Faith and Reason: A conversation about religion, spirituality and ethics

Embryonic stem cell research is a moral choice: Francis Collins

Is it more ethical to use the 400,000 frozen embryos that will never be drawn out of fertility clinic freezers for "for a benevolent purpose or to discard them?"

That's the question Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, former head of the U.S. human genome program and an evangelical Christian, raised Tuesday at a USA TODAY editorial board meeting. He takes a strong moral stance on this -- in favor of the "breathtaking" prospects for scientific discovery with use of embryonic stem cells within political and moral guidelines.

It was just one of several religion-and-science comments included in his discussion. My colleague at Science Fair, Dan Vergano, has more on Collins' comments that

... angry atheists are out there using science as a club to to hit believers over the head." He expressed concern that prominent researchers suggesting that one can't believe in evolution and believe in God, may be "causing a lot of people not familiar with science to change their assessments of it."

And now, as Dan notes in another post,

A federal judge has ruled against a lawsuit that temporarily halted the expansion of federally funded human embryonic stem cell research.

DO YOU FEEL ... clubbed by either side on the science-religion debate? Or do you, like Collins, synthesize these worldviews?

Most don't know Romney's Mormon, Obama's Christian

The faith factor in the 2012 presidential race is pretty fuzzy. Not only do most Americans fail to identify President Obama as Christian, three in four don't know Mitt Romney is a Mormon, according to a new survey.

And that matters, says Robert Jones, director of the Public Religion Research Institute, which did the survey in partnership with Religion News Service. The survey, released Monday, also found perceptions of a candidate's religion -- right or wrong -- matter to potential voter support.

Jones says:

Religion is one of the lenses people use to decide whether they can identify with a candidate. For all the talk about Romney's so-called Mormon problem, it can't be looming that large for him right now.

A bigger problem is that 48% Americans say Obama's religion -- whatever they think it is -- is somewhat or very different than their own. They are much less likely to support his candidacy.

Among the findings:

• 40% of Americans don't know Obama's religion; 38% correctly call him Christian, 18% continue to wrongly identify him as Muslim; 4% says he's not religious.
• 40% correctly identify Romney as Mormon; 46% don't know, 11% call him some form of Christian (1% Muslim, 1% not religious, 1% never heard of him) despite saturating media coverage on the matter in the 2008 primaries.
• 72% say Mormons hold religious beliefs that are somewhat or very different from their own.
• 56% of the public says it is very important or somewhat important for a presidential candidate to have strong religious beliefs regardless of whether those beliefs are the same as their own.

See photos of: Barack Obama

Norway suspect sought 'Christian war' against Islam

Islamophobia has reached a mass murder level in Norway as the confessed killer claims he sought to combat encroachment by Muslims into his country and Europe.

Anders Behring Breivik's bombing and shooting spree puts the spotlight back on Europe's uneasy adjustment to a shifting population.

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According to The New York Times, he called for

... a Christian war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination... And acquaintances described him as a gun-loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threats of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration.

Thomas Hegghammer, a terrorism specialist at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, told the times that Breivik's manuscript, like the major al-Qaeda declarations, include...

detailed accounts of the Crusades, a pronounced sense of historical grievance and calls for apocalyptic warfare to defeat the religious and cultural enemy.

But despite Breivik's fears of cultural shifts, Muslims today are only 6% of the region's population -- and just 3% of the population in Norway, 34% of them immigrants, according to a massive study by the The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, released in January

It found Muslims will be more than one-quarter of the Earth's population by 2030 -- but only 8% of the population in Europe and 6.5% of the population in Norway. The Future of the Global Muslim Population analyzed statistics from United Nations data and Census material from more than 200 countries and studies by 50 international demographers, using birth rates, death rates, immigration and more for the study.

In Europe as a whole, the Muslim share of the population is expected to grow by nearly one-third over the next 20 years... rising to 8% in 2030. In absolute numbers, Europe's Muslim population is projected to grow from 44.1 million in 2010 to 58.2 million in 2030.

The Pew Forum is now working on similar comprehensive population studies for other religious groups. But statistics don't shed any light on the confessed actions of Breivik. According to wire service reports:

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told reporters that the attacks, believed to be the work of a man who has posted on Christian fundamentalist websites, showed you can't jump to conclusions about terror acts. He said most of the political violence that Norway has seen has come from the extreme right.

So, I have a bundle of questions now.

Who here knows exactly what's meant by Norwegian Christian fundamentalist? Should such terms be tossed about without definition? Is he a terrorist because he's Christian or a Christian who happens to be a terrorist or, if he's a terrorist, can he really be a Christian at all? And isn't that exactly the same points Muslims make about terrorists who claim to be Islamic?

NOTE: Be civil. The rule at Faith & Reason is that all views, respectfully presented, are welcome.

See photos of: Norway

Here come the N.Y. brides -- and their brides

Gay marriage dawns in New York state Sunday and some couples didn't wait for dawn -- marriages were planned for moments after midnight in Niagara with the wedding-centric city planning to illuminate the falls in rainbow colors.

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So the legal blessings begin and the hymns that were heard in the halls of the New York State Legislature last month are over: No more religious foes of same-sex marriage on one side, religious supporters on the other, each chorusing spiritual support for their views.

Instead, there will soon be pop-up wedding chapels in Central Park by next weekend.

The think tank ThirdWay.org calculates 46% of the country now lives where same-sex relationships have some degree of legal recognition.

The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act "was thought to have ended the debate on marriage. But it seems to have been only the beginning of a more profound shift in favor of gay and lesbian couples."

Among the changes cited in the Third Way report:

• Public support for allowing gay couples to marry has doubled, from
  27% to 53%.
• The number of people living in jurisdictions that provide legal
  recognition to gay couples has leapt more than ten-fold, from 13 million to 143 million.
• The number of states offering protections and benefits to gay state
  employees and their partners has jumped more than ten-fold, from 2 to 22.
• The number of Fortune 500 companies offering protections and benefits to gay employees and their partners has increased more than fifteenfold, from 19 to 291 companies.

However, the New York Times notes that the National Organization for Marriage is planning protests Sunday in three cities and two town clerks resigned rather than break with their religious beliefs to wed gay couples.

DO YOU THINK... the word "marriage" should be set aside for one-man-one-woman unions or does it no longer matter what we call the blessings of same-sex couples?

See photos of: New York, New York City

Alert, Dudes: 'The Big Lebowski' gets a Bible

Forgive me, Dudes, but I never did see The Big Lebowski, although my colleague in religion writing Cathleen Falsani has evangelized mightily for the Joel and Ethan Coen 1998 cult classic.

Now, following up on Falsani's own book, The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers," comes news that the "religion" celebrating "The Dude" Lebowski's "ethos," will now have an "official Dudeist Bible" she writes in her Religion News Service column.

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The Abide Guide: Living Like Lebowski, by Oliver Benjamin and Dwayne Eutsey, shares the slacker wisdom of dropping afterlife anxiety and learning to "abide where we are," Benjamin told Falsani.

"We, the Dudeists, in order to form a more perfect groovin', establish just taking it easy, and promote inner tranquility, do ordain and establish this guide on abiding," the Dudeist "survival guide" begins.

For in this world there are two paths you can go by. There's the uptight way and there's the Dude way."

Falsani, an evangelical Christian herself as well as a practicing Dudeist, sees no conflict in melding this philosophy with any other faith:

Dudeism's charge to "take it easy" fits nicely with the Judeo-Christian tradition of treating others as you'd have them treat you.

In fact, in the Dudeist tradition, Jesus Christ is considered to be a proto-Dude or prophet, along with various other gurus of grooviness such as the Buddha, Walt Whitman, Bob Marley, Jerry Garcia and Emily Dickinson.

Neither should ladies feel excluded because one of the guide's avowed objectives is get "everyone, male and female, to just take it easy" and "rid the word 'dude' of any masculine bias," she writes.

Now, speaking in utter ignorance of The Dude, Lebowski-style, I find something contradictory about a slacker scripture -- like it's way more organized than seems fitting. So, Dudes, set me straight here.

DO YOU THINK ... everyone should follow The Dude?

See photos of: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Campus Crusade for Christ drops 'Christ'

The global evangelical para-church Campus Crusade for Christ is changing it's name to 'Cru."

The main idea -- according to a look at the change at Christianity Today -- is to evade the problematic word "crusade" and the passe term "campus" (which the massive group known for the Jesus Film, books, tracts and more has long outgrown) and face up to the fact that many of its branches already use different names.

But is Christ now "He who cannot be named," so to speak?

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Here's what the soon-to-be-Cru site says:

We were not trying to eliminate the word Christ from our name. We were looking for a name that would most effectively serve our mission and help us take the gospel to the world. Our mission has not changed. Cru enables us to have discussions about Christ with people who might initially be turned off by a more overtly Christian name. We believe that our interaction and our communication with the world will be what ultimately honors and glorifies Christ.

Christianity Today spoke to the leader of the re-branding, Steve Sellers, the CCCI vice president and U.S. national director, who explained that "Crusade"

...has become a flash word for a lot of people. It harkens back to other periods of time and has a negative connotation for lots of people across the world, especially in the Middle East.

And it turns out that "Campus" had become passe. The web site touts that the movement launched by Bill and Vonette Bright as a campus ministry in 1951 is now on 1,029 campuses. The group claims 37,900 new souls for Christ over the last five years.

That sounds exciting until you do the math -- about seven converts per campus per year. However, the campus side of "Cru" -- as it will be known next year when the re-branding is finished -- is not the primary focus any more.

According to Christianity Today, most outreach and revenue come through books, tracts and the Jesus Film.

In 1979, the ministry produced the Jesus Film, which is now available in 1,129 languages. The ministry says more than 6 billion people have watched the film, which some call the most-watched motion picture of all time. Bright wrote The Four Spiritual Laws, a popular evangelistic tract that led off with the well-known phrase "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," in 1952. The ministry estimates that it is the most widely-distributed religious booklet, with 2.5 billion printed.

"Cru" for you-know-who was announced this week to the ministry's 5,000-member staff and many were evidently delighted as it's been in use on campuses for a few years now. Indeed, the Twitter tag is @crunews.

Sellers told the group:

We believe wholeheartedly that God has given us this new name. Our team understands that our name is really for the benefit of others. Ultimately, it's not about our name, but how we live out our mission everyday.

DO YOU THINK... it matters what banner evangelism flies? Should Christians shy from mentioning Christ at the get-go?

Pop-up churches find school spaces handy but tricky

Now you see it. Now you don't.

Instant churches (it's mostly churches) are popping up in public schools every weekend and vanishing within hours of the benediction. I wrote about the trend in today's cover story and co-worker Natalie DiBlasio found several examples of convenience -- and conflicts -- that come with the instant church phenomenon.

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While most schools, mindful of constitutional restrictions on the entanglement of church and state, take a strictly hand's off approach. The pop-up prayer sessions can do nothing permanent to the facilities and in most places may not advertise their presence to the general public.

But Linda Streeter, director of community education for the Dysart Unified School District in Phoenix suburb of Surprise, Ariz., one of the nation's fastest growing districts, allows religious groups to advertise their locale with prior approval and lets them set up a portable baptistery on the lawn.

Pastor Jesse Eisenhart of the 5-year-old True North Church, currently meeting in a middle school gym in Mantua, N.J., says the space has allowed their congregation to double from 250 to 500 worshipers. He says they have met the decor challenges with "creativity," but they also spent $1,000 to install ceiling motors to raise and lower sound speakers -- a permanent installation permitted because it benefits the school.

That's not allowed in New York City, where the board made one school take down a satellite dish it installed without permission.

Rev. Michael Prewitt, now serving as pastor of Calvin Presbyterian Church in Cumberland, R.I., tells DiBlasio about years of church-in-school experiences that he said, "make you feel like a missionary in your own back yard in America" and really bound volunteers to a sense of community.

Still, it could be funny at times. Prewitt says,

We got accused one time of not erasing the wipe-board well enough and leaving 'faint spiritual messages' so that has become a joke among us. Maybe we didn't erase the word Jesus quite enough.

Would it worry you -- or delight you -- if your child came to school and found Jesus' name faintly inscribed on the blackboard? Do you worship in an "instant church" at a school setting?

See photos of: Jesus

Archbishop Chaput faces 'a lion's den' in troubled Philly

Pope Benedict XVI has named Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver to succeed Justin Rigali as archbishop of Philadelphia.

It's a double-historic moment for Chaput. A member of the Prairie Band of the Potawatomi Tribe of American Indians, he becomes the nation's first Native American archbishop and likely to be named a cardinal within a few years. And he inherits a seething mess of mishandled sexual abuse charges against priests and archdiocesan officials.

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The Catholic blogosphere (Tweet go #Chaput and you'll be buried in links), the National Catholic Reporter and the Philadelphia Daily News, which played the lead that Rigali is out, were all pointing straight to Chaput, some with glee and some with mixed views.

Philly-based Rocco Palmo, of Whispers in the Loggia, has known Chaput since Rocco was 13 and sent him a letter because,

I had never seen someone like him -- very energetic, personable and clear. You can't mistake what he's thinking. He's a visionary. And what a change this will be. Philadelphia has had staid, traditional bishops and here comes someone who can combine gnuine fidelity to the church with this vigor. This is a revolutionary choice!

Palmo sees the pick as a sign the pope wants

... significant changes in the culture of the archdiocses. You won't see innovations in doctrine but the expression of the faith is about to undergo it's most significant reboot in almost 200 years. Chaput is someone who doesn't mind the lion's den and he's walking in to the lion's den of his life.

Thomas Peters, blogging at American Papist, known for its strong conservative stance on traditional marriage and opposition to abortion rights, calls Chaput "an incredibly good choice." Peters has visited Denver, run by Chaput since 1997, and described it as a thriving, youthful, technologically savvy archdiocese in action. He admires the archbishop:

He's an inspiring voice for Catholics to be good citizens... I love him for his public stances on the issues. His book, Render Unto Caesar, is the clearest statement of how Catholics are called in to public life without checking their Catholic world view at the door.

Peters also views a Chaput choice as one more critical appointment in a string of major names in the U.S. hierarchy including Archbishop Jose Gomez in Los Angeles, Archbishop Timothy Dolan in New York and Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston.

But whoever takes on the 1.5-million member, five-county archdiocese, inherits the scandal and financial pressures that will force parish closings and consolidations. Says Michael Sean Winter, blogger at National Catholic Reporter,

You have to pray for whoever gets named.

Winter also says,

Whether you think Chaput is the ideal pick depends on what you think is needed there

If you think you need the marshal going in to Dodge City to put the bad guys in jail, Chaput would be your guy. If you want some one who would spread balm rather than throw the bomb, that's a different kind of personality.

Chaput, says Winter, is

... a culture warrior. It puts blinders on him that make him do regrettable things. A perfect example: He ruled that children of gay parents can't go to Catholic schools. His classmate at seminary, Cardinal Sean O'Malley (both are members of the Capuchin order of Franciscan priests) reached the exact opposite decision in Boston, saying that you don't make decisions for children based on their parents' behavior.

The retiring Rigali, who took on the diocese in 2003, faces withering fire from a February grand jury report, that excoriated the archdiocese for, as the Daily News called it:

... widespread cover-up of predatory priests over decades, and alleging that as many as 37 priests remained active in the ministry despite credible accusations against them. The report recommended that the Archdiocese revamp procedures for assisting victims and for removing priests accused of molesting children.

A high-ranking Archdiocesan official was charged with child-endangerment for allegedly transferring "predator priests" to other positions. Two priests, a former priest and a former Catholic schoolteacher were charged with sexually assaulting minors. In response to the grand-jury report, Rigali initially said that no priests in active ministry "have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them."

The paper recapped the scandal and noted that this isn't even the first grand jury to highlight failures to protect Philadelphia youth from predatory priests. And earlier panel did so in 2005 and...

Two months ago, the Associated Press reported that the head of the church's own review board accused Rigali and his bishops of having "failed miserably at being open and transparent," and said that most cases of abuse had been kept from the board.

DO YOU THINK it takes a touch of pastoral balm or a bomb-thrower to refocus the Philadelphia archdiocese on Catholic's spiritual lives and social justice? Can one bishop do both?

See photos of: Pope Benedict XVI

Did you buy your Bible from Rupert Murdoch?

Would you buy a Bible from Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp.?

You probably already have.

His empire across the English speaking world includes not only the troubled tabs in the phone hacking scandal, as well as Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, but also Zondervan, the world's largest publisher of Bibles, which he's owned for 23 years.

Will Braun observes at the Holy Moly Blog:

Zondervan ... owns exclusive North American print rights to the popular New International Version of the Bible which it says has sold over 300 million copies worldwide. Zondervan also publishes books by leading Christian authors like Rick Warren (over 30 million copies of his Purpose Driven Life have been sold), Tim LaHaye, Jim Wallis, Eugene Peterson, Brian McLaren and Shane Claiborne.

This bugs Braun who says God doesn't need News Corp.,

Bald greed has no place in Bible publishing....

Now Braun acknowledges that perhaps this is a teeny redeeming gesture for Murdoch who, he notes "was awarded a papal knighthood by Pope John Paul II in 1998." (It's an honorary title given to people of "unblemished character," including non-Catholics, who have worked for the good of society.)

And maybe, Braun writes, the link is too tenous for a world with bigger woes than

... the ethics of Bible publishing ... It's just that I believe there should be absolutely no link at all. Bald greed has no place in Bible publishing...

We do not need to accept this arrangement. Christianity does not need to be about the best and biggest deal, and we can trust that the Good News does not require the help of an unscrupulous empire.

WHAT I WONDER: If, as many believers say, all is according to God's plan, what message was God sending Murdoch under Zondervan covers?

Should Casey Anthony cash in on her story?

Where did Casey Anthony go? Maybe to the bank with her story. Frank Farley would buy a Casey Anthony book and he thinks many Americans will, too.

His reasons: "It's got great characters. Then you add to it our fascination with evil and the dark side of life and the mystery of how anyone could kill a beautiful innocent child, and you've got a book people will want to read. I would read it. "

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Farley knows something of human nature. He's a Temple University psychology professor and past president of the American Psychological Association.

Farley watched the trial and told CNN he was impressed by Casey Anthony's calm, controlled demeanor as she was presented as a tattooed party girl who killed her daughter so she'd have more time for fun. He said Sunday,

I have studied human motivation for decades and this 'kill for fun' concept is the last thing I would have considered. The jury didn't buy it either. I've taught 25-year-olds for decades. They party and they get tattoos.

Farley also scoffed at a writer's description of a potential Anthony book as "trash." Said Farley:

A trial like this is just ripe for revisionists. New investigations could establish more clearly how Caylee died and Casey could one day be seen as a victim who bore up to false charges with 'amazing calm.'"

Farley also called it a story "packed with exceptional characters," including her two attorneys with their own compelling stories -- Jose Baez, "a stocky street fighter who came through like gangbusters," and Chaney Mason, "a legal moves master."

Making money by your wits is, after all, the American way. As Mason told the Today show last week, once Anthony is free,

It's as much her country as anybody else's.

Would you read a Casey Anthony book? In an unscientific survey at USA TODAY's On Deadline blog Sunday, 69% of 3286 respondents said "No way!" But 17% said, "Absolutely." The rest were weary of all words on Anthony.

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