What faith community is not nervous over the downturn in the economy? The surge in the cost of gasoline, for example, causes families to reevaluate travel and whether they may cut down on their long drives to church once, twice or three times a week. Dare church leaders venture into new programs or building projects while the future remains so uncertain? Increased food costs drive down what families buy to donate to food banks, not to mention ramifications for ministries to the poor and homeless. Dream projects, staff pay raises and refunding programs are approached with hesitancy.

The Phoenix Sky Harbor Interfaith Chaplaincy’s spring newsletter laments that some of it steady and reliable givers aren’t sending donations. “As I look over the list of givers who made gifts in 2007, I notice that the names of several business, churches and other organizations that made donations in previous years are missing this time,” wrote Chaplain Al Young. “I personally value these connections.” Young noted that often he meets people, for the first time, who have been regular donors. “When I hear the name, I recognize it from among those that I see on gifts we have received,” he said. “It is a good feeling to meet a person who has been a supporter, sometimes for many years, and be able to talk with them about the ministry of care their gifts make possible.”

Recently the March of Dimes and American Lung Society recruited me from national offices to mail out letters to my end of the block, urging donations to be returned to me. I have done it before over the years with mixed results. Only a fraction of my neighbors ever respond, typically those living closest.

 I remember a time when we did a pass-along envelope. Each household popped in a buck or two and delivered it to the next house until it made the rounds. There might be $15 or $20 inside the envelope. But these are different times, and the money can be easily “lost.” Who wants to confront a lazy or suspicious neighbor for $12 that seem missing? Sometimes when the response to mailed letters and a personal note has been poor, I just write a check for $20 or so. We aren’t asked to make direct follow-ups to our mailings to neighbors. With the flaws of the fund-raising method, I suspect the charities still do well – at least enough to keep following those procedures.

As for Sky Harbor Chaplaincy, its partners helped its 2007 income of $124,363 versus expenses of $115,491. It closed the year with $25,359 balance. Young and his roving ministry of 13 volunteers reported 1,726 volunteer hours. They gave help to 28,897 people who traveled through the airport.

Traveler assistance was given to 612 people in 376 cases. Among them were 157 “stranded” people, 54 homeless people and 205 related to domestic violence cases – women and children typically getting out of town to safer places.

The chapel, provided by Sky Harbor Chaplaincy in one of the terminals, had 10,550 drop-ins, with 463 attending Christian services on Sundays during the year, followed by 57 at Baha’i prayer. Some 13,083 prayer cards were given out. For more information, call Young at (602) 244-1346 or http://members.iinet.net.au/~holloway1.

Friday was the national observance of Day of Silence when students in schools were displaying their solidarity and support of gay and lesbian, as well as heterosexuals, in their stand against bullying or harassment of homosexuals. Some 275 apparently signed up to take part in it at Gilberts Desert Ridge High School, while about 250 may have skipped school in protest to there even being a Day of Silence, which is not sanctioned by the schools.

Now Monday becomes the nationwide observance of Day of Truth, the fourth annual event sponsored by the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defense Fund. They will be able to present a different viewpoint than what students in districts nationwide were doing Friday to show unity with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Day of Truth has annually come the next school day after Day of Silence.

The Tribune Web site has seen a fierce debate on the issue following the posting of stories and blogs related to the Gilbert firestorm. Readers seem unrestrained in arguing for both sides

Silence doesnt teach anything, the ADF says in its materials. An open, honest and respectful discussion, however allows truth to rise to the surface. It says the consequences of making decisions with inadequate information can be severe. Students cant be expected to make good, well-informed decisions if theyre only hearing part of the story.

Its Web site, http://www.dayoftruth.org/main/default.aspx, shows a 38-second video with the sound of a ticking clock and a couple male students with duct tape over their mouths. One rips his tape off and walks into the school with the words: Its time for an honest conversation about homosexuality Break the silence. Share the truth about homosexual behavior.

The ADF said that on Monday, in schools around the country, students will be wearing Day of Truth T-shirts and hand out cards outside of class time with this message: I am speaking the truth to break the silence. True tolerance means that people with differing even opposing viewpoints can freely exchange ideas and respectfully listen to each other. Its time for an honest conversation about homosexuality. Theres free to change if you want to. Lets talk.

Gay web sites are harsh in criticizing ADF and Day of Truth for being shallow at addressing the realities of homosexuality and that they have one solution, a spiritual one, turn to Christ and be transformed.

Linda Harvey, founder of Mission America, based in Columbus, Ohio, has been a leading force to get schools to stop Day of Silence observances in schools. Her letter on Tuesday to the Columbus school officials notes that she was once a liberal whose ideas changed when she became a Christian in the early 1990s. .for the first time, (I) really grasped the moral disintegration of our country, I was at first concerned, then alarmed and now I am basically overwhelmed at the speed with which radical, high-risk misinformation on homosexuality and gender change is being accepted and disseminated in our nations public school systems, and how responsible, accurate information is often deliberately withheld.

And she debunked the notion that bullying of gays is pervasive. There is no validity to the claim that homosexual kids are being bullied because conservatives and tradition-minded families oppose these questionable behaviors, she said. Overweight kids are bullied, too; does this mean that support for healthy nutrition is to blame? Such invalid linkages unfairly stigmatize moral values and bring confusion to the table.

We get a really good look at people at their depth as humans — when we watch how they react.

I read the Tribunes Gilbert schools writer Hayley Ringle’s comprehensive story today about how students of Desert Ridge High School were protesting observance of the 12^th annual Day of Silence, which raises awareness of bullying and harassment or name-calling of those who are gay or lesbian. While Day of Silence participants were choosing to not talk all day in school and display cards when spoken to, a counter-movement of students was going to stay home. One student talked of having a pizza party around the swimming pool for those not going to school to protest those whom they say are trying to push their values and morals onto them at school.

Day of Silence is sponsored at the school by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Supporters Clubs. Nationally, the day is a project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

Opponents were saying the observance injects an issue into school life that doesnt belong there. Some used logic that to have such a day for the homosexuals should then open up a day for straight people, Christians, Mormons or Mexicans. The obvious conclusion is that a plethora of special days would quickly be overwhelming and learning would be quickly suffer.

Some say schools try to do too much, that, by doing many more things than classroom instruction, the quality of education deteriorates. The long list of clubs, extracurricular activities and special groups in any public or private high school is an amazing cross-section of what peoples interests and passions are. There would be still more if teacher sponsors could be found.

I often tell people that I really didnt know what homosexuality was in high school. In our small northeast Iowa high school 45 years ago, we had what we called sissies, but that was about all most of us knew on the subject. In our junior year, we had a bright, progressive male teacher who spent a week, or so, in social studies class telling us about human sexuality, along with aberrations. It was tremendously informative for all of us, sheltered as we were. For some reason, the school board found such teaching unacceptable and problematic, and that gifted teacher didnt return the next year. But some school boards today havent progressed beyond that mindset.

Obviously, there wouldnt be protests in Gilbert if educators and parents and school governing board members, early on, developed age-appropriate curricula and open-minded means of supplementing home-gained sex education. If students began to accept their peers for what they are blond, green-eyed, black/white/Asian/Hispanic, gay or straight bullying, fear and resentment would go down. There really is a lot more progress and acceptance in sexual orientation tolerance in our schools across
America than we realize.

Church positions on homosexuality no doubt play into which students respond which way in the Gilbert school controversy. Some students come from faiths that simply label it a sin for which gays need to repent and seek conversion to wholesome, normal heterosexuality. Others call it a sin but agree that gays are born that way, but they should exist in that middle world where acting on their orientation, such as having a partner or relationship with a same-sex person, would be wrong. Then there are those who see the spectrum of sexual orientations as part of Gods creation, and our goal should be valuing people for what they are and wanting them to manifest authentic love in responsibility ways with others, including striving for stable, enduring, lifelong relationships and ultimately their sexual identity on the spectrum goes unnoted.

A Barna Group survey showed that 80 percent of youth who grew up in evangelical churches, for example, think the church shows excessive contempt for gay people and the church is hypocritical. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) notes that half of all homeless youth living on the streets of major cities are gay. Gay and questioning youth are three times as likely as straight youth to commit suicide.

It goes without saying that schools should engender the range of human values of getting along, citizenship, honesty, self-development and striving for excellence.

Students who boycott school because they dont want to give tacit approval to a Day of Silence cannot face one reality: Younger generations of Americans are figuring it out for themselves that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are part of our families whom we love and whom we want to have the happiness we seek. They are no more freaks than your grandma.

In its 10 years of existence, Soulforce has been gutsy, relentless and a leading force in working to break down barriers in the faith community and society to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people.

Mel White, who founded Soulforce with his partner Gary Nixon, has the distinction of previously being a ghostwriter for such evangelicals as Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker and Jerry Falwell faith leaders not known for an accommodation of gays. It was only later that White came out of the closet and told about it in his book, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America (1994). One of the latest of his 16 books is Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right (2006). White and Nixon moved Soulforces operations to Lynchburg, Va., where they witnessed and pestered Falwell to undergo a heart change about his objections to homosexuality. But Falwell died last year without such a conversion.

Several years ago, I recall watching Falwell grin and wave, but not stop, at a Soul Force rally, led by White, at Phoenix
Civic Plaza, outside a Southern Baptist Conventions annual gathering of its messengers.

Now Soulforce (www.soulforce.org) is launching The American Family Outing, in which they will pay visits to six of the nations largest and most prominent mega-churches and try to generate dialogues with their well-known leaders. They include Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, led by Joel Osteen (May 9-11); The Potters House in Dallas, Texas, led by Bishop T.D. Jakes (May 16-18); Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., led by Bishop Harry Jackson (May 23-25); New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., led by Bishop Eddie Long (May 30 to June 1); Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., led by Bill Hybels (June 6-8); and Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., led by Pastor Rick Warren (June 13-15).

We visit these churches because we recognize the enormous influence each has within Christianity and the larger culture, through ministries, radio and television programs and books that reach millions, they say in their material. The group argues the selected churches have the potential to be a positive force in ending the physical and spiritual violence perpetuated by some religious voices against LGBT people and their families.

Soulforce points out that those six churches have already demonstrated strong works and leadership in social issues such as poverty and AIDS. We believe they can exercise comparable, courageous leadership in ending spiritual and physical violence against LGBT people, they note. A large card, promoting the trips, has photos of five family combinations, two of them families with two mothers and two fathers. In it, Soulforce invites people to join trip to one or more of the six churches: same-gender couples with or without children, supportive straight couples and families, single-parent families and single persons.

They conclude, For too long, sexual orientation and gender identity have been used as wedges to divide our nation, Soulforce asserts. Now the tide is changing, and you can be part of the change.

Spring and summer in congregations have long been a risk-taking time, especially for holding talent shows. They not only provide entertainment and a way to showcase the diverse skills of members, but the shows commonly are used as surefire fund-raisers.

Over the decades, I have participated in and helped organize a bunch of church talent shows. Sometimes, I have been both a single act and part of others. Talent shows usually bring out good crowds because family and friends of the entertainers come to applaud and encourage performing loved ones who have the audacity and courage to take the stage.

Churches and temples, of course, teem with members and staff who already have more than a modicum of musical, acting, dancing or oratorical skills. The congregation is already using and exploiting those gifts as part of their worship services, programs and activities. The entertainers arent likely to suffer from stage fright, the facilities are equipped with the necessary pianos, instruments and sound systems and the publicity wherewithal. Those choir soloists, bell ringers and children choirs typically provide a good force for the core of the talent show gigs. Often, they get to change their genres of music from religious to Broadway and pop.

Among my favorite shticks over the years has been a Jimmy Durante comedy routine complete with the hat, huge nose, the gravelly voice and a singing of Inka Dinka Doo. Several times, I did Grouch Marx.

Another one that Ive done at least three times is re-creating the popular 1950s and 1960s Old Philosopher comedy routine of Eddie Lawrence. Hed come on TV with his dummy, sad-sack pal, Bunky, then let loose with a litany of woeful stories. Hey, ya, Bunky, you say had mixed emotions when your new Cadillac went over the cliff and your mother-in-law was driving? One depressing thing after another was told to the background of a dreary rendition of Home Sweet Home, then came Stars and Stripes Forever with a joyful comment: but just remember, Bunky, your sweetheart was a moonshiners daughter, but you loved her still!

Ive done Elvis Presley. I did Sonny Bono in a Sonny and Cher routine and a Roy Rogers song along side Dale Evans.

First Christian Church of Mesa, which is getting ready next year to observe its 100^th birthday, is having its Taco Bar Talent Fundraiser 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. May 10. Its billed as an all-ages amateur talent night to raise $2,400 to provide financial support for teens and children to go to church camp this year. It will be used to provide scholarships to cover half the cost of sending them. Keep in mind we use the word talent loosely. The mikes are open to all comers, the promotions say.

Pope Benedict XVI has come to America, and my e-mail box is alive with unsolicited commentaries on the Roman Catholic Church, as well as pitches for experts to interview to get the real picture of the church that lays claim to the bedrock of Christianity. One man calls himself the consummate insider at the
Vatican.

As the vicar of Christ, all strikingly dressed in white, makes his rounds, many Arizona Catholics are reminded of two decades ago when Pope John Paul II roamed for a day around Phoenix and Tempe in his historic visit. Benedict has been buzzing around in a Popemobile certainly more rad than what conveyed JPII back then.

His American trip, then, unleashed a litany of reform ideas, as well.

One commentary sent my way this week is titled Reforming the Vatican: What the Church Can Learn from Other Institutions by Jesuit writer Thomas Reese, former editor of America magazine, the national Catholic publication, and senior fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.. It was Reese, who in 2005, abruptly resigned as the magazines editor, after Cardinal Joseph Radzinger, the future pope, had repeatedly criticized Reeses writings that questioned the Vatican, which wanted to put more prior-publication restraints in place.

Reese argues that the church has long been borrowing from secular political institutions, so why doesnt it go further and adopt some best practices that would revitalize the 2,000-old church troubled by lagging attendance, closed parishes, sexual misconduct and sharply fewer Catholics interested in become priests, nuns and workers.

Today, the governance of the church is more centralized than at any time in its history, he asserts. To make the church more collegial, the Vatican should once again adopt practices of the secular political world.

Over the past two centuries, civil society has learned that good government calls for: the elimination of a powerful nobility, adherence to the principle of subsidiarity and creation of a system of checks and balances, Reese writes.

Reese lays out six needed reforms:

1. Make the Vatican a bureaucracy, not a court. With cardinals viewed as princes, it is hard to fire nobles and bishops when they are incompetent or in changes of administrations. All in all, he wants merit to be based on work performed and not vaunted titles.
2. Strengthen the legislative bodies in the church: No modern political philosophy would advise a polity to depend only on the wisdom of an executive. He calls for synods with members elected at Episcopal conferences and not appointed.
3. Convert congregations into elected synodal committees: It would give synods and conferences authority to act as policy-making and oversight bodies of the Vatican. As it is, Reese says, cardinals wield powerful influence over each area they oversee, limiting ideas and input from other realms of the church.
4. Create an independent judiciary: Such an entity is fundamental to institutions to ensure rule of law prevails. To allow the executive to indict, prosecute, judge and sentence a defendant is today considered a violation of due process. One of the scandals of the church, he said, has been the treatment of theologians accused of dissent by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Benedict, while a cardinal, had overseen.
5. Elect bishops: Though the current procedure whereby the pope names his bishops may be the corporate model with the pope as the CEO and bishops are branch managers, the merit of local leaders being chosen by local citizens is critical, as was endorsed by Pope Leo I (1878-1903).
6. Strengthening episcopal conferences by making them councils: Not everything can or should be decided by a centralized government and that what can be done locally should be done locally. In centuries past, the episcopal conferences had an important part in determining church teaching and discipline. They should not need to have every decision and document reviewed and ratified by the Vatican, Reese said.

The writer argues the change actually would be a return to earlier practices and structures of the church. He asks aloud whether such reforms can be made. As a social scientist, Id have to say theyre probably close to zero. The church is now run by a self-perpetuating group of men who know such reform would diminish their power, he writes. It is also contrary to their theology of the church. But as a Catholic Christian, I still have to hope.

The entire articlecan be found at Commonweals web site.

The Rev. Dale Fushek appears to be keeping busy in his new ministry, the Praise and Worship Center in Mesa, as he awaits his jury trial in the San Tan Justice court ofJustice of the Peace Sam Goodman. Now you can listen to his most recent sermon online.

In an Arizona Supreme Court ruling, the suspended Roman Catholic priest recently won the right to a trial by jury for alleged sexually misdemeanor offenses. He successfully convinced the high court that, as a cleric, his career would be ruined if convicted and made to register as a sex offender underArizona law.

Now the ministrys Web site reports the Praise and Worship Center has a new home, Fiesta Fountains, 1316 S. Longmore, just across from Fiesta Mall. The banquet, conference and reception center is home for the worship service at 10 a.m. Sundays, although the web site does not say those services are every Sunday, at least notyet.

Fushek riled Bishop Thomas Olmsted, his authority with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, when he started his new ministry (praiseandworshipcenter.net), with the Rev. Mark Dippre, a former priest now married. The two once worked together at St. Timothys Catholic Community in Mesa. The charismatic Fushek, 55, had been instructed by Olmsted to not function as a priest or in any other form of public ministry until there was a definitive decision in the courts on the seven charges against him: one of assault, five counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one count of indecent exposure.

In limited public comment about the new ministry, Fushek had said his services are expressly non-denominational, non-Catholic and are intended to supplement any other active faith experience participants have. But with reports of more than 500 attending the services, some of whom have followed Fushek from St. Timothys, the diocese has instructed Catholics to stay away from the new ministry. Last November, Olmsted releases a statement that the new ministry is not endorsed by the Catholic Church and he encouraged faithful Catholics to keep the Holy Mass, the ultimate form of praise and worship, as the center of their lives. Thediocese had agreed to continue to pay a sustenance to Fushek, pending the settlement of hiscriminal case, but at the start of the year, the Diocese ended financial support to the priest, said Jim Dwyer, spokesman for the diocese.

The alleged events go back to the 1980s and early 1990s when he was pastor of St. Timothys and head of Life Teen, the international Catholic youth organization which he co-founded. He was indicted in November 2005 and was subsequently suspended. At one time, he was a vicar general in the diocese, under Bishops Thomas OBrien and Olmsted. He oversaw the historic Mass at Sun Devil Stadium that Pope John Paul II led during his 1987 visit to the Valley, and he chaperoned Mother Teresa in her visit to
Phoenix in 1989.

The first service at Fiesta Fountains was April 6 and the second one was Sunday. Services had been held at the Mesa Convention Center since they began last November. Their web site carries a survey asking people to say whether they want services weekly, twice a month or periodically; preferred times of day for services (Sunday or weekday nights); and how they might volunteer.

Fushek and Dippre have embarked on a five-week sermon series on the fruits of the spirit including love, joy and peace.

Meanwhile, the court docket shows a pre-trial conference set for Fushek on May 21 in Goodmans court. It remains unknown when a trial by his peers would begin.

Having lived for short periods of time in Mexico, Paraguay, Ecuador and Uruguay where I stayed with families, I have always been warmed and heartened by the Latino culture and the special lan that comes with it. At one time, my Spanish was pretty good, and 40 years ago this summer, I was allowed to write a newspaper column seven days a week for six weeks (about 1,200 words each) for La Verdad, a daily owned by the family I lived with in a Sister Cities program with Loja, Ecuador.

I grieve, bristle and am offended by what is happening with Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaios trolling the county for people who dont have citizenship or the right documents to be here. A great, great sorrow and sadness has settled over our greater community as we witness something brutal and insidious happening. People of faith and conscience especially are both astounded and disgusted by the so-called hunt for the illegals. Those tactics, those procedures, the terror created are the makings of a Dostroyevsky novel a narrative for another country

You will never find me beating my breast about nationalism and maintaining Americas purity with harsh legalism. This earth is, after all, a huge ball of matter careening through space with human beings some of the creatures clinging to the fragile firmament. People have to be somewhere. People have a natural, God-given drive to survive. Grown-ups have an obligation to provide for the welfare of their families. Many humans have free access to go most places on earth only because of the good fortune of their places of birth, their economic fortunes and the clout of the place they live. Forced into a grim situation of survival, they, too, would move toward the light.

So I salute the statement released Thursday by seight prominent Valley clergy all but one of whom I have interviewed for articles over the years. They are a formidable group and they represent religions and faiths that have a deep and long history of pointing out injustice with courage and force. They are nonplussed that the community is so silent at what is happening with the crackdown and arrests and harassment of people because of nationality and skin color.

Impelled by our faith and religious values, we respectfully urge Sheriff Arpaio to reconsider the wisdom and morality of the so-called Maricopa County Sheriffs Office crime sweeps, they said in the opening to the statement released to media. We call on the sheriff to cease this excessive, wasteful and divisive campaign.

Signers were Bishop Kirk Stephen Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona; Bishop Stephen Talmage of the Grand Canyon Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; Bishop Minerva Cacano of the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church; the Rev. Kenneth Moe, moderator of the Presbytery of Grand Canyon; The Rev. Jan Olav Flaaten, director of the Arizona Ecumenical Council; Rabbi Andrew Straus of Tempe, chairman of Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix; Rabbi Maynard Bell, executive director the Phoenix Chapter of the American Jewish Committee; and the Rev. Lark Hapke, interim conference minister for the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Bell told me that the sweeps may technically be legal, but is everyone aware that it has human impact? He related a conversation with a principal of a Paradise Valley elementary school near 32^nd Street and Greenway Road.On the first day after the sweep, 100 kids did not go to school, he said. People are very, very frightened. The Latino community, I think, is kind of aghast that nobody in the non-Latino establishment talks about it, other than the mayor (Phil Gordon) of Phoenix.

And he rightly noted that moderate politicians wont speak out because the sheriff scares them politically and they think most Arizonans are in favor of it (the crackdowns).

The clergys statements suggested a police state atmosphere has been created, as Arpaios forces move from city to city like an uncaring bulldozer.

Here is the full text of the statement, largely crafted by
Bell, with input from the other signers:

Impelled by our faith and religious values, we respectfully urge Sheriff Arpaio to reconsider the wisdom and morality of the MCSO crime sweeps. We call on the Sheriff to cease this excessive, wasteful, and divisive campaign.

Even if the Sheriff has legal authority to order these sweeps, we question his judgment in orchestrating them, the message that they send to our community, and the fear and anger that they generate in the targeted neighborhoods. These sweeps have evoked a police state atmosphere, involved detainment on the basis of a racial profile, and dehumanization of innocent people many of whom are legal residents of the United States. They have also generated anger and anxiety in an ethnic community that comprises more than one third of the population of Maricopa County. We are unconvinced that the law enforcement value of these sweeps outweighs the human rights and dignity of those who reside in the neighborhoods where they are carried out and the peace of our community.

We are also disturbed and surprised that there has not been more public outcry from non-Latinos about the Sheriffs conduct and the hateful and anti-immigrant rhetoric that it exacerbates. Regardless of ones position on the issue of immigration policy, we call upon those on both sides of the debate, especially other high profile figures in our community who influence public opinion to speak out against mean-spirited words and actions directed at the migrants and foreign-born residents among us. We call upon the higher instincts and motivations of our community to see the human face of these children of God who are the targets of these sweeps.

I admit there are times when I ask myself whether I am really covering a religion. Faith can be so amorphous, and it can be difficult sifting out feelings and opinions from some transcendent relationship with a higher source. Anyone can start a religion, after all.

The mind is a remarkable and mysterious place, and its common for folks to be convinced that a thought or a dream or a vision was Gods voice. Thats been enough for all sorts of religions to spring up through the course of human history. Some, of course, took their direct communications with God and created holy books.

When do great ideas amount to God speaking and the impetus to launch new religion of truth? There are plenty of opinions as to what religions are true and what ones are false and toxic and laughable, or unworthy of being labeled a legitimate religion.

Now the provocative Pat Robertson, on The 700 Club religious TV program, has stated that Islam is not a religion. It is a political system, meant on bent on world denomination, not a religion. It masquerades as a religion but the religion covers a worldwide attempt to exercise power and to subjugate the world to their way of thinking.

And Christianity doesnt? Christianity doesnt exercise power? It doesnt want to subjugate the world to its way of thinking? Doesnt Matthew 28:19 say, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So Christianity can troll for new believers but Islam cant?

Media Matters, a monitoring organization of media, provided the transcript of Tuesdays PTL program where a news clip featured Princeton scholar and author Bernard Lewis talking to the Christian Broadcasting Networks Chris Mitchell about a news account of Iran installing centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility. Mitchell introduced Lewis, a more than 90-year-old man who takes a long view of history and has been warning American and the West about the motives of Islam.

Lewis compared what is faced with Islam to the two dominant 20^th century struggles against Hitler and communism, that two world views Islam and Christianity claim holding to truth. Where you have two religions with the same self-perception, the same sense of mission, the same historical background and the same geographical area, conflict is inevitable, Lewis said. And the conflict has been going on for more than 14 centuries; the crusade and counter-crusade, and jihad and counter-jihad, conquest and re-conquest, sometimes one side winning, sometimes the other side winning.

He characterized the U.S. as the only obstacle to the worldwide triumph of Islam. He said such Muslims as Osama bin Laden see a showdown with the U.S. as the final stage in the cosmic struggle between the true believers and the unbelievers and the misbelievers. The interview closes, and Robertson talks with his news anchor about the segment. Well, the 78-year-old televangelist said, weve been saying it, but it looks like the political correctness in our society wont let you say it. They make fun of people who speak out boldly against Islam. Then he made his statement that Islam is not religion but a political system that wants to control the world.

They want a caliphate as they had once before; they want all people to be subjected to Sharia (Islamic law) and to live under their rules and their domination. It is every bit as insidious as communism, perhaps more so.

Then Robertson tries to explain why the alarms arent being heard. But to say, Well, its a religion, and you should leave a religion alone, thats just not the way it works. Then he called for clear-cut thinking warning that things more horrible than anything you can imagine would come to those of no faith. You better understand that Christianity is the way to freedom and not to slavery.

Thats amazing rhetoric and reckless talk. It presupposes that Western Christianity is ripe for the taking, never mind that Islam, the planets second largest religion by followers, is widely distributed, but mostly in nations woefully lacking military or economic wherewithal. How could Christians fear that their superior message could be trumped by Islam if there have a world of discriminating people? The Muslim population in the
U.S. is regularly inflated by Islamic groups. Of course, its preposterous to suggest Islam is a political movement cloaked in phony religious clothing. We have known enough Muslims, attended their worship gatherings and heard their sincere message.

The Islamic extremists dont rule the day and it insults the vast majority of Muslims in
America, at least, to lump them with communists, Nazis and other insidious forces.Its just more rubbish from Pat Robertson and does nothing to bring about understanding and accommodation and peace among religions