A repeating thought is how can I afford NOT to read a compelling article or that provocative book about our troubled times or take time to watch a DVD given to me with the instruction, Youve got to see it?What do we forfeit or lose by passing up on great ideas and information given to us to digest, process and understand? Its immensely stimulating, of course, to be around bright people, or be afforded work study time and sabbaticals for deep reading. I drink in what I hear on the C-Span channels the long interviews, speeches, panel discussions and author talks at bookstores around the country. A requirement of being human is to be exposed to a plethora of ideas, process it and grow — never mind that it challenges the orthodoxy and absolutes that so many want protected and preserved. I can read three long pieces in an issue of Vanity Fair and get a high that comes from few reading adventures. Its transforming stuff. It reshapes thinking, reveals what can be found from relentless reporting and always makes me more guarded against the forces that quietly are at work to gain full control before our society awakes from its self-indulgence and distractions.Oh, to have the time and the money to travel to conferences across the country where all the authorities, pioneers and cutting-edge folks in countless fields lay it out in three days. My mail is full of brochures on conferences, typically far away with steep registration fees. Take this one that came in todays mail: The Secular Society and Its Enemies set for Nov. 9-11 at the New York Academy of Sciences in Manhattan, overlooking Ground Zero of 9/11. (www.centerforinquiry.net) Major speakers will be lawyer/author Alan Dershowitz, author Christopher Hitchens, longtime activist, historian and observer Nat Hentoff and Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers. The brochure has a provocative photo of the Statue of Liberty. Atop the Ladys lamp is a cross. Conference sponsors are the Center for Inquiry - Transnational, Free Inquiry and the Skeptical Inquirer magazineHere is some of the language of the materials: The world is finally waking up to the dangers of religious faith. Books defending reason and religious skepticism top the bestseller lists. Secular Muslims are standing up for freedom of thought. The secular perspective has finally gained currency in the media and in cross-cultural dialogue.It asserts that the world is increasingly mired in divisive religious strife and deadly sectarian battles.Despite the secular foundation of successful modern societies, radical religious fervor has reached an all-time high, and the world is waking up to the fact that belief can no longer be considered benign, asserts Paul Kurtz, founder of both The Center for Inquiry and the Council of Secular Humanism. When religion manifests its tenets in government, both democracy and modern science take a back seat to the voice of rigid ancient authority, and progress is halted. Kurtz is correct when he says that it cant be overstated that secular, non-theistic governments must be maintained. He warns against those who push for theocracy disguised as freedom, mythology as science and a literal interpretation of the Bible or the Quran as the basis to govern people of all beliefs. He warns of politicians who pander to the faithful and lift up intolerant and irrational beliefs as unquestioned virtues. Posing a great threat to religious and nonreligious people are those so convinced that their religious doctrines are too precious to be limited to just a faith group and belongs as part of governance. Societies may be judged decadent and in decline, but to put them under control of a rigid and obdurate religious regime a theocracy runs counter to humanitys very being and purpose.One need only see the return and resurgence of the Taliban to Afghanistan and its new repression after a couple of years of hope for those, especially women, who have been suppressed. Their form of fundamentalist Islam and the strictest interpretation of Sharia law are the best proof that when determined religious zealots gain any control in civil governments, freedoms and self-determination are lost. Repression, ignorance, dying and darkness follow.Kurtz puts it like this, All theocracies, trumpeted or clandestine, have proven to be disastrous. When the rights of our diverse citizenry are governed by the influence of a single faith, all those outside the narrow worldview that is the majority suffer, both religious and secular.Secularists and humanists are often denigrated by the religious right in this country because their religion has been characterized as mythology. That aside, all who seek preservation of healthy religious life in America should heed the secularists warnings and join in the battle against efforts to merge religious tenets with civil law so that a de facto theocracy takes root and grows.Listen especially to Christian and Islamic fundamentalists and their urgent appeals for crackdown on worldliness. Alas, these social revolutionaries havent found a way change human nature and thus control the arrogance, corruption and ruthlessness that come with power, be it political or sectarian. A pluralistic society of checks and balances, debate and discussion, is the best hope against one theology that fits all and the human catastrophe that would follow.

Lately, the news has gone to the dogs. Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean hotel heiress who died a few weeks ago, has left $12 million in her will to her beloved white Maltese dog named Trouble. Trouble is Trouble is a dog! Its a dog! The $12 million trust fund will surely keep the white pooch in the finest canine victuals and surrounded by velvet kennel furnishings. Imagine how far $12 million, well-targeted, could benefit Helmsleys own pedigree, human beings.Twelve pit bulls tied up on the Cave Creek property of music rapper DMX were seized in a raid last Saturday by Maricopa County Sheriffs deputies for allegations of animal cruelty and malnourishment. In addition, bodies of three dogs were dug up in the yard. The rappers albums include Year of the Dog Again. His attorney was blaming negligence of the houses caretakers for the dogs plight. About three weeks ago, a Chandler police dog named Bandit , a 5-year-old Belgian Malinois, died in a hot patrol car at Sgt. Tom Lovejoys home. The dog had been forgotten inside and was there 12 hours before discovered. Lovejoy led the polices K9 unit. Bandits death triggered wide debate over punishment should come, as is done if a parent leaves a child in a car. The public vigil and memorial service for Bandit on Aug. 19 at a Chandler park drew 125 people and 60 dogs. It also raised uneasiness in many that people dont turn out like that for humans who die in shootings or are victims of other untimely events.Then, of course, theres the quarterback Michael Vick dog scandal. The Atlanta Falcons superstar accepted a plea agreement this week to a federal dog-fighting conspiracy charge. Some 53 dogs, raised and trained to fight, were seized in April on his Surry County, Va., property. The pit bulls were totally unsuitable for adoption as pets and rehabilitation and seem destined to be euthanized. "These dogs are a ticking time bomb," said a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA. "Rehabilitating fighting dogs is not in the cards. It’s widely accepted that euthanasia is the most humane thing for them."After weeks of denial, Vick finally accepted the agreement and apologized. It was disingenuous how easily he invoked faith and religion. Through this situation, Ive found Jesus, he said Monday.Im totally responsible, and those things just didnt have to happen, he tried to explain. I feel like we all make mistakes. Its just I made a mistake in using bad judgment and making bad decisions. And you know, those things, you know, just cant happen.Then Vick invoked Christ. Im upset with myself, and, you know, through this situation I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God. And I think thats the right thing to do as of right now.His apologies that followed paralleled and echoed ones we have heard before from other high-profile people in trouble. .for this entire situation, I never pointed a finger at anybody else, I accepted responsibility for my actions of what I did and now I have to pay the consequences for it. He offered his deepest apologies to everybody out there in the world who was affected by this whole situation. He let down all the young people who had looked at him as a role model. I hope that every young kid out there in the world watching will use me as an example to using better judgment and making better decisions.He pledged to redeem himself, adding I have to. He ended his statement saying he had a lot of time on his hands to think about his actions and to cogitate on how to make Michael Vick a better person.Certainly, his high-profile crime will go a long ways to making dog and animal abuse that much more unacceptable. Cynics will say his finding Jesus and turning his life over to God comes too conveniently and without much detail. The episode and the outrage, nonetheless, point out again how much sympathy pets and animals get versus apathy for people who suffer or die. Dont mess with dogs, people like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio continually remind us. He snarls about the mistreatment of dogs and sneers at complaints about how inmates in his jails are treated.Daily, Im reminded to err on the side of indulgence with our big boxer, Tyson, who gets the run of the house, the right to lie down in the center of any human activity and to be free to snore with volcanic breath beside our bed at night. We cant promise Tyson a $12 million inheritance, only a continuously cool house, his water dish always full, two meals a day, ample snacks and a granddaughters face to lick on weekends.

One of the satisfying things about covering religion for the Tribune for about 16 years has been the anything-goes aspect of it. Because God is such a mystery and there are thousands of religions pursuing God, we in the secular religious press try to impartially report on them one by one.While many, many claim to have nailed down The Truth, the prevailing opinion is that those claims have to stand up to others scrutiny and doubts. Theres a maelstrom of conflicting doctrines, but there is a more common ground than is generally acknowledged. I privately discount all religionists who claim God has conveyed them ultimate truth and given them and their faith group the true connections to God — and that they have it all figured out with detailed doctrines and guidelines. Their truth often woefully hinges on one person’s supernatural experiences so far back in time that evidence is sketchy and the trail is cold.Whether its the Roman Catholics with micromanaged rules of what a Eucharist wafer can and cannot contain to Muslims whose Allah has entire cultures bonded into sober theocracies, Im a true doubting Thomas that they have things anymore figured out than Humanists. As I have written countless times in columns and blogs, things mysteriously and magnificently work for all kinds of people under all sorts of faiths and belief systems.If only I could say that they all understand and demonstrate love. If only we could disarm their cocksureness and hubris and dangerous resolve to get all to accept their indisputable Truth, or perish. So I am following feedback today on the article I wrote for the Tribune about the Bringing Sexy Back sermon series at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Chandler. Three weekends remain in the six-week series, and the church has been packing folks in for its five services Saturday and Sunday. Pastor Linn Winters has effectively developed a compelling approach to addressing 21st century sexual relationships. Its risky and edgy.One caller blistered me for the article being on the front page. Its just horrible, its just horrible. Sex on the front page, churches talking about sex!! She hung up before I could get a word in. Critics dismiss Cornerstones effort as a gimmick or that talking about sex in church goes over the line. I sat through the service on Sunday where guest speaker Shaunti Feldhahn, an author on relationships, gave women frank advice about men. She and Q&A moderator Ron Merrell packed a lot of information in 45 minutes. It was tasteful, educational and thoughtful. If people got up and walked out from being offended, I didnt see them. I suspect more than a few East Valley pastors would relish 4,500 people in their sanctuary on a weekend where they could teach on knotty issues of the day. And they would admit that infidelity, pornography and faulty spousal communications are veritable issues that ought to be addressed. But do they have the courage to tread into areas that might ruffle feathers, drive away members and change the character of their ministries?We see wide discrepancies in how various religions address or ignore human sexuality. Sexual politics, especially those related to homosexuality, are dividing major denominations, and we wonder why they get so sidetracked and allow it to destroy historic relationships.Cornerstone should be commended for taking on this taboo area of life.Scores and scores of people are coming up and saying, I get it. Thanks for talking about this. I know I need to change, Winters said.Religion should be relevant. It should help shape people to be better each time they walk out of a place of worship.

Mother Teresa, of all people,the human standard by which unconditional faith is measured, was riddled with a life of spiritual doubt, we’re told. She had been the model of selfless love that so astonished a world used to seeing the actions of villains, flawed leaders and selfish personalities.If that woman, the angel personified in our generation, held deep doubts about God and Jesus across her long life, then how can the rest of us maintain faith amid all the garbage besetting earthly life? How can it be that her golden, earnest prayers left her writing about dryness, darkness, loneliness and torture? Alas the nun from Calcutta was just another human being saddled with mortal self-doubt, unanswered prayers, bouts of depression and second-guessing. New revelations of the 1979 Nobel Prize-winning nuns tortured thoughts in letters to her confidantes and confessors are setting off what will be a long and lively debate for theologians, as well as the world of practical belief. It has the potential to be a religious bombshell. It could shake up the Christian faithful and give new fuel to unbelievers and agnostics. One more hero could be subjected to image-wracking scrutinyWe may have a crisis of hope on our hands as more comes out about what Time Magazine calls Mother Teresas Crisis of Faith. (time.com) Drawing from the forthcoming book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, published by Doubleday and compiled and edited by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the lengthy article sets things up for huge demand for the book.Now 10 years after her death at 87, the pint-size, selfless legend of mercy to the poorest of the poor in the holes of Calcutta and many other parts of the planet is unwittingly showing another side of herself through her letters letters she had instructed to be routinely burned by the recipients. Yeah, sure, who in their right mind would destroy communications by such a 20th century icon and historic figure? Her writings portrayed a nun, who took on an ambitious ministry to the most forgotten and abandoned humans and became conflicted. Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain, Time reports.She would write, When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. I am told God loves me and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have set the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, on the fast track to sainthood. What is coming out is precisely some of the rich material that is being used to document that nomination package. Unlike so many who reached sainthood without the benefit of their letters, Mother Teresas books and writings and the massive amounts written about her combine to give the Vatican Mother Teresa revealed — wrinkles and all. That she was a profoundly complicated human is underscored here, and it would not seem her agonizing doubts will slow down her bid for sainthood.I had the opportunity in February 1989 to meet Mother Teresa and briefly interview her with two other Valley reporters during her two-day visit to find a home for four nuns of her Missionaries of Charity. Later at St. Simon and Jude Cathedral, she handed me three miracle medallions, one of which I wear on a chain on my neck. In all her public talks, I recall her litany of calls for others to exhibit Jesus love by helping and serving the poor, hurting and forgotten.With the news of her decades of writings made public, I wondered about Katie Ringler of Tempe, who last month embarked on a 12-month global trek retracing Mother Teresas path. She earned a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Travel Grant just before finishing studies and graduating from Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. I wrote about her project in the July 14 issue of Spiritual Life. How will the book and the subsequent worldwide debate impact Katie Ringlers conversations in places like Skopje, Macedonia, where the nun was born and in Calcutta, Rome and other cities impacted by the tiny nuns incredible ground-breaking missionary work?In the final analysis, many will point to the dark hours that beset all historical giants, including Jesus. The great figures, many of them martyred, encountered enormous resistance, faced deep doubt and sometimes abandoned ventures. In that context, she may be elevated further into endless scholarly work.Some might say that Mother Teresas letters will bring her down from her perch, in somewhat the same way recorded tapes of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson served to reduce them to troubled men with ill intentions. In any event, this is truly the start of something big in the never-ending debate over whether God is out there. For whats left if Mother Teresa laid down her life for 50 years in the slums serving the people Jesus wanted served, and she expressly said she came up empty. In the final analysis, such service is the right thing to do and provides its own transforming and human rewards outside of faiths framework.

Exclamation points underscore everything we hear about the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit this summer at the San Diego Natural History Museum. It opened June 29 and had more than 56,000 visitors in about four weeks. On July 21, the museum set a single-day attendance record at the museum of 3,206. On average, about 2,170 people are descending daily on the museum to see parchments and fragments from 250 years Before the Common Era to 68 years After the Common Era. The scrolls represent the oldest discovered copies of books that resulted in the Hebrew Bible.Before they close the exhibit and pack up their delicate pieces of history on Dec. 31, its expected that 400,000 to 450,000 people will have visited the museum. In a full year, that museum gets about 250,000. Most tickets are $20 to $28 and can be ordered at www.sdscrolls.org, and they allow entry in the rest of the museum.We began marketing the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition over a year ago to tour operators and convention planners around the country, with emphasis on southern California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah, said Chuck Yash, project manager. His most recent tallies showed 800 groups had booked nearly 30,000 tickets and 9,000 museum lunches. Among the groups are large families, churches, schools, seniors, college alumni associations and Bible study groups.Museum visitors left comments like this:n Amazing I feel I have seen and experienced a part of the worlds history. Without flying across the continent, I have been transported to another world I am in awe.n A truly profound and inspiring experience As an historian, I was able to appreciate the complexity of the history surrounding the scrolls Thank you so much for the opportunity to view this piece of history. It is truly something that all people from all parts of the world and all faiths can come together to share.n It was like a trip through time. I felt closer to God through his word by being closer in time to the actual words. Thanks for the opportunity to examine the roots of my faith.The story about the scrolls discovery has become familiar. In 1947, a Bedoin boy, tending his sheep, went searching for one and tossed a stone into a cave. He discovered scrolls that eventually would lead to a treasure trove in 11 caves along the shores of the Dead Sea in Israel.The San Diego exhibit is spread across two floors and 14,500 square feet. On display are authentic Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient illuminated manuscripts, artifacts, landscape and aerial photography and interactive displays about science, discovery and exploration. Experts say that because of the fragility of the scrolls, it is likely their traveling days will soon come to an end.

Journalists get nauseated with the news as much the reading public.I slammed my fist on the mattress this morning when the radio told me 14 U.S. soldiers died when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a nighttime mission in the Tamim province 180 miles north of Baghdad in Iraq. Each such heartbreak triggers anew the sense that maybe, maybe, maybe this latest needless loss of life will be the turning point for a sea change in White House policy in the war there. How much more death will it take?I read the Tribune account of the Chandler Unified School Districts overreaction of the boy putting a doodle drawing of a gun on his school work and getting suspended for that. My fury over this nations fear-mongering and loss of common sense made it hard for me to concentrate when I went to work. Where is all this knee-jerk reaction to anything remotely dangerous going to end? Absolutes, blind rules and zero tolerance lead to countless unintended consequences. We were given brains to make judgments. We expect more from educators.Whether it’s the White House or that school district, monumental boneheaded actions only lead to a greater loss of respect for authority and greater cynicism about leadership.But I continue to be heartened by segments of the faith community who work for good and for change. For example, Catholics United, (www.catholics-united.org), formerly Catholics United for the Common Good. Catholics Mobilize to End War in Iraq read a press release e-mail to me today. It told how 10,000 Catholics in four weeks had signed a petition calling for an end to the war in Iraq. Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a national Catholic social justice lobby, said, Church leaders and individual Catholics have opposed U.S. policy in Iraq since before the war began, she said, noting that the petition is letting thousands of Catholics unite to speak out even more strongly for an end to the violence and occupation. She asserted that it is time for a responsible withdrawal of combat troops and a new course of action to bring peace to Iraq.She said her Catholic group is building on what the late John Paul II told U.S. leaders in January 2003 that they should forgo war in favor of peaceful engagement with Iraq. Troop escalations and the surge, she said, have failed to improve conditions in Iraq. Instead, the thrust should be to dialogue, diplomacy and reconstruction. To that end, hundreds of Catholics are volunteering to help organize local activities and lobby congressmen for change.The group submits that President Bush went against the advice of the pope to follow the Christian mandate to use force only as a last resort. The pope and millions of other reasoned people. Now, more than four years and thousands of lives later, the wisdom of our Holy Father is painfully clear. In this spirit, it is time for U.S. Catholics to stand and be counted as a powerful voice for a new Iraq policy.Roman Catholics are Americas largest religious group. Perhaps, they will be the force that turns the tide.

Two articles I wrote for the Tribunes Spiritual Life section on Saturday related to history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have generated lively comments and discussions by readers, some posted at the end of the stories online, and others in faxes and telephone voice mails. One article was about the opening next Friday of a film, September Dawn, which will tell about the Mountain Meadow Massacre near Cedar City, Utah, on Sept. 11, 1857. The other relates to a forthcoming documentary, A Mormon President, which draws parallels between church prophet, president and founder Joseph Smith and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romley and their separate bids (1844 and 2007 respectively) for president of the United States.Probably the most common observation came from Mormons who found it disingenuous for me to label the massacres of 120 settlers from Arkansas by a Mormon militia and Paiute Indians as the first known act of religious terrorism on U.S. soil. First, those are the words from the filmmakers in their promotional materials and not mine. Callers were swift to offer that the Mormons themselves were obvious targets of religious terrorism well before that. The accompanying article, A Mormon President, noted the 1838 Hauns Mill Massacre in Missouri where 17 Mormons were killed amid anti-Mormon hysteria. That point is well taken.You really, really call yourself an editor, and you publish an article like that? one caller ranted. I mean you dont think that first act of terrorism was when the Latter-day Saints were attacked by mobs driven from their homes time after time? He stressed how Missouri Gov. Boggs issued and extermination order, ordering the killing of any man, woman or child belonging to the LDS Church. Missouri State archives accounts of the Missouri Mormon War, in fact, noted, When the Mormons attacked a duly authorized militia under the belief it was an anti-Mormon mob, Missouris governor, Lilburn Boggs, ordered the Saints expelled from the state, or exterminated, if necessary. The conflicts viciousness escalated, however, even without official sanction, when, on October 30, 1838, an organized mob launched a surprise attack on the small Mormon community of Hauns Mill, massacring eighteen unsuspecting men and boys. Over the next year, around eight thousand church members, often ragged and deprived of their property, left Missouri for Illinois. The caller said he had children who are descendants of the only man that paid a price for the Mountain Meadow Massacre, John D. Lee, who was executed for his part in the attack on the Arkansas group. I have no reason to believe he was any more guilty or even guilty at all, the angry caller said. . Religious terrorism started long before the Mormon Church was restored.Another Mesa man said he descended from one of the Arkansas settlers who was killed in the massacre and said the article might have included an interesting sidelight, that the settlers were accompanied by a herd of Thoroughbred horses that were being taken to Nevada to be grazed and eventually into the Thoroughbred racing trade. He suggested the Mormons took ownership of those prized horses and reaped rich rewards from their quality bloodlines. Horses can be traced by DNA . Someone wanting to look into it can see whos got those horses and go to the Mountain Meadow Massacres for a match, he said.Another reader wrote a lengthy commentary regarding the article about the Romney and Smith candidacies for U.S. president. Americans need to learn about Mormonism so that Romney will not be elected, it said. The reader focused on the specific areas of religious doctrine that too sharply depart from orthodox Christian teachings. Mormonism is polytheistic, denies original sin, says God was married, baptize the dead, have levels of heaven and say men can become gods, it read. Their church has secret temple ceremonies that only approved Mormons can attend. They have secret names and rituals, wear undergarments and have codes and watchwords to the celestial kingdom.In opposing Romney, the writer cited Mormon leaders well-publicized and active opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment for women, which fell three states short of passage and was abandoned in 1982, Our country was founded on the truth that all men are created equal … and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights — life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, the writer insisted. Mitt Romneys Mormon beliefs will undermine the Christian beliefs this country was built on. He should never be elected president of the United States.Should we go on a witch hunt in the rest of the candidates backgrounds and find a reason for them not to run? asked Dave Davenport in an e-mail. Do we need to rewrite American history and say we were founded on religious freedom, as long as it followed a strict code of a few? He found fault at the mention that Joseph Smith had a gun inside the Carthage, Ill., jail, my inferring that he was, thus, fair game. He was outmanned 100 to one. The mob stormed the jail and he defended himself in a losing battle. No one was ever brought to justice for his and (his brother) Hyrum’s murder. But then why bring up both sides of the story when one side looks good just as it is? Davenport asked. That writer concluded, The bottom line is, the LDS church has grown to 13 million members in countries around the world. There are 124 temples around the world where the most sacred work on the Earth is performed. The church is covering the world and will continue to grow and prosper, whether Mitt Romney is elected president of not. The stone cut out of the mountain is rolling forth and will not be stopped. The prophecies in the Book of Revelations are taking place today. Open your eyes.

The forces are relentlessly at work to bring mainline Protestantism around to accepting gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people in the pews and pulpits and full life of their faith communities. Each group, at its own pace and begrudgingly, seems to be moving toward such acceptance, amid the risks and realities of schism. For some faiths, its an issue yet to be raised because of orthodoxys tight reign on them and their adherence to spelled-out absolutes. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the largest group in the broad and diverse families of Lutherans, did some tweaking last Saturday in its own path to refining its sexual policies, although the big vote to end a ban on non-celibate gay clergy, the day before, was defeated. During their weeklong 2007 Churchwide Assembly in Chicago, delegates heard heated comments on both sides of the mega-issue. On Friday, they defeated a measure that would have ended a ban on non-celibate gay clergy. But they surprised many on the final day by voting 538-431 to refrain from disciplining gay ministers committed to same-sex relationships. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, who leads the 4.8 million denomination, whose offices are in Chicago, called the action a way for the church to find some space and place in the quest to find ways for disparate parts of the church to live together.I interpret that as a way to reflect this journey of conversation, discussion, decision, seeking to be faithful to the authority of Scripture, the interpretation of our confession and mindful of the very context in which we are engaged in Gods mission, Hanson said at a press conference. Jaynan Clark Egland, president of the conservative group, WordAlone Network, said the action leaves the ELCA with inconsistent patterns of discipline and standards. To refrain from discipline in the home is bad parenting, but were about to do so in Christs church.The denomination has a task force at work to issue a comprehensive statement on sexuality in 2009, and many forces in the church have been appealing to that group to give attention to those things they want addressed. One request has been to revisit current policies that prevent practicing homosexuals from having their names on church rosters. In the 30 years that many mainline denominations have wrestled with sexuality status of clergy and lay leaders, the United Church of Christ has been the most notable denomination to adopt changes and move on to the legitimate issues of ministries and a hurting world. The 1.2 million denomination, with its God is still speaking theme, adopted an equal-marriage-for-all position in 2005 by 80 percent margin at its General Synod. We can go back 35 years to when the UCC became the first major Christian church to OK ordination for an openly gay pastor. In the mid-1980s, it declared itself open and affirming of gays and lesbians. Since then, other mainline denominations have inched toward various accommodations, usually after stages of task force studies. Clearly, there has been a shakeout in some denominations with the formation of factions that hold fast to tradition and biblical standards on sexuality, while other segments declare theyve moved to the truer spirit of Jesus message. Denominational executives find themselves beleaguered trying to hold sides together.The ELCA actions to hold off disciplining gay pastors in committed same-sex relationships drew a sharp response to the largest conservative Lutheran group, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which has 2.5 million members.Saying that the action created serious concern and consternation among his denominations members and leaders, President Gerald Kieschnick, said, .homosexual behavior is intrinsically sinful. We are deeply disappointed that the ELCA, by its decision, has failed to act in keeping with the historic and universal understanding of the Christian church regarding what Holy Scripture teaches about homosexual behavior as contrary to Gods will and about the biblical qualifications for holding the pastoral office.The potential implications of the ELCAs action, Kieschnick said, are that relationships between the groups and their mutual witness could be hurt.

Religious belief and practice should only be voluntary, but, of course, that is not allowed for many. Children, of course, dont normally get to decide things for themselves. Family members, including spouses, so often go along in the faith to get along. Coercion is employed by the strongest and best-positioned to impose religious will. Even violence or death, disassociation and other abuses can come to loved ones who venture into exploring or joining other beliefs. Or who simply want to be inactive from that true faith. Pressures are enormous and reprisal can be swift.Freedom of religion is non-existent in much of the world. Of course, one way many people practice religion is through weak observance, even faking it, playing lip service, showing up to a religious service only when they have to. They can close their eyes and go through motions and look the praying part. They can take jobs that conveniently prevent them from going to services. Their minds may buzz with doubts and disbeliefs about the belief system or faith that they publicly belong to. But geographies, of course, make many people hopeless religious prisoners and there is no other safe religious option.Being non-religious in America is OK, if you can get away with it, if peer or family pressure permit it. Of course, just about every faith community deals with its deadbeats. It tries motivating its low-functioning followers those, perhaps, on the rolls who are largely missing, largely disengaged, quick to turn down requests for help that would reaffirm their pledges of commitment when they joined. Much of whats wrong with organized religion is affirmed by the majority of Americans who take a pass on faith practices and do their own things on weekends. Religions incessant misbehavior, betrayals and excesses give many the ammunition they need to balk at calls to get involved. So I was intrigued by the Rev. John Yockey, a priest in St. Jerome Parish in Oconomowoc, Wis., who was dismayed by those Catholic parents who were registered with the parish but couldnt get their rear-ends to Mass. Being registered afforded parents a $1,400 tuition savings for children they send to the parishs school, with grades kindergarten through eighth grade. Yockey wanted more commitment out of parents, saying, Parents are the primary educators in the way of faith. This is a call to inactive parents to renew their religious practices.Yockey found that only about half of the parents showed up regularly for Mass. He imposed a new rule that parents who want the $1,400 break must show up 70 percent of the time for Mass or expect to pay the full tuition cost, $4,500 per child. The priest said he expected 20 percent of parents would balk and drop out, but only one of the 170 families found it objectionable. He said it comes down to accountability: Special consideration goes to those who show commitment and action.It remains to be seen whether the higher numbers in the parish pews equate with greater spiritual engagement or are just people begrudgingly changing habits for a price. Force-fed religion can’t make believers.

If you can stay up later this day Tuesday I urge you to tune to KAET-TV Channel 8 at 10 p.m. for a searing documentary, Islam vs. Islamists: Voices From the Muslim Center. It is moderate Muslims quest to be heard in all the noise about Islam as a either a toxic, militant faith or one that can, in fact, exist peacefully with other beliefs. Anti-Muslims in the U.S. have been seething about what they see as dangers of giving accommodations to Muslims while Islamists seem intent on seeing the decadent Wests downfall. Moderates in the middle have sought to show radicals in the faith that historic Islam can thrive in western culture and democracy.M. Zudhi Jasser, a Phoenix physician and chairman of the Valley-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy, speaks in the 90-minute documentary produced by Martyn Burke. Originally Islam vs. Islamists was to have been incorporated into PBSs 11-part, six-night America at the Crossroads that examined post-9/11 America. But it was pulled when WETA-TV in Washington said it wasnt finished in time for use with the other documentaries and that it was alarmist and not objective. It received $700,000 in Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds. It was dogged by other controversy as well. Now that it is finally being shown, its distribution nationally is spotty and its impact lessened.On Tuesday, Jasser had a My Turn column in the Arizona Republic to tout the film. Islamist sympathizers censored the film, Jasser asserted. The suppression of the film was part of the persistent marginalization of Muslim moderates who are anti-Islamist, Jasser wrote. It sends a dangerous message to other like Muslims searching for courage to speak out.FrontPageMagazine.com, in April, interviewed filmmaker Burke. He said he had assembled a crack team of award-winning journalists to do the documentary but we found ourselves enmeshed in politics unlike I have never seen before. He said it appeared that PBS wanted him to be an apologist for Islamists, those who are the fundamentalists in this world.They wanted us to portray the Islamists in a way that would represent them as being the truer strain of Islam, the truer representatives of Islam, Burke said. And we say they represent a very virulent, aggressive form of Islam. He asserted that moderates Muslims have an equally valid voice and should be widely heard.Jasser says the same thing in his Tuesday commentary. Islamism is a movement that seeks to put into place governments or societies in which the Quran is not only A source of law, but THE source of law, the doctor said. When holy books become the source of law, we become a theocracy. Islamists may believe in democracy, election and parliaments, but the do not support governments that dont promote Islam. Jasser, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who has been active in interfaith dialogue in the Valley and nationally, said he was heartening that a documentary has been made that can validate that a wider American audience would actually begin to get a fair glimpse of what happens to Muslims who speak out against the entrenched Islamist power structures in our community.Moderates love for their faith, he said, is both demonized and ignored by those imams and supporters of a political Islam. Jasser said that before the 9/11 attacks, moderate Muslims had hoped that, with each new generation, there would come believers who would reject extremist ideology and would topple the Islamists controlling our communities. He pointed to blind political correctness that allows historic Islam to be hijacked by zealous Islamists.Jasser said the metro area has a large Muslim population with numerous opportunities to begin opening the doors of debate about Islamism and begin creating a modern and moderate interpretation that separates the 1,400-year-old faith from a political agenda bent of a showdown with non-Muslims to establish religious tyranny reflecting their world view.