TruthBook Religious News Blog

Nadav Neuhaus for The New York Times

This is page one of a two-page article. Please click on "external link" for the complete article.

PAM GAWLEY is Jewish, her husband, Steven, is Catholic, and from the time they started dating, they celebrated each other’s holidays together. Christmas and Easter, they went to his parents’ home; Rosh Hashana, Hanukkah and Passover, to her parents’.

“Everything was very equal,” said Mr. Gawley, a music executive. They were married by a judge in a civil ceremony 18 years ago, and each December, their home in Port Washington, N.Y., is decorated for both holidays. “We started with a small Christmas tree and a menorah with electric bulbs,” Mr. Gawley said. “And then the tree got bigger, and we got Hanukkah pillows...”

“Mixing the holidays was always very easy, we didn’t really give it much thought,” Ms. Gawley said.

Until nine years ago, when their firstborn, Michaela, was 3. As usual, Mr. Gawley was working long hours, so Ms. Gawley, a stay-at-home mom, put up the Christmas tree, with the help of her brother and her dad.

When Mr. Gawley came home from the office, everyone was admiring the tree, and little Michaela asked, “Why do we celebrate Christmas?”

“Because Christmas is God’s birthday,” Mr. Gawley said.

“I didn’t say a word,” Ms. Gawley said. “I just said, ‘Can you come into the bedroom with me?’ ”

“She wasn’t happy,” Mr. Gawley said.

“I went bananas,” Ms. Gawley said. “Here my dad, my brother and I had just put up this Christmas tree — three Jews. I said to him, ‘You can’t say that.’ At that moment I knew we had to figure out how to handle this.”

Kids change everything. For Ms. Gawley, her daughter’s question started her on a search for a more systematic way to provide their children (the couple have three, now ages 12, 8 and 3) with a balanced religious upbringing in a mixed marriage.

The Gawleys have lots of company. In 1970, 13 percent of married American Jews were in mixed marriages; by 2001, 31 percent were, according to the National Jewish Population Survey done by United Jewish Communities. And that rate has risen steadily; between 1996 and 2001 (the last time the survey was conducted), nearly half the Jews who married — 47 percent — married outside their faith.

While most mixed families find their own way through the holidays, a small but growing number like the Gawleys, mainly in urban areas, have joined interfaith groups. In New York there is Interfaith Community, which started in the late 1980s with a handful of parents whose children attended the Trinity School in Manhattan, was formally incorporated in 2003 and now has 120 families, with chapters on Long Island, in Westchester and Connecticut, along with a chapter that combines Orange and Rockland Counties in New York and Bergen County in New Jersey.

Most who join have young children, find comfort in prayer, have a belief in God and are trying to expose their youngsters to both parents’ religions with the idea that later in life the children will make their own choices. “We couldn’t ignore this until they were 17, and tell them to go look around. They’d have no grounding,” said Fred Engel of Larchmont, who has two girls, 9 and 12.

During the holidays, Mr. Engel, an investment banker, and his wife, Ruby, a psychologist, take their daughters to an Episcopal church, a Reform temple and Interfaith services.

At one point, the Gawleys tried a Unitarian church as a compromise between her Judaism and his Catholicism, but both felt out of place. “It was too new to both of us,” said Ms. Gawley. “We weren’t looking to merge traditions, we were looking to hold on to our traditions.”

Interfaith Sunday school classes are taught both by Jewish and either Catholic or Protestant educators. Each holiday gets its due (“Hanukkah-mas” bushes are not the goal here), with some chapters holding separate interfaith Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations.

“We don’t want to smoosh them together,” said Joanne Sirotkin of Harrison, N.Y.

No smooshing is central to the Interfaith ethos. Linda and Tom Woodward of Westwood, N.J., the parents of two children, 8 and 9, keep the Hanukkah menorah downstairs in the playroom, the Christmas tree in the living room. Soraya and Don Meyers of Highland Mills, N.Y., who have three girls, put the Christmas tree in the study and light the menorah in the family room.

While Interfaith provides detailed guides to each religion, families often puzzle out the trappings, like the holiday decorations, themselves.

Labels: Catholic, Christmas, Hanukkah, Jewish, Nadav Neuhaus

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Not Much Behavior Change during Christmas, Survey Finds

By Jennifer Riley
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Dec. 15 2008

Unlike what most people expect, most Americans do not dramatically change their lifestyle during the Christmas season, according to a survey that examined five seasonal behaviors.

In terms of church attendance for Christmas, there is an expected increase in the number of attendees, but not from the expected crowd, according to the survey. While people may expect a large turnout of CEOs – Christmas and Easter Only attendees – the Barna study found that most of the increase in attendance is expected from regular churchgoers.

One out of five adults say they will attend more religious services at a church, synagogue or other place of worship during the holiday season than they normally would. But the group that was most likely to say that was regular attendees (27 percent) rather than those who don’t normally attend service (4 percent), the study found.

In other findings, one out of five adults (18 percent), said they would definitely donate more money to their religious center during the holidays than at other times of the year. Evangelicals are the most likely group to donate (30 percent), followed by African Americans (29 percent) and Catholics (24 percent).

Out of the five behaviors explored in the latest Barna Group survey, the only one that a majority of people said they change during the holidays is listening to Christmas carols in their home.

Six out of ten American adults (59 percent) said they will definitely listen to carols this holiday season, with evangelicals being most likely to do so (82 percent).

Among the non-born again population, 50 percent said they will play carols at home, including one-third (34 percent) of atheists and agnostics.

Interestingly, there was a racial correlation for Christmas carols: 63 percent of whites, 55 percent of African Americans, and 48 percent of Hispanics and of Asians said they would listen to carols at home.

But the holiday is not a joyful time for everyone, with a small but significant percentage of Americans saying they would struggle with loneliness or depression during this season.

The group that was most likely to suffer with loneliness or depression was downscale adults, or individuals whose annual income is less than $20,000 and those who did not attend college. More than one out of ten (11 percent) said they would definitely face depression or loneliness during the Christmas season, according to the Barna study.

Evangelicals and atheists were among the people least likely to have these emotions and experiences, with less than one percent of each group saying they would struggle with these unwanted emotions.

The study also found that some Americans expect to drink more alcohol during the holidays. Those most likely to drink are people under 25 years old (12 percent), atheists and agnostics (11 percent), and liberals (11 percent).

The survey is based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,203 adults across the United States from November 1 to 5, 2008.

Labels: atheists, Barna Group, carols, Christmas, church, depression, evangelicals, religion

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, December 24, 2007

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

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

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

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

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Survey: Many Christian Parents Choose to Satisfy Children Over God

By Nathan Black
Christian Post Reporter
Nov. 20 2007

Despite concern over the negative influence of media on young people, Christian parents are likely to spend more than $1 billion on media products this Christmas season, a new survey showed.

Seventy-eight percent of Christian parents had purchased DVDs of movies and TV programs in the past year for their teenagers and 87 percent had purchased DVDs for their children under 13, the latest Barna Group study found. Yet 26 percent of them did not feel comfortable with the DVD products they purchased.

About six out of 10 parents bought music CDs for their teen children but one out of every three of them had concerns about the content. Also, slightly more than half of all Christian parents had purchased video games for their children yet nearly half (46 percent) of parents of teens admitted to concerns about the content of those games.

Christian parents who were generally the least comfortable with the content of the media products purchased were non-whites and parents involved in a house church, according to the survey, which was released Monday. Those most comfortable were single parents, mothers and parents least active in practicing their faith. Moreover, the study found that the more media consumed by the parent, the more comfortable they were with all forms of media they bought for their children.

The Parents Television Council (PTC), a non-profit organization that focuses on family-friendly television programming, reported earlier this year that television violence has increased 75 percent since 1998 and that the increase may pose a threat to children who may mimic what they see.

Among other media purchases that Christian parents had purchased for their children were magazines (51 percent), with 31 percent saying they were not very comfortable with the content. Thirty-nine percent bought their teens computer software although 24 percent were not comfortable with the software.

Researcher Barna noted that selecting appropriate Christmas gifts is "a microcosm of the spiritual tension millions of Christian adults wrestle with."

The Barna report is based on a nationwide survey on 601 Christian adults who were the parents of children between the ages of 2 and 18.

Labels: Barna Group, Christian, Christmas, Media, Nathan Black, parents, Parents Television Council, teenagers

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Monday, November 19, 2007

'Golden Compass' Film Angering Christian Groups -- Even With Its Religious Themes Watered Down

By Jennifer Vineyard

Thought Harry Potter was blasphemous? That was kids' stuff compared to the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, in which God is an imposter, angels are sexually ambiguous and the Church kidnaps, tortures and assassinates to achieve its goals, one of which is stealing children's souls.

But try as the filmmakers might to take religion out of the equation in the first installment — "The Golden Compass," due December 7 — Christian groups are gearing up to protest and fans are urging New Line not to water down the provocative material in remaining films.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which most recently protested a picture of Britney Spears sitting provocatively in a priest's lap — the image appears in her new album, Blackout — takes this issue a little more seriously. The anti-defamation group accuses the film of "selling atheism to kids" and has produced its own booklet in response, "The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked," which it's been distributing to churches and other Christian groups.

Also, Snopes.com, which typically debunks urban legends, claims that the assertion that the film has "anti-religious" themes is "true." (Kansas State literature professor Philip Nel posted an open letter in refute, saying it would be more accurate to call it "a matter of debate.")

Ironically, this debate was exactly what New Line was trying to avoid by softening the religious references in "The Golden Compass." (Whether religion would reappear in "The Subtle Knife" or "The Amber Spyglass," producer Bob Shea told MTV News that plans weren't firm yet: "One film at a time!") So in "Compass," the revisionist Church is simply referred to as the "Magisterium," because the focus is the power of the agency, not the agency itself.

"Religion is at its best when it's far from power," author Philip Pullman said during his Times Talks appearance Tuesday. "When a religion gains power, it goes bad."

"The Church is a symbol of oppression in the books," HisDarkMaterials.org webmaster Ryan den Rooijen said, "and they've retained that essence. Even if they don't name it as the Church, it's not a terrible loss. The story is still retained."

"We'll have to deal [with God and the angels] when we get to the next bit," said "Golden Compass" director Chris Weitz. "I don't think anyone here sees it as a particularly [controversial] series of films that we're making."

"This is the least offensive of the three, and they're watering down the most despicable elements, so why the protest? Not because it's going to be so shocking," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said. "The protest is this: It's being done at Christmastime, and when parents don't find the film troubling, they're going to buy the books for their kids as Christmas gifts. They're doing it through the back door, in a stealth fashion, because each book becomes more provocative, more aggressive and more anti-Christian. I've never seen anything quite like this before, to use a movie like this."

Defenders of Pullman's works — who range from liberal Christians to religious scholars to readers of the books — counter that the Gnostic and Nietzschean ponderings in the series shouldn't make conservative Christians fear that their kids will be "seduced" into atheism. Calling the online chatter "fearful to the point of hysterical," Boston University religion professor Donna Freitas argues on BeliefNet.com that the challenges to traditional images of God should be welcomed, not protested, as part of a "lively dialogue about faith."

Though independent Christian groups may be opposed, not everyone in the Church is upset about that dialogue. Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams has even proposed that "His Dark Materials" be taught as part of religious education in schools.

"I found that to be one of the most provocative elements, the religious overtones, aspects, ramifications of the thing," said actor Sam Elliott, who plays Lee Scoresby in "The Golden Compass." "It's thought-provoking, is all. It's good material, good stuff. But why not deal with it? That's how I feel. It's provocative material, and deal with it as such."

Labels: atheism, children, Christmas, church, God, Jennifer Vineyard, oppresion, religion, The Golden Compass

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Nativity dispute divides Berkley

Voters will get their say Nov. 6 on whether city should display manger scene on public ground.

Jennifer Chambers / The Detroit News

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted a poll in December 2005 that asked:

Should displays of Christmas symbols like nativity scenes and Christmas trees be allowed on government property, or not?

83 percent: Should be allowed
11 percent: Should not be allowed
4 percent: Doesn't matter/Don't care
2 percent: Don't know/refused

Of the 83 percent who supported the idea:
27 percent: Only if other symbols are displayed
44 percent: OK for Christmas symbols to be displayed alone.

The survey was conducted Dec. 7-11 and included 1,502 respondents.

Carlos Osorio / Associated Press

Because of the controversy and threats of lawsuits, the nativity scene shifted from city hall to area churches. This is at the Berkley First United Methodist Church in 2006. See full image

BERKLEY -- Christmas may be weeks away, but a quarrel that has become an annual holiday tradition across America is in full swing: heated disputes over religious displays on public property.

An infant Jesus, mother Mary and Joseph are again at the center of this long-brewing legal controversy, this time in the city of Berkley, where in an unprecedented election on Nov. 6, voters will decide whether the government should be required to display a nativity at City Hall.

Rulings from the highest court in the land have been anything but consistent on the issue of religious displays in the public square, U.S. Constitutional scholars agree. And so the debate rages on the meaning of the oft-cited but equally vague Establishment Clause -- one of two clauses of the First Amendment that govern the relationship of government to religion -- and Thomas Jefferson's call for a "wall of separation between church and state."

These highly emotional disputes -- where citizens embroil themselves in battles with their local governments and courts over the right to display and not to display -- have become so common nationwide they've been dubbed "The Christmas Wars."

Yet public opinion polls show a majority of Americans favor religious displays on public property.

In December 2005, a poll by the Pew Forum found 83 percent of Americans agreed that displays of Christmas symbols like nativity scenes and Christmas trees should be allowed on government property. Forty-four percent of those respondents said it was OK for Christmas symbols to be displayed alone.

For at least two decades -- some say longer -- Berkley has displayed the modest nativity scene on a small patch of grass behind City Hall on Coolidge Highway.

The figures, along with the three wise men, animals, an angel, a wooden manger and scattered piles of hay, stood quietly on the frozen patch of ground, fixtures in the predominantly Christian, Woodward Avenue suburb.

After the American Civil Liberties Union threatened the city with a lawsuit in 2005, it moved a Santa mailbox closer to the nativity scene. But the ACLU returned in 2006 and the council sent the figures packing after examining several options from its legal department and enduring lengthy public discussion.

The city's nativity tradition has bothered many around town, including resident Richard Scott, who calls a nativity scene, or creche, on government property inappropriate.

Scott, a self-described activist, is distributing a statement to his neighbors encouraging them to oppose the measure and support the compromise that allowed the creche to be displayed outside town churches. Scott said returning the nativity to City Hall grounds would convey an impression of a closed community, indifferent to those not among the Christian faith.

Both sides in the controversy can point to different rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court to strengthen their long-running argument.

The Supreme Court has found a nativity can be constitutional if it's part of a larger display of secular decorations...

Language in the proposed charter amendment, which must pass by 50.1 percent of the vote, says the city must display the nativity "in compliance with governing law" that includes -- at minimum -- an infant Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Language in the proposed amendment says the display is to be modeled after one in nearby Clawson, which includes a nativity scene surrounded by numerous secular items and was ruled constitutional by the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal court that governs Michigan.

Berkley Mayor Marilyn Stephan said many residents don't think it makes any difference where the nativity ends up. Stephan supports allowing the clergy to rotate the city's nativity.

Stephan said the city is not in possession of numerous other secular items like snowmen and has no plans to buy them.

These "Christmas Wars" that emerge every December in towns across America are all part of a cultural war in the United States that spans several hot-button issues...

"It's a question of social conservatives and more secular, more liberal Americans over abortion, same-sex marriage, God in the public square," he said.

"This is a constant kind of struggle. Sometimes it becomes more."

Labels: Berkley, Carlos Osorio, Christmas, Jennifer Chambers, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, separation of church and state

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Consensus Is Sought on Religion in Schools

Published: March 12, 2007

Diverse groups meet to weigh issues that vex public education.

By Andrew Trotter
Digg This
Nashville, Tenn.

How can the nation’s public schools accommodate students’ religious practices, prepare them for living in a society with a multiplicity of faiths, and avoid related conflicts that disrupt the schools’ educational mission and consume time and money in lawsuits?

Those were the central questions that a conference of some 50 educators, curriculum experts, religious leaders, and legal scholars tried to tackle here last week.
And none too soon, because “there’s a lot of religion going on in public schools,” said Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center of the Washington-based Freedom Forum, one of three groups hosting the conference at Vanderbilt University, which is also affiliated with the First Amendment Center.

Like a few others at the conference, Mr. Haynes has been working for more than two decades on building a consensus on religious issues in the public schools. He has seen students become more assertive about expressing religious sentiments in school, a growth in the number of religions embraced by students, and heightened interest in adding instruction about world religions and the Bible as a cultural text to the curriculum.

Teaching, Not Advocacy

Those trends create more areas of potential conflict—especially when national groups and the news media get involved in local controversies, many here agreed.

“Schools are a battleground for the culture wars,” said Steven Shapiro, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued districts to enforce strong church-state separation in schools.

The ACLU, based in New York City, co-sponsored the conference, and Mr. Shapiro explained that he hoped the discussions would clarify the difference between students’ “expression of religious speech and government endorsement of religion.”

The third co-sponsor was the Council for America’s First Freedom, a Richmond, Va.-based group that promotes the use of dialogue, rather than litigation, to solve conflicts over religion in the public schools.

The council’s president, Robert A. Seiple, told participants that “slash-and-burn litigation” civil-liberties groups has been harmful to the nation.

Oliver “Buzz” Thomas, an ordained Baptist minister who is the executive director of the Niswonger Foundation, an educational and charitable organization in Greeneville, Tenn., said, “People get so polarized by this emotional stuff, they can’t get on with the primary task of the school district.”

Seeking Consensus

Meeting March 5-6, participants representing a range of religious and nonreligious perspectives tried to identify areas of agreement that could help districts and outside groups avoid unnecessary conflict, and especially litigation.

Working groups tackled religion in the public school social studies curricula, including world religions and religious holidays; religion in the science curriculum; Bible courses; and student religious expression.

The talks were a reminder that consensus on general issues—say, that public schools should teach “about religion”—can evaporate as discussions get into specifics or touch on current legal cases.

A working group considering religion in science curricula ran into trouble on how to handle “intelligent design,” which many scientists say is religion masquerading as science.

Some participants said the concept, which holds that humans and other living things show signs of having been created by an intelligent being, deserved mention as an alternative to the theory of evolution, which is overwhelmingly accepted by scientists. But curriculum specialists in science said that intelligent design should be handled in social studies—a position opposed by the social studies experts in the room.

A group discussing the school calendar pondered the “December dilemma,” in which Christmas dominates the scheduling of the winter school break. One school superintendent described how he found consensus to close schools on the most significant Jewish and Muslim holidays as well. He assembled a committee of educators and community members that designed a calendar, which was approved by the school board, that gave evenhanded treatment to all religions represented in the district’s schools.

A Muslim attendee described ways that school districts have successfully accommodated Islamic religious holidays and used classrooms after the school day for Friday prayers by students. He advised that by consulting with local religious authorities, school administrators would learn where Islam permits flexibility in certain practices—useful information for accommodating students within the confines of school operations.

The group also agreed that teachers’ jewelry that used religious symbols, such as a cross or a Star of David, could be permissible and an opportunity to teach about religious pluralism.

During a general session, an attendee reporting on the discussions of the Bible-as-an-elective working group said that some conservative Christians in the group argued that the public schools cannot teach about the Bible without undermining students’ faith. Those with this perspective also disapproved of schools’ teaching about sacred texts in general, preferring as a less troubling option a general course in world religions.

Although most participants seemed to accept that schools could teach about religion in the school curriculum—something that is permissible under court rulings, as are elective courses about the Bible—several people acknowledged that many teachers resist taking up the subject. Either the teachers fear that their lessons will interfere with their students’ religious training at home or church, this argument went, or they have objections to courses that may inadvertently help spread a particular religion.

The participants agreed to exchange summaries of their deliberations; and the organizers plan to craft a document discussing the conference’s key points, including strategies and recommendations.

Teaching About Religion

Experts in law, education, and religion at a recent conference on religion in public schools discussed how conflicts over religion could be minimized.

• School districts should develop policies on handling religious issues before disagreements at schools explode into public controversy and lawsuits.

• Educators should develop such policies in consultation with their communities, including local religious leaders. They should try to identify areas of agreement, as well as “safe harbors,” where groups disagree but will not take school districts to court.

• Schools that address religion in the curriculum need better instructional materials, including textbooks and Web sites.

• Teachers need to be better trained about the law on religion in the public schools; of the facts about major religions; and of the recommended pedagogies for teaching about religion.

• Public schools can lessen friction over religion by promoting neutrality, on matters such as the religious holidays that are recognized on the school calendar, and by making reasonable accommodations, such as allowing teachers to wear jewelry featuring religious symbols.

SOURCE: Education Week

Labels: Andrew Trotter, Christmas, evolution, Freedom Forum, government, public school, religion