferences to fine-tune prayer skills. Bloggers muse about such matters as their favorite postures for praying. Some Web sites post prayer requests.

No matter how often people pray or to whom, when it comes to private prayer, "people say that the most recent time they prayed, it was about family," said Christopher Bader, a researcher in a random survey about religion in America.

The survey of 1,721 people, released in September by Baylor University and the Gallup Organization, showed that three-fourths of Americans pray at least once a week. More than one-fourth prayed several times a day. Of those who prayed regularly, 77 percent prayed for relatives.

He said researchers got a surprise when they asked to whom people prayed.

"Given the evangelical focus on Jesus and the rhetoric about having a personal relationship with him, only 5 percent said they prayed to Jesus," Bader said. "Most prayed to God and sometimes to Jesus. But when they pray, they are thinking more broadly, about the big boss, so to speak."

Fourteen respondents noted that God and Jesus are, according to the New Testament's explanation of the Trinity, the same, along with the Holy Spirit.

Depending on religious affiliation or the lack of it, people also prayed to the Virgin Mary, Buddha, Allah, angels, saints, spirits and "a higher power."

"Nine percent said, 'No one special,'" Bader said.

Baylor researchers said they plan surveys every other year about prayer and other religious issues.

Here is a look at the prayer lives of some Metroplex residents.

Religion survey
The Baylor Institute for Studies on Religion asked about 400 questions in the survey. They included whether respondents think God takes sides in politics, what God's personality is like, whether they watch TV shows like Touched by an Angel, even whether they believe in the paranormal and such creatures as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

On the matter of prayer, the survey found:
Women are more likely than men to pray several times a day.

People with high incomes are less likely to pray several times a day than those with low incomes.

About 45 percent of respondents say a table grace on certain occasions; 19 percent do so at all meals.

Senior citizens are more likely than younger people to pray often.

About 53 percent of respondents pray about world affairs.

About 28 percent pray for financial security.

When it came to prayer by religious affiliation and tradition, black Protestants outdid any other group: 74 percent of those surveyed said they pray once or more a day.

"Wrapped in Love"
Fort Worth retiree Mary Weathers prefers small bamboo knitting needles that don't clicketyclack.

Grapevine systems analyst Rosemary Freeman of Grapevine loves to applique butterflies on the shawls she makes.

And stay-at-home mom Pam Young of Fort Worth sheepishly admits that her shawls sometimes wind up with irregular shapes rather than the desired rectangle.

For one hour each Sunday afternoon, they and half- dozen other women cluster in a small room on the second floor of First United Methodist Church of Fort Worth.

They begin with a prayer, then wield crochet hooks and knitting needles to create "prayer shawls" for people in need of prayer and comfort.

The prayer shawls are not magical, and "we're not original; we just took a good idea and ran with it," said Debbie Shrauner, 45, a Weatherford elementary school teacher.
Thousands of people across the country are making prayer shawls, an ancient tradition, the women say.

Jews have long used the shawls as a religious symbol of being enveloped physically during joy and sorrow.

These days, patterns for prayer shawls and books about them can be ordered online.
Since the Fort Worth group formed in January, members have made 51 shawls in colors with such names as cotton candy, Montana sky and Mediterranean.

Some knitters, like 60-something Weathers, have over 50 years of experience; Young, 42, is a novice. Freeman is the record-setter, having made 18 of the shawls.

The women have made shawls for teens heading off to college, for parents of a baby with a heart defect, for a widow marking the first anniversary of her husband's death.

Weathers is at work on an extra-long shawl for a 6-foot-4 fellow to use as he recovers from surgery.

"Sometimes I knit for somebody I know. Sometimes I don't, and that's OK," Weathers said.

Occasionally, the women receive thank-you notes.

As they knit, their conversation hopscotches from husbands to children to the merits of filter-free vacuum cleaners.

At hour's end, they lay aside the shawls and stand in a circle to pray in unison.
"May the one who receives this shawl be cradled in hope, kept in joy, graced with peace and wrapped in love."

"More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of . . . "
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

While much of the world is dreaming -- 4 a.m.-- the Rev. Don Miller awakens to his internal alarm clock. Quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping wife, he heads outside to his "prayer arbor," a wooden swing facing east.

Miller, whose nickname is Man of Prayer, is the founder of Bible-Based Ministries and has led prayer conferences around the globe. Whether he speaks in the U.S., Africa or Australia, his suggestions are the same.

"Keep prayer simple," Miller says. "Don't complicate prayer. Let theologians do that."

Follow a good example -- Jesus -- and keep prayer short, he says.

"I'm a big believer in a minute prayer, or a prayer of 15 words or less," he said. "Many of Jesus' prayers were less than 15 words.

"I praise God in the morning because I'm alive. I praised him one afternoon recently when I drove home from the doctor's," Miller said. "I praised him because I didn't have to have surgery" for a carcinoma, a kind of cancer, but rather just topical treatment.

"You need a quiet time and place to pray. It's hard to have that in today's noisy society, but prayer is the intimate communication between the heavenly Father and his child.

"God likes to hear specific prayers," Miller said. "If we pray for the lost, I hear God say, 'Which one?' But God doesn't get on a loudspeaker; he speaks to me out of his Word, so I carry a little New Testament in my pocket."

When they stay in hotels during conferences, Miller still wakes before dawn. He heads to a corner of the hotel room, with a small flashlight.

"I don't pray outright," he said. "I take a flashlight, get a notebook and write out my prayer. I tell people, 'God can read.'"

"As for having a prayer rug, the idea is that you are bowing to Almighty God. You wash up and be clean for your prayers. The rug is anything clean; you can use a clean bedsheet. There have been times when I've prayed on cardboard."
- Aftab Siddiqui, a Muslim and capacity planner for American Airlines

Praying five times a day is vital to Islam. When Muslim employees of American Airlines learned that management had found a small room for prayer in the company's building near the airport, they were thrilled. A manager ushered them into the room, then took a look at their faces.

"What?" she asked.

Aftab Siddiqui chuckled as he recalled the room, furnished with a table and chairs. Muslims pray in a no-frills space -- better for laying down prayer rugs and bowing, kneeling and touching their foreheads to the floor. The furniture's not a problem, though: They simply move it before prayers.

In January at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, Muslim employees and travelers began using an airport chapel for their Friday afternoon prayers. "Fridays for us are like Sundays are for Christians and Saturdays for Jews," Siddiqui said.

"When we pray, we have set ways, motions we go through, and we say words from the Quran or prayers of the prophets. But it's personalized, too. We incorporate that. And when you go into a bigger mosque and do a collective prayer, the more the better, because it represents the community.

"People talk about whether to have prayer in schools. For us, it's a daily occurrence in the office or school," Siddiqui said. "It doesn't have to be on a PA system, just a secluded corner. You may spend five minutes, you may spend 30. When I'm on a flight that's three or four hours long and am in the seat, I can do some of the motions. Some I can't. You just do the prayers the best you can."

Providing Spiritual Comfort, One Week at a Time
She travels 11 months of the year, this small statue. She represents Our Lady of Guadalupe, a brown-skinned Virgin Mary who is believed to have appeared as an apparition to an Aztec in 1531.

Each Sunday, Mary Aguirre of Fort Worth drives the statue, housed in a glass case, to wherever it is needed. Church members who want to host the statue for a week sign up at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Fort Worth. They wait eagerly for the statue, said Aguirre, a member of the Guadalupanas, a Mexican-American charity group organized primarily by women.

"She's not hard to move," said Aguirre, a clerk at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. "Most of the people I take it to are from Mexico, because there is a lot of devotion to her in Mexico. She represents the intercessor, the Blessed Mother.

"I take her to homes, we pray the rosary, we sing hymns, and I leave her. A week later, I go back, say the rosary, sing and take her to another home." Those in the home say rosaries throughout their week with the statue.

"Some may want to have a baby. Some may need a job or want to take a trip and don't have money," Aguirre said. "They may have cancer. Some may be illegal immigrants praying for their papers. Some just have kids doing things they're not supposed to."
The statue stays at the church for much of December during processions and other celebrations.

"I love doing this," Aguirre said. "It's like having it at my own home. I feel like I'm home with these people, praying with them."

"Any thoughtful person prays for the well-being of his or her family or community, and it's just human nature if someone is hurting to pray for relief."

- Rabbi Ralph Mecklenburger
"The tradition going back a couple thousand years is that God's name is too holy to pronounce," said Rabbi Ralph Mecklenburger of Beth-El Congregation in Fort Worth, a Reform Jewish congregation.

Yahweh is the hypothetical reconstruction of the name for God, but "modern scholars really don't even know how it was pronounced," he said.

"Hebrew is only written in consonants. We don't know what the vowels were."

The equivalent Hebrew word is Adonai, he said, and "we pray directly to him."

Pronunciation aside, "it's natural to reach out to God," he said.

"Any thoughtful person prays for the well-being of his or her family or community, and it's just human nature if someone is hurting to pray for relief. It's not just about me, me, me."

He said the most common prayer in the Jewish tradition is for peace.

"I think it's the unselfish prayers that do us the most credit," the rabbi said.

"In modern times, Jews, Christians, Muslims all pray to the same God.

"Hebrew is considered the language of prayer, and Hebrew sounds especially prayerful. You're allowed to pray in any language, but prayer is the language of the heart."

"Instead of beating Bush up, we pray for him. Instead of slapping Congress around, we pray for them."
- Norma Howard, 58, of Fort Worth, a Prayer Warrior and secretary at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth

The Prayer Warriors begin their Monday night sessions with anointing.

Norma Howard, this evening's leader, takes a quarter-ounce bottle of Oil of Gladness Frankincense and Myrrh-- $4.49 at a Christian gift shop -- and dabs the palms and foreheads of the handful of women assembled.

"There's no power in the oil; it's just symbolic of the Holy Spirit," Howard says.

The women close their eyes and lift their hands, and Howard works her way around the room, touching each woman gently as she utters rapid-fire prayers. She thanks God that one woman does not need surgery; she asks that another receive food as well as spiritual nourishment. Amid a rising background chorus of "Yes, God," and "Thank you, Jesus," she pats medical lab assistant Jerri Colbert, 58, on the shoulder.
The women sit and read aloud from a book about intercessory prayer, then read in unison from a book of prayers.

On a table, a black three-ring binder holds the names of people who have signed up to request prayer. The women pray for those with ailments, those who need money for rent and gas, those who are lost. No politicians have signed the book, but the women pray that they will not take bribes.

Someone knocks on the door, and two women slip away to answer.

It is a man named Reggie, and he says he is hungry. The women load a plastic sack with groceries from the church pantry and invite Reggie to join them. They pray for him.

Afterward, the women give Reggie a few dollars from a collection plate.
"I'll see you ladies to your cars," Reggie says.

Howard grins.
"The Lord's gonna snatch you and shake you," she tells him. "Use that for sodas and bus fare."

"We have very strict rules. If someone wants a specific person to come into their life, we can't ask for that. That's manipulating, and you can't do that. But we can ask for someone suitable to come into their life."

- Kim Hochreiter, 50, of Bedford, a Wiccan

Kim Hochreiter, a resource pricer at Thrift Town in Arlington, said that the Wiccan religion is nature-based and that she and other practitioners pray to what they refer to as the Goddess or a universal power.

"All prayer, in my opinion, is focusing your thoughts on a desired end," she said. "That's what magic is -- to facilitate a change somewhere.

"We use seven-day jar candles sometimes, and you might write a person's name on it and what you're praying for. ... I've never seen a candle last that long [seven days], but that's how you set up your spell: 'May so-and-so be well.' If possible, you keep it lit, but when you go to work, that's not always safe, so a lot of us will put it in a bathtub or kitchen sinks so it doesn't fall out. We believe divinity lives both within and without, and I don't have to go to church to find this."

Members of covens also go to "covensteads" to conduct rituals. "Where I live is mine," Hochreiter said. "We meet on full and new moons and Wiccan festivals eight times a year. After 9-11, we prayed for the people who were injured, that those missing would be found and for the families of those who had physically gone on."

She said her yard has a circle of trees where Wiccans light candles and pray. But "if the weather is 107 degrees or raining or snowing, we do it in the living room. In mine, there are four small round altar tables representing earth, air, fire and water, and a central one that represents spirit."

She likes to pray out loud, she said.

"When I drive to work, I might say something a couple times -- 'May the day go well. May I do the best with what I've got.'"

"Nobody comes to a builder and says, 'I want a home chapel.' This is kind of like a leap of faith. . . . Am I goofy? I don't know."
- Argyle builder Randy Bollig

Early this year in Argyle, Randy Bollig, a Catholic, began building $1 million-plus speculative homes with chapels.

Dave and Donna Perley say they did not buy their home because it had a place to pray and worship.

"We were a little surprised. But we go to church every Sunday, so we appreciate what Randy is doing," Dave Perley said. "Most of our friends are believers and don't go, 'That's weird.'"

The 250-square-foot chapel has images replicating early Christian art in Roman catacombs, including an image of the Virgin Mary and the Last Supper.

Perley said his wife plans to hold Bible studies and prayer in the chapel soon.

"You know, with your day-to-day work and dealing with the kids, you just kind of go, 'Hmm. I think I'll go in there for a while.'

"It's not that it's any greater than any room in the house; we don't worship the room," Perley said. "But it reminds you what you are supposed to be doing. It keeps you in check: 'Did I say the right thing? Did I do the right thing?'

"You don't go in there to say a bad word, I'll tell you that right now."

"Be still and know that I am God."
- Psalm 46:10

"I'm not very good at sitting still," said the Rev. Fritz Ritsch, pastor of St. Stephen Presbyterian in Fort Worth.

Neither are a lot of people.

Now, a new outdoor prayer labyrinth that is always open offers members of the Fort Worth congregation - or anyone else in the community - a place to pray in peace even if they're on the fidgety side.

Church members dedicated the labyrinth on a recent Sunday night. Worshippers held candles as they stood in a ring around the labyrinth, designed by a local landscape architect on a hill overlooking downtown Fort Worth.

Then they wound their way through the labyrinth, with a "round trip" of about a quarter-mile. Some wore jeans and T-shirts; others were clad in dresses or business suits.

Prayer labyrinths, which have been around since medieval times, have been criticized as a pagan symbol. But many people are showing a renewed interest in them, with some Web sites selling portable and temporary labyrinths.

There are a handful of prayer labyrinths in Tarrant County, and those who walk them say the winding paths are symbolic of life's complexities. They find the labyrinth conducive to prayer and meditation as they wend their way to the center and back.

Wendy Larmour, 42, a mechanical engineer and member of St. Stephen, said the church's labyrinth, which is wheelchair-accessible, has "a wonderful design." She said she has also prayed in the church's indoor labyrinth, made of canvas.

"It's a completely different feeling in a labyrinth," she said. "I had a severe emotional meltdown one day, and in the center of the labyrinth, I felt safe. I didn't understand it, but it's healing. It's a surrender. You have to let go."

The labyrinth allows for individuality, Ritsch said. At the dedication, teens zipped through the labyrinth; most people strolled; and one man walked slowly, using a cane for support.

"Is this the plan? I went through all this to end up here? Well, let me tell you something, Mister. You're not funny!"
- The character Robert Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond, glaring heavenward after a rough day

The Rev. Bayard Pratt of Bedford's Martin United Methodist Church doubts that God would take offense at that.

"The Psalms are full of people venting. Job vented as well. That's anger -- that's a God-given emotion," Pratt said. "I think railing at God is healthy."

When he prays, he said, "I begin with the premise that God is a God of grace, rather than vengeance, and that we're forgiven before we ask.

"When I look at my own life, there's a comfortableness that develops, a sense of awareness," he said. "I don't know that I have a routine. It's more that I constantly find myself seeking God's presence in the conversation," he said. "There's the ability to be real and human, to say, 'God, my patience on the highway is not in the top 10.'"

As for why God sometimes does not seem to answer -- or at least does not give the desired response -- those conundrums have been around for as long as humanity.
Pratt does not have an answer.

"When someone is critically ill and we pray for them, they may or may not get well," Pratt said. "If they do, we thank God. If they don't, we need the presence of God.
"We can't comprehend God. We put God in a box and make him too small. Our language is the way we state our desires to God. But I think how God responds to us is a very different thing."

On a sunny Friday in September, at an outdoor table at Weinberger's Delicatessen in Grapevine, the Lagerstrom family of Flower Mound was ready to eat lunch.
But first, a prayer.

"We always pray before meals, whether publicly or at home," said homemaker Marianne Lagerstrom, 38, of Flower Mound. Her husband is corporate trainer Steve Lagerstrom, 47; their children are Andrew, 8, and Liza, 6.

No matter that sometimes singing waiters are making a to-do over a nearby diner's birthday.

"I know we're talking to God, and he can hear us anytime, anyplace," Marianne Lagerstrom said. "You don't worry about noise drowning us out. It comes from a need inside to be thankful no matter where you are and who may be watching."

They do not always close their eyes to pray.

"The other day, I said, 'Let's do an open-eye prayer,' because we were with some people who are not pray-ers, and I didn't want them to feel self-conscious or weird about praying in public," Lagerstrom said. "I like to do that, too, so the children can see my face and we can pray face to face."

The prayers go beyond gratitude for food. "I have a wayward sibling -- I don't know if that's 'Christian-ese' -- but I pray for him all the time," Lagerstrom said.

"We hold hands sometimes during our prayers, but we're not ritualistic. It's just whatever we do at the time. It's like talking to a friend -- you don't always hug."

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Study compares spiritual, secular professors

Posted on Sat, Nov. 18, 2006

Science teachers were least religious, according to report.

By JEFFREY WEISS
The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS | College professors aren’t all godless heathens, but they are more secular than the general population, according to a new study. And the more elite the institution, the more secular the professors are likely to be.

The study was done by two sociologists, Neil Gross of Harvard University and Solon Simmons of George Mason University. They contacted 1,471 professors at religious and secular colleges and asked about politics and faith.

The purpose of their report, released on the Internet, was to assess the observation by many religious conservatives that America’s universities are “a haven largely freed from religious perspectives.”

Among the notable results:

•Almost a third answered “none” when asked their religion — more than twice the percentage found in the general population.

•Science professors were the least religious.

•Accounting professors were the most religious.

More than half the professors at places other than so-called “elite” universities said they absolutely believed in God.

About a third of the professors at elite schools took that position. (The study used the U.S. News and World Report rankings to define elite institutions.)

About 30 percent of community college professors considered intelligent design as a serious scientific alternative. Fewer than 6 percent of professors at elite universities took that position.

In a much larger survey, released by the University of California-Los Angeles earlier this year, more than 80 percent of professors said they were “spiritual.”

The studies indicate that spirituality affects how professors teach and interact with the world, said Jennifer A. Lindholm, the UCLA project director.

Her study concluded that the more spiritual professors were more likely to use cooperative learning techniques in the classroom, to use their scholarship to address community needs and to encourage students to perform community service.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professions of faith

Key findings on religion among U.S. college professors:

10 percent don’t believe in God.

13.4 percent don’t know if there’s a God and don’t believe there is a way to find out.

19.6 percent believe in “a Higher Power of some kind” but not a personal God.

16.9 percent believe in God but have doubts.

35.7 percent know God exists and have no doubt about it.

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Friday, November 17, 2006

Faith Online

64% of wired Americans have used the Internet for spiritual or religious purposes

| Report |

Stewart Hoover, Lynn Schofield Clark, Lee Rainie

Nearly two-thirds of online Americans use the Internet for faith-related reasons. The 64% of Internet users who perform spiritual and religious activities online represent nearly 82 million Americans. Among the most popular and important spiritually-related online activities measured in a new national survey: 38% of the nation’s 128 million Internet users have sent and received email with spiritual content; 35% have sent or received online greeting cards related to religious holidays; 32% have gone online to read news accounts of religious events and affairs; 21% have sought information about how to celebrate religious holidays; 17% have looked for information about where they could attend religious services; 7% have made or responded to online prayer requests; and 7% have made donations to religious organizations or charities.

The survey provides clear evidence that the majority of the online faithful are there for personal spiritual reasons, including seeking outside their own traditions, but they are also deeply grounded in those traditions, and this Internet activity supplements their ties to traditional institutions, rather than moving them away from church. Higher percentages of the online faithful report online activities related to personal spirituality and religiosity than activities more related to involvement in traditional religious functions or organizations. This is interesting because many analysts have assumed that the Internet would make it more likely for people to leave churches in favor of more flexible online options for religious or spiritual activity. Faith-related activity online is a supplement to, rather than a substitute for offline religious life. The survey found that two-thirds of those who attend religious services weekly use the Internet for personal religious or spiritual purposes. They are more likely to be women, white, middle aged, college educated, and relatively well-to-do. In addition, they are somewhat more active as Internet users than the rest of the Internet population.

Online Evangelicals are a significant subgroup of the American religious landscape. This study found them to resemble other Protestants in terms of their Internet behaviors in some ways, but to be unique in other ways. They are slightly less experienced in Internet use than other categories of religious affiliation. But they are more likely than others to engage in all categories of online religious activity.

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Thursday, November 16, 2006

Children's 24/7 spirituality highlighted in Methodist research

By Ed Thornton

Despite the waning interest in institutional religion among the young, new research by the Methodist Church in the UK has found that children are getting stuck into activities outside traditional structures during the week.

An online survey conducted by MethodistChildren found that mid-week groups for children were nearly 100% bigger than Sunday groups and that, among the 43% of churches that had such groups, an average of 38 children attended.

“Many churches are doing great work on Sundays but it’s clear from our results that children want church to be more than just that – they want to go to activities during the week,” said Steve Pearce, the Church’s Children’s Secretary. “This survey shows that children and young people have a 24/7 spirituality that needs to be fed all the time.”

The survey found demand for mid-week activities was at its highest among the 9-13’s age group and that specific services sought by young people included a local forum to discuss ideas, more resources and more training.

Doug Swanney, the Church’s Children’s Work Development Officer, said the survey’s findings strengthened the case for churches to develop work on days other than just Sunday and to experiment with one-off events and holiday clubs. “It shows the opportunity churches now have for partnership with schools and clubs as they develop their extended services,” he said.

Swanney added: “The most significant finding of the survey is that when churches do something new, it usually works. Churches need to be ready to take the risk of trying new things – they might just surprise themselves with how successful they are.”

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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Young adults in U.S. abandoning biblical faith

New study shows many 20-to-40-year-olds don't believe in absolute truth

Posted: November 15, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

A poll comparing the moral and religious views of young adults in their 20s and 30s with the views of adults over 40 shows that the young adults are abandoning the biblical faith of their elders at an alarming rate, according to the Barna Group.
In terms of morals, adults in their 20s and 30s were at least twice as likely as their elders to have:

had a sexual encounter outside of marriage
used illegal drugs
gotten drunk
used profanity in public
lied
taken revenge
physically fought or physically abused someone
viewed sexually explicit videos
said mean things behind someone's back

The Barna poll also found that young adults are 10 times more likely than older adults to download or trade music online illegally.

The difference between young adults and older adults didn't occur only in the realm of moral behavior. Differences also appeared in what the two groups believed.
For example, young adults were more likely than older adults to reject the concept of absolute truth. They were also significantly less likely to believe, as their elders do, that human beings should determine what is right and wrong morally by examining God's principles. Also, young adults were twice as likely as older adults to believe ethics and morality are based on "what is right for the person."

Finally, even young Christian adults were more likely than older adults to accept same-sex marriage and premarital sex.

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Global Poll Shows Religious Belief Plummeting in Western Nations

Since 1992 importance of religion to Canadians declined from 61% to 39%, in U.S dropped from 83% to 63%, Muslims have by far highest belief

By Gudrun Schultz

VANCOUVER, B.C., November 14, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Religious belief is rapidly deteriorating in Canada and much of Europe, a new global poll conducted by Angus Reid for Maclean‘s Magazine shows, with just over a third of Canadians and only about one quarter of Europeans polled indicating religion is important to them.
The Angus Reid World Poll surveyed adults from 20 countries world wide on how important religion was to their daily lives. Over all, the response was evenly divided, with 48 percent of global respondents saying religion was very important to them, and 52 percent saying it was not.

The poll found a significant decrease in religious interest in Canada over the past 14 years. In 1992, 61 percent of Canadians said religion was important for their daily lives. In this years’ poll, only 39 percent said religion was important to them.

In European countries, respondents showed even less interest in religion. France had the lowest percentage of respondents indicating religion was important to them, at only 17 percent. Great Britain showed 23 percent, Germany 24 percent, and Roman Catholic Spain 31 percent. Religious interest remained high in Italy, with 51 percent of respondents indicating religion held an important place in their lives.
Middle Eastern countries, India, Mexico and South Africa all showed high levels of religious interest among the population.

The predominantly Muslim nations of Saudi Arabia and Egypt scored highest of all 20 nations surveyed, with 96 percent of Saudi Arabia’s population stating that the official religion of Islam was very important in their lives. 89 percent of Egyptians agreed.

South Africa scored third highest, with 70 percent of respondents saying religion was very important to them.

The U.S. population showed a greater interest in religion than its Western counterparts, with 63 percent of those polled saying religion was important in their lives. That number showed a marked decrease from 1992 results, however, which were recorded as 83 percent.

Mexican respondents indicated 65 percent of the population consider religion to be an important part of their lives, the highest response of predominately Catholic nations surveyed.

The poll results showed that while religious interest appears to be disintegrating in the West, religion continues to have a significant impact on the outlook of those who still consider it important. When asked if they felt optimistic about the future, 60 percent of respondents who expressed optimism in the future also said religion was very important to their daily lives.

Of the respondents who said they felt pessimistic about the future, 63 percent said religion was not important to them.

The poll was conducted in online interviews between Sept. 22 to Oct. 6, 2006, with 5,800 adults in 20 participating countries.

See poll results:
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewIte..."http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewIte...

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Faith Under Fire

Christianity being wiped
from tales of U.S. history

Posted: November 15, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

When Pastor Todd DuBord visited historical sites in the Washington, D.C., area recently he was thrilled with being on the site of so many events important to the founding of the United States.

He, and his wife, Tracy, were on a tour that visited Jamestown, Monticello, Mt. Vernon, Ford's Theater, the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, the U.S. Supreme Court Building, the Holocaust Museum, Korean War Memorial, World War II Memorial Vietnam Memorial, Washington Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and Lincoln Memorial.

But as a history buff, he noticed quickly that one influence from the nation's early years was left out – not just once or twice – but repeatedly.

DuBord, pastor of the Lake Almanor Community Church in California, said when visiting the Jamestown Museum and Settlement, and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, he noticed any of Christianity's influences on American history were ignored, or belittled.

His entire research compilation is available online. And he's written letters to the various organizations that manage the sites, asking them to correct the information they provide to visitors.

During his visit at Jamestown, he said, the tour guides several times said the first settlers arrived in America "to make money." "While this is partially true, it was not only totally overstated by its emphasis and repetition, but there was absolutely no hint of the religious purpose given and stated under the Virginia Charter of 1606, which called for the 'propagating of Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.'"

He said there also was absolutely no mention of the fact the colonists' first act, after having landed at Cape Henry on April 27, 1607, "was to erect a large wooden cross and hold a prayer meeting, conducted by their minister, Reverend Robert Hunt."

"As colonist George Percy noted back then, 'The nine and twentieth day we set up a cross at Chesupioc Bay, and named the place Cape Henry,'" DuBord pointed out to the history experts.

Later during the tour, when visitors were being led through the very heart of the replica of the community, the Anglican Church, the guide was asked about the significance of the various religious plaques, such as the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments, on the wall at the front of the church.

"Our guide's response was that she was unable to speak about it, a clear reference to all of us that she was trained to minimize the religious aspects of the settlement. We were all appalled, and shared so with her, especially understanding that this was an educational tour and that the religious education was being eliminated from the heart of a people who were devoutly Christian," DuBord said.

A similar situation developed at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home.

"Again, while our guide was cordial and informative about many matters, when asked about the religious faith of Thomas Jefferson, he abruptly and actually quite arrogantly said, 'We all know Jefferson was a strict deist [a person who believes in a Creator who does not involve Himself in the daily affairs of men], who ardently fought for the separation of Church and State,'" DeBord wrote.

The facts are that Jefferson used his political position to establish churches and distribute Bibles, DeBord found. "For example, in an 1803 federal Indian treaty, Jefferson willingly agreed to provide $300 to 'assist the said Kaskaskia tribe in the erection of a church' and to provide 'annually for seven years $100 towards the support of a Catholic priest.'"

Jefferson also set aside government lands so that Moravian missionaries might be helped in "promoting Christianity." And Jefferson once was chairman of the American Bible Society. Jefferson's "differences with American clergy" were not about eliminating Christianity from government, but to make sure a single denomination didn't become government, DuBord said.

"Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus….I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus," Jefferson said.

"While it is true that Jefferson was an advocate for the separation of the State from the Church, he was not attempting to neuter the government from any or all religious or even Christian influence," DuBord said history shows.

According to DuBord, Jefferson believed, as President Ronald Reagan once said:
"I know here that you will agree with me that standing up for America also means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. I believe this country hungers for a spiritual revival. I believe it longs to see traditional values reflected in public policy again. To those who cite the First Amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny."

"If Jefferson intended to utterly void religion from national laws and legislatures, then why would he have attended church services in the Capitol Building? (Which there were back in his day). And why would he warn our country from abandoning God with these convicting words to our nation (words now also inscribed on the wall of the Jefferson Memorial):" DuBord wrote.

"The God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever."

DuBord grew up without religion, but during seven years of academic study at Bethany University and Fuller Theological Seminary accepted that the claims of Christianity are true.

He's served in various prison, drug and alcohol rehab ministries and worked as a youth pastor and associate pastor before assuming his duties in Lake Almanor.

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Monday, November 13, 2006

Exploring the links between spirituality, mental health

A forum urges professionals to be sensitive to their clients' faiths and experiences.

By K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer
November 4, 2006

For decades, religion and psychotherapy — like oil and water — did not mix.

Clinical psychologists kept spirituality and religion out of their practice, while some religious people looked askance at psychotherapy.

Not anymore.

Mental health professionals and religious workers are breaking out of their traditional ways to adopt holistic approaches — looking to see what they can learn, unlearn and cull from one another to better serve people who come to them for help. Also evident is mutual respect.

At the third national conference on spirituality and mental health, sponsored by Pasadena-based Pacific Clinics last week in Burbank, 400 people in caring professions and ministries spent a day together to talk about the importance of spirituality and religion in mental health.

Speakers and attendees included psychotherapists, social workers and parish nurses, along with rabbis, Protestant pastors and Catholic nuns and priests.

"Personally, I look upon Jesus as the great healer of our souls and bodies, but I am delighted to see this connection now of psychotherapy and religion," said the Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith, head of Interreligious and Ecumenical Affairs for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. "It's wonderful."

With two plenary speakers and 10 experts conducting separate sessions — topics included the classical Buddhist technique of "mindfulness" and the emerging practice of "positive psychology" — there was something for everyone.

But one theme ran through "Spirituality and Mental Health: New Horizons, New Directions": People with solid spiritual foundations tend to be healthier and recover better when their lives turn for the worse.

Conversely, people entering treatment for drug addiction tend to show alienation from religion, low involvement in spiritual practices or unusually low rates of religious affiliation, he said. Miller is regarded as a pioneer researcher on the use of spirituality in substance abuse treatment and recently retired as a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of New Mexico.

In the context of the conference, spirituality was viewed broadly — encompassing not only religions, belief in God or some other higher power, but also thoughts, feelings, experiences and actions related to a search for the sacred.

In one well-attended session, the Rev. Siang-Yang Tan, a professor of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, talked about spiritually oriented psychotherapy.

Whatever spiritual intervention that therapists might choose — Scriptures, prayer or silence — must be relevant to the disorder under treatment, said Tan, a clinical psychologist and senior pastor of First Evangelical Church in Glendale.

Even when a therapist and client come from the same religious background, one cannot assume anything. Suppose a Christian therapist has a charismatic client who wants to pray in tongues, a practice that makes that therapist feel uncomfortable, Tan said.

"The best thing is to refer the client to a Pentecostal counselor," he said.

But Tan said all mental health professionals must be sensitive to spiritual and religious clients and that aspect of their lives.

He also spoke of the new movement called positive psychology, being developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

Its direction is toward the "positive sides of human experiences," emphasizing virtues, character strengths and learning to be grateful, he said.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

Press Release Source: White House Press Office

Remarks by President Bush At Ceremonial Groundbreaking of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial

Monday November 13, 2:50 pm ET

National Mall
Washington, D.C.

10:07 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. I'm honored to join you today in today's ceremony. I'm proud to dedicate this piece of our Nation's Capital to the lasting memory of a great man.

We have gathered in tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, to the ideals he held and to the life he lived. Dr. King showed us that a life of conscience and purpose can lift up many souls. And on this ground, a monument will rise that preserves his legacy for the ages. Honoring Dr. King's legacy requires more than building a monument; it required the ongoing commitment of every American. So we will continue to work for the day when the dignity and humanity of every person is respected, and the American promise is denied no one.

This project has been over a decade in the making, and I thank those who have worked to bring about this day. I particularly want to thank my predecessor, the man who signed the legislation to create this memorial, President Bill Clinton. (Applause.) It sounds like to me they haven't forgotten you yet. (Laughter.) He's become, as you know, my fourth brother. (Laughter.)

I want to thank Harry Johnson. I appreciate the members of my Cabinet who are here. I welcome the members of Congress. I thank my Mayor, Tony Williams, who is here. I'm proud to be with the members of the King family. I thank the representatives of the community and civil rights groups who have joined us. I thank the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation board members and executive cabinet. Most of all, thank you all for coming. (Applause.)

Our Declaration of Independence makes it clear that the human right to dignity and equality is not a grant of government. It is the gift from the Author of Life. And Martin Luther King considered the Declaration one of America's great, as he called it, "charters of freedom." He called our founders' words, "a promise that all men -- yes, black men, as well as white men -- would be guaranteed the unalienable right of liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness."

Throughout Dr. King's life, he continued to trust in the power of those words, even when the practice of America did not live up to their promise. When Martin Luther King came to Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1963, he came to hold this nation to its own standards, and to call its citizens to live up to the principles of our founding. He stood not far from here, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. With thousands gathered around him, Dr. King looked out over the American capital and declared his famous words, "I have a dream."

His dream spread a message of hope that echoed from his hometown of Sweet Auburn, Georgia, to the pulpit of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. An assassin's bullet could not shatter the dream. Dr. King's message of justice and brotherhood took hold in the hearts of men and women across the great land of ours. It continues to inspire millions across the world.

As we break ground, we give Martin Luther King his rightful place among the great Americans honored on our National Mall. The King Memorial will span a piece of ground between the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. And by its presence in this place it will unite the men who declared the promise of America and defended the promise of America with the man who redeemed the promise of America. (Applause.)

The memorial will reflect the arc of Dr. King's life, his search for justice, and the enduring beauty of his words. The memorial will include a wall where visitors can read passages from Dr. King's sermons and speeches through a stream of water. And on the banks of the Potomac, visitors will walk from the Mountain of Despair to the Stone of Hope, where Dr. King's image is rendered.

Today we see only these open acres, yet we know that when the work is done, the King Memorial will be a fitting tribute, powerful and hopeful and poetic, like the man it honors. As we break ground, we remember the great obstacles that Dr. King overcame and the courage that transformed American history. The years of Martin Luther King's life were tumultuous, difficult, and an heroic time in the life of our country. Across our nation, African Americans faced daily cruelties and pervasive wrongs. In 1955, a woman, Rosa Parks, challenged these wrongs on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, when she refused a driver's order to give her seat to a white man. Her act of defiance inspired a young Baptist minister and changed our nation forever.

Within days of Rosa Parks' lonely protest, Dr. King helped organize a boycott that captured the attention of our country. When Dr. King's leadership -- with Dr. King's leadership, the boycott forced America to confront the glaring contradiction between the sign on the bus and the words of our Declaration of Independence. And on this date, exactly 50 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled the segregation of public buses unconstitutional. And so today we celebrate the courage that won victories and helped spark one of the greatest movements for equality and freedom in American history.

Eventually, the civil rights movement would succeed in persuading Congress to pass sweeping legislation that represented a new founding for our nation. On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act at the White House. As of that date, no longer could weary travelers be denied a room in a hotel, or a table at a restaurant on account of their race. And no longer could any American be forced to drink from a separate water fountain, or sit at the back of the bus just because of their race.

Dr. King liked to say that our Civil Rights Act was written in the streets by citizens who marched for the idea that all men are created equal. He was right; yet there is no doubt that the law came as it did when it did because of the courage and leadership of Martin Luther King.

As we break ground, we recognize our duty to continue the unfinished work of American freedom. America has come a long way since Dr. King's day; yet our journey to justice is not complete. There are still people in our society who hurt, neighborhoods are too poor. There are still children who do not get the education they need to fulfill their God-given potential. There's still prejudice that holds citizens back. And there's still a need for all Americans to hear the words of Dr. King so we can hasten the day when his message of hope takes hold in every community across our country.

We go forward with the knowledge that the Creator who wrote the desire for liberty in our hearts also gives us the strength and wisdom to fulfill it. We go forward with trust that God, who has brought us thus far on the way, will give us the strength to finish the journey. And we go forward with the confidence that no matter how difficult the challenge, if we remain true to our founding principles, America will overcome.

Dr. King was on this Earth just 39 years, but the ideas that guided his work and his life are eternal. Here in this place, we will raise a lasting memorial to those eternal truths. So in the presence of his family, his coworkers in freedom's cause, and those who carry on his legacy today, I'm proud to dedicate this ground on behalf of the American people as the site of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. May God bless you all. (Applause.)

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A broader context

November 13, 2006

A course in world religions gives students an understanding of divergent cultures

By Paris Achen

From a classroom in Medford's most prominent Catholic school, Patrick Naumes quizzes his pupils on the tenets of Hinduism and Buddhism.

A course in world religions is required for high school graduation at the independent college-preparatory school of nearly 400 students on Black Oak Drive.
During the year-long survey, pupils learn in depth about all the major religions from Judaism to Islam.

Knowledge of other religions gives pupils a cultural and political insight into historic and current world events and improves intercultural and interdenominational relations, even within the school, where not all of the students are Catholic, said teachers and students from world religions classes.

"In this global society, it's important to understand how the world operates, and part of the way the world operates is religion," said Jim Meyer, head of St. Mary's upper school. "Colleges will see these students are people who want to know and understand the world around them."

A Harvard University curriculum committee last month recommended requiring at least one course in religion for graduation, noting the significant role faith plays in shaping domestic and international politics and events.

The committee found religious education is lacking in most institutions of higher education.

"It's important to teach religion because it's such a huge part of life," said Kelsey Gross, a St. Mary's sophomore who is not religious. "If you're not learning the beliefs of other religions when you are learning history, you are lacking a huge source of what is causing the conflict" or other event..

Yet, public school administrators tend to shy away from such classes, as they can stir controversy and potentially cause conflict among parents, Bloomquist said.
Meanwhile, under the No Child Left Behind Act, teachers in public schools spend more and more time prodding students to master just the basics such as reading, writing and math, leaving less time for other subjects.

While the fear that teaching religion could alienate some students has prevailed in some public schools, non-Catholic students at St. Mary's say the world religions class there has the opposite effect.

"I think talking about different religions actually brings more awareness to everyone instead of isolating anyone because we not only hear the Catholic side, we also hear the Jewish side, the Muslim side, the Hindu side," Kelsey said.

In the spring each year, students have the option of going on a class trip to San Francisco, where they see religion in practice, from a Jewish synagogue to an Egyptian Coptic Christian church.

By giving equal time to each major religion, religious schools could end up sending the message that all religions are equal, which some parents who send their children to private schools to help solidify knowledge and beliefs in their own faith might oppose, said Paul Hammer, headmaster of the Catholic Guadalupe Education Center in Medford.

"You can't live with blinders on in your life," Meyer said. "Our students have a firm Catholic foundation, but they also understand the reality that other cultures and religions exist in the world."

That is especially true during a time when the world has become more global, he said.
"I think the class broadens people's perspective in being able to accept people for what they are and not using stereotypes," such as all Muslims are terrorists, said Bryan Bolint, a junior who comes from a Lutheran family. "It helps you meet people of all different religions without drawing conclusions right away."

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

The American Way of Death: Gallup Poll Results

by Laurence J. O'Connell

After several decades of bearing witness to the indignities sometimes associated with high-tech death, Americans have begun to insist that dying is more than a clinical event. "The American people want to reclaim and reassert the spiritual dimensions of dying," said George H. Gallup, Jr., chairman of the George H. Gallup International Institute, of his organization's recent national survey, Spiritual Beliefs and the Dying Process. The Park Ridge Center hosted the first of three national gatherings to discuss key findings of the survey, which was commissioned by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Fetzer Institute.

The survey, based on telephone interviews with 1200 adults 18 and older, explored three clusters of attitudes and behaviors: 1) how people find comfort in their dying days; 2) things that worry people when they think about their own death; and 3) how people plan for disability or death, including the possibility of physician-assisted suicide. The study also considered factors that might account for variations in these attitudes and behaviors, namely, life situations, demographic characteristics, and spiritual beliefs.

The survey emphasized the importance of human contact as a source of both spiritual and emotional support at the time of death. People look to family (81%) or close friends (61%) to provide this support. A minority of Americans sees the clergy as capable of providing broad spiritual support. Only 36% believe members of the clergy could effectively comfort them. This statistic gives credibility to a recent statement by Charles Halpern, president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation: "Seminaries and major religious groups need to acknowledge the needs of the dying, and then find ways to devote more theological and practical training to spiritual needs at the end of life."

The Gallup study listed 24 different matters that might worry respondents as they think about their own deaths. Although medical concerns— such as suffering great pain or living in a vegetative state—are prominent among all age groups, specifically spiritual concerns were most pronounced among younger adults. For example, 72% of the 18 to 24 year-olds worried about not being forgiven by God, and 63% of them feared dying cut off from God or a higher power. One might surmise that younger people are still struggling with the shape of their personal spirituality and thus feel less confident about facing ultimate questions.

The question of physician-assisted suicide continues to elicit divided opinions. For example, 33% support making it legal under a wide variety of conditions, while 32% support making it legal in a few cases and 31% oppose making it legal for any reason. Minorities and those over 55 are more likely to oppose physician-assisted suicide. Those who identify closely with a particular faith are most likely to oppose it.

But Americans split down the middle on the question of whether they can envision a situation in which they would request physician-assisted suicide for themselves. Fifty percent said they would, and 47% said they would not. Younger people were more likely to support physician-assisted suicide and to see it as a personal option.
When asked if they would consider very painful treatment if given a 50/50 chance of survival, a majority of Americans said they would opt for the treatment. When the odds became one in four, 70% chose easing pain rather than extending life. One might expect those with the strongest religious faith to be more willing to accept death. But those who said that their religious faith was the most important thing in their lives and that their lives belonged to God were more likely to choose extending them, even at the cost of significant pain and with greatly reduced odds. Does religious faith somehow engender a deeper appreciation of life's value? Does it sometimes bestow a sense of stewardship that celebrates the preciousness of every moment of life no matter how diminished or painful?

Only 28% of Americans have signed any type of legal document that either appoints someone to make medical decisions for them or describes the type of care they would want. Those most likely to have signed such documents are the elderly (40% of those over 65), college graduates (36%), and the widowed (50%). And of those who have signed such documents, 82% have told a family member, but only 15% have informed a lawyer or medical professional.

This national survey comes at a time when the public and the media seem more receptive than ever to frank discussion of the way we die in America. The findings deserve wide dissemination and serious attention.

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Humanity’s Team, Your Local ‘Amorist’ Organization

Springfield, Oregon (PRWEB) June 7, 2005

Let’s call the organization, for lack of an established term, an “amorist” organization — the opposite of a “terrorist” organization. And imagine that the news report said this organization was positively transforming people’s lives worldwide.

If you heard this, would your interest rise? Is it possible that a glimmer of hope would spring up inside you, knowing that people around the world are creating positive change in this spirit? Would you smile after learning that these “amorist cells” have been meeting and organizing in living rooms and spiritual centers for the past several years, quietly and without fanfare? Would you consider joining them?

When was the last time you read an article about this organization? Maybe you’ve never read one — until now.

The organization is Humanity’s Team, a worldwide spiritual movement whose purpose is to communicate and implement the belief that we are all one, one with God and one with life, in a shared global state of being, so that the behavior of humanity may shift to reflect this understanding. Dubbed “a civil rights movement for the soul,” the movement has some 15,000 adherents from more than 90 countries on six continents.

But in the face of the dauntingly complex dynamics of the world today, how do these ordinary people imagine that they can make a difference? What do they propose as a way of resolving the host of economic, political, military and social problems?

The answer they propose is this: Shift what you believe and the world shifts with you.

It was once said this way: “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours … everything is possible for him who believes.”

It has also been said this way: “All wrongdoing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrongdoing remain? We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

And this way: “Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.”

Or this: “You will not enter paradise until you have faith.”

While religions have formed around the people who said these things, Humanity’s Team is not tied to any religion, nor is it creating a new one. Instead, its intent is to create a space for a New Spirituality to emerge, a spirituality that will enhance and enlarge the world’s religions; update them, refresh them, render all of their current sacred teachings even more relevant to our present day and time; a spirituality that will recognize all we share while celebrating our differences.

Humanity’s Team sees the root cause of global conflict and suffering to be the same as the root cause of individual conflict and suffering: It comes from our cultural values and most sacred beliefs — in other words, our spirituality: what we believe about ourselves, about life and about our relationship to the divine. Political, economic and military problems are merely by-products of a spiritual problem, according to Humanity’s Team.

If we believe that we are inherently bad, born that way, we will experience ourselves in that way in all aspects of our lives. If we believe that we are not connected to each other and separate from our Creator, we will experience ourselves in that way. If we see our Creator as a punisher, as a being that gets angry and greets misbehavior with endless physical and mental torture, we will live in fear of divine retribution.

Humanity’s Team simply asks people to open their minds to the possibility that our current theologies may be limited in what they understand.

It is not asking anyone to condemn or abandon their religions, nor is it suggesting that religions don’t have the best of intentions. Rather, it is asking people to examine their belief systems, courageously explore new understandings about God and life, and if those new understandings align with their personal inner truth and knowing, enlarge their belief systems to include them. Growing numbers of people are indeed expanding their belief systems to include larger possibilities and larger realities than they might have been willing to consider before. And they are doing this because they recognize that when we change what we believe, we will change how we behave.

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God in public life tops faith agenda

Tuesday, 7th November 2006

PEOPLE who campaign for the removal of religion from public life are themselves guilty of an "intolerant faith position", leaders of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches claimed today.

Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, leader of Catholics in England and Wales, argue that religiously-inspired activity in public life can be "radically inclusive."

Their remarks are made in a joint foreword to the report Doing God: A Future for Faith in the Public Square published today by the newly-formed Theos religious think tank.

The report argues against confining faith to the private sphere, and says that religion will play an increasingly significant role due to the return of civil society, research about the role it plays in happiness, and the politics of identity.

"Many secularist commentators argue that the growing role of faith in society represents a dangerous development," the Archbishops said in the foreword.

"If we pay attention to what is actually happening in the United Kingdom and beyond, we will see that religiously-inspired public engagement need not be sectarian, and can in fact be radically inclusive."

The Archbishop's remarks come after controversy in recent weeks over faith schools and the popularity of militant atheist Richard Dawkins, the Oxford University professor whose book The God Delusion has been a best-seller.

The Government indicated last week that schools in England will have a duty to promote "community cohesion" following its U-turn over plans to force faith schools to accept more pupils from non-religious backgrounds.

'Consensus'

Education Secretary Alan Johnson said there had not been "sufficient consensus" over the move to give councils the power to require new faith schools to accept up to a quarter of pupils from other faiths, or none.

Director of Theos, Paul Woolley, said: "It is clear that society is embarking on a process of rapid de-secularisation.

"It is no longer considered bold, brave and brilliant to argue that religion is an infantile delusion.

"Interest in faith is increasing across Western culture. Religion is firmly on the agenda of both government and the media, and Theos aims to speak into this new context."

But Terry Sanderson, vice president of the National Secular Society, claimed religious engagement "in the public square" was "all-too-often divisive and discriminatory."

He said: "Atheists or secularists may ask questions that archbishops would prefer not to hear, but religious intolerance in Britain, especially over freedom of speech, comes almost exclusively from Christian evangelicals and minority faiths.

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Monday, November 06, 2006

Spiritual Perspectives - Seeking the Impossible

By Sanjay Choudhrie
Special to The Independent

Like every non-profit executive, small business owner and corporate CEO, I have to worry or spend large amounts of time managing cash flow. Every day we make investment decisions that we hope will pay off in the long term by directing resources to programs and cost centers so that we can meet our bottom lines.

And yet in the larger scale of things, managing the flow of resources or investing scarce resources is a small part of the universe of managing a corporation. The bigger issues are in the magnitude of the challenge. Did Martin Luther or Jan Huus know the costs they would pay in challenging the might of the Church?

They took on the mightiest power on earth of that time and one of them was lucky to live.

The other Sunday Keith Bulthuis was talking about the story of the feeding of the five thousand. He said that we often think of the disciples as lacking forethought and not being strategic when they abjectly confess that even if they had the wherewithal, there was no place to get enough to feed the hungry multitudes. Here's what got me though Jesus presented them with that challenge only because he wanted them to rely on God. They were not presented with an easy achievable challenge, but a difficult challenge for which they needed to rely on God to provide resources to meet the need.

In our work of seeking to end homelessness by enabling poor people to rent and eventually buy their own homes and having decent pay for decent work I wonder if we have not chosen the impossible. We are forced to rely on God for our daily needs, bi-weekly payroll, resources for investment in housing and job creation. And ultimately, for transforming the lives of our clients by making their hope real.

I think of that story in the context of my work. We never have too much money. And if we do have money, then we don't have people. As you know, this is the poorest county in New Mexico, and we are fighting to be in the top ten poorest counties in this nation. Poverty, I am discovering in the context of my work, is not just the lack of resources or rich people to beg money from. It is the lack of hope and imagination. Poverty is about despair and defeat, which are more mindsets than bank balances.

The leaders of the American Revolution, the founders of churches, Pope John XXIII, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther, and Martin Luther King Jr. and the numerous congregations of the saints who seek to live their faith are and were seeking the impossible.

But seeking the impossible seems to be what it is all about. It is only then that one is forced to rely on God not on one's faith in God, which my case seems inadequate, but in God's faith in us.

Addressing poverty and homelessness. Taking on enterprises that change the world with little qualification to do so look at Jesus' disciples seem to be more about recognizing that God's vision is larger than we can imagine. Yes, the religious life is about faith. It is about getting up again, after a day of defeat, to persistently seek God's faith. Without God's faith, we are truly poor.

I believe we are all called to be part of God's vision and faith. Yes, finding that intersection between our lives and God's vision and faith can be the journey of a lifetime. And it is possible to miss it for the scenery and other distractions that can afflict travelers. But if you take the time and effort to seek this intersection, then you will have found your true calling. In the words of Frederick Buechner, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world's deepest hunger meet."

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The inspiring journey of a spiritual adviser

Monday, November 06, 2006

BY KELLY ROUBA

Special to the Times

EWING -- As spiritual adviser to convicted murderer and rapist Elmo Patrick Sonnier, Sister Helen Prejean refused to abandon him, even as his final moments on death row drew near.

Watching as Sonnier was forced to shave his head and eyebrows, Prejean stood by his side while the final preparations were carried out before his electrocution. After Sonnier was pronounced dead, Prejean said, "I came out (of the room) and I threw up."

Realizing that what she witnessed is something rarely viewed by the public, Prejean thought to herself, "It's like a secret ritual. I've got to be the one to tell the story."

In addition to speaking out publicly against what she feels is a torturous form of punishment, Prejean was encouraged to put her story into print.

Her first book, "Dead Man Walking," published in 1993, is based on Sonnier's crime and was later turned into a movie starring Susan Sarandon as Prejean and Sean Penn as a death row inmate. The movie earned four Oscar nominations and Sarandon took home the award for Best Actress.

Although Sonnier was put to death in 1984, Prejean continues to talk about her experience and recently spoke to students and others at The College of New Jersey as part of the school's Women in Learning and Leadership program.

As she talked about her journey into the sisterhood, Prejean said she never expected that she would be working with some of the most hardened criminals. "You don't become a nun thinking you're going to be working on death row," Prejean said. "I wanted to be a teacher."

While tutoring at an adult learning center in St. Thomas, La., in 1981, Prejean was asked to write to the only inmate on death row in the state.

After she began corresponding with Sonnier, Prejean agreed to meet with him. When she arrived at the penitentiary, she said she felt scared and out of her element. Prejean said she thought, "I can't play the nun card here. They don't give a hoot about nuns."

While she waited for Sonnier to enter the small visitation room, which contained a mesh screen to keep them divided, Prejean said, "I heard the chains dragging across the floor as he walked."

When they met, Prejean recalled, "I couldn't believe the human-ness of his face. And he was smiling."

Although they didn't discuss the nature of his crime, Prejean said the two had no trouble filling the two-hour visitation period with conversation. Prejean continued to visit Sonnier until his death, putting her hand up against the mesh wire to meet with his hand each time she said goodbye.

Through their visits and after doing some of her own research, Prejean said she began to learn about his crime. Prejean said that Sonnier and his brother Eddie James Sonnier were both convicted of murdering teenagers David LeBlanc and Loretta Ann Bourque in 1977.

"(LeBlanc and Bourque) had gone to a high-school football game on a Friday night and afterwards, they went to a lover's lane," Prejean said, adding that when the brothers noticed them, they began waving guns at them and told the teens that they were trespassing.

The brothers drove the teens to a field more than 20 miles away and raped Bourque before shooting the teens in the back of their heads.

"Eddie was the one who murdered," Prejean said.

Although she was outraged by what happened, Prejean continued to mentor Elmo Patrick Sonnier. "I prayed for him because it was never supposed to happen," she said. "Eddie just lost control."

To this day, Prejean still serves as a spiritual adviser for convicts as well as the families of their victims. She also continues to advocate against the death penalty. Looking at the audience, she asked, "Does the death penalty really help victims' families?"

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Hollywood's Fledgling Faith

Date: 2006-11-05

Religion Showing Up More in Film and TV
By Father John Flynn

NEW YORK, NOV. 5, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Hollywood seems to have found a bit of faith in movies with religious content, or at least faith in these films' ability to make money. A spate of new releases in October sparked off interest in the media about the new trend.

The first to come out was "Facing the Giants," which was produced by a Baptist church and uses a story based on high school football to get across a Christian message.

In its first 10 days the film made $2.7 million, well above its low budget of $100,000, the Washington Post reported Oct. 10. According to the newspaper, three years ago the members of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, decided to make a movie. It proved to be a success, despite its largely inexperienced cast and crew.

The protagonist of the film is a high school football coach who has a number of personal and professional problems. His life changes when he adopts a philosophy of life based on the Bible.

Enthusiasts for religious films have other selections available too. "One Night With the King," another new movie, is based on the Old Testament's Book of Esther. The $18 million film was produced by Paul Crouch. His company, Gener8xionEntertainment, was founded to place Christian messages into the wider culture, reported the Dallas Morning News in an article Oct. 7.

Then, in late October, came "Conversations With God," based on a book by Neale Donald Walsch, an author described by the Dallas Morning News at "New Agey." Walsch claims to channel conversations with the Almighty.

The start of December will see "The Nativity Story," from New Line Cinema. Like Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," the nativity film was partially shot in Matera, Italy.

Box office success

Interest in religious-based films has grown after the success of Gibson's "Passion." That film sold around $370 million of tickets in the United States, and almost $612 million worldwide, the Dallas Morning News observed. Then came "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which grossed $745 million globally. And "The Da Vinci Code," which was at least based on a religious theme, even if not friendly to religion, grossed $754 million.

The films that came out in October were from small independent producers, but the bigger studios are also interested. The Los Angeles Times reported Sept. 19 that Fox Entertainment, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is establishing a division called FoxFaith. It plans to produce up to a dozen films a year.

"A segment of the market is starving for this type of content," said Simon Swart, general manager of Fox's U.S. home entertainment unit. According to the Los Angeles Times, FoxFaith will target evangelical Christians. The films will be based on Christian books and will have relatively small budgets, of around $5 million.

The move by Fox follows on its inauguration last year of a FoxFaith Website that has already sold 30 million faith-based DVD titles to Christian retailers.

There are drawbacks, however, to the film industry's interest in religion. On Aug. 25 the Times newspaper of London reported that a film on St. Teresa of Avila is drawing protests. "Teresa: Death and Life" was criticized by Benedicta Ward, a reader in the history of Christian spirituality in the Theology Faculty at Oxford University. Ward wrote the introduction to a recent edition of St. Teresa's autobiography.

She criticized the film for its stress on St. Teresa's virginity and sexuality, and said it would be more historically accurate for the film to concentrate on Teresa's mystical and spiritual activities.

Negative television

Religion has a harder time on the smaller screen, with the United Kingdom's BBC coming in for strong criticism recently. On Oct. 1 a BBC1 Panorama program broadcast a documentary, "Sex Crimes and the Vatican." It alleged a cover-up by the Catholic Church of sexual abuses committed by priests against children, and accused the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of being responsible.

The accusations made by the BBC are "malicious and untrue and based on a false presentation of church documents," said the archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in a letter Oct. 2. The cardinal also expressed his surprise that the BBC made no attempt to contact the Church in England to seek accurate information on the subject.

The BBC had come under fire earlier for a three-part series on miracles, reported the Canadian newspaper National Post on July 22. Among other things the show suggested that the body of Jesus might have been thrown on a rubbish tip and eaten by dogs, rather than being resurrected.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the NBC network came under fire for a decision about an animated children's TV series, "VeggieTales." The series regularly contains religious material and was recently acquired by NBC. Since buying the rights to the programs NBC ordered that most of the references to God and the Bible be eliminated, reported the New York Times on Sept. 23.

In the same week NBC was censoring "VeggieTales" it gave the go-ahead to televising a concert by pop singer Madonna that included a crucifixion scene widely condemned as offensive to Christians.

Meeting the challenge

In order to orient Catholics in their use of the media, some bishops' conferences have issued guidelines. In August the Canadian bishops published a document entitled "The Media: A Fascinating Challenge for the Family."

The media have immense power due to their pervasive presence, the bishops noted. This can be positive, if the media inform and educate. "But they also have the capacity to harm the family by presenting a false vision of life, love, family, morality and religious beliefs," the document warned.

It recommended that families train themselves to view the media with a critical eye, basing themselves in their faith and a passion for the truth. The bishops also called upon the faithful to make their own contribution in communicating the Church's message through the media. They suggested reacting to media bias against religion by means of protests.

Being a "media-savvy family" means putting a limit on the time spent using the means of social communications and choosing appropriate programs, especially for children. The document set out a series of recommendations for parents on how to instruct their children on media use.

Earlier in the year, in February, the Australian bishops' conference published "Go Tell Everyone: A Pastoral Letter on the Church and the Media." The prelates recognized the positive aspects of the media, for example, on occasion of the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI.

Nevertheless, not all is positive. The Australian pastoral letter called on Church members to be "critical users," not "passive consumers," of the media. Exhorting the faithful, the letter commented: "The strength of our message lies in the authenticity with which it is presented."

It concluded: "Each of us is called to step forward in faith and with courage to play our part by using the media wisely and well in proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth."

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Near Death Experience

Posted by David Romanelli
on Fri, Nov 03, 2006, 2:29 pm PST

“Mystery is another name for our ignorance; if we were omniscient, all would be perfectly plain.” – Tryon Edwards

The near death experience is very much in the mainstream. There have been related movies, bestselling books, and TV specials. With modern techniques of resuscitation, near death experiences (NDE) occur with increasing frequency. In fact, 13 million Americans or 5% of the population have reported having an NDE.* The term was coined by Dr. Raymond Moody, who along with spiritual author Elizabeth Kubler Ross, plugged the concept into the collective consciousness back in the 70’s. NDE’s are reported by those who’ve been revived from cardiac arrest or other similarly fatal conditions. They are generally characterized by “a feeling of serenity, floating out of one’s body, a journey through a dark passageway to a warm light, and encounters with a supernatural presence or a meeting with dead relatives.” **

There are those who dismiss the phenomenon with a scientific explanation. Dr. Rick Strassman, while conducting DMT research in the 1990s at the University of New Mexico, suggested that Dimethyltryptamine from the pineal gland released prior to death or near death created the visions and hallucinations typical of an NDE.*** Maybe they’re real, maybe they’re not. As Deepak Chopra said, “In the India of my childhood, the hereafter wasn’t a place, but a state of awareness.”*

Here are some mysterious facts about NDEs that will give you the chills:

1. Brain Dead NDEs

NDEs occasionally occur in people who register flat brain scans. This means it would have been impossible for their brain to imagine anything yet these people have vivid mental experiences of an afterlife.**

In December of 1981, Owen Thomas was badly injured and by the time he arrived at the New York Infirmary, he had no pulse, no blood pressure, no breath, nothing. With punctures to the heart, liver, intestines, and one lung, Thomas was described by an ER doctor as very dead and “cold to the touch.” After vigorous CPR, he was miraculously revived. The ER doctor said it was “the most wondrous thing we’ve ever experienced.” Thomas recalled a rich, vivid NDE.**

Atheist NDEs

One might think NDEs occur in the failing imaginations of more religious folk. But a nationwide Gallup pole found no connection “between religious devotion and the likelihood of paranormal vision during severe medical trauma.”**

The NDE Posse

IANDS stands for the International Association for Near Death Studies. A member of this group, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, discusses implications of NDE’s for the future of science and medicine and poses this question: “How is consciousness related to the integrity of brain function?” In many well-documented cases, people have died with their bodies turning cold yet they are revived and can vividly report specific details about their resuscitation. Will modern medicine one day proove that while the body ceases to function, a certain part of the brain continues?

“Is there a start or an end to consciousness?” – Dr. Van Lommel

Sources:

* "Life After Death" by Deepak Chopra

** "Time" magazine (speical edition: Exploring The Unexplained) currently on newstands

*** Wikipedia

**** iands.org

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Friday, November 03, 2006

How to get Teens Excited About God

Youth ministers are seeking clues in the results of a new survey of teens and the church, which shows a spiritual longing that is often not fulfilled

By SONJA STEPTOE
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 01, 2006

It's a question nearly as old as the Testaments: How can church leaders forge a lasting bond with young people?

Youth ministers seeking clues will find many in the results of a new survey of what teens want from church. Pollsters from Barna Group, which tracks teen religious activity, asked 2,400 teens to rank the reasons they attend worship services. Gaining a better understanding of what they believe and making a connection with God topped the list, followed closely by wanting to volunteer to help others and to spend time with friends. Also registering as "very important" factors, though to a lesser extent, were classes studying the Bible as well as issues surrounding religious faith.

When coupled with conclusions of scholarly research, a pattern emerges. "The amount of freedom and opportunity kids have in high school to express and wrestle with doubt, the mysteries of scripture and its applicability to the problems in their own lives is related to the maturity of their faith [as young adults]," says Kara Powell, executive director of Fuller Seminary's Center for Youth and Family Ministry.

The poll also confirms anecdotal evidence collected by those who regularly interact with adolescents. "I've talked to a lot of kids with emotional pain and pent-up anger stemming from a variety of factors including divorce and abuse, and they are looking for hope and help in the church," says Shannon Primicerio, a lecturer and author on religious topics whose work is targeted to teens.

There's a lot at stake. Those who seek but don't find typically abandon religion, often never to return, says Justin Taylor, whose theologica.blogspot.com blog mixes theology, culture and politics. "So many youth ministries quickly become irrelevant to teens," he says, "because pastors get kids excited with cool video clips and cutting-edge music, but then when a parent gets cancer and the teenager is lying in bed wondering what life is all about, he or she discovers there's nothing to sustain them."

Furthermore, there's good reason to believe that the current generation of young adults are fleeing church in greater numbers and will be harder to lure back than previous ones. Although 61% of people in the 20-29 age group participated in church activities during their teens, that entire chunk now falls into the spiritually disengaged category. Moreover, only a third of 20-somethings who are parents regularly take their children to church, compared with 40% of parents in their 30s and half of parents who are 40 or older. "Even the impulse of parenthood—when people's desire to supply spiritual guidance for their children traditionally pulls them back to church—is weakening," concludes David Kinnaman, Barna's research director.

"Despite all that's been done in youth ministry in the past 20 to 40 years, at the present rate we're looking at only a small percentage of people who are teens now becoming Bible-believing evangelicals as adults," laments Ron Luce, president of TeenMania, the parachurch organization that has attracted more than 200,000 teens to its stadium-worship events and missions activities already this year. To lower the odds of that outcome, TeenMania will work with 100,000 churches starting next year, planning ministry events aimed at attracting more young people to the pews. The goal is mighty ambitious: to double the size of each of the youth congregations annually over the next five years. Says a determined Luce, "The only way to do it is to teach them to become serious followers of Christ so that the Bible becomes the compass for their lives, rather than pop culture."

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

While Most U.S. Adults Believe in God...

While Most U.S. Adults Believe in God, Only 58 Percent are 'Absolutely Certain'
There is no consensus on God's gender, form or degree of control over events on earth

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Multinational surveys have often reported that Americans are much more likely to believe in God than people in most other developed countries, particularly in Europe. However, a new Harris Poll finds that 42 percent of all U.S. adults say they are not "absolutely certain" there is a God, including 15 percent who are "somewhat certain," 11 percent who think there is probably no God and 16 percent who are not sure.

These are the results of a Harris Poll conducted online by Harris Interactive(R) between October 4 and 10, 2006 with a nationwide sample of 2,010 U.S. adults.

Important difference between online surveys and surveys conducted by
telephone interviewers

Over the last few years, several different surveys have found that more people admit to potentially embarrassing beliefs or behaviors when answering online surveys (without interviewers) than admit to these behaviors when talking to interviewers in telephone surveys. They are also three times more likely to say that their sexual orientation is gay, lesbian or bi-sexual. Researchers call this unwillingness to give honest answers to some questions in telephone surveys a "social desirability bias."

It is therefore no surprise that in this online survey, more people say they are not absolutely certain there is a God than have given similar replies in other surveys conducted by telephone.

Differences between different religious groups

Not everyone who describes themselves as Christian or Jewish believes in God. Indeed, only 76 percent of Protestants, 64 percent of Catholics, and 30 percent of Jews say they are "absolutely certain" there is a God. However, most Christians who describe themselves as "Born Again" (93%) are absolutely certain there is a God.

Differences between different demographic groups

Demographic groups that are more likely to say they are absolutely certain that there is a God include:

* People in all age groups 40 and over (63% of those ages 40 to 49, 65% of
those ages 50 to 64 and 65% of those ages 65 and over) compared to
people in age groups under 40 (45% of those ages 18 to 24, 43% of those
ages 25 to 29 and 54% of those ages 30 to 39);

* Women (62%) slightly more than men (54%);

* African Americans (71%) compared to Hispanics (61%) and Whites (57%);

* Republicans (73%) more than Democrats (54%) or Independents (51%);

* People with no college education (62%) or who have some college
education (57%) compared to college graduates (50%) and those with post-
graduate degrees (53%).

Frequency of attending religious services

Approximately one-third (35%) of all adults claim to attend a religious service once a month or more often, including 26 percent who say they attend every week or more often. Almost half of all adults (46%) say they attend services a few times a year or less often, while eighteen percent say the never attend religious services.
Those who attend religious services once a month or more often include 48 percent of Protestants, 46 percent of Catholics, and 12 percent of Jews. However, more than two-thirds (68%) of Born Again Christians attend Church once a month or more often.

Is God male or female?

The public is almost equally divided between those who think of God as male (36%) and "neither male nor female" (37%), with 10 percent saying "both male and female." Only one percent thinks of God as a female.

Does God have a human form?

A substantial plurality of the public (41%) thinks of God as "a spirit or power that can take on human form but is not inherently human." Just over one- quarter (27%) thinks of God as a "spirit or power that does not take on human form," while only nine percent of adults think of God as being "like a human being with a face, body, arms, legs, eyes, etc."

How much control does God have over events on earth?

Less than one-third of all adults (29%) believe that God "controls what happens on Earth" (this includes 57% of Born Again Christians). A plurality (44%) believes that God "observes but does not control what happens on Earth."

Do Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

About half (51%) of all adults, including a majority of Catholics (63%), believe that Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God. One-third (32%) believes they do not and 16 percent are not sure. On this question, as on the others, the views of Born Again Christians are different - a 54 percent majority believes they do not worship the same God and only 34 percent believe they do.

Are believers declining?

Three years ago, in an identical survey, 79 percent of adults said they believed in God and 66 percent said they were absolutely certain that there is a God. In this new survey, those numbers have declined to 73 percent and 58 percent respectively