Tom Krattenmaker

When Will Boy Scouts Accept the Non-Religious?

2013-05-21T17:00:59-04:00

Depending on what happens at the Boy Scouts' national meeting this month, gay Scouts might soon be accepted into the venerable organization. Even then, there will remain a large and growing group of Americans still barred by the Boy Scouts.

When will the Boy Scouts accept the non-religious?

The Boy Scouts of America recognizes an impressive range of religious affiliations that qualify one as "reverent" and, thus, eligible to participate. Two dozen varieties of Christianity get the nod, plus Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Bahai'ism and more. However, the non-religious are not welcome, and that poses a problem the Boy Scouts should address in addition to the sexual orientation question drawing so much attention.

Undergirding the Boy Scouts' ban is the dubious premise that people cannot be moral without religious belief. It's an assumption that non-believers are wisely challenging as the public face of atheism moves away from angry anti-religious diatribes, typified by the late Christopher Hitchens, toward a positive expression of non-belief summed up by the pithy phrase "good without God."

Can atheists be good Scouts? Neil Polzin's story suggests a resounding "yes." Polzin, now 29, contributed to a successful life-and-death rescue operation during a Boy Scouts backpacking trip when he was 13. He later became an Eagle Scout and an aquatics program director as an adult. In 2009, as he tells it, a rival who wanted his job made an issue of the fact that Polzin is an atheist. Hoping to clear the air, Polzin notified his regional council of his atheism -- and was unceremoniously booted.

One would think that his long track record would have proved his skill and moral worthiness by that point. But all the years of good Scouting and service were erased by a single dreaded word: atheist.

Margaret Downey, president of the Freethought Society (and the mother of a young man who was barred from the Scouts as a boy), is leveraging the new focus on Boy Scout inclusion policies to prompt a fresh look at its ban on atheists. Downey welcomes the new momentum for inclusion of gay Scouts. Even so, she asks, why no consideration of non-believing boys, too?

"There is no question that people can be good without a god belief," Downey says. The Boy Scouts offer a great program, she adds, "yet their bigoted membership policies are harmful."

Welcoming non-believers might seem a difficult bridge to cross for the Boy Scouts and traditionalists who defend current membership requirements. Wouldn't acceptance of atheists force revisions to the Boy Scout Oath, which pledges duty to God and country? Why should a private, voluntary organization have to do that, particularly when most Scout troops are chartered by churches?

These and other obstacles can be navigated through nuance, common sense and mutual respect. Let the churches that charter Scout troops adopt the attitude that churches usually adopt when it comes to non-believers: Welcome them in the hope of having a positive influence on them. Require atheist Scouts to respect the religion of their fellow Scouts, leaders and sponsors, with the assurance that their non-belief will be respected in kind. And, as Downey suggests, an additional "o" can go a long way; let the atheist Scout pledge his devotion to "good" rather than "God."

Ultimately, it would be self-defeating for the Boy Scouts to forfeit the chance to spread Scouting skills and values among the population of people who identify as atheist, agnostic, or otherwise not religious. More and more youths are growing up in non-religious homes. Why would the organization squander the opportunity to serve and influence these boys?

Yes, as a private association, the Boy Scouts have a right to decide for themselves who's in and who's out. But just because they can exclude atheists doesn't mean they should.

"There are millions of young, secular Americans committed to civic duty, community service and personal improvement," says August Brunsman, executive director of the Secular Student Alliance. "They're looking to serve their country alongside their religious friends, and it's long past time for the Boy Scouts to wake up and let these admirable young men serve."

It's the right thing to do. And here's the bonus: Once the Boy Scouts open up to non-believers, they're going to discover they have a lot to contribute -- just as they've been contributing all along.

This article originally appeared in USA Today on May 12, 2013.

A Progressive's Confessional Journey to Focus on the Family

2013-04-29T13:22:41-04:00

Many of my fellow progressives and seculars will wonder what possessed me to journey to Focus on the Family as part of the legwork for my new book -- not just with a bundle of questions but an olive branch as well.

Those four words -- "Focus on the Family" -- have been setting progressive teeth on edge for several decades now. In much of the liberal discourse, it's as if a few new adjectives have been added to the title of this Colorado Springs-based faith-and-family organization. The "anti-woman Focus on the Family," you hear it called. Or the "anti-gay Focus on the Family." Some go so far as to slap on the ultimate of pariah designators: "Hate group."

You can't blame the many non-evangelicals who nurse a grudge about Focus on the Family and its founding leader, James Dobson. More than advocates for the evangelical gospel and healthy families, Dobson and Focus became catalysts for a Christian Right political force that demonized liberals and tossed gasoline on the fires of the culture war (while receiving similar treatment from their culture-war rivals).

My teeth have been among those set on edge by Focus. But I have found that when you keep your eyes open, you may be surprised by what you see. And when you maintain an open mind, you might be astonished by the changes that can take place in your perceptions and opinions.

When I first met Jim Daly (it was at the 2011 edition of the Faith Angle Forum), I found him disarmingly likeable. The man who succeeded Dobson as the head of Focus on the Family, Daly exudes none of the stern disapproval of my ilk that I associate with his predecessor. Burly and casual, quick with a smile and glad hand, Daly chatted me up amiably and regaled me and others with funny stories about his young sons.

Fine, but not especially important. What did impress me, though, were the comments he made to the assembled journalists when his turn came to speak at the conference. Worshiping the "idol of political power," Daly confessed, was "one of the errors that we've made, to be forthright and honest. ... Christian leadership has become about the victory, and that's led to us becoming the predator and the world our prey. That's not a Christian doctrine. I'm very concerned about the politicization of the faith."

The president of Focus on the Family said that?

The more I learned about "Focus 2.0," as some call it, and the more I heard about the new tone and emphases coming out of Colorado Springs, the more I revised my opinion of Focus on the Family. I was impressed to learn of Daly and the publisher of the progressive alternative weekly newspaper in Colorado Springs joining forces to rally the community to support foster parents and the agencies that support them and, later, to stage a benefit concert for those whose homes were destroyed in the Waldo Canyon wildfire.

I was likewise impressed when I learned of the hospitality Focus extended to Soulforce when this gay-rights advocacy organization came calling as part of its Equality Ride in 2012. The 18-member Soulforce group, all gay and lesbian, met with Focus people for three and a half hours. The encounter ended with hugs, well wishes and mutual promises to be more careful about the words they use to describe one another.

Daly's confession about worshiping the idol of political power evokes a wider and welcome development I've been finding across evangelical America. While researching my just-released book, "The Evangelicals You Don't Know," I have felt moved by the confessions and apologies I have heard.

Often, these take the form of candid self-critiques of the evangelical movement, particularly the harsh politics with which it has become associated and a tendency to make enemies out of those with the "wrong" religious and political beliefs or sexual identities. This confessional impulse has also manifested in some inspiring scenes of contrition and reconciliation. One of the best appears in the Dan Merchant film "Lord Save Us from Your Followers." In one memorable scene, the Christian filmmaker Merchant sets up a confession booth at the gay pride festival in Portland -- not to hear confessions, but to make them and apologize for the mistreatment LGBT people have experienced at the hands of evangelicals.

Convinced that one good turn deserves another, I decided to weave an element of "confession" into my book -- a quirky and informal secular-progressive version of it, anyway. What better place to say my piece than at Focus on the Family, on the grounds of the organization I had long regarded as the enemy?

Sure, I had some hard questions for Jim Daly. How, I asked him, was the advance of gay marriage threatening my family and other heterosexual couples? How was it not disrespectful for Focus to take over and continue the "Day of Truth" event in U.S. high schools, previously run by Exodus International as a counter to the Day of Silence for gay students and their allies? (Yes, Focus changed the name of the event to "Day of Dialogue" and tweaked the emphasis, but still...)

Beyond questions, however, I had some things to say. It was wrong, I blurted out, that many on my side of the political/cultural tracks continued to demonize Focus as all bad and only bad. Hate group? The respected Southern Poverty Law Center, when it released its list of gay rights-fighting organizations deserving of the "hate group" designation, took pains to point out that Focus had moderated its tone and message and was not on its list.

"I think some of the advocates for gay rights have been too fast and loose with that term 'hate group,'" I told Daly, "and it's really harmed the dialogue."

I brought up the way that much of the progressive discourse defines Focus on the Family as "anti-gay," "anti-woman," and "anti-choice," as though that is all there is to know about Focus. Never mind that the bulk of its time and energy is devoted to the non-controversial task of helping people be better parents, spouses and Christians. Reducing Daly and Focus to negative labels, I said, "is wrong and unfair. I would not want to be subjected to that and I'm sure you don't."

The hypocrisies of right-wing Christians have long been one of my favorite targets. Yet, as I told Daly, I see the ways in which "my side" is capable of hypocrisy, too. I confessed a failure of my team to live up to our stated values when it came to our characterizations of our culture war rivals, even those evolving toward more open and common good orientations. To retain our black-and-white negative views "really goes against what are supposed to be the hallmarks of the secular, progressive community," I said. "You know -- rational, clear thinkers, open-minded, inclusive."

Finally, I brought up the over-the-top rhetoric I often hear from the anti-religion provocateurs who are such a conspicuous part of the secular constituency. The notion that someone's belief in God is no more deserving of respect than a child having an imaginary friend, the idea that all Christians are right-wing idiots -- these and other forms of mockery, I said, are just not right. "It has to suck to be subject to all that," I concluded, "and I'm sorry that you are."

To this and my other admissions, Daly nodded in appreciation, eschewing any impulse to add his own inventory of grievances.

I will use this article to add a note of personal apology. "Focus on the Negative" -- this would well describe my earlier writings and public comments about Focus, which tended to ignore the non-controversial and helpful work Focus has long undertaken. For that I am sorry.

On the flight home later that day, and as I've continued to think about my interaction with Focus on the Family in the months since, some truths have become clearer to me.

Focus on the Family is still conservative, and still evangelical. Focus continues to promote the idea that there is a correct and biblical form of marriage and family formation, and it's built around the union of one man and one woman. For some passionate progressives and LGBT champions, these realities constitute three strikes, and Focus on the Family is out. Nothing good can come of Focus on the Family; nothing good can be said about it.

Even though I disagree with Focus' position on gay rights and many other issues, I contend that the good done by Focus on the Family -- whether it's consoling and counseling a family in crisis, whether it's motivating evangelical church members to adopt unwanted orphans, whether it's teaming up with the publisher of a liberal alt-weekly to raise money for wildfire victims -- is still good. And while I hope for the day when Focus stands up for marriage equality, I can appreciate the steps it has taken to treat gay people and their allies with a new respect and kindness. Take it from the Southern Poverty Law Center: Focus on the Family is not a hate group.

My call to progressives and secularists: In our understanding of evangelical Christians, it's time for an exercise in disaggregation. Not all evangelicals are the same; not everything they do, and believe, amounts to the harmful nonsense we tend to associate with them. Many of the organizations and people we stereotype are changing.

And those confessions and apologies we're hearing? They sound pretty good. I, for one, am willing to accept -- and reciprocate.

A different version of this article appeared in USA Today, April 15, 2013.

Religious Freedom, Meet Secularism: Your Best Ally

2013-03-28T11:29:06-04:00

In what could go down as one of its most notable reckonings of the era, the Supreme Court heard arguments this week in two major gay marriage cases. While the advocates and justices sparred over California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, some important constitutional principles had a much-needed day in the sun.

As did some crucial but underappreciated subplots in this whole story about gay rights in America: the degree to which specific religious teachings -- such as Thou Shalt Not Be Gay -- should be enshrined as the law of the land, and the underlying question about the proper relationship between government and religion.

The moment is ripe for religious Americans, especially those Christian conservatives who have led the resistance against gay rights, to remember the importance of keeping church and state independent of one another. "Secularism" is not the church person's bane as it's often made out to be but the best protection ever devised for religious freedom. Let's hope this principle makes it through this major test intact and healthy.

Certainly, the same-sex marriage cases are about more than religion. But much of the energy fueling the traditional marriage movement is religious. After the announcement by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, that he's now supporting gay marriage, Newt Gingrich spoke for many Christian conservatives when he said, "I don't think (politicians) have the power to change what is a religiously inspired definition" of marriage. Gingrich and like-minded religious people are entitled to believe this, of course. But that doesn't mean the government should translate this religious belief into the law.

In this time of polarized shouting matches, the public square has fallen for distorted understanding of the terms "secularism" and "religious freedom." Judging from the popular (mis)understanding and rhetoric, secularists and religious freedom enthusiasts are archenemies, not allies.

Leave it to a secular Jew on the faculty of a Catholic university to set us straight. As Georgetown's Jacques Berlinerblau argues in How to Be Secular, we should stop allowing the strident shouters on the extreme ends of the spectrum to misrepresent the crucial religious freedom issues.

Properly understood, secularism is not about total godlessness or an absolute separation of religion from government. It is, more precisely, a model of church and state in which government is not under the control of a church authority, and no churches or individuals are having their religious practice and beliefs, or non-belief, dictated by the government. This is why secularists and religious freedom champions owe each other appreciation, not scorn.

It's not just the Bible-based arguments against same-sex marriage that violate this healthy secularism, unfortunately. Berlinerblau urges his fellow secularists to abandon the notion that secularism equals atheism. Cross-shaped memorials on public land, non-denominational prayers at public events -- do these displays of faith all have to be fought as some non-believers seem to think? Do we have to deny God and religion to stand up for secularism? No, we don't, Berlinerblau asserts.

Even the most vigorous religionists have reason to appreciate secularism and its vigilance against unhealthy church-state entanglements. These days, Baptists are a big part of the evangelical constituency, which often leads the charge against secularism. But it was the Baptists who often stood hardest against church-state entanglements in the nation's early days, when establishment of an official national religion was a real and present danger to them and other religious minorities. Today, if Baptists and other evangelicals want to be free of worries about an officially Catholic, or Muslim, or humanist government someday dictating their belief, they ought to invest in religious freedom's sturdiest bulwark: secularism.

More than their shared passions about church-state relationships, the ardent secularists and religious freedom champions have common cause, too: their mutual interest in keeping churches and consciences free of government control, and government free of church control.

If ever two warring parties were allies in disguise, it's these. And that will remain true whichever way the Supreme Court comes down on the big gay marriage cases.

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. His book The Evangelicals You Don't Know will be released in April.

Originally published in USA Today, March 21, 2013

Is Birth Control Fight Really About Religious Freedom?

2013-02-08T10:35:06-05:00

The Obama administration has now gone a step farther to address religious freedom objections to contraceptive provisions under the health-care reform law, creating, through new rules issued last week, a way for employees of religiously affiliated organizations to access birth control without their employers getting their hands dirty.

Given the swift and hostile reaction by many in the Christian right gallery, you have to wonder why the president and his people bothered extending this olive branch. Has it ever been clearer that the culture warriors are more interested in a fight than a compromise solution, or that complaints about religious freedom under attack are greatly overblown?

After the Department of Health and Human Services announced the new rules, leading conservative Catholic voices had the decency to say, in effect: Give us a chance to study the new provisions, and then we'll let you know whether they address our concerns. Fair enough. (One week later, the Catholic Bishops rejected the compromise as inadequate, albeit in measured tones and with acknowledgement of partial progress in addressing their concerns.)

If only groups such as the American Life League could likewise pause and assess before erupting in the predictable cries about religious freedom under attack. The Obama administration continues "to treat our country's conscience like a jailor," railed Judie Brown, president of the American Life League. Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, demanded that the administration "immediately abandon the idea that it has the power to withhold or dispense our fundamental freedoms to whomever it chooses."

Not even a thank-you-for-trying?

Several aspects of this conflict are no doubt mystifying to those outside the circle of social and religious conservatives. Contraceptives are widely used and accepted in American culture -- by Christians and non-Christians alike -- and they are proven preventatives against abortion, which the Obama critics are fighting mightily to prevent. Why the fuss?

That's not the point. Religious freedom matters a great deal under our Constitution, and it's not my call, or yours, to say whether a given law or practice is, or is not, a religious freedom issue for a given organization or person. If religious conservatives say that the contraception coverage violates their consciences, then it does.

If the objectors can be believed, that is. The problem here is that the Christian right has cried so loud and long about its religious liberties being violated -- and in such self-serving ways -- that it's difficult to trust that the continued opposition to the ObamaCare contraception rules is more than ax-grinding and fight-picking.

When the argument broke out anew at the end of last week, it was against the backdrop of a revealing a new survey by the Barna Group, highlighting what the polling firm's Christian president terms a "double standard" when it comes to evangelicals and religious freedom. Barna found 71 percent of evangelicals are "very concerned" about religious freedoms becoming more restricted in the coming years, as opposed to 29 percent of adult Americans overall.

But what evangelicals call an erosion of religious freedom begins to look like something else when you consider this: The Barna survey finds a majority of evangelicals agree that Judeo-Christian values should be given preference in this country, and only 37 percent agree that "no one set of values should dominate." These Christians, Barna President David Kinnaman says, seem as interested in dominance as religious freedom. Says Kinnaman: "They cannot have it both ways."

No, they can't. The data give statistical heft to what has been increasingly obvious over years of culture war politics: Conservative Christian cries of "religious liberty" violations often are, in truth, complaints about the decline in conservative Christian power and prerogatives in an America that is growing ever more religiously diverse.

Seen this way, the cries about Obama and a war on religious freedom, and laments about an America in which traditional Christians are on the run and under attack, sound hyperbolic and belligerent. Evangelical theologian Paul Louis Metzger hits the nail on the head when he points out, as he did this past week in a Patheos.com article, that "if we evangelical Christians want religious freedom, we will need to champion the religious freedom of others, even if we disagree with them on their views, and even if it means that they will critique us with that freedom."

Only when partisan evangelicals earn a reputation for sincere regard for religious freedom -- for all people's religious freedom -- will complaints about non-evangelical presidents and their supposed assaults on liberty ring credible.

Originally published at USAToday.com.

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and the author of the new book The Evangelicals You Don't Know, to be released in April.

Progressive Spirit: Occupy Finds Its Soul

2013-01-23T15:27:32-05:00

If you've ever been hounded by debt collectors about an impossibly large bill saddling you through no fault of your own, as many Americans have, imagine receiving a letter that goes like this:

"We write with good news: You no longer owe the balance of this debt. It is gone, a gift with no strings attached. You are no longer under any obligation to settle this account with the original creditor, the bill collector, or anyone else."

Dozens of people around the country have actually been receiving these letters and the debt forgiveness they describe thanks to Rolling Jubilee, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The campaign has been mimicking collection agencies by buying difficult-to-collect debt for pennies on the dollar. But then, instead of going after the debtor, they are doing the seemingly unthinkable and forgiving it.

The number of dollars and people affected are a pittance so far. But several aspects of this campaign are remarkable, including its explicit religious dimension. "Jubilee" is a concept straight out of the Bible, the tradition of a special year when debts are wiped clean. That the Occupy movement would embrace this biblical concept suggests something new and intriguing about the progressive movement, which has in recent decades been more likely to show contempt than respect when it comes to religion.

Are progressives beginning to get the spirit?

What's happening with the Occupy movement -- the Jubilee project immediately following a Superstorm Sandy relief campaign largely staged out of churches -- suggests yes. As do a spate of rising voices within atheism and humanism calling for partnerships with churches. Together, these signal a long-overdue awakening to the common ground they share with Christianity and rejection of a misimpression that's formed from the decades-long correlation between religion and conservatism in our politics and culture.

"Religious believers and atheists can and should focus on areas of agreement and work in broad coalitions to advance social justice," declares Chris Stedman, assistant humanist chaplain at Harvard and author of the book "Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with Religion."

Stedman is right. As is writer and activist Nathan Schneider, who in an article headlined "How Occupy Got Religion" observes: "Religion is ... the means by which many imagine and work for a world more just than this one. Just about every successful popular movement in U.S. history has had to recognize this, from the American Revolution to labor, and from civil rights to today's campaigners for marriage equality -- and now Occupy."

Other examples abound: pro-gay marriage forces reaching out to religious voters and activists and enfolding them into their movement; Hemant Mehta, author of "The Young Atheist's Survival Guide," summoning non-believing students to join forces with their religious peers for common-good service projects; progressive organizers challenging their colleagues to get past the notion that religious people come in only one size and shape (i.e. conservative).

No, you don't have to look far to find counter-examples, either. In an otherwise well-intentioned effort to support budding young atheists, organizers of the "Kids without God" campaign have found a way to belittle religious people. "I'm getting a little old for imaginary friends," read the ads going up on buses in the Washington area. Alas, reducing religion to belief in "imaginary friends" is not a good way to win new religious allies.

One of the latest in an on-going series of atheist manifestos is surprisingly uninformed about the moderate Christians who tend to receive so much scorn from the vociferous anti-religion vanguard. In his recent release "Atheism and the Case against Christ," philosophy professor Matthew McCormick criticizes prominent "moderates" such as Franklin Graham for not speaking out against faith-healing charlatans and prosperity gospel preachers. Franklin Graham, of "Islam is evil" fame, is a moderate? It makes you wonder if this writer even knows of the existence of Episcopalians and United Methodists.

Nevertheless, it's impressive to see more and more of the non-religious engaging in a long-overdue act of disaggregation and realizing there are many in the ranks of religion who could be their next best friends for progressive and common-good causes.

"Escaping religion only burdens the humanist with confronting vaster forces against freedom and justice, so it would be wise to recall that sound minds and good hearts are always needed as allies," writes John Shook of the American Humanist Association. Adds academic Andy Norman, "We need to recognize the diversity within theism, avoid the temptation to lump all theists together, and engage liberal and moderate theists in constructive dialogue."

Take it from these thinkers and the "radicals" at Occupy Wall Street: It's better to befriend religion and religious people (and honor and borrow the best in their traditions) than repel them.

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and author of the new book 'The Evangelicals You Don't Know,' to be released in April.

Welcome to the 'Radical Middle'

2013-01-09T13:11:41-05:00

Who wants to be in "the middle"? Not many. Or so you might think after a quick tour through cable news, talk radio and the Internet, or after a look at one of those red-state, blue-state maps. Political analyst Michael Barone writes for many when he observes that we have two Americas now and they are not on speaking terms.

Given the stark differences between Red America and Blue America, between Christian America and secular America, the claim bears truth. But it's heartening to know that in between the culture camps, there's a space where envoys from the divided Americas are not only speaking but also forming partnerships. And they're doing so not in spite of their passionately held convictions but because of them.

Welcome to the "radical middle." Having visited this metaphorical space in my own city of Portland, I am moved by what I've witnessed. I've seen displays of decency and humility by evangelicals who have entered secular realms not to convert the heathens, or win at politics, but to team up with their supposed adversaries to tackle the community's problems. I have seen liberal secularists set aside their suspicion of evangelicals and go to work with them to improve public schools and bring health care to the poor.

No-Evangelism Zone

Portland Mayor Sam Adams is someone you'll find in the radical middle. Given that Adams is gay, and that evangelical Christians have led the resistance against gay rights, "hell no" would have been a predictable response when evangelical churches approached Adams about joining forces to serve the city and its poorest residents. Adams let a different criterion guide his decision -- the city's near desperation for resources and people to meet the unmet public need. He said yes, and dove in.

You'll also find people such as Ben Dudley, a Christian who directs a soccer, service and learning after-school program in a no-evangelism zone: the elementary schools in Portland's poorer ZIP codes. For Dudley, director of AC Portland (whose board I serve on), the prohibition on proclamation is no problem; Dudley is an evangelical who is more than willing to let his service do the evangelizing.

Then there's Tony Kriz, who models the radical middle with an earnest audacity few can match. Kriz, author of the new book "Neighbors and Wise Men," did Christian ministry work in the predominantly Muslim country of Albania when he was fresh out of college. Later, Kriz was part of a hardy band of Christians who worked with students at Portland's ultrasecular Reed College. As told in Donald Miller's best-selling book "Blue Like Jazz," Kriz (known in the book as Tony the Beat Poet) hatched a crazy way to connect with the more-skeptical-than-thou Reedies: a confession booth. No, the Christians didn't hear confessions in the makeshift wooden booth they erected at the year-end campus festival. They made them. And that act of disarming vulnerability set off one bridge-crossing conversation after another.

No Monopoly On Truth

"Love" and "sacrifice" are the words Kriz uses to describe his approach to other people, and they well describe the price of admission to the radical middle. One of its truly radical features is that people enter with a willingness to surrender the arrogant notion that they have a monopoly on truth and virtue, and that the "other side" is all bad and only bad.

What's also radical about this middle is that people go there with their beliefs and passions fully afire -- passions that drive them to think the best of, and want the best for, "the other," however they are defined.

"In our day," says pastor Bruce Reyes-Chow, "it is radical to see the political or ideological other as a full and complex human being, a child of God. And then treat them as such."

This is clearly not a safe, boring "mushy middle." Today, the middle is more like a no-man's land. It's risky, with exposure to fire from both sides, but full of bracing fresh air for those who can handle some new company and the sound of the occasional missile passing overhead.

You won't find a poll on the size and demographic makeup of this emerging radical middle. This is not the group to whom the political parties and candidates pander. But it's good to see more people showing up there, offering an auspicious alternative to the stalemates and culture wars that plague our time. Let's hope the politicians start following them.

Originally published here. Tom Krattenmaker is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and author of 'The Evangelicals You Don't Know,' to be released in April.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors.

Has Tony Perkins Seen The Light On Hate Speech?

2012-08-24T16:30:58-04:00

Published originally on USAToday.com, Aug. 24.

Thank you, Family Research Council, for now conceding what conservative groups have been loath to acknowledge in recent years: the truth that incendiary rhetoric indeed does contribute to a climate conducive to politically motivated violence.

Never has the moment seemed more opportune to forge consensus around an overdue new rule in the culture wars. Starting now, can we all please watch our words?

Most likely, you're aware of the incident that ignited this renewed debate about rhetoric and violence. Last week, a volunteer from a Washington, D.C., community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people walked into the headquarters of the Family Research Council, an influential conservative Christian organization, with a gun, a box of ammunition and a burning grudge against the group and its anti-gay politics and rhetoric, authorities said. The suspect, according to court documents, shot a security guard in the arm before he was subdued by that same guard and taken into custody.

Thank goodness no one was killed and that the security guard acted so heroically to prevent the incident from getting far worse. The group's fiercest opponents in the ongoing national arguments -- organizations representing ardent secularists and gay-rights advocates -- were quick to condemn the shooting, and rightly so. Conservatives have likewise been clear, for the most part, in their denunciations of violence committed against liberal figures over the years.

Here's where the plot gets thicker.

Since the shooting, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has been implicating the "reckless rhetoric" that gay-rights groups have been leveling against his organization in recent years, especially the charge that FRC is a hate group. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a widely respected civil rights group, made waves in 2010 when it issued a new list of gay-rights opponents that the center deemed "hate groups"-- a list that includes FRC.

Perkins contends that the man charged in the shooting, Floyd Lee Corkins, "was given a license by ... the Southern Poverty Law Center who ... labeled us a hate group because we defend the family and we stand for traditional orthodox Christianity."

Perkins' charge is irritating for misstating the reason for FRC's inclusion on the hate-group list. As the Southern Poverty Law Center stressed when it released the list and in the days after last week's shooting, spreading false propaganda about LGBT people is the reason for the hate-group label, not FRC's stand against gay marriage or its defense of traditionalist views on families and faith. If you doubt the truth of that, consider the fact that the SPLC has notably left Focus on the Family off its hate group list and credited the Colorado-based evangelical organization for moderating its tone even while continuing its strong stand for traditional marriage and Christianity.

Yet there's something promising about Perkins' statement: his overdue acknowledgment, unintended though it might be, of the role of rhetoric in political violence. This is something many conservative groups like his have disclaimed in the aftermath of shootings against liberal targets in recent years, from abortion provider George Tiller (fatal) to ex-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (not fatal but career-ending).

In a revealing episode in 2009, when many liberals were implicating right-wing rhetoric in Tiller's murder, Perkins rejected any relationship between language and violence. The FRC chief rushed to the defense of Fox News television hostBill O'Reilly, who was being widely accused of stoking the shooter's rage by referring to Tiller as "Tiller the Baby Killer" and likening late-term abortions to the sinister practices of the Nazis.

O'Reilly, Perkins said at the time, was an "easy target for the liberal media who tried to pin some of the blame on O'Reilly, saying he incited the violence by decrying these unnecessary procedures on his show. "Despite the unfair allegations, O'Reilly spoke the truth, bringing new light to a gruesome procedure. On behalf of ... millions of values voters, we want to express our gratitude to a culture warrior who uses his national platform to promote life."

Given his statements since the FRC shooting, we can only assume that Perkins has now seen the light.

Is it fair and responsible to label FRC a hate group? Whichever side of the debate you take, realize the distinction the SPLC is making between the organizations on its anti-gay hate-groups list -- groups shown to repeatedly scapegoat and slander homosexuals with malicious misinformation -- and groups like Focus on the Family that have gotten out of the demonization game, and are nowhere to be found on the hate list.

Not all FRC critics, alas, are equally careful. Some gay-advocacy groups and secular-progressive culture warriors have been fast and loose with that "hate" label, indiscriminately attaching it to any traditionalist who has the temerity to voice the opinion that gay marriage is a bad idea. I disagree with that position, but I reject the notion that holding to it automatically constitutes hate.

Enough with pinning "hate group" on all conservative Christian organizations. Enough with likening abortion-providers to Nazis and death merchants. Enough with campaign rhetoric such as Vice President Biden's warning to an audience with a large black presence that the Republicans are bent on putting "y'all back in chains." This "reckless rhetoric," to use Perkins' term, is not the cause of violence, but it certainly throws fuel on the fire.

Both sides in the culture war now have blood on their hands, and blood on their doorsteps. Take it from Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council -- hostile rhetoric does bear a share of the blame.

It's time to check ourselves and start taking better care of the words we use for our political opponents.

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Evangelicals You Don't Know.

'Terrorist': Apply The Label Consistently, Please

2012-06-13T06:18:26-04:00

Real-life scenario No. 1: A man with a weapon strides into a military medical office in Texas and opens fire, killing 13 people and wounding 29 before he is stopped and taken into custody. In the ensuing news media coverage and public discussion, the incident is widely viewed as an act of terrorism.

Real-life scenario No. 2: A man with a weapon shows up at a public gathering inside a supermarket in Arizona and opens fire, killing six (including a U.S. district judge) and wounding 13 (including a member of the U.S. House of Representatives) before he is stopped and arrested. In the ensuing media coverage and public discussion, the incident is generally not characterized as terrorism.

The difference? In the first scenario -- the 2009 Fort Hood shootings -- the perpetrator, Nidal Hasan, was a Muslim of Palestinian ancestry. In the second -- the 2011 Tucson shootings that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords gravely wounded -- the perpetrator, Jared Loughner, was non-Muslim and white.

So it goes, according to new research by a terrorism prosecutions expert in Portland, Ore., when it comes to public perception of what constitutes terrorism. An analysis by law school professor Tung Yin of Lewis & Clark (the college where I work) reveals that race and religion strongly color portrayals of terrorism, to the point where crimes of a similar pattern -- political motivation, mass destruction, indiscriminate killing, etc. -- tend to be characterized differently in this country when the perpetrators are Muslim or of Arab descent.

This matters. "Terrorist," after all, is the mother of all damning labels in this post-9/11 age. And beyond politics and public relations, ideas about what constitutes terrorism and who commits it can have a significant effect on law enforcement and court outcomes. It's a term that needs to be used with care and consistency.

Listening to Yin review cases of actual and intended violence, one is struck by how the term "terrorist" has been conspicuously absent from public discourse about some high-profile incidents of recent years.

No white terrorists?

Here in Oregon, a father-son team, Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, are on death row for planting a bomb that killed two police officers in a bank in 2008. Prosecutors portrayed the pair as bigots who hated the government. Terrorists? Not if most news media accounts are to serve as our guide. Yin finds the same dynamic in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal coverage of the arrests of five men (all Caucasian and non-Muslim) in Cleveland this spring in a plot to bomb a bridge. Are the alleged Cleveland plotters terrorists? Not if the words of most investigators and reporters are any indication.

Not to say that non-Muslim whites never get tagged as terrorists. Yin notes that two notorious bombers in recent (but pre-9/11) U.S. history have worn the label --Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. You would search in vain, however, for other non-Muslim perpetrators of mass violence in this country who have been similarly branded.

As Yin asks (rhetorically) in the title of his study, "Were Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber the Only White Terrorists?" (The study has been accepted for publication in a juried law review and is available online at the Social Science Research Network.) Clearly, McVeigh and Kaczynski are not the only white terrorists -- not if that loaded term is to be used precisely and responsibly.

Get it right

Getting this right is important for a host of reasons. As many have argued (present company included), subjecting all American Muslims to terrorism-related stereotypes and suspicions is unfair and unwise. Bear in mind that the term "terrorist" is legally significant, too. If perpetrators of violence and their abettors are proved to operate out of terrorist intentions, sentences can go up in federal cases and in some state courts.

As Yin argues, "There are real costs imposed on society when terrorism becomes branded with Islam: Cognitive biases against Muslims become more potent; investigators risk losing the trail of non-Muslim perpetrators when they fixate reflexively on Muslims; and worst of all, some government officials, aware of the biases and concerned about appearing anti-Muslim, may overcompensate by deliberately ignoring specific 'red flags' about Muslim individuals."

Yes, the overcompensation problem. Those who defend American Muslims are tempted at times to obscure the religious and terrorist angles when Muslims do perpetrate violence; this, to protect Muslims from reprisals and reduce the potency of such incidents as fodder for anti-Muslim politics. Such a dynamic was evident in the way some tried to downplay the fact that Nidal Hasan, the man charged in the Fort Hood shooting, is a Muslim and did spew violent jihadist rhetoric on the Internet.

If the religion dimension helps identify a suspect, and if the t-word helps law enforcement and the public understand the nature of an act of mass violence, its use is justified. If the label fits, apply it. But fairly, please.

This article was first published in USA Today

When Tim Tebow Loses

2012-01-19T13:27:03-05:00

Tim Tebow's riveting ride to the Super Bowl is over now, two steps short of pay dirt. What a ride it was: a faith-fueling story that instigated and renewed many a fan's interest in pro football while leaping the bounds of the sports world and entering the wider realm of popular culture.

The rises and falls of Tebow these past few months have provoked all manner of speculation about the theological significance of the Jesus-professing quarterback of the Denver Broncos, just as it has stoked a vociferous proxy battle in the ongoing national argument over the public standing of the evangelical faith embodied by the Broncos' No. 15. All of this has come at a volume that has made it hard for anyone to think straight.

In the months until the return to training camps this summer, one can only hope that the inevitable Tebow withdrawal comes with a restoration of perspective and sanity -- especially among those who have upped the ante to such ridiculous proportions around Tim Tebow, as if Christianity's validity in American public life rested on the young man's padded shoulders.

The highs and lows

No, Tebow's 45-10 loss to the New England Patriots Saturday night does not say anything about the credibility of Christianity or God. But it sure does about those who went overboard in ascribing cosmic significance to Tebow's touchdowns and victories during the season's high points, while remaining predictably mute during the low points. Football success, alas, is no place to rest your case for religion.

Twitter was aflutter with claims of divine revelation a week ago following Tebow's and the Broncos' stirring upset win over heavily favored Pittsburgh. It wasn't just that dramatic game-winning touchdown pass that did it. It was those eerily familiar digits-- the 316 passing yards on Tebow's stat sheet and his 31.6 yards-per-completion average. It couldn't be mere coincidence that these are the same digits as John 3:16, the Bible verse that many believers would single out as the essence of the religion. ("For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.") As one Tebow promoter offered at a popular sports website, what more proof would anyone need for the truth of Christianity?

Well, a lot. And to say that is no insult against the Christian faith. The opposite, actually.

For all the visibility Tebowmania has given to the faith he so heroically represents, his most carried-away admirers and detractors have brought forth a mother lode of silliness, too. A new poll finds that 43 percent of people familiar with Tebow believe divine intervention plays a role in his success. Even before the numerology nonsense around Tebow's 316 passing yards, the seasonwitnessed the appearance of Broncos' No. 15 jerseys with the name "Jesus" plastered on the name plate -- idolatry, anyone? -- and an unbecoming defensiveness by some evangelical Tebow enthusiasts who reacted to criticism of his playing ability as if it were an attack on the Christian faith itself.

"The reason that they hate Tebow," Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association asserts, "is because they hate Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ lives in Tim Tebow... and people hate it."

Enough!

Same goes for secular snark dispensers such as comedian Bill Maher, who have found Tebow and his constant statements of faith so detestable. Maher -- who in 2008 produced an entire documentary, Religulous, to mock all faiths -- has used enlightening terms like "douche bag" to articulate his view of Tebow. After a poor Tebow performance in one late-season loss, Maher tweeted, "Wow, Jesus just f---d #TimTebow bad." Couldn't the Tebow haters spare an ounce of credit for a guy whose religious conviction has led him to serve orphans and befriend medically challenged young people, who has had nary an off-field misstep or a harsh word for anyone in his five years in the spotlight?

Pairing sports and faith

Evangelizing on the coattails of a Christian athlete's victory can be mighty tempting, of course, and we've had it in big-time sports for decades now. The late-great Reggie White popularized the practice in pro football in the '80s and '90s, and others including Super Bowl-winning quarterback Kurt Warner carried the mantel onward in the following decade. What better way to bring the gospel message to the attention of a sports-obsessed culture? Yet offering the competitive successes of Jesus-loving sports stars as proofs for Christianity, as many Tebow nuts have done, ought to be troubling to anyone intent on a serious conversation about the nation's dominant religion.

As I have learned in my research on sports ministry organizations such asAthletes in Action, victory-based evangelism is troubling to many faith promoters in athletics, who realize that God is with the losers as much as the winners in sports and other temporal walks of life.

By conventional score-keeping, Jesus was hardly a "winner" when he willingly submitted to his executioners. On the other hand, would the public give a whit about Tebow's beliefs and Google-search his favorite Bible verses if he were a third-string player on a last place team?

As an Athletes in Action staff member once observed, winning is important not because God cares about the win-loss tally, but because Americans do.

Yet as Tebow's season-ending defeat demonstrates, Jesus' favorite quarterback is capable of great failures, too. As is any athlete to whom Christians might point if they're operating in a celebrity-endorsement mode.

When a subculture hitches its credibility to a star Christian athlete, and said athlete stumbles (as he eventually will), someone ends up with egg on his or His face. Of course, any embarrassment belongs not to God, but to those who would hold up something as fleeting as sports success as evidence for Christianity's truth, while ignoring the innumerable cases of upstanding Christian figures who fail on the field. Don't forget: Lots of those Pittsburgh Steelers victimized by Tebow's heroics a week ago are deep-believing Christians, too.

Anyone with a well-developed handle on the meaning of Christian faith will tell you that God's presence is not something that waxes and wanes like the fortunes of football players. This is one big reason why it has proved so compelling to so many people over the ages. As Tebow's bad games and errant passes attest, a football player's victories and stat-sheet digits are no place to look for Christianity's vindication.

Sure, use Tim Tebow as your test case for Christianity. Use his irrepressible spirit, his impressive character, his exemplary treatment of his fellow human beings. As for his yardage totals and yards-per-completion percentages? Those are for thefootball gods.

This column was originally published in the USA Today.

The New Evangelical Alliance Waiting to Happen

2011-07-19T14:29:34-04:00
"The poor will NOT always be with us!"

Thus proclaims a freshly launched Christian campaign to end extreme poverty in this generation. Scott Todd's "58:" project declares that eradicating poverty is not only possible but probable, if the people of the church put their backs into it.

Such audacious optimism is one of the most infectious, exciting qualities of the new evangelicals movement of which Todd is a part, and it surged like electricity through his and other presentations at this spring's Q conference, the signature annual gathering of next-generation Christian leaders.

Sure, in some of the quieter, more reflective moments of the three-day event in Portland you could hear acknowledgment of the heavy burden carried by this movement of new-century Jesus followers. These are, after all, the people who accept responsibility to right seemingly every global wrong you can name while restoring the credibility of publicly expressed Christianity in the process. But the workload is exhausting only when they lose connection with their ultimate power source, says Gabe Lyons, the host of Q and an unofficial spokesperson for the movement. These action-takers draw their energy and strength not solely from their fair-trade coffee, entrepreneurial wits and technological savvy, Lyons says, "but from the cross -- from knowing we are living in the way that Jesus demands."

As the generational tides nudge this demographic closer to the front and center of American evangelicalism, it's time for a refiguring of the equations by the many non-evangelicals nursing grudges about those pushy Jesus nuts -- especially the progressive secularists who share these new evangelicals' social justice commitments.

Divided by religious belief, these groups are easily stereotyped as culture war enemies. They needn't be. If anything, they're common-good allies simply in need of an introduction.

The Number 58

Todd was an up-and-coming scientist, an oncology fellow at Stanford with multiple research grants and a dozen scientific publications on his curriculum vitae, when he heeded a different call. Witness Todd's pitch for the end-poverty campaign and you'll be taken on an energetic tour of some surprising numbers. Did you know that 52 percent of the world's population suffered from extreme poverty just 30 years ago, but that number has been halved to 26 percent in one generation?

Perhaps even more revealing is the figure that Todd waves to rally the church to get extreme poverty the rest of the way to zero. That number is 58 -- as in Isaiah 58, the Old Testament chapter that compels the righteous to loosen the chains of injustice, free the oppressed, give shelter to the wanderer and food to the hungry.

What of that passage in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus claims "the poor you will always have with you"? Long summoned as evidence of the futility of good works, of the need to focus on saving souls rather than perfecting society, it's a notion that has let many a would-be poverty-fighter off the hook or stopped in her tracks. And it's a colossal misinterpretation, Todd argues. What Jesus meant to convey in that remark to Judas was not resigned acceptance of poverty. He was rebuking the soon-to-be-traitor for his hypocrisy -- for the charade of Judas objecting to Mary's use of expensive perfume on Jesus' feet while Judas, all the while, was stealing from the group's money bags. Why, Todd asks, are pastors so often loath to put that phrase in context but never the second half of the same sentence, where Jesus says, "You will not always have me?"

Not have Jesus? You won't convince people like Todd and Lyons that they don't have him. They might lack many things -- a penchant for modest goals would clearly be one, as would allegiance to the conservative politics associated with their evangelical elders -- but if there's anything they have for sure it's their certainty about Jesus. And therein lies the interesting part.

To the many secular common-good seekers who share the new evangelicals' justice commitments, but not their Christ, Todd, Lyons and their co-conspirators pose a puzzle and a possibility. Who would want to go to social-transformation war with a bunch of Jesus fanatics who speak boldly about "the kingdom" and have this funny habit of praying out loud and punctuating their conferences with worship songs?

Distrust will take time to overcome. What these younger evangelicals mean by "kingdom" is not a Christian conquest of America as the ranks of the wary might fear, but the divine ideal of something closer to heaven here on earth -- a world in which the most vulnerable are protected and the poorest are fed and clothed.

Not that the evangelical old guard hasn't cared, or hasn't served others, but we are seeing a seismic shift in emphasis -- from an emphasis on assenting to the right theological ideas and getting to heaven, to one where it's all about translating belief into righteous action on behalf of others. You can expect to find, on a scale not seen for decades, more and more Bible-believing Christians on the front lines of compassion campaigns for the poor, abused women, modern-day slaves, children (born as well as unborn), minorities of every sort, and anyone else being exploited and mistreated.

Post-Christian Culture

However noble this might sound, Lyons knows better than just about anyone why many of the unconverted might look askance. This 36-year-old Liberty University graduate co-authored the influential 2007 book "UnChristian," which used extensive opinion-polling to probe younger Americans' negative perceptions of Christians. Since then, Lyons has helped lead the effort to rethink how to bring the faith forward in what sociologists and commentators will tell you is an increasingly post-Christian culture. It is not a power play, Lyons stresses, but the activation of a network of "restorers who will work with anyone to see goodness go forward in the world and evil pressed back." These "next Christians," as Lyons calls them in the title of his 2010 book, "are socially conscious, grounded in their gospel commitment, and optimistic that when their faith is practiced according to the ways of Jesus, it is complementary to cultural reforms that value all human beings, all human flourishing, and all spiritual traditions."

Christians ready to go shoulder to shoulder with anyone to advance the greater good? Not exactly the form of religion we've been arguing about these past few decades.

Let's see who's ready to work with them. There's a lot to be done.

This column was originally published in the USA Today.

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. He is the author of the book Onward Christian Athletes.

Faith and Finance: How Religious People Use Their Money

2011-05-11T22:36:18-04:00
A person cannot worship both the Almighty and the Almighty Dollar, the prophets teach. It is easier for a camel to squeeze through a needle's eye, says Jesus, than for a rich man to get to heaven. Obsession with money? Nothing less than the root of all evil.

It's not just Christianity and Judaism that warn people to be careful about their relationship with money. Islam rejects usury; Buddhism condemns greed as one of the three great poisons. Considering all this, it would be understandable if one concluded we should be afraid, very afraid, of money and what it can do to the soul -- or, far more likely, engage in some serious compartmentalizing when it comes to our financial lives and our faith lives.

This is why it's fascinating to see a rising current of people of faith and spirituality not taking poverty vows, not separating finance and faith, but embracing capital as a potent vehicle for the expression of their belief.

You've heard of values voters; these are your values investors. Microfinance providers, venture capitalists who fund only people and projects enhancing the common good, everyday church people who make sure their investments promote the same values as their donations -- they are all part of an increasingly visible contagion trying to transform how we deploy our dollars.
"You can transform the world," says Olivia Teter, a vice president at the spirituality-based RSF Social Finance, "if you can change the way people work with their money."

There is much in this to be cheered, especially when you consider the villain role played by money or its absence in the big crimes (Madoff), political conflicts (government debt and spending) and family struggles (how to pay the mortgage?) so prominent in recent chapters of the national saga. What better area than our financial lives -- collective and individual -- for faith and spirituality to bring healthy change?

Listening to ordained Baptist minister Andy Loving of Louisville talk about money and the church, you quickly understand why he has often had gadfly status at the congregations where he has worked and worshiped. "The church subscribes to the gospel of Wall Street as much as anyone else," says Loving, who finds his true calling as a faith-based financial planner. In an interview, Loving goes on to explain that churches generally do a great job of encouraging charity -- including, of course, giving to the church -- but rarely have much to say about how people direct their investment dollars.

Loving contrasts conventional investing -- Wall Street economics -- with what he calls "Sabbath economics." With one, it's all about getting the greatest possible return. With the other, the point is creating the greatest possible good while netting a good return in the process.
It's ultimately self-defeating, Loving says, to behave as though business is business, faith is faith, and never the 'twain shall meet. If a churchgoer donates to organizations working to improve health in impoverished neighborhoods, while investing in companies promoting junk food and cigarettes in those very areas, what net good has her or his money created?

When it comes to supporting one's congregation and favorite charities, Loving has a simple message for church people: Keep up the good work. It's the deployment of investment dollars where change comes in. And what it means in practice is reorienting one's investment strategy such that you risk a slightly reduced financial return in exchange for a better social return.
Instead of obsessing over how little we possess and how much more we need, faith- and spirit-based investment advisers urge investors to be grateful for how much they have and imagine the good they could accomplish if they invested it generously. "There's enough for everybody's need," Loving says, "just not for everybody's greed."

To be clear, investing for the social good is not exactly new. The National Council of Churches, for example, has undertaken shareholder activism, social-purpose mutual funds and the like since the 1970s. It's the degree to which this financial do-gooderism has taken off lately that gets one's attention.

Socially responsible investing nearly quintupled in the U.S. from 1995 to 2010 as measured by the amount of professionally managed dollars invested, growing from 9 percent to 12 percent of the national total, according to data from the Social Investment Forum Foundation. That growth has been especially eye-catching through the Great Recession, with socially responsible assets jumping by 13 percent while most other indexes either stagnated or declined.

And consider the success of Oikocredit. Founded by the World Council of Churches, Oikocredit has grown to the point where it now encompasses 43,000 investors, 863 capital recipients, some 500 participating church organizations and the equivalent of $700 million invested around the globe.

There's something about the way this plays out that subverts the long-standing dichotomy between "hard-headed" business people and naive "do-gooders." The causes and projects that benefit from values- and faith-based investing might often sound liberal -- sustainable development in Latin American "biosphere reserves," to cite one Oikocredit project, or women merchant cooperatives in Africa -- but the strategy is capitalism through and through, the art and science of doing well and doing good with one fell private-finance swoop. Try starting a political argument over that.

Part of the genius of religion in America has been our ability to accommodate two colossal cultural forces -- Christianity and capitalism -- that often appear to pull in opposite directions. If a new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute is any indication, many Americans struggle to reconcile the two. The survey, released in April, finds that more of us (44 precent) see a conflict between the free-market system and Christian values than those who do not (36 percent).

Economic distress can intensify the same tug of war in many individuals. We do what we have to do to pay the mortgage, fill the tank, get medical care for the kids. Investments. We try, for the most part, to maximize our returns. All the while, the teachings of our faith and spiritual traditions press us to do more for the less fortunate, and do it now. The conflict takes its toll.

But what if we found a way to lead our money lives more closely in sync with our spiritual lives?
I don't doubt that integrating the spirit and finance can help "heal the planet," as the San Francisco-based RSF Social Finance says in its literature. It might go a long way toward creating something closer to wholeness in each one of us, too.

Tom Krattenmaker, a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. He is the author of the book 'Onward Christian Athletes'.

This column first appeared in USA Today.

Even Religious Freedom Has Limits

2011-03-31T21:32:12-04:00
Does the religious freedom of a small, separatist faith-healing church trump the rights of its members' children to live to adulthood?

The Oregon Legislature is finally saying "no" after the headline-grabbing deaths of three children whose parents belong to the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City. These were children with treatable illnesses: pneumonia, a blood infection, kidney blockage. They received prayers, anointing, the laying on of hands -- but no doctors or medicine. Even in famously tolerant Oregon, the deaths have proved to be too much for an alarmed public and its representatives. In a move that will align Oregon law with most other states, legislators are pushing ahead with a bill that would remove religious conviction as a defense against homicide charges faced by parents who shun medical care for their kids, even at death's doorstep.

With no organized opposition stepping forward, the bill's passage into law seems inevitable. And pass it should. But before the episode fades out of the spotlight, it's worth pausing for a moment to learn what we can from a case that has something valuable to teach about religious rights and their inevitable limits.

What the case demonstrates, in ultrabold print, is that no conversation about religious rights is complete without equal attention to responsibilities -- responsibilities to the community that all religious practitioners bear, and that the Oregon City church has failed miserably to uphold.

The moral of this story is one that runs all through American religious history, manifest in such instances as the Mormon church having to give up polygamy or fundamentalist Bob Jones University ending its ban on interracial dating on pain of losing its tax exemption. Religious freedom is not the only right at stake in the crowded public square. And a religion cannot reasonably expect the public and the law to respect its idiosyncratic ways when it fails to live up to the community's well-considered standards -- such as the idea that children should receive basic medical care when their lives are at stake.

A reasonable approach to faith/medicine

Wherever questions of faith and health venture into the public realm, advocates for the Christian Science church are sure to follow. Unlike the reclusive Followers of Christ, the Boston-based Christian Scientists have long striven to engage the public through their widely circulating publications and the public reading rooms they operate in numerous cities. For decades, the church has promoted the spiritual dimensions of health and lobbied for legal space for their practices to go forward without undue burdens.

But there's a reasonableness about the Christian Science approach that stands in stark contrast to the Followers of Christ; doctors and medicine are options when worse comes to worst. From that proceeds the Christian Scientist position on the Oregon case -- one that has changed, tellingly, after the series of deaths among Followers of Christ children since 2008. The Christian Scientists had gone to bat for the Followers when they faced legislative threats in the past, but this time they are standing down. "With an expectation of fairness comes a responsibility," says Russ Gerber, manager of media and government relations for the church. "There's a duty to practice this type of health care reasonably, especially when it comes to children." Protecting children's lives, he says, "is a standard we should all be held to no matter what means of health care we choose."

His point evokes a broader problem with the national discourse over religion -- the degree to which rights have become an obsession, with far too little said about the responsibilities that have to be an equal part of any serious conversation about religion's place and prerogatives.

Responsibility is essentially what the Oregon Legislature is imposing on the Followers of Christ. Whereas the Followers had previously enjoyed protection from manslaughter prosecution in cases where children died for lack of medical care, the new law means parents can no longer invoke religious freedom in their defense. An earnest attempt to heal children spiritually -- however sincere the belief it will work -- will no longer be enough in the eyes of the law. (The legislation stops short, as it should, from forbidding adult Followers themselves from relying solely on faith healing.)

Couldn't this be seen as an assault on the Followers' constitutionally protected freedom of religion? A cursory glance might suggest "yes," but a more complex view of the situation, and of long-standing Supreme Court jurisprudence, leads to this realization: While freedom of religious belief is absolute, the acting out of said freedom is not -- and, in truth, cannot be if a pluralistic society is going to avoid chaos.

The legal distinction between religious belief and action dates to the Mormon polygamy cases of the 19th century, explains Steven Green, a law professor and director of Willamette University's Center for Religion, Law and Democracy. If you've taken a religious history class, you might know the story: The continued practice of polygamy -- then held by Mormons as crucial to their eternal salvation -- stood at the center of a fierce conflict between the Mormon church and U.S. government in the latter decades of the 1800s, effectively blocking Utah from statehood and forcing prominent Mormons into hiding or prison. Via the Great Accommodation of 1890, the church surrendered polygamy, paving the way to Utah statehood and the broader acceptance of Mormonism into the mainstream of American life.

The line: criminal activity

In an 1878 decision on the Mormons and polygamy, the Supreme Court held -- much like Oregon's Legislature today -- that religious freedom could not justify (otherwise) criminal activity. If it could, the court reasoned, what would stop a church from practicing human sacrifice?

Therein lies important practical wisdom that's worth remembering the next time you hear people shouting indignantly about their rights with little regard for the consequences faced by their fellow citizens of other persuasions -- whether it's a pharmacy employee's "right" to refuse selling legal contraceptives or an ardent secularist's "right" to be free of any exposure to religious expression in public (as in the case of those who would forbid mention of the G-word in the Pledge of Allegiance).

The freedom to believe as one chooses is crucial to the American way, and belief has little meaning if it cannot be acted upon. Even so, as the Followers of Christ are learning the hard way, the right to practice religion must have its limits. Especially when the consequences are life or death for those with no choice in the matter.

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. He is the author of the award-winning book 'Onward Christian Athletes'.

On Gay Rights, Should Conservative Christians Keep Fighting or Adapt?

2011-02-16T10:41:41-05:00
You get the sense, observing the shifting cultural landscape, that we've reached a point on gay rights that is similar to that moment in a football game, or an election, or a relationship, when you know it's over even though it's not over.

It appears increasingly obvious that social acceptance of gay men and lesbians and insistence on their equal rights are inexorable. If the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" weren't enough to signal the turning point, or the classification of several gay-resisting Christian right organizations as "hate groups" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, there came news that Exodus International was ending its involvement in the anti-homosexuality "Day of Truth" in U.S. high schools. "We need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace," Exodus President Alan Chambers explained, "while treating their neighbors as they'd like to be treated, whether we agree with them or not."

Add it up, and you see a decision point at hand for socially conservative Christian groups such as the Family Research Council that have led resistance to gay rights. Do they fight to the last ditch, continue shouting the anti-gay rhetoric that rings false and mean to the many Americans who live and work with gay people, or who themselves are gay? Or do they soften their tone and turn their attention to other fronts?

Prayerful discernment and simple Christian decency would strongly suggest the latter. The alternative looks worse by the day -- a quixotic battle more likely to discredit its fighters and their fine religion than win any hearts and minds for Jesus. Christianity has far worthier causes than this.

For all its drama and rally-the-troops appeal, "fighting to the end" is a sure loser. More and more Americans -- young people in particular, Christians very much included -- know gay men and lesbians and see how the anti-gay talking points and caricatures fail to square with the reality under our noses.

But the Bible Says...

"Young Christians increasingly have family members who are gay, have people in their lives who really matter to them who are gay, and that changes how they approach these issues," says Gabe Lyons, author of the new book The Next Christians and a leader and chronicler of the new generation of evangelicals. "This doesn't mean their convictions on the matter have changed, but in this new environment, people don't want to see their friends being discriminated against; they don't want them labeled as someone who should be feared and blamed."

Of course, rubbing some people the wrong way is of little concern if you're convinced you're representing the Straight from the Bible, Capital-T Truth, as conservative Christian organizations are quick to assert. The problem is that such a stance is increasingly difficult to maintain as society begins taking a more complex look at what the Bible says and doesn't say about sex, and as growing ranks of unchurched Americans ask why it even matters what the Bible says.

Boston University biblical scholar Jennifer Wright Knust demonstrates in her new book, Unprotected Texts, that the Bible's lessons on sex and marriage are highly nuanced, heavily contextualized and often contradictory. The writings of the apostle Paul and modern interpretations of the Sodom and Gomorrah story guide much of conservative Christian thinking on sexuality. But other parts of the bible veer in dramatically different directions, Knust points out -- appearing to legitimize polygamy or sex with slaves or, 180 degrees in the opposite direction, elevating celibacy as the proper Christian practice. Knust says it is highly misleading for marriage traditionalists to portray their stance as the biblical stance. "When read as a whole," she writes, "the Bible provides neither clear nor consistent advice about sex and bodies."

In explaining its withdrawal from the "Day of Truth," Exodus International outlines a smart way forward for conservative Christian groups -- one that does not require that they sacrifice their core beliefs. Note that Alan Chambers did not announce a change in his organization's philosophy that people can be saved from homosexuality through faith in Christ. What he did signal, though, was a change in tone and emphasis, and in doing so he invoked a foundational Christian principle: Treat others as you wish to be treated.

Contrast that with the words of certain other Christian right leaders. Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins continues his steady drum beat of dark warnings that homosexuals are radical, unwell and out to destroy Christianity and the family. Chuck Colson, best known for his admirable prison ministry work, has described same-sex marriage as "the greatest threat to religious freedom in America."

Is Colson claiming that the religious liberty of a subset of Christians is abrogated if those Christians do not get to dictate the law of the land on marriage? It's doubtful that many people outside the conservative Christian camp will hear much truth in that assertion. And as Colson's recent experience demonstrates, maintaining this stance can only paint you into a corner in the new context.

Colson is a leader of a project called the Manhattan Declaration, which is mounting a vigorous defense of conservative values. A key plank in that, as you might guess, is opposition to gay marriage -- and that has become the bone of contention in a news-making brouhaha over Apple's decision to ban the Manhattan Declaration iPhone app.

The Cultural Tide

After the app's initial launch, Apple started receiving protests that the declaration promoted hate and homophobia and decided to remove it from the virtual shelves. Say what you will about the fairness of those charges -- Does opposing same-sex marriage automatically constitute "hate"? -- this is the jam in which gay-rights fighters increasingly find themselves as they strive to withhold a cherished right from a certain group of Americans based on their identity.

Conservative Christian leaders ought to be very careful about their rhetoric going forward -- careful not to continue giving the impression that being Christian is in large measure about opposing gay rights, and careful not to let the public expression of their faith become primarily associated with something that looks, sounds and feels like hate to growing segments of the population.

Fighting to the end might sound gallant, but it's not a road to glory so much as a ticket to infamy -- an infamy akin to that borne by the likes of Bull Connor, George Wallace and other villains of civil rights history. Is that any hill for Christians to die on?

This column originally appeared in the USA Today.Tom Krattenmaker, a writer specializing in religion in public life, is the author of the award-winning book 'Onward Christian Athletes.'

Super Bowl Sunday and Redemption

2011-02-07T11:07:46-05:00
Judging from much-hyped story lines around this just-concluded Super Bowl, "Super Sunday" seems to have morphed into "Redemption Sunday."

Ben Roethlisberger's return to the pinnacle after the much-publicized sexual assault allegations and resulting suspension. Michael Vick's just-announced Comeback Player of the Year Award following his incarceration for dog-fighting crimes. The NFL enjoying its highest-ever TV ratings this season despite rising labor strife and bad PR about violence and head injuries. Pro football and some of its most iconic villains appear to be in the good graces of the football-adoring public like never before.

"Roethlisberger Playing for Redemption," reads one typical headline. "Endorsement Deal a Big Step in Vick's Redemption," reads another. So far has Vick's image rehab advanced that he is one of two pro players featured in a faith-and-football DVD meant for playing at Super Bowl evangelism parties.

Not to begrudge the success of Roethlisberger, Vick and the league in which they play, but all
this fast-and-loose talk about "redemption" ought to be tempered with a little clarity lest we completely trivialize a concept with deep religious and philosophical meaning. To return to popularity -- to succeed on the football field while keeping out of trouble for a brief period of time -- is one thing. Whether these two players and their sport are "redeemed" in the deeper sense is another matter, one that remains very much unresolved.

Consider Big Ben's rise, fall and rise. Less than a year ago, as he faced the second set of
allegations around his abuse of alcohol and women, I was one of the critics pointing out the serious dissonance between that image of Ben and the "playing for Jesus" Christian image he had cultivated since his entry into the league. Following his return from suspension five games into this season, the on-field Roethlisberger has been the one we're accustomed to seeing: a solid, winning quarterback with a penchant for late-game heroics and exuberant religious expression. And yes, I am happy to report, there have been no more allegations of sexual assault.

Ben was back in the Super Bowl this year -- a major accomplishment even though his Steelers
lost to Green Bay -- but to speak and act as though that represents "redemption" is to completely miss the point. Roethlisberger was not in need of a football redemption. It's not as though he had fallen into the "sin" of low pass-completion percentages, high numbers of fumbles and interceptions, and last place in the standings. What he needed was character redemption -- a saving from the sin of immoral if not criminal behavior off the field. Whether he enjoys that redemption is known only by Big Ben and his maker.

As for the image rehab of that other Jesus-professing quarterback, Michael Vick, there is much to admire and celebrate. Could anyone have predicted two years ago, when he was released from Leavenworth, that his football and popularity comeback would advance this far, this fast?

The apotheosis, for me, has to be Vick's selection as one of two Christian-athlete poster men
to be featured in the "Power to Win" halftime evangelism kit, along the Cowboys' Jon Kitna. "Power to Win" is promoted as an "unparalleled ministry tool" by the Christian magazine Sports Spectrum, revolving around a DVD meant for playing at halftime of football-loving evangelists' Super Bowl parties. (I've often joked that I hope these hosts are playing back the game on a DVR so that they can fast- forward through those irreligious commercials glorifying sex, drinking and crass materialism. And thank God they had a built-in excuse to skip the Black Eyed Peas halftime performance.)

A trailer for the DVD shows Vick talking about the rehabilitation of his relationship with God,
with a graphic flashing, "Redemption, perseverance, and faith." Given the severe penalty Vick has paid -- prison as opposed to a few games' suspension -- and given the serious contrition he has expressed about his crimes against animals, Vick's redemption seems to have real depth. Cheers for Michael Vick, I say.

Then there is the league itself. During the 2009 season, amid the proliferation of evidence of the toll football takes on men's bodies and brains, I questioned my own fandom and wondered if the game would start taking a popularity hit. The hand-wringing returned in force after a particularly gruesome Sunday this past October, when the head shots, concussions and fines were flying and longtime NFL analyst Peter King remarked that it was the most violent day he had ever seen in the league.

If you were worrying that pro football would pay a price for its more-conspicuous-than-ever
violence, you needn't have. The league released stats last month showing that this was the most-watched NFL season ever in terms of TV audience. I suspect it will take a lot more than players' poor cognitive health to erode football's massive popularity.

But let's not mistake popular with good -- good in the moral sense. The NFL's TV ratings do not redeem the violence and concussions, just as Big Ben's Super Bowl success and Mike Vick's comeback award are not the measure of their moral or religious redemption.

As Mike Wise writes in a perceptive column in Saturday's Washington Post, winning can serve as a highly effective deodorant for players whose images have been marred by misdeeds off the field. For all its wondrous ability to mask a nasty smell, though, deodorant does nothing to improve the substance of anything. And it is the substance of their character that is ultimately the issue when we consider the "redemption" of these football heroes, and their sport, at the level that really counts.

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland-based writer specializing in religion in public life and the author of the award-winning book 'Onward Christian Athletes' on Christianity in pro sports.

Nuclear Disarmament and 'End Time' Theology

2010-08-29T20:25:29-04:00
When Tyler Wigg-Stevenson contemplates the times ahead -- something this young Baptist preacher and Swarthmore College graduate tends to do a lot -- he sees two futures. In one, the world has rid itself of nuclear weapons. In the other, the world has been destroyed by them.

"Because of language, culture, and politics, the threat of nuclear weapons has been a difficult issue for evangelical Christians to engage," says Wigg-Stevenson, founder and director of the Two Futures Project, a Christian campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. "It's been my mission to carve out space for evangelicals to engage this issue on their own terms."

The 33-year-old Nashville resident has assembled a surprising corps of allies and endorsers more than twice his age and known for their hawkish ways of yore, including retired U.S. senator Sam Nunn and Reagan-era secretary of State George Shultz.

Less encouraging is the shape of the initial resistance Wigg-Stevenson often encounters as he travels around the country urging Christians to join the nuclear abolition cause -- a mind-set that coaxes many believers to accept, even welcome, the imminent end of the world. As signaled by the runaway success of the Left Behind books, end-time expectations hold undeniable sway in evangelical America, which makes long-term investments in a better future seem utterly beside the point.

Thankfully, Wigg-Stevenson and many new-breed evangelicals like him are refusing the kind of end-times bait that lets believers off the hook -- off the hook of inspired social action that can make their faith a powerful blessing to their society and their time.

The Second Coming

When some Christians look into the near future, they see a wondrous fate for themselves and fellow evangelical believers: a rapture in which God sweeps the true Christians up to heaven. According to this reading of the Bible's Book of Revelation, what awaits those on the wrong side of the ecclesiastical line is not so wondrous: seven years of unimaginable suffering, war and destruction that ends with the Second Coming of Jesus.

Opinion surveys over the past decade show that more than half the American public believes that the end times are coming.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds that roughly four in 10 Americans believe the Second Coming will happen by 2050. Those enraptured by the rapture tend to view current events through the lens of biblical prophesy, reading everything from the Obama election to the oil disaster in the Gulf Coast as fulfillment of one or another cryptic passage from Revelation.

You can imagine the implications this might have for someone's approach to the here, the now and the times ahead. Work for a better future? What future?

In this view, staving off wholesale destruction is viewed as a distraction from evangelism or, worse, as faithlessness, as getting in God's way.

At the extreme end of this thought train come figures such as Todd Strandberg, founder of the Rapture Ready website, who opposes environmental protection on fatalistic grounds.

"The Bible predicts that during the tribulation hour, the world will come to near complete ruin," Strandberg writes. "I am strongly against Christians embracing the environmental movement."

For liberal religionists or non-believers, this kind of stance is one of the least appealing aspect of evangelicals' popular image. It's as if one group is rowing the boat in the direction of species betterment (or, at least, survival), while another group sits idly as the vessel drifts closer to the precipice of the waterfall, convinced that the divine hand will pluck them and their religiously correct fellows from disaster.

A Nuclear Nightmare

When it comes to apocalyptic visions, Wigg-Stevenson has had his share. But as he began grappling with the nuclear weapons a decade ago as a newly minted college grad and a not-yet-Christian, his were visions of searing white atomic flashes burning up the surface of the planet and millions of people.

His soon-to-follow Christian conversion didn't free him from the nuclear nightmare but bound him to its prevention.

Understanding that liberal and secular arguments have formed the main rhetorical front in the campaign against nukes -- and that these can leave many Christians cold -- Wigg-Stevenson has developed a Scripture-based case that lays it all out on an evangelical's terms.

"I tell evangelical audiences that if you care about the preciousness of life and creation, if you care about the poor, if you care about justice, please understand that the detonation of a nuclear weapon is about the worst thing that can happen," he says.

Wigg-Stevenson takes pains not to criticize those who read Revelation as a blueprint for rapture and apocalypse in our time. "There are people with integrity who think this way," he says. "But it leads to an unbiblical focus on the mechanics of the end times."

Jesus himself warned against precise predictions about when and how the end will come, Wigg-Stevenson points out. His own faith and activism are powerfully motivated by his conviction in the coming kingdom of God, yet he stresses, "The prophesies shouldn't lead us to be obsessed with the mechanics of end times, but to be obsessed with Jesus."

Twentysomething activist and writer Jonathan Merritt describes a kind of religious complacency that once dissuaded him from caring much about the condition of the planet.

In his 2010 book, Green Like God, Merritt remembers thinking, "Why worry about the future of an earth that has no future?" Since a college classroom experience turned him inside-out, Merritt has made caring for creation his life's mission. "When those clouds peel back and my Savior returns," Merritt says, "I want to be caught in the act of loving people, worshiping Christ, and obeying all of God's commands, including his command to care for his creation."

Good News

Committed young Christian action-takers such as Wigg-Stevenson and Merritt represent a hopeful new current in evangelical America. What a refreshing counterpoint to those who eye an imminent cosmic endgame, one replete with mass death and destruction, and seem to say, "Bring it on!"

If end-times acceptance is losing credibility among the new generation of Jesus followers -- and many signs say it is -- this is good news for us all.

Taking Wigg-Stevenson's two-futures paradigm a step further, Christians might see a choice concerning their approach to the future as well. They can bet on a supernatural rescue for themselves and their kind and wait for the cataclysm. Or they can dedicate themselves to compassionate action to alleviate suffering and injustice, to creating a better world.

Which would their savior have them do?