At St. Stephen Baptist Church in Louisville, the 14,000-member congregation billed itself as a "seven-day-a-week" hub of activity, with choir practices, ministry meetings or small groups scheduled every night.Then Pastor Kevin Cosby noticed a drop-off — people simply couldn't afford the gas to drive to several activities on several different evenings.

So Cosby shuffled the schedule to combine all activities on Wednesday night to give parishioners a "one-stop-shop for your soul." The church also bought a third 14-passenger bus to shuttle people to and from church.

"We thought it would be a better practice of stewardship," Cosby said. "The good use and stewardship of resources is how we demonstrate our love for God."

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Not long after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Donny George, an Iraqi Christian whose family had lived in the region for thousands of years, received a death threat in an envelope containing a Kalashnikov bullet. The letter accused George of working for the Americans and said his youngest son had disrespected Islam. George quickly arranged to send most of his family to Damascus, Syria, but he stayed behind to work at the Iraqi National Museum, becoming chairman of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in 2005.

Within a year, though, he too decided to flee — first to Damascus, and eventually to the USA.

"I was told by some people in the same ministry that … such an important institution should not be headed by a Christian," George told the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom last year.

Many Iraqi Christians have suffered far worse fates. As documented by the U.S. State Department, Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq have endured extensive persecution since 2003, including the murder of their religious leaders, threats of violence or death if they do not abandon their homes and businesses, and the bombing or destruction of their churches and other places of worship. According to one Iraqi Christian leader, half of Iraq's Christians have fled the nation since 2003, and some have likened the situation to ethnic cleansing.

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Churches usually don't have to pay property taxes. The IRS consider a house of worship a nonprofit cause. But some congregations don't meet in church buildings these days. So, guess what? The IRS is reexamining this. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.

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If Christian conservatives stay on the sidelines during the fall campaign, presidential hopeful John McCain probably stays in the Senate.

Christian conservatives provided much of the on-the-ground, door-to-door activity for President Bush's 2004 re-election in Ohio and in other swing states. Without them, the less organized and lower-profile McCain campaign is likely to struggle to replicate Bush's success. And so far, there's been scant sign that the Republican nominee-in-waiting is making inroads among these fervent believers.

"I don't know that McCain's campaign realizes they cannot win without evangelicals," said David Domke, a professor of communication at the University of Washington who studies religion and politics. "What you see with McCain is just a real struggle to find his footing with evangelicals."

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The American Civil Liberties Union is threatening to sue the U.S. Naval Academy unless it abolishes its daily lunchtime prayer, saying that some midshipmen have felt pressured to participate.

In a letter to the Naval Academy, Deborah Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland, said it was "long past time" for the academy to discontinue the tradition. She said the practice violates midshipmen's freedom to practice religion as their conscience leads them.

The Naval Academy rejected the ACLU's request that the prayer be eliminated.

"The academy does not intend to change its practice of offering midshipmen an opportunity for prayer or devotional thought during noon meal announcements," the university said in a statement. It said that some form of prayer has been offered for midshipmen at meals since the school's founding, in 1845, and that it is "consistent with other practices throughout the Navy."

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As cars surged steadily down the road in Toledo, Ohio, a familiar melody rose from the circle of people gathered beside the gas pumps at the Exxon-Mobil station on the corner.

"He's got the gas prices, in his hands. He's got the gas prices, in his hands. . . "

Heads bowed and hands clasped, Rocky Twyman and the congregants of his small worship session hoped to do what the country's leaders haven't: Put an end to the steep increase in national fuel prices.

"God is telling us to stop depending on ourselves so much and trust in him," said Twyman, founder of Pray at the Pump. "Bush can't solve this. McCain and Obama are not going to be able to solve this."

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At Obama's old school in Jakarta earlier this year, an establishment scurrilously described as a "madrassa" in all the innuendo, a gentle principal showed me the large mosque and small Christian prayer room. He then invoked the words emblazoned on the coat of arms of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country: "Unity in diversity."

That's what I saw among the kids at the school, 85 percent of whom are Muslim and the rest Christian. That's also what America's supposed to be about, not religious slurring and stereotyping.

Yet, because he's called Barack Hussein Obama, and because his Kenyan grandfather was a Muslim, and because his commitment to Israel has been questioned, and because the U.S. Rorschach test is Muslim-menace mired, he's had to tread carefully.

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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reacted to the findings of a report on religious beliefs and practices by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life made public today.

The study, which is based on a survey of more than 35,000 American adults, estimates that nearly 92 percent of American adults say they believe in God or a universal spirit. The findings also point to the fact that Americans take religion seriously, that faith is a very important part of their lives and that many of them attend religious services regularly and pray daily.

Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington agrees.

“History testifies that religious faith is very important to Americans. At every juncture of our past, Americans have called upon God for guidance, protection, and direction. There is a clear identification with religion in America which, for Catholics, reflects the dedicated efforts of priests, catechists and teachers in our history,” said Archbishop Wuerl, chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.

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Having a President in your Parish can go to a pastor's head, as Dwight Eisenhower learned soon after he took office. Ike, though personally devout, wasn't much of a churchgoer, but he didn't think people would want a President who just played golf on Sundays. So he became the first President to be baptized in office and joined National Presbyterian. The minister had promised there would be no publicity, but as Eisenhower wrote angrily in his diary, "we were scarcely home before the fact was being publicized, by the pastor, to the hilt."

We still have a lot to learn about the choreography of faith and politics. None of the candidates in this year's race have looked very graceful, or sounded very wise, about how they would manage the eternal dance between their personal faith and its public expression were they to become President. And the conduct and coverage of this race isn't making the challenge easier.

For many Democrats, it has been refreshing to welcome a candidate who is not only able but eager to talk about his faith journey, starting two years ago at the Call to Renewal conference when Barack Obama addressed the "God gap" head-on, calling for a "serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy," and declared that "secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square." But having brought his own faith and church and pastor into that square, he found them to be serious obstacles on the way to the nomination...

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On Tuesday, James Dobson — a prominent evangelical leader — took exception to Obama's 2006 speech.

"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology," Dobson said on his Focus on the Family radio program, which claims 200 million listeners worldwide.

For 18 minutes, Dobson excoriated Obama for his political stands — especially Obama's belief that a politician must take into account a variety of views on moral issues.

"Now that is a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution," Dobson said. "This is why we have elections. To support what we believe to be wise and moral. We don't have to go to the lowest common denominator of morality, which is what he is suggesting."

Not surprisingly, Shaun Casey, who advises Obama on religious issues, argues that the candidate's view is a mainstream interpretation of the Constitution. Casey says Dobson's criticism is not really about theology. On the one hand, Casey says, Dobson is frustrated that Republicans chose John McCain as their nominee, a man whom Dobson has said publicly he will not vote for.

"And I think on the other hand, he's frustrated that Sen. Obama's outreach to evangelicals seems to be getting some traction at the grass-roots level, as well as among a number of prominent evangelical leaders," he adds.

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Eckhart Tolle may have Oprah Winfrey, but “The Shack” has people like Caleb Nowak.

Mr. Nowak, a maintenance worker near Yakima, Wash., first bought a copy of “The Shack,” a slim paperback novel by an unknown author about a grieving father who meets God in the form of a jolly African-American woman, at a Borders bookstore in March. He was so taken by the story of redemption and God’s love that he promptly bought 10 more copies to give to family and friends.

“Everybody that I know has bought at least 10 copies,” Mr. Nowak said. “There’s definitely something about the book that makes people want to share it.”

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As a preacher myself, I know there are few moments to compare with the affection and approval of parishioners after Mass, especially if you have been helpful in strengthening their faith. But the most distressing moment for me was the one homily I gave that evoked applause. Of course, it was gratifying; but it was disturbing. What was the applause for? The Gospel? The Eucharist? Maybe the stirring indictment of both church and state? Or for me?

There are many styles of preaching. But I have always felt a suspicion of styles that call too much attention to the preacher, whether by extravagant display or studied hyperbole. This becomes particularly dangerous when “preaching to the choir,” who applaud your indictments of everyone but the choir.

The priest preacher is a mediator. The danger is that the mediator can become the message. If the preacher is short on self-knowledge and personal restraint, his own preaching becomes, sadly, more important even than the Eucharist itself or, in non-eucharistic congregations, more important than even the Gospel. The preacher becomes the message. And that is disastrous.

The disaster finally hit Father Pfleger and the parish he loves. It also wounded Barack Obama. In the senator’s search for a new faith community, I hope he finds a church that nourishes his faith and family. I hope, also, he finds a preacher who is more into the Gospel than he is into his performance.

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(Note: the original thread to which this responds is here. For purposes of clarity I am going to request that any further comments on this thread and that one be made THERE. Anyone wishing to contact Bishop Wright directly please email me off blog and I will forward it to him--KSH).

I confess I had not heard of Colbert and his remarkable show until Harper managed to get me on to it. Since I have always believed in General Booth's principle that 'if I could win one more soul to the Lord by playing the tambourine with my toes, I'd do it', I figured that if I could tell a million youngish people that because of Jesus' resurrection God will make a new world and that this begins even now... that would be a really good thing to do... Plus, I've always enjoyed a challenge of this sort and it seems to me that it doesn't hurt for the church to be seen to be engaging with popular culture...

So I was surprised at the wonderful puritanism of Chris Hathaway, to be honest. Colbert isn't deceiving; he spoke to me before the show and told me (what I'd already been told by others) how his 'role' works. Perhaps Chris doesn't like Colbert's political stance? Certainly it has been said often enough (by Americans) that America is a land with an irony deficiency, and Colbert is doing his best to put that right. There CAN be honest dialogue, as I think I demonstrated. Albeit briefly. The fact that Chris H hates Candid Camera and finds Sasha Baron Cohen as 'vile' speaks for itself. To each their own: I wouldn't watch those myself, but that's because I don't see a whole lot of TV at all.

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Linda Ledesma needed a little extra money to help pay the rising costs of living in Florida.

So she decided to sell her burial plot in Sylvan Abbey cemetery in Clearwater. The newspaper classified ad noted its scenic location "in Garden of Ascension, near waterfall, under shade tree."

At $2,500, the asking price is a relative bargain. The cemetery is selling similar plots for $3,995.

Ledesma has joined a small but growing number of people who are selling unwanted cemetery plots. The trend is particularly pronounced in states such as Florida that drew millions of retirees who have grown more accepting of cremation or are rethinking their earlier plans to be buried in the state. Others say they'd rather have the money now and worry about their final resting place later.

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From here.

First, ...[marriage] was ordained for the procreation of children
Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication
Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

How do these three concerns relate to the prospect of gay marriage? The third priority insists that marriage is designed to bring human beings into loving and supportive relationships. Surely no one can deny that homosexual men and women are in as much need of loving and supportive relationships as anybody else. And equally deserving of them too. This one seems pretty clear. The second priority relates to the encouragement of monogamy. The Archbishop of Canterbury himself has rightly recognised that celibacy is a vocation to which many gay people are simply not called. Which is why, it strikes me, the church ought to be offering gay people a basis for monogamous relationships that are permanent, faithful and stable. So that leaves the whole question of procreation. And clearly a gay couple cannot make babies biologically. But then neither can those who marry much later in life. Many couples, for a whole range of reasons, find they cannot conceive children - or, simply, don't choose to. Is marriage to be denied them? Of course not. For these reasons - and also after contraception became fully accepted in the Church of England - the modern marriage service shifted the emphasis away from procreation. The weight in today's wedding liturgy is on the creation of loving and stable relationships. For me, this is something in which gay Christians have a perfect right to participate.

But asks Peter Ould: Who wants to point out to him the fact that he missed out the most crucial bit of the theology? Read the whole Fraser piece and the whole Ould response. Also, recall I have made this same point repeatedly in recent years, as for example at General Convention 2003:

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The seeming conflict between certainty and ambiguity may show that most people see overriding truths behind many religious dogmas, the Pew researchers said.

The researchers also said their results indicate that it’s wrong to assume that Americans can be pigeonholed on the basis of religion. There is a wide diversity of beliefs and behaviors, even among people who say they belong to the same religious group, said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum with a long history of studying faith-related polls.

“Even I was stunned by just how diverse it was,” he said. “The diversity goes all the way down.”

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Americans overwhelmingly believe in God and consider religion an important part of their lives, even as many shun weekly worship services, according to a national survey released today that also found great diversity in religious beliefs and practices.

Ninety-two percent of those interviewed for the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey said they believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit, and 58% said they pray privately every day. But California, like other states along the country's two coasts, resisted the prevailing national tendencies.

Californians are less likely than other Americans to consider religion "very important" in their lives or to be "absolutely certain" in their belief in God.

Californians pray less than others in many parts of the country. They are less inclined to take the word of God literally. And they are ready to embrace "more than one true way" of interpreting their religious teachings.

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After the 9/11 attacks, Americans put out a call for moderate Islam. Many Muslims answered that call, but few Americans heard them. Early this month, I traveled to Asia to see what Islam looks like on the ground there, and to listen to what Muslims themselves have to say about their religion, terrorism and the United States. What I found surprised me.

I went to Asia because Islam is by no means a Middle Eastern phenomenon. In fact, Asia is home to most of the world's Muslims. I focused on Indonesia because there are more Muslims in Indonesia than in any other country — roughly three times as many as in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

But what makes Indonesia strategically important to the United States is not simply its huge Muslim population (roughly 200 million) but the fact that Indonesian Muslims are by no means anti-Western.

There are fundamentalists in Indonesia, to be sure, but they account for roughly one in every 10 citizens there. The overwhelming majority of Indonesia's Muslims are moderates, and about one in five are progressives.

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Americans donated a record $306 billion to charity in 2007, their generosity encouraged by a strong stock market in the first half of the year, according to a report on philanthropy released on Monday. "A strong start to the economy in 2007 helped lift giving despite worries at year's end from gasoline prices or the housing and mortgage crises," said George Ruotolo of charity consultant Giving USA.

This year's uncertain economy may not bode well for charitable giving in 2008.

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In an interview with Catholic News Service shortly after he took the helm of "Meet the Press" in 1991, Russert said he enjoyed the somewhat unusual position in Washington public life of being a Catholic who wore his faith proudly.

In "official Washington and television news there aren't all that many practicing Catholics," he said, and when he first came to Washington people kidded him about it. They grew to accept and respect him for it, Russert said.

Some suggest that at work you have to "forget you're Catholic or forget you're Irish," he said. But "it's impossible. It's your inner self."

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, considered Russert a friend. In an interview with WRC-TV, the local NBC affiliate, he recalled the many times he would ask Russert for assistance with one project or another -- often some kind of fundraising. The cardinal said the newsman inevitably responded, "If I can fit it in, I will do it."

"He always had time for people," said Cardinal McCarrick. "I think that was what made him a great reporter. He always had time for people."

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Here's my quick thought on the subject: I tend to agree that fear of religious belief as such (as opposed to of specific religious beliefs) is probably unjustified, for the factual reasons Hills mentions.

But I take it that many irreligious people who are bewildered by others' religious beliefs aren't afraid of the beliefs so much as they find them factually unfounded — much like they would find beliefs in astrology, ghosts, werewolves, or for that matter the Greco-Roman pantheon to be factually unfounded. For that matter, I take it that even many Christian academics would disapprove, on empiricist rather than theological grounds, of those who say they believe in Zeus, Xenu, the Zodiac, or vampires. Why should we be surprised that irreligious academics would take the same view, but as to factual claims of the existence of God as well as to the other factual claims? (Note that there were some very interesting responses to these arguments in the comments to this post of ours from late 2005.)

This is especially so as to beliefs "in the existence and beneficence of an omniscient and omnipotent God." So perhaps what Prof. Hills is seeing is more disapproval of those who are seen as unduly willing to believe in what the disapproving person sees as fairy tales, rather than disapproval of those who are seen as morally or practically threatening.

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The starting point for inshallah is faith, but just like the increasing popularity of the head scarf and the prayer bump, its new off-the-rack status reflects the rising tide of religion around the region. Observance, if not necessarily piety, is on the rise, as Islam becomes for many the cornerstone of identity. That has put the symbols of Islam at the center of culture, and routine.

“Over the past three decades, the role of religion has been expanded in everything in our lives,”’ said Ghada Shahbendar, a political activist who studied linguistics at American University in Cairo.

Deference to the divine has become a communal reflex, a compulsive habit, like the incessant honking of Egyptian cabdrivers — even when there are no other cars on the street.

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A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create "I Believe" license plates.

The group contends that South Carolina's government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.

Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation.

"I do believe these 'I Believe' plates will not see the light of day because the courts, I'm confident, will see through this," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, the group's executive director.

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...he has shown unusual potential for appealing to the rank-and-file evangelicals and other religious voters who usually back the Christian right's Republican allies.

That's largely because Obama isn't afraid to discuss faith's role in his life, including his come-to-Jesus experience. Speaking of the influence that the now well-known Rev. Jeremiah Wright had on him, Obama told a church audience last year: "He introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him."

Such talk is more reminiscent of George W. Bush than of recent Democratic presidential nominees. "To a lot of people, Sen. Obama is an unknown suit that talks the 'evangelical talk' without actually saying anything on his opinions or his track record," says Tom McClusky, the Family Research Council's chief lobbyist. "In the general election, Sen. Obama speaking 'religion' is going to sound more familiar and natural than Sen. (John) McCain."

And — to evangelicals, at least — more familiar than Hillary Clinton, whose mainline Methodist background helps explain her preference for discussing the importance of doing good works over her personal relationship with Jesus. "Clinton does not compete with the religious right because her message is one not of hope and of healing, but of meeting the pragmatic concerns of economic advantage," says Douglas Kmiec, a conservative Catholic legal scholar and former adviser to presidential candidate Mitt Romney. (Kmiec has since endorsed Obama.)

"Obama has the capacity to win the soul of the working person," Kmiec says, "whereas Mrs. Clinton speaks to the pocketbook and the here and now."

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The groom was shopping for the perfect diamond for his betrothed — the other groom. As Rey Almeida, a 47-year-old elementary school principal, perused the Equality Forever rings (a same-sex wedding special at 40 percent off if purchased from June 16 to June 26), he couldn’t help reflecting on the symbolism.

“We’ve been waiting for the right moment,” Mr. Almeida, 47, said of marrying his partner, Alan Pex, a 46-year-old accountant who was initially as standoffish as Mr. Big on “Sex in the City.” “Now there’s the possibility of a ring, a ring that says, I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you.’ ”

California is gearing up for the “new summer of love,” as it is being dubbed here: the legalization of same-sex marriage beginning at 5:01 p.m. Monday.

Unlike in Massachusetts, California’s new law does not limit marriages to residents of the state, thus resurrecting old postcard images of California as the promised land....

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Debates about Islam and the West can throw up unexpected tensions. Take the American and the Brit, successful young professionals who met recently at a seaside resort in Egypt. As it happens, both were devout Muslims who pray five times a day. But as they discovered, manifest piety, of the sort ubiquitous in poorer bits of Egypt, arouses instant suspicion in parts of the country where rich tourists and important Westerners need cocooning—even when those Westerners have come to attend the august deliberations on “Islam and the West” taking place nearby with the blessing of Egypt's government.

The young men's daily supplications were snooped on aggressively by the police and they found themselves longing for the freedom to bow down before God that is taken for granted in California and the English Midlands. Inter-faith encounters, it seems, are tricky enough when they take the form of careful speeches by heads of government and other movers and shakers; for ordinary people who simply want to say their prayers, things can be downright baffling.

That doesn't, and shouldn't, stop faiths from trying to talk to each other. Since Osama bin Laden launched the war he describes as the renewal of an ancient conflict between Islam and the “Crusaders and Jews”, there have been many initiatives to head off global confrontations involving religions and the cultures they have spawned. Al-Qaeda's war on the West is by no means the only religious or pseudo-religious dispute in the world. In India, militant Hindus are at odds with other faiths. Sri Lanka's Buddhist monks often support the battle with Tamil separatists. In Northern Ireland and the Balkans, conflict has raged ostensibly between different forms of Christianity...

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A few weeks ago I found myself on a TV Sunday morning programme where Richard Dawkins was a fellow panel member. He probably won't thank me for saying so, but I found myself more often agreeing with his responses than with some of the wilder Christian members of the audience, not least over the casting out of supposed demons from children. I was reminded of the new King William of Orange's answer to the person asking for the traditional sovereign's healing on Maundy Thursday, "May God give you better health and more sense."

But the strange fact is, that it's often writers like Dawkins and Philip Pullman who would regard themselves as atheist who touch on some of the most profound and basic religious questions. In Dawkins's case the necessity or otherwise of a divine creator of a wondrous and awesome universe; in Pullman's case the tension between human free-will and social control or the interface of parallel universes.

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The battle over science education could soon spill into the courts in Louisiana, where looming legislation would allow teachers to bring up scientific criticisms of evolution, global warming and other hot-button topics.

The state House approved the bill Wednesday on a 94-3 vote. Because the Senate already approved a near-identical measure, supporters expect the upper chamber to pass this bill also.

A spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal would not say whether he will sign the bill, saying only that he will review it when it gets to his desk.

"It's not about a certain viewpoint," said supporter Jason Stern, Vice President of the Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative group pushing the bill. "It's allowing [teachers] to teach the controversy. It's an academic freedom issue."

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For millions of children across the U.S., this Sunday will not be a cause for celebration. Because of dramatic increases in divorce and nonmarital childbearing, about 28% of our nation's children -- more than 20 million kids -- now live in a household without their father, up from 10 million kids (14%) in 1970, according to a recent Census Bureau report. Moreover, because most of these boys and girls see their dads infrequently (once a month or less), Father's Day will offer cold comfort to many of these children.

Our nation's epidemic of fatherlessness is just the most salient indicator of what University of Chicago theologian Don Browning has called the "male problematic" -- the tendency of men to live apart from their children and to invest less emotionally and practically in their families than women do.

This situation has not gone unnoticed in America's houses of worship.

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A report commissioned by the Church of England says that the UK's Labour Government is moral, but it doesn't have a moral compass. The report, released on Monday 9 June, also says that the Government discriminates against the Christian Churches in favour of other faiths, and is guilty of deep religious illiteracy.

Roger spoke to one of the report's authors, Francis Davis from the Von Hugel Institute at St Edmund's College, Cambridge. He was also joined by the Bishop who commissioned the report, Stephen Lowe, and by the Communities and Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears.

Listen to it all from the BBC.

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