Twenty years ago when I started covering religion full time for our newspapers, I could frequently find clergy in their offices by telephone. Not any more. They seem to be anywhere but their offices these days.Maybe thats a good thing. Out ministering to the people in need, out attending important meetings in the community or networking with the faith and compassion community. On this rainy afternoon in the Valley of the Sun, I made at least 15 calls to churches and to several rabbis without finding a single one around. I left a lot of phone messages. Some will get back to me when they are ready. Others wont bother.Obviously technology has sharply changed since 1987, and clergy dont feel tied down to their desks anymore. They arent on the phone talking to their members or fellow pastors or their other contacts. They can take care of a lot of business by e-mail, text messaging, blackberries and their trusty cell-phones. And it seems an increasing number of pastors spend chunks of time in their studies at home far from the pace of the campus, its perfunctory activities, people popping into their offices and phone calls. I sense that we, the public, today cut clergy a lot more slack. We have lower expectations that they can and will have time for us. Priests, particularly, are sheltered and insulated from the calling public, it seems to me. Getting them to return calls seems to be one of the great challenges. With so many parishioners, they cannot be so expected to get to everyone.Sure, most houses of worships have their state-of-the-art telephone systems that tell people where to call in case of emergencies. Typically a call is automatically first picked up by a system that tells the caller about worship times and driving directions. Then it proceeds to instruct what numbers to push to reach particular staff. If you know the party you are calling, please enter the first three letters of their last name.. is part of the tedious work to get through church phone systems. Because messages can be picked out now from remote locations, clergy can always be in touch.Alas, all too often a call to a church only find the administrative assistant or a volunteer around. Each learns the habits of superiors and their preferences for screening and sorting calls. Try to reach a youth leader during the day. Not easy. It commonly drives callers to web sites where staff photos and e-mails can be found to send an e-mail message and pray for a response. It becomes an all-too-easy way for staffers to screen communications and choose to respond or ignore as they wish.Summertime in Arizona is the worst. When I want to do a story on a general topic to get a host of clergy to respond and help me explore an issue, I put out numerous calls and leave them in voice mails. In the end, I have to work on volume: 15 to 20 calls made may net a callback of five. Shorter office hours, vacations and a more laid-back attitude make it harder to get responses. Occasionally, clergy call me back two weeks later and say they just got back into town and wonder if I still need a comment. Understandably pastors, especially heads of staff, are under great pressure and demand for a piece of their time. They are masters at sifting, sorting and deciding what calls, e-mails and mail to answer. Time gets away from them, and they often decide to do nothing. After all, they are busy people. When it is too easy to send e-mails and leave phone messages, it is all too easy to not wade through it at all and respond.Its not like it used to be, and the clergy phenomenon surely has its parallels in other fields, including academia, law and business. With so many means of communications, there is real discrimination and gate-keeping, deciding who is worthy of responding to and what is worth a pastors time. Maybe clergy are dissin you, too

At the end of my alley, while on an early morning walk recently, I found a 1,600-page Bible. It was among odds and ends abandoned there, including toys. This was The Holy Bible Max Lucado General Editor The Devotional Bible, published in 2003 by Thomas Nelson Bibles. The perfectly intact Bible, save a tear on the first inside page, is one of those Bibles made to make reading it a true adventure in study and leaning. Its owner had obviously set out to assiduously put the Good Book to use because there are a lot of early markings in pencil at the beginning: Underlined was an imperative, Study the Bible a bit at a time and how do I obey? and where can I go? and after the asking and seeking comes the knocking. All are comments that Lucado makes at the opening. In the devotional index, the owner had bracketed a number of topics in pencil: authority, comfort, communication, Christlikeness, difficulties, disappointments, decisions, habits, guilt, failure, and letting go. Here and there are small scratchings indicating, perhaps, a passing interest in issues like self, prayer and lifestyle changes. And future. Can I be so presumptuous to believe the owner had some real burdens to deal with?Whoever abandoned the Bible gave up one of those five-star Bibles, a souped-up, 10-gallon, full-course scripture. Its the deluxe. Every page of scripture contains rich commentary broken down into situation, observation, inspiration and application related to the biblical text beside it. Much of it is new Lucado material, much of it is drawn from his massive published works or that of other writers. But it applies masterfully to the text. Under the application for the first chapter of the Book of Ruth, for example, it says, Think for a minute about the people in your world. What do they think of your commitment to them? How would they rate your faithfulness? Does your loyalty every waver? With whom are you a friend forever. Pray for that person(s) today.And so it goes. Whole special commentaries written about guilt, habits, healing, heaven. And power, righteousness, rivalry and salvation. So much more. Someone abandoned a dandy Bible, complete with a 30-day exercise of readings and questions to answer. Topics include getting to know a new friend and holy and clean and accountable to God.How and why did this sleek, black, hard-cover Bible end up in an alley in Tempe? Was it put there to be found, a spot chosen over tossing it immediately into the nearby Dumpster. By the looks of the Bible, Id say it never got that much reading.There is no name of the Bibles recipient, donor or date on the special first page of the Bible. Not a single shred of paper slipped between pages. Isnt every Bible stuffed with odd pieces of paper and keepsakes?I already have a large collection of Bibles on shelves all over the house and at work, and I am adding this forsaken one, the deluxe, to the shelves. Still I wonder about the prior owner and why such a great piece of work got left in the alley dust. Maybe it was left there for me, a stranger, to find and prize.

On Sunday, I had a notion to stand up at my seat in the churchs choir loft during the prayers and joys time of the worship service and proclaim my blessing of good health. After all, Sunday precisely marked the 29th anniversary of the last day I had to take a work sick day. Now Ive started my 30th year. Just two days, back to back in 1978, are all that mar an otherwise perfect work record in the daily newspaper business going back to 1972. I had mentioned that milestone the day before to a friend in Albuquerque, N.M., and he e-mailed a Reuters wire story with the headline Presenteeism afflicts business, experts say. Because of many factors, it noted, people are going to work sick in more than half of U.S. workplaces. As a result, American businesses are supposedly losing $180 million a year.Like its more notorious counterpart, absenteeism, it takes a growing importance as employers try to keep an eye on productivity and the bottom line, experts say. One spokesman for a business and corporate law information company said employers are more worried about the threat that sick employees pose in the workplace. It said it goes unrecognized how much presenteeism is affecting the bottom line. One researcher determined that 56 percent of human resource executives see presenteeism as a problem, up from 39 percent noting that two years ago.When sick and not-yet-well workers show up, their productivity is low, their recovery may take longer, thus prolonging that low productivity and the potential spread of illness to customers and colleagues comes into play, it said. We all think we know somebody whos made us sick, when that person is speaking into the same phone or touching your computer or even turning your doorknob, said Cheryl Koopman, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, whom the Reuters writer identifies as an expert in workplace stress and presenteeism. She said she may be guilty of making colleagues sick by coming to work ill. Canceling a class because I have a cold just doesnt seem justifiable, she said. Ill keep my distance from the students. Ill try not to cough at them. I think of how Im going to do it without making anybody getting sick.The research notes that two-thirds of the time, sick people go to work because they think they have too much work to do there, followed by the fact that most workers believe no one else is available to cover their work assignments. With corporate downsizings of the past creating a leaner workforce, employees often feel they have to show up for work, whether its out of guilt over staying home or concerns over job security.Reuters said presenteeism, in some workplaces, may be honored with perfect attendance, exacerbating the disease-spreading chances. Said Koopman, Theres an American ethic to tough it out, rise to the occasion and ignore your minor woes. It sounds really wimpy to say youre not going to come to work just because you have a cold. With one study showing 47 percent of the private sector with no paid sick leave, there is greater pressure to go to work sick. The article notes that there has been a push for a law requiring employers with at least 15 workers to provide a minimum of sick days each year. So where does that leave me? I can unconditionally state that good health has followed me all these years, and I havent drug my sick self to work and contaminated my colleagues. They would be all over me. My good health has followed a similar pattern in my younger years — one day missed in seventh grade, otherwise leaving with me with a flawless attendance record grades 4-12. I call it a blessing and good luck flu shots, vitamins, good diet and a smart, abiding wife keep me happy and healthy. And theres something to be said about positive thinking, a good work ethic and having never smoked a cigarette. But knock on wood. I could be sick tomorrow.

Because the Bible itself is a cover-to-cover account of countless paranormal events, it is no surprise that those who study and believe in unidentified flying objects find affirmation and evidence in scriptures. Whole books and web sites go to great length to show that the numerous storytellers of the Bible were actually explaining UFO sightings.Max Linden of Buckeye called me frustrated that he telephone nine preachers calling on them to read the first chapter of Ezekiel and to show him that it is NOT about a UFO sighting. Now, pastors regularly get calls out of the blue from people stumped or fascinated or having a Eureka! moment from reading scripture. Sometimes they need, but just cant find, that zinger verse they know theyve read that will win a discussion or provide the ammunition they need.Linden, at 90, has a sharp mind, a skill at talking, even if he has a hard time hearing. Im an old retired oil geologist who moved to Arizona a couple years ago from Colorado, he said. In the late 1950s, he explained, he was at the bow of a freighter in the Caribbean, hauling an oil-drilling rig that was chained down. To everyones astonishment, a UFO flew up out of the ocean in front of our freighter, he said. Millions of gallons of water shot into the air. It was like a big mushroom that blossomed out all around.If he had counted slowly to three, it was enough time for the phenomenon to disappear into the clear blue sky. There were no clouds, nothing. It was gone out of site. It was like the sea exploded as it emerged from the water. After that thing disappeared, that big wave was coming toward the ship. It hit the ship, and I thought it was going to turn it over.So I definitely believe in UFOs, he said. Absolutely, I know they exist under the ocean. Lyndon has been beside himself about that Ezekiel passage, its details, language and activity. Its as plain as day, he insists, so he calls pastors to share his insights and own story. They wont call me back, he said. Or they quickly tell him they have to go and I will call you back. But they dont. One pastor just threw up his hands and said he didnt understand it. But who cant read Ezekiel 1 and not think of standard Martians or extra-terrestrials? Read it yourself. From a Revised Standard Version translation: A great cloud, with brightness round about it, and fire flashing forth continually and in the midst of the fire, as it were gleaming bronze. And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures.. The had the form of men, but each of them had four wings . they sparkled like burnished bronze. In the midst of the living creatures, there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures, and the fire was bright. and the living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash of lightning.Lynden said it gets more interesting from verse 15 as it talks of the wheel upon the earth like the gleaming of a chrysolite and when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Verse 24 notes, And when they went, I heard the sound of many waters, like the thunder of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of a host Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord Theres more talk of wheels that could go in four directions in Chapter 10.Linden is convinced our biblical ancestors were visited. He can talk, at length, about propulsion, exhaust, contrails and wheel movement. But the pastors he calls wont seriously engage with him, and it important stuff. Ufology is full of stories that when Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd made flights over both the North Pole icecaps in 1947 and over Antarctica in 1956, he was amazed by strange phenomena including sighting holes into the earth. It fed stories that the earth is hollow and may house beings and their strange, amazing machines.The Buckeye man calls on clergy to consider his insights and not dismiss them as the government has so long been accused of doing. What he saw in the Caribbean is enough to make him believe. The ocean waters just dont explode like that, normally, he is certain. Then something go skyward and disappear so quickly. I saw it as it were gleaming bronze

My undergraduate college years spanned 1964 to 1968 some of the headiest years of protest and upheaval in American history. Race riots, freedom marches, political assassinations, the counterculture and the unpopular war in Vietnam. Chants of All we are saying, Give peace a chance.I sat in rapt attention in the balcony of Collegiate Presbyterian Church in Ames, Iowa, as the Rev. John Davies eloquently spoke out against the war in Vietnam with its high death tolls and destruction. Week after week, he made sure his congregation prayed hard for peace and questioned the war. That war roared through the 1960s to the loud outrage of peacemakers, students, believers and common citizens. In the campus protests and rallies, you would always find city pastors taking their turns sounding off at podiums. In those years, the faith community seemed to have put up a forceful objection to war. Lots of churches had their factions of peace activists who regularly marched, picketed and protested. Churches were a partner in the quest to end the war and injustice, at least as I remember it. I remember putting on black arm patches and marching through Ames in sympathetic support for civil rights work in Selma, Ala., in the fall of 1964.So, I have been waiting this time around. I have long been amazed how the war in Iraq seems to roll along with limited outcry from the faith community. With all its bloodshed and death of more than 3,000 American service personnel and untold tens of thousands of civilian deaths and an entire country trashed, it seems that American faith communities have almost sat it out, perhaps careful to protect their tax exemptions. Perhaps conflicted to avoid looking like the troops were not being supported. Perhaps because they never see the human casualties in a war of volunteer servicemen. Perhaps because it seemed like something for the political sides of ourselves to deal with.When the World Council of Churches met last year in Brazil, it crafted a message that was written like a prayer of repentance and got backing from 34 Christian churches of the council. It said the WCC churches mourned those who have died or been injured in the Iraq war. "We confess that we have failed to raise a prophetic voice loud enough and persistent enough to deter our leaders from this path of preemptive war."Given the litany of failures and the human destruction in Iraq, we have to ask: Where have been the people of faith? Why hasnt there been thunderous outrage, massive groups from faith communities filling the ranks of protest? Have war and violence just become so pervasive that weve given up? What do you think? Has the faith community really spoken out for peace and an end to this war? What will take for that to happen?

Super Bowl games have long been something the faith community has had to put up with. It causes havoc, impacts attendance for worship, events and programs and saps congregational attention at the time of the year when they are trying to ram things up.Since it began in 1967, the Super Bowl phenomenon has steadily grown into a Sunday monster even though the game itself begins late in the afternoon. What pastor has not felt compelled to craft a sermon the Sunday of the game to create some relevance or to comment on American societys inordinate obsession with showdown football — that other religion that especially steal mens hearts and actually ensures some football diehard men and women will stay home all season on NFL Sundays, lest they miss a kickoff televised in Foxboro, Mass., at 10 a.m. MST. When my two children were teens, youth leaders of our church never saw a need to cancel or delay Sunday night youth events for the Super Bowl game. I can remember feeling offended by that. In the middle of the game, I had to pull myself away from TV to take them to church for youth activities and go back later to pick them up — invariably missing out of great game-changing plays. How could they be so oblivious to the biggest sporting event of the year? I dont recall that the youth leaders ever reinvented the Sunday night activities around the Super Bowl. But certainly in many youth lounges, the kids do eat pizza and lie on beanbags as THE GAME is shown on the big screen.This year and for many years, our church and many others have held The Souper Bowl of Caring, a simple fund-raising project. It calls for meeting the congregation at the churchs exit doors on Super Bowl Sundays to collect cash to go to the homeless locally and nationally. Often they hold out soup pots to catch green bills. Since 1980, the youth-initiated effort has collected $32 million to fight hunger. This year, some 11,000 organizations have signed up to be involved. Families planning their home Super Bowl parties are encouraged to take up a collection for the Souper Bowl efforts as well.Back when Super Bowl games tended to be in January, they fell on Sundays when some churches normally would schedule their annual congregational meetings. Leaders were conflicted over whether they should budge for such an ignoble thing as football and change it on the calendar. In the end, most checked the times of the game and worked to get it in early that day, well before event the long pre-game buildup. But we cant have it that day its Super Bowl Sunday has been the order of the day. Stay away from the Super Bowl has become an American expression in planning generally. So, will the pews necessarily be missing more folks on Feb. 4 as families stay home to get the food, family room and signs ready for their individual Super Bowl parties for the showdown of the ponies versus the bears in Miami? Egads, thats my birthday. They never checked with ME before deciding to upstage my party. Oh, well

At this newspaper, we are commonly asked for data and information on the breakdown of people by religious faiths in our communities. Alas, no one truly develops such data, and much of it is a wild guess.Sure, it would be great to be able to whip out the numbers, that, for example, Mesa may be 25 percent Roman Catholic, 12 percent some form of Baptist, 9 percent members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and 3 percent United Methodists, with some percent available for every faith, from the Assembly of God to Zorastrians. But the U.S. Census Bureau doesnt ask, nor does the Chamber of Commerce or the meter reader. Denominations logically have the best chance to amass numbers, depending on how well they are organized or want to intentionally know. Tightly structured religions those that define who is and isnt a member and require steps that keep them registered or meeting some kinds of requirements theoretically should have good data. The Roman Catholic Church of Phoenix, which registers folks, says there are about half-million Catholics in this diocese, but it acknowledges there are tens of thousands who call themselves Catholics and attend Masses but choose not to register. Often surveys of the general population have found people declaring themselves Lutherans or Episcopalians or Presbyterians but the numbers dont jibe with actual parish counts. Calling oneself something and being on the rolls are two things. There may be 25 million Dallas Cowboys fans in this country, but how do we know?The lead story of this week Jewish News of Greater Phoenix is titled How fast are we growing: Community appears to be outpacing state. Much of the article amounts to head-scratching. Every sign shows that the Valleys Jewish population is booming, even outpacing the states rate, what with Arizonas new status as the fastest-growing state in the nation. Anecdotal signs of Jewish community growth are everywhere: more Judaica stores, more congregations, more birth announcements in Jewish News, writes Salvatore Caputo. Yet as far as demographics goes, no one knows for sure.He fell back on a much used 2002 population study done by the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. Now 5-years-old, that survey determined about 83,000 Jews living in 44,000 Jewish households. Taking interfaith marriages into account, it surmised those same households actually had 107,000. Going back to 1984, the Federation had made its last study, the Jewish population growth was 138 percent, compared to 78 percent growth in the general populace. There appears to be no let-up as northeast Phoenix, Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and much of the East Valley have seen continued growth of synagogues and Jewish facilities. The 2002 edition of the American Jewish Year Book found Phoenix-Mesa the 17th largest Jewish center in the country, with 1.8 percent of the share of U.S. Jews. But some have said it may be now in the top 10. Obviously, Jews like any other faith group, want to know whether population change will necessitate responding with developing more for the adherents more Jewish community centers, religious schools, childcare centers or synagogues.Within the Jewish community, we certainly do see a whole lot of newcomers coming in, said Rabbi H. Rafael Goldstein, vice president for Jewish affairs at Jewish Family and Childrens Services, according to the Jewish News. As much as Jews would like to know what the count is, money prevents it. A good, quality demographic study or population study these days for a metropolitan area of this size would cost about $100,000 to $150,000 depending on how large a sample you want or how thorough you want the questions to be, said Fred Zeidman, director of planning and allocations for the Federation, in the news story.All the Valleys faiths and faith communities should start a fund and enlist a top research company for a definitive, massive religious census that would include where believers are distributed and in what numbers. Questions should be sophisticated enough to determine who are adherents and active and who are nominal followers of faiths. It should even distinguish between Reform Jews or Conservative Jews; Missouri Lutherans and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; and so forth. I suspect, the study would find a massive no preference population and those with no response. In the end, also, it should be able to say whether people are moving toward organized faith or away from it. But will such a study be done? Dont count on it.

When we are in Tulsa, Okla., visiting our son and his family, we try to visit a different Presbyterian church on Sundays. One of those on our someday list was a large and imposing one we saw during a morning walk Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church.So it caught my eye I when I saw a picture of that church on the cover of a recent issue of The Layman, a bimonthly newspaper of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, the stalwart watchdog and advocate for orthodoxy in the Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination. The headline said the churchs session, or governing board, and then the entire congregation overwhelming, had voted Aug. 30 to pull out of membership in the denomination. By a 967-26 vote, the 2,800-member congregation decided to bolt. By almost the same vote, they chose to join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination.Prior to those actions, church leaders deeded the churchs property to an independent corporation and filed a quiet title suit in civil court to protect the property from seizure by the Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma, the Layman said. Legally, the denomination, the PCUSA, through its regional units, or presbyteries, owns the property of its churches, and whenever a congregation chooses to drop out of membership, the land, buildings and equipment are to stay in the hands of the presbytery. In this case it is the Presbyterian of Eastern Oklahoma. Kirk of the Hills happened to be its largest congregation. The Layman asserted that the presbytery claiming it was not targeting the Kirk of the Hills had previously filed affidavits in civil court on all local church property advising the court and lending institutions that the property is held in trust for the benefit of the PCUSA. The newspaper said it had warned churches like Kirk of the Hills that presbyteries would try to take coercive action to prevent local congregations from leaving the denomination with their property.Since then, the courts have been asked to sort it out. An administrative commission was set up by the presbytery to, among other things, ensure that those Kirk of the Hill members who wanted to stay with the denomination had a place to worship. Services were held at Southminster Presbyterian in Tulsa, a church we have worshipped at. The disaffiliation is driven by the growing dissatisfaction of more traditional Presbyterians with the denominations direction, including its greater accommodation of homosexuals, biblical interpretation, ecumenism and compromising truth with advocacy groups and causes. Parker Williamson, editor emeritus of The Layman, wrote a lengthy column in the issue, God bless the Kirk. He said, Make no mistake about it: the Kirk did not leave the Presbyterian Church (USA); the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. left the Kirk. He said the Kirks pastors, a decade ago, realized the denomination had set itself on a course of cultural compromise that could only end in apostasy. And what the PCUSA was doing made Kirk members feeling a growing sense of theological estrangement. So they have gotten out.Williamson wondered whether the church would fend off heavy-handed assaults by an alien that has laid claim to its property. He said the church must wage that fight for it cannot allow believers gifts that were dedicated to the Lord Jesus to be spent on lesser lords. Ouch!About 25 years ago, I was made chairman of a presbyterys administrative commission that was sent into a Presbyterian church outside of Ackley, Iowa, on a cold Sunday morning in January to inform its pastor and his followers that, because they had just joined the Presbyterian Church in America and had left our denomination, they needed to vacate the church that wasnt theirs any longer. It was a labored confrontation that snowy morning, but months later, that faction gave it up and moved on without a major court challenge. Then, like now, it was traditionalists versus progressives. Over the past quarter century, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has watched the divide grow, a fight particularly focused on ordination standards related to gays and lesbians and on biblical teaching. Some predict that there ultimately will be a great schism in the largest Presbyterian denomination. Currently, the battleground is the court as one congregation after another withdraws membership, yet seeks to stay on its campus.Some might argue that church property belongs to the active congregation at any time in its history, that if they suddenly get upset with regional and national authorities, they can simply withdraw affiliation and keep the church. But there is wisdom in the connectional church and for denominations to hold legal claim to property, if only for stability and to guard against the vagaries of leaders with maverick agendas. In some ways, it is a race: Will traditionalists who will never accepts gays into fullness in the church outlive and outlast the greater society and the progressives in the church that have already decided there is a place for all Gods children in the life, leadership and work of his church, so that The Church can move on to the real issues of humankind.

Three weeks into January, most regular church-goers probably have picked up their offering envelopes or have had them mailed to them. Unless they use electronic deposits for their regular giving.By now also, financial committees of congregations have tallied pledges, have forecast their expenses and anticipated income and have finalized budgets. In the coming weeks, some congregations are holding their annual meetings to give final OK to budgets, or, at least, receive the report of where the church or parish stands financially. It is a time of prayers and scowls and sometimes nudging the faithful to give more.A recent Baptist Press article looked at a book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism by behavioral economist and professor Arthur C. Brooks, who writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal. Brooks debunks what he says is a popular notion that conservatives, who talk more about salvation and sin, give less of their money to help the poor. He says its a stereotype that liberals are more generous. Baptist Press writer Kelly Boggs puts it this way, Conservatives have long been characterized as the Ebenezer Scrooges of society. When the phrase compassionate conservatism was first coined, it was derided as oxymoronic. It was the liberal who was the champion of the poor and who really felt their pain.Boggs quotes Brooks, a Syracuse University professor: For too long liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have, nevertheless, lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice. He says indices such as church involvement, traditional families, the Protestant work ethic and a dislike of government-funded social services characterize conservative Christians. And subsequently those values make conservatives more generous than liberals, Brooks contends. The professor believes conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans.Though conservative-headed households make slightly less money than liberals, Brooks argues, when you look at the data, it turns out the conservatives give about 30 percent more.The Baptist Press article said ABCs 20/20 and its correspondent John Stossel carried out a compelling experiment that, its argued, supports Brooks assertions. The liberal city of San Francisco and the conservative city of Sioux Falls, S.D., were chosen for their contrasting demographics. Data showed that the percentage of weekly church-going was 14 percent in San Francisco and about 50 percent in Sioux Falls. To test generosity on the street, Salvation Army buckets were set up outside a Macys store in San Francisco and outside a Wal-Mart in Sioux Falls. When the results were tallied, the South Dakotans had out-given their leftcoast counterparts two to one, Boggs writes in The Baptist Press. Stossel told his audience that out of the top 25 states where people give an above average amount of their income to charities or churches, 24 were red states for having had a majority of Republican votes in the 2004 presidential election.If we look at party affiliation instead of ideology, Brooks asserts, the story remains largely the same. If anything, it makes the political left look less charitable, not more so.He said he has found that religious folks give nearly four times more dollars annually than secularists, on average, and they volunteer more than twice as frequently. In a November column in the Journal, Brooks concluded, While 85 million American households give away money each year to nonprofit organizations, another 30 million do not." The charity gap, he believes, is driven by values rather than economics.

When I was a kid living on a farm in Northeast Iowa, we traveled to see our uncle and aunt and cousins in Warren County, just south of Des Moines. My ears always noticed the southern Iowa dialect spoken by my relatives. Today, they still talk funny even though we come from the same stock. Over the years, I have noticed that it is not necessary to go all that far to recognize the locals do NOT talk the same way they do back home, a few counties away. When I worked as the assistant state editor and then state editor for the Waterloo (Iowa) Courier, I was responsible for news coverage in a 15-county area in northeast Iowa. For 12 years, I crisscrossed the area doing interviews with people in large cities, county seat communities and many small farm communities. While they may have spoken English, the sound of the language common to areas changed distinctly, and it was due, in part, to the dominant ethnic groups that had settled the areas. Second generation Germans dominated where I grew up and there still are vestiges of that in the common language spoken there. I especially remember regional pockets where Czech, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch and Slavic ancestry colored the common language.We moved to Arizona in 1984, and I was struck by hodge-podge of accents in the Valley voices — more Southern drawls than I expected, but a lot of Midwest twang. Yet I also came to recognize a true Mountain West sound, something almost distinct Arizona and Western. Because our population tends to be people from everywhere, we might be pressed to identify the most typical Valley sound in the language.So the other day, an idea occurred to me: What if we took the 3,034 U.S. counties and found the best linguists and language experts, then assigned at least one to each county. They would spend time listening, detecting, surveying and ascertaining what voice, with inflection and intonation, best represents the dominant sound or language of each county. (If the county was large and there are clearly different ways of speaking in parts of the county, then more than one representative voice would be chosen in that county). In every county in the U.S., depending on how it mapped out through the valleys, hollows, islands and sprawling boroughs, people would be identified to be the voice of that precise locale.Then we would choose a piece of American writing — Preamble to the Constitution or Lincolns Gettysburg Address or something that is an American refrain like a Walt Whitman poem. In the 3,034 counties (and more per county as distinct variations are found), the linguist volunteers would tape-record those readings on the same kind of equipment for standardization. Maybe we would do two sets: one of a male voice, one of a female voice in each location. Recordings and their maps would be consolidated in one place where a matrix of the American landscape would be produced and the recordings plotted on the map. Finally, with a huge American map, a stylus (like a computer mouse) could be placed on a Tennessee county in the Smokey Mountains or a Minnesota prairie town or a San Francisco wharf or a Vermont village. Seamlessly the read statement would continue to change in accents and language as the stylus moved from county to county or region to region. As long as the stylist stayed on one town, Roanoke, Va., or Spokane, Wash., the Preamble would be read by the voice of that area. But it could instantly change as it was slid across Louisiana or West Virginia or Texas. In the end, we could instantly hear the subtleties of language across America, just as happens visually with moving a scanner around a womans belly in a ultrasound. Or happens in some TV commercials as many voices divide the words of a statement. Given how satellites have every square inch of the planet plotted and GPS can pinpoint us, so we could plot the American language variations on a grand map.Television, film, radio and recordings, as they reach all pockets of America, would seem to create one homogenious character of the American language. But dialects, vernacular and local tongues survive, nonetheless, and keep alive the tapestry of the sounds of the American voice. And someone with the resources ought to map it all.