TruthBook Religious News Blog

By ERIC GORSKI

The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches.

And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Fla., area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinn and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.

Only the blessings didn't come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation given on television: Her faith wasn't strong enough.

All three of the groups Fleenor supported are among six major Christian television ministries under scrutiny by a senator who is asking questions about the evangelists' lavish spending and possible abuses of their tax-exempt status.

The probe by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has brought new scrutiny to the underlying belief that brings in millions of dollars and fills churches from Atlanta to Los Angeles — the "Gospel of Prosperity," or the notion that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches.

The modern-day prosperity movement can largely be traced back to evangelist Oral Roberts' teachings. Roberts' disciples have spread his theology and vocabulary (Roberts and other evangelists, such as Meyer, call their donors "partners.") And several popular prosperity preachers, including some now under investigation, have served on the Oral Roberts University board.

Most scholars trace the origins of prosperity theology to E.W. Kenyon, an evangelical pastor from the first half of the 20th century.

But it wasn't until the postwar era — and a pair of evangelists from Tulsa, Okla. — that "health and wealth" theology became a fixture in Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin — and later, Kenneth Copeland — trained tens of thousands of evangelists with a message that resonated with an emerging middle class, said David Edwin Harrell Jr., a Roberts biographer. Copeland is among those now being investigated.

The teachings took on various names — "Name It and Claim It," "Word of Faith," the prosperity gospel.

Prosperity preachers say that it isn't all about money — that God's blessings extend to health, relationships and being well-off enough to help others.

They have Bible verses at the ready to make their case. One oft-cited verse, in Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians, reads: "Yet for your sakes he became poor, that you by his poverty might become rich."

One of the teaching's attractions is that it doesn't dwell on traditional Christian themes of heaven and hell but on answering pressing concerns of the here and now, said Brian McLaren, a liberal evangelical author and pastor.

The checks and balances central to Christian denominations are largely lacking in prosperity churches. One of the pastors in the Grassley probe, Bishop Eddie Long of suburban Atlanta, has written that God told him to get rid of the "ungodly governmental structure" of a deacon board.

Some ministers hold up their own wealth as evidence that the teaching works. Atlanta-area pastor Creflo Dollar, who is fighting Grassley's inquiry, owns a Rolls Royce and multimillion-dollar homes and travels in a church-owned Learjet.

In a letter to Grassley, Dollar's attorney calls the prosperity gospel a "deeply held religious belief" grounded in Scripture and therefore a protected religious freedom. Grassley has said his probe is not about theology.

But even some prosperity gospel critics — like the Rev. Adam Hamilton of 15,000-member United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in suburban Kansas City, Mo. — say that the investigation is entering a minefield.

"How do you determine how much money a minister like this is able to make when the basic theology is that wealth is OK?" said Hamilton, an Oral Roberts graduate who later left the charismatic movement. "That gets into theological questions."

There is evidence of change. Joyce Meyer Ministries, for one, enacted financial reforms in recent years, including making audited financial statements public.

Meyer, who has promised to cooperate fully with Grassley, issued a statement emphasizing that a prosperity gospel "that solely equates blessing with financial gain is out of balance and could damage a person's walk with God."

Labels: blessings, Christian, church, Eric Gorski, Gospel, money, prosperity

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Why Giving Makes You Happy

By ARTHUR BROOKS
December 28, 2007

As we approach year's end, your mailbox is filling up with fundraising appeals from various charities and causes, hoping to capitalize on your holiday cheer — or at least, your effort to avoid a bit of 2007 income taxes through deductible contributions.

It is a fact that givers are happier people than non-givers. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a survey of 30,000 American households, people who gave money to charity in 2000 were 43% more likely than non-givers to say they were "very happy" about their lives.

Similarly, volunteers were 42% more likely to be very happy than non-volunteers. It didn't matter whether gifts of money and time went to churches or symphony orchestras — givers to all types of religious and secular causes were far happier than non-givers.

People who give also are less sad and depressed than non-givers. The University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics reveals that people who gave money away in 2001 were 34% less likely than non-givers to say that they had felt "so sad that nothing could cheer them up" in the past month. They were also 68% less likely to have felt "hopeless," and 24% less likely to have said that "everything was an effort."

The happiness difference between givers and non-givers is not due to differences in their personal characteristics, such as income or religion. Imagine two people who are identical in terms of income and faith — as well as age, education, politics, sex, and family circumstances — but one donates money and volunteers, while the other does not. The giver will be, on average, 11 percentage points more likely to be very happy than the non-giver.

Giving goes beyond formal gifts of money and time, of course. Much of the way we serve others is less formal, or with other resources of value in our lives. One particularly visceral kind of giving involves our blood, which a bit over 15% of Americans donate at least once each year. If anything, this kind of charity is even more strongly associated with happiness than traditional gifts.

Labels: Americans, Arthur Brooks, charities, happiness, Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Believers in Community

Atheists Enjoying Social Benefits of Church Even if They Don't Believe in Religious Rituals

By Jonathan Mummolo
Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Statistics suggest that many atheists find a role for religion in their lives. According to a survey released in July by the Barna Group, a religious polling firm, 36 percent said they had prayed to God in the previous week even though they identified themselves as atheists. Five percent said they had read the Bible in the previous week.

The number of atheists remains low. According to last year's General Social Survey by the National Opinion Research Center, 2.1 percent of respondents said they do not believe in God.; 4.3 percent said they are agnostic -- that they are not sure whether God exists and don't think there was any way to find out.

Among those who say they do not believe, some have adopted traditional religious roles.

When Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition for America, which lobbies to keep religion out of government, and her husband were asked to be godparents of her nephews they accepted, seeing it as more of a caretaking responsibility than a religious obligation.

"I looked at it as, they trusted us to be the guardians," said Brown, who identifies herself as a nontheist, adding that she told her in-laws that she and her husband were not religious. "I think it's important to be honest with family members. . . . They wanted people they knew would take care of these kids . . . not so much religious leaders."

To help nonbelievers maintain tradition while preserving integrity, Margaret Downey, president of Atheist Alliance International, set up http://secular-celebrations.com a Web site outlining nonreligious ceremonies that mark marriage, death and the arrival of children.

Downey, who presides over the ceremonies for a fee as a certified secular humanist officiant, recently organized an atheists convention in Crystal City that drew more than 500 people. It featured a naming ceremony for young children as an alternative to baptism.

Such ceremonies include remarks on the significance of the child's name as well as vows taken by parents and "guideparents" to teach and nurture the child. In the text of a sample ceremony on Downey's site, parents vow to help their child "learn to love truth, even when it goes against" them.

"Celebrations and holidays and traditions serve dual purposes," Downey said. "Instead of godparent, [we say] guideparents or mentors, and that way we could participate honestly but under the terms of a secular participation. Now, that might not satisfy the religious component, but it certainly would offer a branch of unity when philosophical differences would tear people apart.''

"We are social animals," she said. "We need these occasions to bring family and friends together into our lives."

Labels: atheism, Barna Group, community, Jonathan Mummolo, religiosity

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Science fiction: the other god that failed

01/01/2008 . Source: Jeet Heer

Science fiction, it is often plausibly argued, is a literature about technology and what it does to humans. But what if this view of the genre is wrong? What if science fiction (SF) is not really about technology at all but something else. What if SF is at its core a religious genre, a literature about the search for transcendent meaning in a post-Christian world?

When L. Ron Hubbard came up with Dianetics, he found a ready and expectant audience in the science fiction world. The first announcement of this new science was in Astounding Science Fiction in 1950, where it appeared as a special “fact” article. Under the stewardship of John W. Campbell, Astounding was the leading magazine of the genre, renowned for publishing Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series and Robert Heinlein “future history” stories.

Astounding prided itself on being the home of “hard science fiction”, SF that adhered as closely as possible to the real laws of physics and extrapolated with rigor future developments in technology. Yet for all his pretences of being a hard-headed just-the-facts engineer, Campbell had a mystical streak to him which Hubbard cunningly tapped. For at least a while Campbell became one of Dianetics loudest advocates. Even after he gave up on Dianetics, Campbell became a perpetual sucker for all sorts of pseudo-sciences. His magazine became a haven for those who believed in extra-sensory perception (or psionics) and the Dean Drive (an anti-gravity device that required an unfortunate suspension of Newton’s third law).

Aside from Campbell, many members of the SF community got caught up in the Dianetics craze: Katherine MacLean, James Blish, A.E. van Vogt, and Forrest J. Ackerman. More importantly, the underlying promise of Dianetics, the hope for a new science of mind that would unleash hidden mental powers, became a central theme in the genre. Telepathy and psionics became staple concerns in SF magazines, as common as guns in detective novels. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, writer after writer dealt with this messianic hope of unleashing the hidden potential of the human mind.

This theme shows up in the most famous and widely read books in the genre, running form Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man (1953), to Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human (1953) to Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (1963). All these books are charged with a strong transcendentalist yearning, and the Heinlein novel is very explicitly about the birth of a new religion, created by a messianic Martian. By the late 1960s, some hippies had taken the Heinlein book as a new gospel and started to enact communal ritual ceremonies based on Heinlein’s fictional religion.

It’s hard not to find religion in almost all science fiction, a current that is always running a few feet underground. Think of the major movies in the genre: 2001: A Space Odyssey ends on an appropriately mystical note. What is “the force” in Star Wars but a pop version of Zen? In Blade Runner the replicants search for their creator hoping he can offer them immortality.

The true history of science fiction has yet to be written. In most accounts of the genre, Hubbard is treated as an embarrassing digression. He was much more than that: through chicanery he uncovered the true meaning of science fiction. Science fiction is the only literary genre that has led to the creation of a new religion. Why? Because science fiction at its core is a religious genre.

In early 1970s Philip K. Dick, the greatest science fiction writer since H.G. Wells, had a series of bizarre visions and auditions. He heard and saw things that weren’t there. If he had wanted to, Dick could have become the second L. Ron Hubbard. Science fiction fans who heard him speak about his visions were prepared to make him a guru and follow his prophetic teachings.

It is part of Dick heroism, the real bravery of a flawed but honest man, that he chose not to become a God, preferring instead to work his visions into writing and remain a writer of science fiction. Science fiction may be a religious genre but there is no need to make a religion out of every science fiction vision. As Dick proved, the demarcation between literature and religion can be maintained even in the face of the temptation to be worshipped.

Labels: Jeet Heer, L. Ron Hubbard, Philip K. Dick, religion, science fiction

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Civil religion quietly unifies and guides American public life

Saturday, 12/29/07
By RAY WADDLE

Opinion

Americans say they're more likely to vote for a homosexual than an atheist when choosing a president, a USA Today/Gallup survey reported in February.

This all-American wariness of unbelief suggests we want leaders to make decisions within a familiar moral tradition (biblical, more or less), with a providential deity somehow assisting.

Civil religion is not Christianity, it's not a denomination, and these days it's not fashionable. Yet it has been a unifying feature of national life for 200-plus years. Will it survive America's 21st century search for identity?

The American civil religion was spelled out 40 years ago by sociologist Robert Bellah, who found it in places small and large — on the currency ("in God we trust") and in inaugural addresses ("here on earth God's work must truly be our own": John Kennedy).

It endorses human liberty and stirs public purpose. It has its own "sacred" texts, such as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and King's Dream speech, stressing sacrifice, rebirth, rededication.

It claims holy days: Thanksgiving and Memorial Day. And hallowed ground: Arlington Cemetery and all other military burial grounds.

Imprecision is the key

Civil religion does not replace traditional religions but functions alongside. Yet it has few defenders these days.

It is too neutral and imprecise for religious partisans, not neutral enough for atheists.

But its imprecision is what makes it work. It declares a cosmic baseline for morality, but it's not overly doctrinaire or aggressive.

It's the religion that people mean when they appeal to the common good or a common moral inheritance, as Mitt Romney did recently in his religion speech.

Civil religion has hazards. It can turn into worship of the nation. But Bellah once argued that true civil religion places us under divine judgment when we stray from our principles. It should inspire self-criticism.

Can American civic life keep its civil religion in the surging face of pluralism? Is there room for non-believers, or must it be scrapped? National civil religions emerged after the demise of the divine right of kings as a way to ennoble national solidarity.

The big question persists. Can there be a public morality that rallies public purpose without reference to a creator?

Notable regimes have tried — Hitler, Mao, Stalin, all discredited. History offers no shining modern examples yet of civil religion without God. Americans, so far, are voting with history.

Labels: Americans, civil religion, Gallup Poll, morality, Ray Waddle, religion, spiritual values

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, December 28, 2007

Students' spiritual interests increase on campus

Issue Date: December 28, 2007

Though college students’ attendance at worship services declines, their interest in spiritual matters grows during their time on campus, a new UCLA study shows.

UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute compared the views of students who were freshmen in the fall of 2004 with the same students’ thoughts in the spring of 2007, when they were juniors.

The survey of more than 14,000 students found that more than 50 percent of students considered “integrating spirituality into my life” very important or essential in 2007, an increase of almost 10 percentage points from 2004.

Slightly more than half the students said they attended services in college at about the same rate as they attended them in high school. Almost 40 percent, however, said they worshiped less frequently. Seven percent said they worshiped more.

Researchers also concluded that an increasing percentage of students had an “ecumenical worldview.” In 2004, 42 percent said they endorsed “improving my understanding of other countries and cultures”; 55 percent said the same in 2007.

Students showed increasing agreement over time with the idea that nonreligious people can lead lives as moral as those of religious believers, with 90 percent approving the statement this year.

“The data suggest that college is influencing students in positive ways that will better prepare them for leadership roles in our global society,” said UCLA emeritus professor Alexander W. Astin, co-principal investigator for the research.

The research included 14,527 students attending 136 U.S. colleges and universities. Its margin of error is between 1 and 2 percentage points.

The project, which is in its fifth year, is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Labels: church, college, Higher Education Research Institute, John Templeton Foundation, religion, spirituality, students, UCLA

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, December 24, 2007

U.S. Jews and Muslims seek paths to harmony

By Michael Conlon, Religion Writer

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Muslims and Jews, a tiny slice of the U.S. population, are looking for new ways to get along that could set a worldwide example for two ancient but often alienated faiths, religious leaders and experts say.

"I've encountered (among Muslims) a more centrist, a more moderate voice that is looking to the Jewish community to help project that voice ... to the greater world," said Rabbi Marc Schneier of New York, speaking of a national summit of imams and rabbis he helped organize earlier this year.

He also cited a recent incident in a New York subway "where four young Jews were being verbally and physically assaulted on a train for wishing the passengers a happy Hanukkah, and the only individual to come to their rescue was a young Muslim man," Hassan Askari, of Bangladeshi heritage, who was beaten.

"That is a very, very powerful example" of what can happen. The challenge is to try to strengthen Jewish-Muslim cooperation and have it serve as a paradigm for communities around the world," added Schneier, who founded the New York Synagogue in Manhattan and also the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

On another front, leaders of the Islamic Society of North America and the Union for Reform Judaism, representing respectively the largest U.S. Islamic organization and the largest organized Jewish segment in the country, have agreed on a tutorial for dialogue.

SMALL PERCENTAGES

In a country of 315 million, Muslims number about 2.4 million, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, which also found them to be mostly middle-class members of mainstream society. Others believe the figure is several million higher, and no estimates are available on how many practice the faith.

There are perhaps 6 million Jews in the United States, only about a third of them affiliated with a congregation. Of those who do attend synagogue, 38 percent are Reform, 33 percent Conservative and 22 percent Orthodox, according to one survey.

Zahid Bukhari, director of the American Muslim Studies Program at Georgetown University, said Muslim-Jewish dialogue "is a new beginning."

One difference, he said, is that in places like Europe "within each country you will find a concentration of Muslims from a certain country," such as Algerians and Moroccans in France or South Asians in England.

"In America we have Muslims from 80 different countries. They are younger, they are more educated, more professional, more integrated into society and they feel more comfortable. And the host society here is different," he said.

But what is happening is a "model which I hope we could duplicate" globally, he said.

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, author of the newly published "You Don't Have to be Wrong for Me to be Right," said one thing that sets the U.S. situation apart is that no one speaks for all Jews or Muslims and this allows for openness.

"Even religious Muslims and religious Jews are more integrated into the fabric of general American society than in other countries like Britain and France. It is possible to be deeply and visibly religious and still participate in the public culture -- that's not true everywhere," he said.

Farid Senzai, director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, said there is a real effort at the local effort by mosques to develop joint activities with synagogues, and it goes down to the individual level as well.

"Muslims in this country have it much better off than elsewhere in the world," he said. "The Muslim community in the United States will in fact have a tremendous impact on Muslims elsewhere because they are able to debate and influence each other."

Amaney Jamal, of Princeton University, said Jews and Muslims share more in common in the United States than elsewhere "due to Muslim assimilation, but not in the cultural sense, rather in the socioeconomic sense. Muslims and Jews find themselves having to interact in many forums, be it university campuses or professional work places." (Editing by Alan Elsner)

Labels: dialogue, Jews, Michael Conlon, Muslims, Pew Research Center survey

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Pilgrims celebrate Noel in Bethlehem

By DALIA NAMMARI, Associated Press Writer

BETHLEHEM, West Bank - Gloom was banished from Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem for the first time in years on Monday as Christian pilgrims from all over the world flocked here to celebrate Jesus' birth in an atmosphere of renewed tranquility.

After Israeli-Palestinian fighting erupted in 2000, most of the people milling around Manger Square in the center of this biblical town on Christmas had been local Palestinians. But this year there were large numbers of tourists from all over the world, back after avoiding the region's strife.

Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh predicted earlier this month that the lull in violence would help to bring about 65,000 tourists to visit to visit the traditional site of Jesus' birth this Christmas — four times the number who trickled into town for Christmas in 2005.

Still, unmistakable signs of the conflict that has killed more than 4,400 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis in just the past seven years made it clear that peace was not yet at hand.

Gray concrete walls measuring about 25 feet high enclose Bethlehem on three sides — part of the separation barrier that Israel says it's building to keep out attackers from the West Bank. Palestinians allege that the complex of concrete slabs and electronic fence, which dips into parts of the West Bank, is a thinly veiled land grab.

Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the Roman Catholic Church's highest official in the Holy Land, could only reach Bethlehem after passing through a massive steel gate in the barrier. An escort of Israeli mounted policemen led Sabbah, in his flowing gold and burgundy robe, up to the gate, where border policemen waited to clang it shut behind him.

According to the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations, there are an estimated 170,000 Christians in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In the Gaza Strip, the mood was much more somber than in Bethlehem. Festivities in the poverty-stricken territory's tiny Christian community of 3,000 were decidedly muted.

For decades, Christmas had been marked by an enormous, lavishly decorated tree in Gaza City's main square, colored lights strung across the plaza and Christmas carols ringing out from loudspeakers. Shopkeepers did a brisk business selling decorations, cards and gifts, but all this cheer evaporated with the outbreak of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in late 2000.

The grimness only deepened this year with the assassination of a prominent Christian activist, Rami Ayyad, after Islamic Hamas militants overran the coastal strip. There were few outward signs of celebration, and an austere midnight mass was planned at the city's only Roman Catholic church.

Hamas has denied involvement in Ayyad's killing and vowed to find those responsible for his slaying in October.

Early Monday, hundreds of Gaza Christians lined up at the passenger crossing between Gaza and Israel, hoping to be allowed to cross over to the West Bank to celebrate in Bethlehem. Many of those who hoped to leave said they didn't plan to return.

Israel said it would allow in 400 Christmas celebrants from Gaza.

Labels: Bethlehem, Christmas, Dalia Nammari, Gaza, Hamas, Jesus

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Sunday, December 23, 2007

"The star in the East"

By TOM COYNE, Associated Press Writer
Thu Dec 20, 12:01 PM ET

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - It's long been a puzzle for Christian astronomers, and now a professor from the University of Notre Dame thinks he has it figured out — almost, anyway.

His quest: discovering just what "the star in the East" was that led wise men to travel to Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

As a theoretical astrophysicist, Grant Mathews had hoped the answer would be spectacular — something like a supernova. But two years of research have led him to a more ordinary conclusion. The heavenly sign around the time of the birth of Jesus Christ was likely an unusual alignment of planets, the sun and the moon.

The star, though, has long been immortalized in Christmas songs, plays and movies. Astronomers, theologians and historians for hundreds of years have been trying to determine exactly which star might have inspired the biblical writing. German astronomer Johannes Kepler proposed in 1604 that the star was a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in 7 B.C.

The advantage Mathews has over Kepler and others who have pondered the question is that he had access to NASA's databases.

"In principle, we can see any star that was ever made from the beginning of time if we knew where to look. So the question is, could we find a star that could be a good candidate for what showed up then?" he said.

The Gospel of Matthew indicates Jesus was born in Bethlehem when Herod was king. Roman historian Flavius Josephus wrote that Herod died after an eclipse of the moon before the Passover. Mathews said among the possibilities are 6 B.C., 5 B.C., 1 B.C. or 1 A.D. The star could have appeared up to two years before the wise men arrived in Jerusalem, he said.

Mathews believes that means the Christmas star could have appeared anywhere from 8 to 4 B.C.

Among the characteristics written about the star was that it appeared before sunrise and that it appeared to "rest in the sky." Mathews also found writings from Korean and Chinese astronomers of an event about 4 B.C. which described a comet with no tail that didn't move.

Using that set of facts, Mathews found several possibilities, including supernovas, novas and planetary alignments.

Mathews found two possible supernovas in the right period, but said one was probably too low on the horizon to be seen. The other supernova is known as Kes 75. But it was 60,000 light years away and may not have been particularly spectacular.

"There's no real convincing evidence this happened right at 2000 years ago, but it could be in the range of being right because it's in the right location," he said.

He also found a number of nova that also could have been the Christmas star. The one he thinks is the most likely candidate is known as Nova Aquilae V603. The problem with novas and comets, though, is that they were believed in ancient times to be a sign of disaster, not a portent of good things to come.

For that reason, Mathews believes the Christmas star is most likely an alignment of planets. He said there are three likely times for this:

_Feb. 20, 6 B.C., when Mars, Jupiter and Saturn aligned in the constellation Pisces.

_April 17, 6 B.C., when the sun, Jupiter, the moon and Saturn aligned in the constellation Aries while Venus and Mars were in neighboring constellations.

_June 17, 2 B.C., when Jupiter and Venus were closely aligned in Leo.

Mathews believes the April 17, 6 B.C., alignment is the most likely candidate. It makes sense because he believes the wise men were Zoroastrian astrologers who would have recognized the planetary alignment in Aries as a sign a powerful leader was born.

"In fact it would have even meant that (the leader was) destined to die at an appointed time, which of course would have been significant for the Christ child, and may have been why they brought myrrh, which was an embalming fluid," Mathews said. "Saturn there would have made whoever was born as a leader a most powerful leader because Saturn had the strength to do it, in their view."

Labels: Bethlehem, Christmas, Jesus, Magi, star, Tom Coyne

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Virginia Tech hero is Beliefnet's Most Inspiring Person of 2007

6:35 AM Mon, Dec 17, 2007

You may not remember his name. But you may remember the story of a professor who used his body to barricade the door of his second-story classroom so his students could escape out windows as a rampaging gunman tried to get in.

His name was Liviu Librescu. He was a Holocaust survivor. He died that day at Virginia Tech, so others could live.

Read more about him and watch a video here.

Other finalists for Beliefnet's Most Inspiring award included Angelina Jolie, Don Cheadle, and Tony Dungy.

Labels: Beliefnet, inspiration, Liviu Librescu

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

College becomes a time for soul-searching

College becomes a time for soul-searching

Students may be less likely to attend religious services while in college than they were as high school students, but that doesn't mean they're not wrestling with spiritual and ethical issues, a study suggests.

An increasing number of undergraduates express a desire to explore the meaning and purpose of life as they progress through college, it says.

The study reinforces other research showing a decline in attendance at religious services among college students.

Among incoming freshmen, for example, 43.7% said they frequently attend services; by the end of their junior year, that was down to 25.4%. Also, 37.5% of juniors said they did not attend services, up from 20.2% who said so as new freshmen.

Among findings:

•74.3% of juniors said "helping others in difficulty" was "very important" or "essential," compared with 62.1% of freshmen.

•66.6% of juniors said "reducing pain and suffering in the world" was "very important" or "essential," compared with 54.6% of freshmen.

•54.4% of juniors said they were committed to "improving my understanding of other countries and cultures," compared with 52.0% of freshmen.

•63.8% of juniors said they supported "improving the human condition," compared with 53.4% of freshmen.

Rebecca Chopp, president of Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., says colleges need to adapt. For decades, "higher education has been nervous about talking about religion," she says. Now, "we're probably in a time of transition. … What's different is globalization, the presence of world religions."

Labels: college, religion, spirituality

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Science taking hard look at healing power of faith

By Rebecca Rosen Lum, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 12/18/2007

Science is taking a hard look at the value of faith as an instrument in healing — including the intercessory or healing prayers said on behalf of others.

Numerous studies show a link between faith and outlook, faith and well-being, faith and healing times.

Such prestigious institutions as California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, Duke University in North Carolina, and the George Washington University Institute for Spirituality and Health in the nations capitol are exploring the relationship of prayer and faith to healing.

More than half of physicians in an April survey by a group at the University of Chicago said religion and spirituality significantly influence patients health.

But the exact mechanism by which it works remains elusive.

Religion can help those with chronic conditions, including traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke and arthritis, say the authors of a study at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Religion is infrequently discussed in rehabilitation settings and is rarely investigated in rehabilitation research, said Missouri health psychologist Brick Johnstone. To better meet the needs of persons with disabilities, this needs to change.

Yoga, reading of religious texts, meditation or the laying on of hands have value in a clinical setting, the researchers concluded.

Hospitals have long left patients spiritual needs in the hands of chaplains, but increasingly are reaching out to faith communities.

Parish, or faith community nursing, which combines spiritual and health service, has exploded since the American Nursing Association recognized the specialty in 2005.

Today, an estimated 10,000 faith community nurses work in American congregations.

In San Francisco, a leading researcher in mind-body medicine found a positive link between intercessory prayer and the well-being of people with AIDS.

Prayed-for patients in a study by the late UCSF professor Elizabeth Targ had fewer setbacks and lived longer than a comparison group. A follow-up study found the same results. Targ later found a link between spirituality and well-being among women with breast cancer.

Some academics recoil at the blurring of the line between faith and health care, saying prayer, meditation, and other faith practices resist definition or measurement.

Labels: faith, health, prayer, religion, science

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Pentecostals in Latin America

A look at the religion's theological roots and how the faith took hold in the region.

By Sarah Miler Llana
from the December 17, 2007 edition

Modern Pentecostalism, whose name comes from the biblical term Pentecost commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, grew out of the Holiness movement at the turn of the 20th century in the US.

Pentecostals place strong emphasis on personal experience with the "Holy Spirit," such as speaking in tongues, divine healing, and prophesying. In the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey in 2006, most Pentecostals said that they had experienced divine healings or received revelations from God.

"Renewalists," a term that includes those belonging to Pentecostal denominations and "charismatics," who have adopted the expressive worship services of Pentecostals but belong to Catholic or mainline Protestant churches, now make up an estimated one quarter of the world's Christians, according to the World Christian Database. That number was just 6 percent 30 years ago.

For decades, Pentecostalism remained on the margins of US society, even as missionaries poured into Latin America. Pentecostals now account for 13 percent of Latin Americans. When accounting for "charismatics," the number shoots up to 30 percent.

Scholars say there are many reasons why Pentecostalism has attracted so many adherents. Aggressive evangelism, led at first by US missionaries, has certainly played a role. So has urban anomie and economic crisis. But each country has its own set of factors too, from civil war to natural disasters.

A 1976 earthquake in Guatemala, for example, brought a current of US Christians to Central America, says Paul Freston, a leading expert on religion in Latin America. Today the country has the highest percentage of Protestants in Latin America.

Pentecostals across the region, most of whom considered themselves Catholics before, say they converted in order to tackle their problems, for a sense of community, or simply because Pentecostalism offered something that the rituals of the Catholic mass did not.

Pentecostals have been particularly skilled at reaching out to the region's poor, providing answers to the overwhelming problems their poverty provokes each day. The Catholic answer, in the 1960s, came in the form of "liberation theology," a Marxist-tinged approach to addressing the needs of the oppressed. It had enthusiastic supporters across Latin America, but soon got wrapped up in cold war politics. Religious scholars often quip: "Liberation theology opted for the poor, and the poor opted for Pentecostalism."

Labels: Catholic, charismatics, Holy Spirit, Latin America, Pentecostalism, Pew Forum, protestants, renewalists

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

It's no Mickey Mouse course - prof looks at religion in Disney World

Ken Meaney, CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, December 15, 2007

It wasn't exactly Saul on the road to Damascus, but Jennifer Porter had an epiphany, of sorts, when she visited Disney World in May.

Porter, who teaches religious studies at Memorial University in St. John's, was struck by the religious overtones at the Orlando, Fla. theme park - so much so that she's starting a course on it in January, with the tongue-in-cheek title Religion and Disney: Not Just Another Mickey Mouse Course.

"The theme park productions, fireworks displays and so on always involve a morality tale and a requirement of the audience to believe in the power of good, and believe in the power of wishes," she said.

"So I'm interested in that - does that affect Disney audiences? Does that affect how they see the world?"

Films "speak about religion on a number of levels," Porter says.

Porter started out studying contemporary religions, later combining that with a yen for science fiction. She teaches and has published books and scholarly papers on the portrayal of religion in Star Trek, Star Wars and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who she says is shown as "a feminist Christ figure."

Porter began thinking about Disney -_the man and the corporation he founded - after discussing the Chronicles of Narnia in one of her courses. The interest took off at Disney World when she discovered Star Wars-Disney crossover fans debating whether Disney toys like Mickey Mouse dressed as a Jedi knight should be considered canonical - as officially part of the Star Wars universe.

"What I was struck by was the strangeness, to me, that someone would argue Disney products should be canonical," she said.

In her course, students will learn about the life and faith of creator Walt Disney, first and foremost a businessman, but also a talented artist. Raised in a religious household, she said, he made a conscious effort to exclude organized Christianity from his films - replacing it with supernatural elements like fairy godmothers, songs instead of prayers.

Still, "there is this overarching message (in the movies) of a good power that will look out for you if you believe, if you have faith," she said.

"At the same time, there has been a change in Disney films and theme parks since the death of Disney himself (in 1966), and one of the things that's interesting to explore is how religions and the supernatural and morality might have shifted from the time of Walt Disney himself to more recent Disney entertainment products," she said.

The Southern Baptist Convention boycotted Disney for eight years - initially because the company had extended benefits to same-sex couples. They later accused Disney of being too liberal. Other critics called the company too conservative.

What would Disney himself think of the fuss?

"Would it bring more people to his theme park?" she said, laughing. "His concern was always for the bottom line."

Porter said she wants to find out if there is an identifiable religion in Disney and whether Disney fandom can be considered a religion. Enrollment for her new course filled up quickly.

"There's a lot of interest. People are really engaged by popular culture. To me, it seems a wonderful way to get people interested in the impact of religion in the world, which is wonderful."

Labels: Jennifer Porter, Ken Meaney, morality, religion, supernatural, Walt Disney

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Religion's role in U.S. presidential elections tops '07 news stories

Staff report

The 2007 Top Religion Stories as selected by Religion Newswriters are:

1. Evangelical voters ponder whether they will be able to support the eventual Republican candidate, as they did in 2004, because of questions about the leaders’ faith and/or platform. Many say they would be reluctant to vote for Mormon Mitt Romney.

2. Leading Democratic presidential candidates make conscious efforts to woo faith-based voters after admitting failure to do so in 2004.

3. The role of gays and lesbians in clergy continues as a deeply dividing issue. An Episcopal Church promise to exercise restraint on gay issues fails to stem the number of congregations seeking to leave the mainline denomination, while in a close vote, Canadian Anglican bishops vote nullify lay and clerical approval of same-sex blessings. Meanwhile, Conservative Jews become more open to gay leadership.

4. Global warming rises in importance among religious groups, with many Mainline leaders giving it high priority and evangelical leaders split over its importance compared to other social and moral causes

5. The question of what to do about illegal immigration is debated by religious leaders and groups on both sides of the issue. Some take an active role in supporting undocumented immigrants.

6. Thousands of Buddhist monks lead pro-democracy protest in Myanmar, which is brutally crushed after a week.

7. Some Conservative U.S. Episcopalians realign with Anglican bishops in Africa and elsewhere in the global South, initiating legal disputes about church property ownership.

8. The Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote rules on the conservative side in three major cases with religious implications: upholding a ban on partial-birth abortions, allowing schools to establish some limits on students’ free speech, and denying a challenge to the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.

9. Death takes evangelical leaders known, among other things, for their television work: Jerry Falwell, Rex Humbard, James Kennedy, plus Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth, and Jim Bakker‚s ex-wife, Tammy Faye Messner. Other deaths include Gilbert Patterson, presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ, and Bible scholar Bruce Metzger.

10. The cost of priestly sex-abuse to the Roman Catholic Church in the United States surpasses $2.1 billion with a record $660 million settlement involving the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and earlier settlements this year totaling $100 million in Portland, Ore., and Spokane, Wash.

The survey polled active members of the Religion Newswriters (www.rna.org). Of those polled, 80 people responded, for a 27 percent response rate. The poll was conducted via an electronic ballot from Dec. 7-13. Respondents were asked to select the top 10 from 20 choices.

Religion Newswriters is the world’s only membership association for people who write about religion in the general circulation media. It is the leader in providing tools and training to help journalists write about religion with balance, accuracy and insight. The annual Top 10 survey has been conducted for more than 35 years.

Labels: 2007, news stories, Religion Newswriters, top ten

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Can Religion Offset the Effects of Child Poverty?

October 23, 2007
By Melissa Lafsky

What steps can poor parents take to counterbalance the effects of poverty?

According to Rajeev Dehejia, an economics professor at Tufts University, one answer may be to join a church. Dehejia, along with Thomas DeLeire, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Erzo Luttmer and Josh Mitchell, from the Harvard economics department, have written a new working paper called “The Role of Religious and Social Organizations in the Lives of Disadvantaged Youth.” In it, they test the impact of religion on more than 20,000 children raised by “disadvantaged” families, as defined by factors like family income, the parents’ levels of education, and “child characteristics including parental assessments of the child.” Using the National Survey of Families and Households, they questioned each child on the amount of involvement his or her parent had with a religious organization, then observed the child’s outcome 13 to 15 years later, as measured by education, income, and levels of health and psychological well-being.

Their findings are summarized as follows:

Overall, we find strong evidence that youth with religiously active parents are less affected later in life by childhood disadvantage than youth whose parents did not frequently attend religious services. These buffering effects of religious organizations are most pronounced when outcomes are measured by high school graduation or non-smoking and when disadvantage is measured by family resources or maternal education, but we also find buffering effects for a number of other outcome-disadvantage pairs. We generally find much weaker buffering effects for other social organizations.

Of course, a parent’s decision to practice a religion may coincide with other traits like self-discipline, community involvement, and mentoring skills, all of which will likely affect a child’s upbringing. Not to mention the fact that the authors offer no analysis of whether a parent’s including the child in the religion has any effect:
Our data do not allow us to determine to what extent the buffering effects are driven by religious organizations actively intervening in the lives of disadvantaged youth (through tutoring, mentoring, or financial assistance) as opposed to providing the youth with motivation, values, or attitudes that lead to better outcomes.

Still, it appears that, particularly where education and smoking habits are concerned, a parent’s heading to a church, synagogue, or mosque might be useful in counteracting the negative effects of child poverty.

Labels: children, Melissa Lafsky, National Survey of Families and Households, parents, poverty, Rajeev Dehejia, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, December 10, 2007

Boycotters ask, 'What Would Jesus Buy?'

Religion News Service

That's the mind-set of Americans who can't stomach exchanging holiday presents. They aren't grinches or scrooges. They just reject what they consider the wastefulness and stress of the season.

"Over the years, I have watched as the gift-exchanging part of the family Christmas slowly became more and more the reason to get together and how it eventually seemed to become the showcase event of the day," said Lora-Lee Blalock, 42, a homemaker and artist in Austin, Texas.

Blalock's childhood memories of the holiday radiate warmth: "We'd all travel from our homes and gather at my grandparents' house to spend the day eating, playing games, making music together, watching Christmas specials on the TV and just spending time talking and being a family." Gifts were secondary.

Blalock said that in recent years she pestered her family to drop the gifts. This year, they're trying it.

Pam Frese, an anthropologist at the College of Wooster in Ohio, said the practice seems to be a dismissal of commercial obsession. "The consumer culture doesn't mean anything to them," Frese said.

That's the Rev. Billy's message. No, beneath the blond pompadour and white suit, he's not a real pastor, but he does preach with a Jimmy Swaggart lilt about what he calls the "Shopocalypse." The New York-based performer-activist travels the country with his Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir — evangelizing uninvited at chain stores — and is the subject of the new film, What Would Jesus Buy?

Rev. Billy (aka Bill Talen) says corporate gluttony has whipped holiday sentiment into an obligation to spend on gifts recipients might not even want, generating "the opposite of excitement, which is dread."

"This year, we need to take Christmas back," the self-proclaimed minister said. "Let's have a creative Christmas."

The Parsons family has made that a goal.

Last year, Noah and Sabrina Parsons of Eugene, Ore., were disgusted by the mounds of wrapping paper and packaging encasing their two young sons' gifts, which required a trip to the dump. The Parsonses, who run a software company for small businesses, decided no presents this year.

"At the end of the day, you really don't feel you've gained anything with all this stuff," said Sabrina Parsons, 34.

This Christmas, the couple and their children, Timmy, 3, and Leo, 15 months, will funnel what they would have spent on gifts into a family trip to Mexico. It's the kickoff to what they hope becomes a holiday tradition.

The parents figure they'll start now, so when their sons are old enough to start asking questions, Mom and Dad can respond: "You're not going to get gifts, but you're getting to go to the beach or getting to go skiing or you're going to this really cool place you've never been to before," said Noah Parsons, 33.

Besides, the Parsons boys would be hard-pressed to recall what they got last year.

Gift amnesia strikes adults, too. Online polling may not be scientific, but consider this: 41% of Americans 18 and older polled via the Web said they couldn't remember their best holiday gift from last year. San Francisco-based Zoomerang conducted the survey in November for Excitations, a Sterling, Va., company specializing in experience-oriented gifts, including hang gliding.

From a religious standpoint, some are put off by how gift-heavy the holidays have become.

Sister Mary Louise Foley, campus minister at the University of Dayton, said worshippers should reflect: What is your perfect Christmas? Then try to come as close as possible. If that means no gifts, so be it.

If you wake up stressed about Christmas preparations, Foley said, think about "what does a woman in Iraq feel like as she gets up this morning? It makes some of our worrying so small in comparison."

With Hanukkah so close to Christmas, the Jewish holiday has become subject to the same purchasing pressures.

"Hanukkah was a very minor celebration in terms of gifts and hoopla," said Rabbi David Fass of Temple Beth Sholom in New City, N.Y.

It's OK for families to exchange gifts during Hanukkah, Fass said, as long as the children know the genesis of the holiday — it marks the victory of Jewish rebels over the Syrian-Greeks and the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem — and do not regard it as just a time for presents.

Professing appreciation for a sense of community during the holidays, some have shaped their aversion to frenzied gift-giving into a tongue-in-cheek crusade.

Nina Paley, 39, an animator in New York, said her no-gifts awakening happened about 15 years ago, when she produced a comic strip called "Nina's Adventures" for alternative weekly papers. One holiday season, she based one of her strips on a friend who plunged further into debt buying presents.

From this, Paley's Christmas Resistance Movement arose. Its website —www.xmasresistance.org— proclaims, "No Shopping — No Presents — No Guilt!" The campaign is equal opportunity, applying to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or any holiday when people might feel compelled to give gifts.

Paley herself grew up in a secular Jewish home, though her family did exchange presents for Hanukkah. Whatever the occasion, mandatory offerings cheapen the moment, she said.

Obligatory "material gifts often function as a distraction from love — or lack thereof — rather than a conduit," Paley said. "By making material gifts representations of love, love itself becomes a commodity. How can that not make one feel empty and hollow?"

Labels: Americans, Christmas, commercialism, gift, Hanukkah, Jesus, presents, religion, stress

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Britons who don't know where Jesus was born

By Jonathan Petre
08/12/2007

The extent of Britons' ignorance about the Christmas story is illustrated today in a new report which shows more than a quarter of adults do not know where Jesus was born.

A survey found 27 per cent of Britons aged 18 and over were unable to identify Bethlehem as Jesus's birth place, while the figure rose to 36 per cent of people aged between 18 and 24.

The poll also found that more than one in four people - 27 per cent - were unaware that an angel told Mary that she would give birth to a son, with some saying she was informed by the shepherds.

Most people surveyed believed that Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled to Nazareth rather than Egypt when they escaped from King Herod, and a few even said the holy family's destination was Rome.

Only 12 per cent of adults could answer all four questions about the Christmas story correctly.

The results of the survey, conducted among 1,015 adults last month, are likely to refuel the debate about the secularisation of Christmas.

The poll found that people's knowledge dips significantly with age, with only seven per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds able to answer all four questions correctly. Middle aged people, aged 55 to 64, knew the most, with 18 per cent getting all the questions right.

The findings followed research by the Sunday Telegraph last weekend showing that only one school in every five was planning to stage a traditional Nativity play this year.

Paul Woolley, the director of Theos, the theological think-tank which commissioned the survey, insisted the survey showed the Christmas story, in its classic formulation, was still "very much" in the "cultural bloodstream" of the nation.

"The fact that younger people are the least knowledgeable about the Christmas story may reflect a decline in the telling of Bible stories in schools and the popularity of Nativity plays," he said.

"No one seriously thinks that being a Christian or a member of the established Church is the same thing as being British today.

"But, at the same time, if we are serious about social cohesion we can't afford to ignore the stories that have bound us together as a culture for a thousand years.

"Any attempts to down-play the Christmas story in order to help social cohesion are likely to be counterproductive."

Unsurprisingly, Christian churchgoers knew the story best, with 36 per cent answering all questions correctly, compared with only five per cent of those describing themselves as atheists.

The questions

1. According to the story in the Christian Bible, where was Jesus born?

73 per cent correctly said Bethlehem. Of the 27 per cent who were wrong, 10 per cent said Nazareth and 9 per cent said Jerusalem.

2. Who told Mary that she would give birth to a son?

73 per cent correctly said an angel. Of the 27 per cent who were wrong, six per cent said the wise men, five per cent said the shepherds and four per cent said Joseph.

3. Who was Jesus' cousin?

48 per cent correctly said John the Baptist. Of the 52 per cent who were wrong, 12 per cent said Peter, six per cent said Luke and six per cent said James. 26 per cent said they did not know.

4. Where did Joseph, Mary and Jesus go to escape from King Herod when Jesus was a young child?

22 per cent correctly said Egypt. Of the 78 per cent who were wrong, 52 per cent said Nazareth, five per cent said Babylon and one per cent said Rome.

Labels: Britain, Christian, Christmas, Jesus, Jonathan Petre

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

A nice respite from Christmas overload...Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!!!

Labels: Charlie Brown, Christmas, Jesus, tree, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Thursday, December 06, 2007

'Compass' author's atheism stirs debate on film's message

by Duane Dudek
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
6 December 2007

Nina Hemmer is a reader. The 11-year-old Shorewood, Wis., girl is plowing through the Bible and hopes “to get to the part about Jesus’ birth by Christmas,” said her mother, Cathy Pinter.

But Nina has also read and is a fan of a series of books that some say challenges or at least questions scriptural dogma and even the very notion of God—a series of fantasy novels for young people under the umbrella title of “His Dark Materials.”

Philip Pullman, the author of the award-winning, critically acclaimed and commercially successful series, is an atheist who has said that the books—“The Golden Compass,” “The Subtle Knife” and “The Amber Spyglass”—are about “killing God,” and that he is trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.

And some Christian groups are urging a boycott of the film “The Golden Compass,” starring Nicole Kidman, which will be released Friday.

Despite all this, Nina has escaped Pullman’s clutches unscathed and with her faith intact, said her mother, who was unaware of any controversy.

She is not alone in her enjoyment of the books, whose millions of readers include adults such as James B. South, chairman of the philosophy department at Marquette University.

South discovered that Pullman’s books bore a “striking similarity” to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” in that they offered “a fully created world, a well-thought-out moral system, clearly delineated bad guys and an incredibly entertaining story.”

It could be argued that the Roman Catholic Tolkien, the Protestant C.S. Lewis, writer of “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, and Pullman—who all attended Oxford University—are using the fantasy genre to engage in a literary debate on faith and Christianity, with Pullman as the skeptic.

“The Golden Compass” is set in a world similar to ours but where people have animal alter egos, called daemons.

It is governed by a church-like body called the Magisterium, which has dismissed a metaphysical substance called Dust as the equivalent of original sin, but that others believe to be of divine origin and purpose. The Magisterium has also declared a belief in the existence of parallel worlds to be heresy.

Lyra has a compass called the alethiometer that only she can manipulate and that is perhaps powered by Dust. With the help of a polar bear, witches, angels, a nomadic race called Gyptians and a cowboy with a hot-air balloon, she uses it to save children from Magisterium experiments to sever their daemons. She follows the explorer Lord Asriel from the ends of her world into others, where his armies are gathering to battle a God-like figure called the Authority.

On the one hand, it is the stuff of fantasy and adventure with a loyal and brave central character, common to children’s literature.

But at a deeper level—with its references to “Paradise Lost” and the book of Genesis, words of Greek origin and the institutional tyranny of the Magisterium—it is the sort of dense allegory that is open to interpretation. So interpretations abound.

“Christians would (call a daemon) a guardian angel. It’s the element of ... divine breath that sustains us at all times.”

He called the alethiometer “a moral compass” and an “archetypical articulation of the subconscious.”

And Isbouts, who interviewed Pullman, called Dust “the matter that creates self-awareness. He told me that it’s a metaphor for human consciousness.”

After Pullman’s father died when he was 7, Pullman, now 61, spent his formative years with his grandfather, a clergyman, and “of course God existed—one didn’t even think of questioning it,” he said in an online interview at Surefish (snipurl.com/surefish ).

Pullman said he lost his faith as a teenager when “I began to look around and see how other people thought about things.”

“The Golden Compass,” was first published in 1995 in England as “Northern Lights.” Pullman was influenced by John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” and William Blake’s illustrations.

Isbouts believes the series retells the fall of Adam and Eve as “the pivotal moment in the evolution of mankind ... where we become cognitive.”

While such interpretations are fine for adults, some worry that the books and film could have a corrosive effect on the faith of youngsters.

“We live in a culture where kids are bombarded by ideas and images, many of which are contradictory to Christianity,” said Adam Holz, associate editor of Plugged In Magazine, a Focus on the Family publication. “We want people to know seeds are planted in the minds of kids you don’t want planted there.”

Pullman, he said, “is writing with an agenda. And anytime an author has a strong agenda, it’s good to know what that agenda is,” Holz said.

Father Peter Schuessler, associate director of spiritual and human formation at the Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corners, Wis., believes the church Pullman is portraying in his books “is the medieval church” of the Crusades and Inquisition. Children are no more likely to be “led to believe that God is dead” by reading them, “any more than watching `Bambi’ is going to teach them that animals speak,” said Schuessler, who read the books with his fantasy book club.

In fact, Donna Freitas, an assistant professor of religion at Boston University, encourages parents to “give your kids the books, see what they say and sit down with them if they have questions.

Similarly, Pullman’s trilogy “is one of those works of literature you can enjoy as a child ... and come back to as a college student and study for literary references, and even as an adult reading it to a child as a parent.”

Many of the criticisms directed at Pullman, she said, are just “juicy sound bites” and are “taken out of context.” She said that the “thrust of the book is very Christian and theological” and deals with God, the soul, virtue and salvation.

The godlike Authority in the books is really a false God, who, Freitas said, “tricks everyone into believing he was the creator.” The death of the Authority “opens everyone’s ability to see what I look at as the true God, which is Dust.”

Nina Hemmer came up with a similar conclusion on her own.

“When I got to the part with the angels,” she said, “I thought, `This is kind of leading up to God.’”

___

Labels: C.S. Lewis, children, Christian, Duane Dudek, His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass, Tolkien

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

More public schools offering elective religion classes

By CHRISTINA VANOVERBEKE/East Valley Tribune

Saturday, November 24, 2007

MESA, Ariz. (AP) - A group of teenagers gathered in Ahwatukee Foothills on a recent Monday afternoon to discuss the Jewish faith. But they got a little hung up on the concept of the Sabbath as a day of rest.

Fasting caused more head-scratching.

Questions about religion and faith are not unusual among young people. But this conversation was different because it was part of a religion class taught in a public school.

Mountain Pointe High School social studies teacher Marissa Chavez spends much of her world religion class dispelling myths and explaining the most basic elements of the major faiths - and she couldn't be happier about doing it.

She proposed this class to the Tempe Union High School District governing board last year because she saw a need for students to be better informed about religion, particularly with regard to world events such as the war in Iraq.

This is the first year Mountain Pointe offered a world religion elective, open to any student at the school. It's the only course in metro Phoenix focused on teaching public school students about religion.

While it's an exception here, offering religion classes to high school students is a growing trend in the U.S., said Charles Haynes, senior scholar for the Nashville-based First Amendment Center, and world religion is one of the most popular courses.

Twenty years ago, Haynes said, there was little to no mention of religion in the core curriculums of public schools.

Curriculum directors from around the metro Phoenix confirmed that world religion topics are a regular part of world history courses.

Still, when Chavez proposed her class, she said many people warned her against it.

‘‘They said, 'I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole,''' she said. But, so far, she has had no complaints and Desert Vista High School is planning to offer the class in the spring.

There are no national statistics on how many public high schools offer religion courses, but in Fairfax, Va., where Haynes resides, there are 12 different offerings and he's aware of other classes in surrounding areas. He thinks the courses are generally more prevalent in the East and also correlate to areas where there is religious diversity.

Only one school district in the U.S. requires students to study religion. For eight years, the school district in Modesto, Calif., called the ‘‘Bible Belt of California,'' has required all ninth-graders to take a world religion course.

Parents and community members often express concerns where religion is taught in school because they fear their children's own faith will be shaken. But Haynes said a study of the course in Modesto proves otherwise, showing that students who went in with one faith came out with the same faith. The study also showed learning about religion strengthened students' support of First Amendment rights of others.

But schools can get in trouble when a teacher ‘‘pushes'' one religion over another in class or when the teacher includes material that could be considered devotional.

In Chavez's class, students often read from various scriptures. She said it was difficult to find textbooks that didn't preach one point of view, but she's been able to piece together materials from many sources, including books, the Internet and movies. She creates presentations for each religion, and relies on questions to guide the discussion.

Offering world religion instruction is not just an education issue, Haynes said.

There's a civic argument that can be made for it.

‘‘Ignorance is the root of so much intolerance. So many Americans know so little about religion,'' he said. ‘‘It's not just important to understanding world events, but for living with each other in this country.''

Arizona State University professor Charles Barfoot, who studies the sociology of religion, says students taking classes like Chavez's are getting a head start on college and life beyond school.

The Phoenix area, he said, is becoming more religiously diverse, but many students who take his introductory world religion course are hearing about these different faiths for the first time.

Labels: Christina Vanoverbeke, faith, public school, religion, students

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Students find it's cool to be Christian on campus

Mon Nov 26, 2007 By Andrea Hopkins

Page one of three pages. Please link to "external source" for complete article
CINCINNATI (Reuters Life!) - The students piling into a house near the University of Cincinnati are laughing, sending text messages, and lining up for plates of pizza -- then they all bow their heads in prayer.

This weekly pizza lunch at Wesley House, a ministry of the United Methodist Church, is just one of a half-dozen Christian events Nick George, 19, will attend this week with friends from the Navigators, a thriving campus evangelical group.

For while public colleges in America were once considered hostile territory for religious students, a revival among both evangelical and traditional churches on campus has made it safe -- and even cool -- to be a college Christian.

"I'm absolutely more involved (in Christianity) than before I came to college," said George, an engineering student.

Most of his friends are fellow believers who, like thousands of young Christians, have eschewed private religious colleges in favor of large secular U.S. universities in a sign of a wider shift in the United States towards acceptance of religion in all areas of life.

Eight of 10 college students attend religious services, 80 percent discuss religion or spirituality with friends and 69 percent pray, according to a 2004 University of California, Los Angeles, survey of 112,232 freshmen at 236 universities.

"The American university system is not so aggressively asking kids to question their religion as it might have been in past years, in the 60s," said Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas.

Labels: Andrea Hopkins, Christian, college, religion, spirituality, youth

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Survey: 7 of 10 Americans Prefer 'Merry Christmas' Over 'Happy Holidays'

By Lawrence Jones
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Nov. 26 2007

When Americans go Christmas shopping, many prefer to see stores use the traditional phrase “Merry Christmas” in their seasonal advertising rather than “Happy Holidays,” a new poll found.

The survey released by Rasmussen Reports after the Thanksgiving holiday showed that 67 percent of Americans favor “Merry Christmas” while only 26 percent would choose “Happy Holidays.”

The poll results were the same for men and women and presented few demographic differences.

But a comparison between responses from Republicans and Democrats, however, revealed a sharp contrast.

While 88 percent of Republicans prefer “Merry Christmas,” just 57 percent of Democrats favor the greeting.

Meanwhile, 57 percent of Americans say they will attend a Christian service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day this year, with women more likely to attend a Christmas service than men.

Nearly 30 percent of respondents say they won’t go to a special service.

In an attempt to encourage stores to retain references to the Dec. 25 holiday, a Christian legal group has released a “Naughty or Nice” list that advises Christians where to shop for Christmas.

Businesses and retailers are placed on the “Nice” list if they recognize Christmas and on the “Naughty” list if they censor such references.

The list was released as part of Fla.-based Liberty Counsel’s fifth annual Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign, in which the legal group is pledging to be a "Friend" to those entities which do not censor Christmas and a "Foe" to those that do.

The Rasmussen survey was based on a national telephone survey of 1,000 Adults, conducted from November 18-19, 2007. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.

Labels: Americans, Christian, Christmas, holidays, Lawrence Jones, Rasmussen Reports, shopping

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Devil more popular than Darwin in America

By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles

More Americans believe in the existence of hell and the devil than Darwin’s theory of evolution, according to a nationwide poll.

Nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of US residents polled said they believed in a literal hell and the devil, 60 per cent said they believed in the virgin birth.

Only 42 per cent of those surveyed, however, said they believed in Darwin’s theory of evolution, or “natural selection”. Some 39 per cent of respondents said they believed in creationism.

Broken down by religion, the survey found that only 16 per cent of born-again Christians (or evangelicals) compared to 43 per cent of Catholics and 30 per cent of Protestants believed in Darwin’s theory.

Meanwhile, 60 per cent of born-again Christians, but only 43 per cent of Catholics, believed in creationism.

Overall, the poll reflects the centrality of faith to American life, politics and culture, with 82 per cent saying they believed in God.

Three quarters agreed there is a heaven while 72 per cent believed Jesus is God or the Son of God and 79 per cent believed in miracles.

The question of faith is proving a key issue in campaigning for next year’s presidential election.

The poll, by market researchers Harris, involved 2,455 US adults from across the country selected to reflect the national population in terms of age, sex, race, education and household income.

It also found that significant minorities of Americas believe in ghosts (41 per cent), UFOs (35 per cent), witches (31 per cent), astrology (29 per cent) and reincarnation (21 per cent).

Born-again Christians were more likely to believe in witches (37 per cent) while Catholics were found more likely to believe in astrology and re-incarnation

Labels: America, astrology, Catherine Elsworth, Catholic, creationism, evangelicals, evolution, faith, ghosts, politics

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monthly Archives - Previous Articles
03/01/2003 - 04/01/2003 04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003 05/01/2003 - 06/01/2003 06/01/2003 - 07/01/2003 07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003 08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009

News Archives Predating March 2003

RSS Feed

Blogroll Me!

Blogarama
The Urantia Book : Pictures of Jesus : Angel Pictures: Inspirational Quotes : Life After Death : Story of Jesus : Truthbook.com : Urantia : The Urantia Book

EXPLORE TRUTHBOOK

The Urantia Book

Jesus in the Urantia Book

Quote of the Day

Urantia Book Video

Urantia Book Audio

Discussion Forum

Art Gallery

Heartwarming Stories

Humorous Stories

Life's Toughest Questions

FAQ

Spiritual Studies

About Us

News and Blogs