WASHINGTON (RNS)—Mary Miller used to have trouble getting fellow members of Wilmore United Methodist Church in Kentucky to go green. But as it turns out, a sour economy was an unlikely answer to prayer.

As the economy shrank, so did the church’s reserve fund, prompting cutbacks in salaries and staff hours. Since the start of the year, recycling bins have popped up throughout the building, paper plates have replaced plastic foam, and the secretary has started e-mailing the church newsletter instead of mailing it.

“I don’t know that we’re saving a lot of money yet,” said Miller, an environmental activist. “But at least we have interest and a little motivation to start making some changes.”

Simeon May, CEO of the National Association of Church Business Administration, said some churches that were outright opposed to going green may get there sooner than they thought.

“There has been an aversion to going green and a belief that global warming is a hoax and a myth and … trying to go green is not scriptural,” May said.

“In this economy, that doesn’t seem to hold water anymore.”

When his association polled member congregations about what they were doing to address the economy, some reported installing computer-controlled thermostats, reducing lawn watering, even reusing children’s worship bulletins.

At least one church voiced frustration with members unwilling to make such changes. “We are trying to go green, but our older members just don’t get it,” the response reads. “They want papers for everything!”

A representative of the National Council of Churches’ Eco-Justice Programs addressed the recent New Orleans meeting of the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes, which included discussions on “Environmental Stewardship Policies for Your Parish.”

“In this economy, I have noticed that most of them have some version of a green committee … at their church,” said Cynthia Cannon, executive director of the consortium based in Austin.

Although many congregations already had some environmentally friendly efforts, they increasingly are interested in how going green might help them weather a 30- to 40-percent drop in endowment values.

“Our staff has a ‘Do you need to print this?’ message on their e-mails,” said April Canik, communications director at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.

“They redid the break room this year and installed a dishwasher and replaced the paper plates and cups with mugs and china and silverware.”

DALTON, Ga. (ABP)—Many lives are unraveling in Dalton, Ga., nicknamed the “Carpet Capital of the World,” in the current recession, creating both challenges and opportunities for churches.

The North Georgia city of 33,000 makes nearly 75 percent of America’s floor coverings. Slumping home sales nationwide have taken a toll on a local economy that relies so extensively on construction.

In February, the U.S. Department of Labor listed Dalton’s unemployment rate as 12.9 percent and rising.

Dalton has seen housing slumps before, but observers say the city where the running joke four years ago was if somebody didn’t have a job they weren’t looking for one now is in uncharted waters.

“It is not simply the kind of people who expect to get laid off,” said Pastor Bill Wilson of First Baptist Church in Dalton. “This is reaching into a lot of white collar homes that have never even thought of the possibility of being affected by this.”

Wilson said his church also is feeling the pinch. “We’re going to have to get very creative about how we balance our budget,” Wilson said. Going into 2009, First Baptist anticipated giving 2 percent below last year, but during first quarter decline was closer to 10 percent.

Energized for missions 

On the other hand, the recession has helped energize what Wilson called “a pretty significant DNA about missions” within the church.

“There have never been more opportunities to do very important and significant things to meet needs for this community,” Wilson said. “Our people are stepping up.”

A year ago, the church started a free supper for needy families called Soul Food. Held on the first, third and fifth Tuesday of each month, the crowd has grown from an original 35 to a high of more than 400.

Church member Gail Duke supervises the program. At a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly, Duke heard a woman from First Baptist Church in Rome talking about a similar program targeted to the working poor.

“That just kind of struck a chord with me,” she said. “I was a single mom who raised three boys for 19 years.”

Duke didn’t want to just give people a brown bag of cold food but rather serve a hot meal and build relationships gathered around a table. “And that’s what we do,” she said.

When it came time to enlist volunteers, Duke said 120 people signed up the first day. Volunteers work in teams that rotate, so some people don’t have to serve but once a quarter. Others come every time, just because they want to.

Duke said the conversation that got the idea for Soul Food started took place about three years ago, when the economy was much different, but First Baptist Church of Dalton was in the middle of a construction project and could not get it off the ground for two years. Soul Food served its first meal on March 18, 2008, just in time to get established in time for the recession.

“I think that was certainly God’s plan there,” Duke said.

Soul Food Garden 

Soon, the church will expand the program by starting a Soul Food garden, a community effort to grow fresh vegetables for the Soul Food dinners and give to participants.

Wilson came up with the garden idea. He mentioned it in a recent sermon, and two dozen people lined up to volunteer. He said the idea has even recruited people who are usually less active in church activities.

“That has captured their imagination,” he said. “There are some things coming out of this, you wouldn’t wish in on anybody, but there are some great positives.”

In no time, two garden plots were donated, along with seed and fertilizer for planting.

“I know nothing about gardening,” Duke said. “But I know these people need food.”

Dalton’s woes have attracted widespread media attention. In March, Wilson appeared in a segment that aired on CBS Evening News.

“A lot of what we are doing on a weekly basis is dispensing hope and encouragement,” Wilson said in the television interview.

“There’s a hard part to it. There’s a heartbreaking part to it. There’s also a good part in that we’re talking about things that many times I can’t get people to talk about. Suddenly … they’re interested in the deeper questions of life.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)—Many things divide the Baptist denomination, but one thing all groups share is the challenge of raising money during a recession.

Six months into the fiscal year, receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program were running 3.7 percent lower than the previous year and 2.2 percent behind budget, according to Baptist Press.

The Alliance of Baptists, a small organization of progressive Baptists formed in 1986, recently reduced its budget by about $100,000. A new budget cuts spending to below $400,000, the amount annual receipts have averaged during the last three years.

The reduced budget involved scrapping a three-member staff structure proposed two years ago anticipating former Executive Director Stan Hastey’s impending retirement, moving instead to a staff structure with one full-time and four part-time staff.

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

In February, the Coordinating Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship approved a contingency spending plan that saves $5.5 million over the next 19 months. The plan avoided layoffs, but cut staff salaries by 1 percent. It also trickled down to “partner” organizations that receive part of their funding through CBF, affecting up to 7.5 percent of their budgets.

Several SBC entities are tightening the belt in response to budget shortfalls in a flagging economy.

In February, GuideStone Financial Resources implemented a hiring freeze and gave no raises to employees, with a goal of reducing its workforce by about 10 percent through attrition.

On Jan. 28, the SBC International Mission Board drew $7 million from reserve funds to account for a declining dollar and higher costs overseas.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., is taking steps to deal with a $3 million budget shortfall, reducing its administrative staff by 35 workers effective Jan. 30.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth announced plans to cut its budget by up to $4 million to avert a “financial crisis.” Cuts included closing a childcare center and isolated layoffs. However, the seminary did not increase tuition costs, citing “the sacrifices many students are having to make during this time of economic uncertainty," Southwestern President Paige Patterson said.

Facing a $1 million revenue shortfall, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary announced an “austerity budget” Jan. 19, including temporary salary reductions but avoiding employee layoffs.

In December, Woman’s Missionary Union, an auxiliary to the SBC, announced cutbacks including unpaid furloughs for all workers in budget cuts totaling $1.4 million.

On Jan. 8, the SBC’s North American Mission Board asked team leaders to operate at 90 percent of their approved budgets in 2009.

In March the executive committee of the Baptist World Alliance slashed its 2009 budget nearly 30 percent.

While giving remained fairly strong, heavy investment losses owing to tanking global markets forced the BWA to move more than $2.3 million in unrestricted reserves into the operating fund to cover those losses.

WASHINGTON (ABP)—More than 1,000 faith leaders and activists are expected to descend on Washington soon in what planners say is one of largest and most diverse coalitions ever to fight against domestic and global poverty.

Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners, a lead sponsor of the Mobilization to End Poverty initiative scheduled April 26-29, said Christians of all stripes have been coming together for some time around the issue of reducing poverty.

“This is now a unifying call for many of us,” Wallis said. “This is a concern that brings us all together.”

The coalition will ask Congress to preserve priorities in President Obama’s budget that assist low-income communities in the United States, with emphasis on health care, energy and education, Wallis said.

It also will call on Obama, who has been invited to speak, to renew his commitment to implement the Millennium Development Goals aimed at cutting extreme global poverty in half by 2015.

The coalition is deeply concerned about debate over the budget—the first in a long time that puts reducing poverty at center stage, Wallis noted.

It is time for the “faith community to be heard” in the national debate over budget priorities, he insisted.

“We’re all unified that what happens to poor people is for us a matter of faith,” Wallis said.

“The moral authority of the faith community is on the line here, and we’re getting behind the effort to put poor people back on the agenda.”

Also supporting the effort is Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., House majority whip.

Clyburn, a preacher’s son who as a student was headed to seminary before switching to law, said the budget being debated actually is designed to reduce the deficit by improving Americans’ economic conditions.

“The one problem that we are experiencing is that so many people are focusing on these deficits and how that will play back in their districts, and they’re not really focusing on the fact that what we are doing will in fact reduce the deficit over a five-year period,” Clyburn said.

“We must all be active advocates for reducing poverty and for making sure that we address the issues on behalf of the poor.”

Other sponsors of the mobilization are World Vision, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the ONE campaign, Oxfam, Wesley Theological Seminary, Convoy of Hope and National Ministries of the American Baptist Churches USA.

ABC National Ministries Executive Director Aidsand Wright-Riggins said recently his organization “boldly joins arms” with the other lead partners in the movement.

Since its founding in 1832 as The American Baptist Home Mission Societies, he said, one of National Ministries’ top mission priorities “has been to address the needs of those living at the margins of our society who are so vulnerable to socioeconomic variables that can render them destitute.”

Thirty “outreach partners” supporting the initiative include the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. In 2007 the CBF Coordinating Council endorsed the Millennium Development Goals, eight challenges adopted by 189 nations and signed by 147 heads of state at the U.N. Millennial Summit in 2000.

The goals, with 21 quantifiable targets measured by 60 indicators, are to, by 2015:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

• Achieve universal primary education.

• Promote gender equality and empower women.

• Reduce child mortality.

• Improve maternal health.

• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

• Ensure environmental sustainability

• Develop a Global Partnership for Development.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—American Catholics are more liberal than the general population on social issues like divorce and homosexuality, despite the Catholic Church’s longstanding conservatism on both issues, according to a new survey.

Catholics are more likely than non-Catholics to say homosexual relations, divorce and heterosexual sex outside wedlock are morally acceptable, according to an analysis by Gallup pollsters.

In other areas, Catholics are nearly identical to the population at large.

For example, 4 in 10 Catholics say abortion is “morally acceptable,” compared to 41 percent of all Americans. And 63 percent back embryonic stem cell research, compared to 62 percent overall.

Catholics who attend church regularly hew more closely to church doctrine, but they still are more liberal on many issues than non-Catholic regular church attendees.

Twenty-four percent of Catholics who attend Mass regularly say abortion is morally acceptable, compared to 19 percent of non-Catholic regular attendees. And more than half of Catholic regular worshippers say the same about embryonic stem cell research, compared to 45 percent of non-Catholic worshippers.

The Gallup survey was based on interviews with 3,022 Catholic adults conducted in May of 2006, 2007 and 2008. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Asked whether a range of issues are “morally acceptable,” here’s how Catholics compared to the general population:

• Abortion: Catholics 40 percent; 41 percent overall

• Homosexual relations: Catholics 54 percent; 45 percent overall

• Divorce: Catholics 71 percent; 66 percent overall

• Embryonic stem cell research: Catholics 63 percent; 62 percent overall

• Heterosexual sex outside marriage: Catholics 67 percent; 57 percent overall

• Having a child out of wedlock: Catholics 61 percent; 52 percent overall

• Gambling: Catholics 72 percent; 59 percent overall

• The death penalty: Catholics 61 percent, 68 percent overall.

ACLU seeks to overturn funeral protest law. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit to overturn a Michigan law that makes it a felony to “disturb, disrupt or adversely affect” a funeral procession or ceremony. The suit was filed on behalf of Lewis Lowden after he and his late wife, Jean, were pulled over and arrested during a funeral procession for Army Cpl. Todd Motley who was killed in Iraq in 2007. The couple’s van carried signs critical of U.S. policy and then-President Bush. Motley’s family had invited the couple to drive in the funeral procession, but two miles into the drive, the Lowdens were pulled over and their van was impounded. They missed the burial and were detained for about 24 hours, according to the ACLU.

Presbyterians & Lutherans slash budgets. The Presbyterian Church (USA) and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America both have slashed their 2009 budgets, cutting programs and laying off scores of personnel. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in American, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination, announced a $5.6 million reduction in its 2009 budget. The cut was necessary in part because regional synods plan to decrease their contributions to the denomination by $2.4 million this year, church leaders said. Since last November, the ELCA has eliminated more than 23 jobs and cut 12 additional vacant positions. The Presbyterian Church (USA) announced a $4 million reduction in its 2009 budget because of a projected $10 million shortfall. Contributions to church headquarters, which come primarily from congregations and regional presbyteries, were almost $4 million less than expected. The denomination has eliminated 56 jobs since September of last year. Twelve new positions have been added.

British atheists offer ‘de-baptism’ documents. A secular organization in Britain that backs an atheist ad campaign on London’s buses is now producing “certificates of de-baptism” for people wishing to renounce their Christian faith, and the group claims it is getting thousands of takers. The National Secular Society reports more than 100,000 ex-worshippers have downloaded the de-baptism certificates from its website, and thousands of others have ordered up parchment versions at about $4 a copy.

Conservative Methodist groups name new leaders. Two conservative groups active in the United Methodist Church have announced leadership shifts, with Houston minister Robert Renfro succeeding James Heidinger at Kentucky-based Good News and Mark Tooley succeeding Jim Tonkowich as president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. Heidinger, 67, has headed Good News 28 years and been a leader of efforts to resist repeated moves to liberalize Methodist positions on homosexuality. Renfro is pastor of adult discipleship at The Woodlands United Methodist Church in Houston. Tooley, a former CIA employee who has spent the last 14 years at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, will become president of the conservative Washington think tank.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—This year marks one decade since Bart Millard of the Christian music group MercyMe penned the words to the song “I Can Only Imagine,” which would become a chart-topper—and cause a vast array of people to think about heaven.

To celebrate the milestone, MercyMe has released 10, a CD/DVD set featuring 12 No. 1 singles, as well as videos. The DVD includes Millard, who grew up in Greenville, telling the story behind the song that changed his life.

“My father passed away with cancer in 1991 when I was 18,” Millard said. “Growing up in church, people always said, ‘You know, if he could choose, he’d rather be in heaven than be here on earth.’

“As a Christian I believed that, but as an 18-year-old it was hard to swallow. A lot of the questions out of the chorus kind of came from me saying, ‘God, what’s so great about you that my dad would rather be there than here?’”

For years Millard found himself writing the phrase “I can only imagine” on anything he could get his hands on, such as notebooks or scrap papers. In 1999, the group was working on an independent record and needed one more song to complete the recording. Millard told them he’d try to come up with something.

“I started opening the journal I was writing in and every page had this phrase on it, literally every page,” he said. “I was like, ‘Maybe I need to finish this,’ so I started writing it down and put it to music.”

The remaining song on the album needed to be a fast one, he said, but the lyrics he had written begged for a slower tune. The group decided not to include it and was walking out of the studio when one of the guys played a few chords of it on the piano.

“I was like, ‘Play it again.’ All the sudden we rolled everything back in the studio and did it real quick,” Millard said. “… It didn’t really go with the rest of the record. We didn’t play it for months. For months we never played it. We played the rest of the record.

“Somebody finally said, ‘Hey, why don’t you play this song during the show tonight?’ So we tried it once, and people kind of flipped out over it,” he said.

The song soon became a hit on Christian radio, topping the charts by 2001 and winning three Dove awards in 2002.

“All the sudden, a Top 40 station in Dallas, a shock-jock kind of format, said, ‘We’ll do anything on the air,’ and somebody called in and said, ‘Play Imagine.’ They said, ‘We’ll do it. We’ll give it a shot.’ They played it once and got a ton of phone calls, played it again, and after like the second or third time it became number one at the station in like three months,” Millard said.

Other stations followed suit, and eventually the song showed up on the Top 40, adult contemporary and country charts.

“It’s like the song that won’t go away,” Millard said on the DVD.

The song has significant meaning for Millard because he had a special relationship with his father, he said. His parents divorced when he was 3 years old, and he and his brother lived with his father for most of their childhood and adolescent years. His father didn’t have much money, but he was faithful in raising his sons.

Before he died, Millard’s father told Bart that he had set up a system where the two boys would receive a certain amount of money each month to take care of them. The money would last for 10 years, long enough for the two to establish careers.

The father added, “But don’t worry. When 10 years is up, I’ll still be there to take care of you somehow,” Millard recounted.

In January 2001, Millard was doing a radio interview when something profound hit him.

“My son was born on the 4th of January, and it was about the same time that Imagine was kind of peaking in the Christian market,” Millard said. “I was big into the charts, but when Sam (his son) was born, I totally forgot all about it. I was all about Sam. I was doing an interview with this guy, and he told me, ‘Imagine went No. 1 today.’ I was like, ‘I had no idea. I’ve just kind of been out of it.’”

Then Millard started crying because he realized the day that the last check from his father’s inheritance came was the day that Imagine officially became a hit. From there, the song’s success would pay the bills.

“If my dad is aware of what’s going on, then he’s getting a huge laugh out of this because it’s amazing how everybody knows the song and somehow they know the story behind the song,” Millard said. “That’s extremely rewarding because of everything my dad did for me and everything he went through to kind of give me the green light to do what I’m doing. It’s just really cool to know that he’s not forgotten, and none of this was done in vain.”

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP) — Rick Warren is drawing heat for telling CNN's Larry King in an April 7 broadcast that he did not endorse Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage that California voters approved last year.

The appearance was Warren's first television interview since he offered the invocation at President Obama's Jan. 20 swearing-in ceremony.

Warren, pastor of the massive Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life, stopped giving interviews last year after his prayer invitation drew criticism from both the left and right. Liberals called Warren a homophobe and criticized Obama for choosing him, while religious conservatives said the prominent Southern Baptist's appearance gave legitimacy to a president who supports both gay unions and abortion rights.

Asked about the controversy April 7 on "Larry King Live," Warren said he encouraged members of his church to vote for the amendment, but that he "never campaigned for it."

Warren's latest project is Purpose Driven Connection, a quarterly magazine published in partnership with Reader's Digest. (PurposeDriven.com)

"During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never — never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going."

Warren said somebody in his church asked him what he thought about Proposition 8, so he sent a note to church members saying he believes marriage should be defined as a between a man and a woman.

After that garnered publicity, Warren said he wrote to gay leaders that he knew and apologized.

Warren said he is "totally oblivious" to gay-marriage debates going on in other states and rated the issue "very low" in his hierarchy of important public-policy debates.

Warren's comments reopened the battle lines drawn before the inauguration. One gay blogger called him a liar, while a Religious Right leader accused him of abdicating his biblical role as a pastor.

Pam's House Blend, an influential left-leaning blog that often reports on gay-rights issues, dug up a YouTube video message Warren recorded as an Oct. 23 posting on the Saddleback Church website. In it, Warren urges passage of Proposition 8.

"Let me say this very clearly," Warren said on the video. "We support Proposition 8, and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8."

"There are about 2 percent of Americans are homosexual, gay/lesbian people," he said. "We should not let 2 percent of the population to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.

"I urge you to support Proposition 8 and pass that word on. I'm going to be sending out notes to pastors on what I believe about this, but everybody knows what I believe about it."

The Yes on Proposition 8 campaign put out a press release announcing Warren's support of the gay marriage ban. Conservative news sites, including the Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Press, reported the story at a time when the main organization supporting Proposition 8 was trying to raise money to purchase additional television ads to fight off a final push by opponents.

Bryan Fischer, executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, accused Warren of apologizing for his earlier support of one-man, one-woman marriage.

"The minimum the Christian church should expect from its spiritual leaders is clear and unapologetic adherence to this biblical standard, especially from pastors who tell us that the Bible is the 'rule of faith and practice,'" Fischer said.

"Warren did everything in his power last night to distance himself from Prop 8," Fischer said. "He thus takes pride in being completely AWOL while this huge battle over the spiritual and moral fabric of our nation was taking place in his own state."

Warren did not respond to an e-mail from an Associated Baptist Press reporter requesting comment by press time for this story.

Warren also told King April 7 that "everybody should have 10 percent grace" when they say things in public, referencing another of his public statements that "made it sound like I equated gay marriage with pedophilia or incest, which I absolutely do not believe."

That comment came in a Beliefnet interview that also made its way around the Internet.

"I'm opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage," Warren said. "I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that a marriage."

Asked if he thought those were equivalent to gays getting married, Warren replied, "Oh, I do."

Warren said in December he did not equate gay partnerships with incest and pedophilia, but he understood why someone would think that based on his comments in the interview.

In the Beliefnet interview Warren also said the reason he supported Proposition 8 was on free-speech grounds, claiming pastors' sermons opposing same-sex relationships could be construed as hate speech. After Proposition 8 narrowly passed in November, protesters gathered outside of Saddleback Church, accusing Warren of misleading the public on that point.

Also in the Larry King interview, Warren said he was surprised when Obama invited him to pray the invocation at the presidential inauguration and said he has not spoken with the president since he took office. He said he has no ambition to be a consultant to Obama as Billy Graham was to other presidents.

"No. In fact, I told the president that," he said. "I'm a friend and I'm a prayer partner, but I'm not a consultant. I'm not a pundit. And it's not my role to do that. My role is to help people in their personal lives. I have helped a lot of leaders, both locally and globally, with issues about family and issues about personal stress. That's a pastoral role. I'm a pastor, as you know, Larry. I'm not a politician and I'm not a pundit."

Warren chuckled about a question from a caller who has heard that evangelicals believe that President Obama is the anti-Christ.

"Well, of course, I don't agree with that," he said. "Saying 'evangelicals believe' is like saying 'Americans believe.' I can show you all levels of spectrum in terms of political views and in doctrinal views. They just have in common the connection to Jesus Christ. So I don't believe that and I don't even think most evangelicals believe that. In fact, I'm certain they don't."

Warren also said his annual state-of-the-church message for Saddleback Church for the first time this year will be webcast live on April 19 at PurposeDriven.com.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (ABP) — The U.S. Army Chief of Chaplains is being criticized for a proclamation calling for prayer and fasting on April 8, which coincides with the first night of Passover, a high holy day on the Jewish calendar celebrated by a traditional feast called the Seder.

Maj. Gen. Douglas Carver, a Southern Baptist, issued a proclamation March 2 urging Army chaplains to pray and fast April 8 during a 120-day "stand down" period beginning Feb. 15 to focus on suicide-prevention awareness among soldiers.

"As spiritual leaders we are called to be a people of prayer," Carver explained in Internet newsletter article. "One initiative that was proposed is that we employ the power of collective prayer more consistently in our efforts to combat suicide. I have issued a call to all members of our Corps to join with me on 8 April in leading the Army Family in a special day of prayer and fasting for the preservation, protection and peace of our Army. I have directed our Center for Spiritual Leadership at the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School to provide resources to support you in your prayer effort."

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation said the directive, which includes a "whereas" that as spiritual leaders "model faith and belief in the Hand of God to intervene in the course of history and individual lives," is "not an appropriately pluralistic description of the theological and spiritual diversity present within military chaplaincy."

The group founded by Air Force Academy graduate Mikey Weinstein to advocate the separation of church and state in the military also said the Army Chief of Chaplains is a bureaucratic job with no constitutional authority to dictate a specific church practice like fasting or prayer.

The web-based political magazine Truthout.org said timing the observance on a Jewish feast day was also being perceived as insensitive to people with non-Christian faiths.

"An insult to all Jew"

Investigative reporter Jason Leopold quoted one Jewish member of the armed forces who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution calling the proclamation "an insult to all Jews" displaying "unconscionable arrogance" by the Army Chief of Chaplains."

Nominated to the post in 2007, Carver is the first Southern Baptist to be named Army Chief of Chaplains since President Eisenhower and the Korean War. He is a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who has been pastor of churches in Kentucky, Colorado and Virginia. His endorsement as chaplain is by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Southern Baptist label alone is enough to raise suspicion in some Jewish circles. In the past the SBC has sparred with Jewish organizations over a variety of issues, such as when Southern Baptists passed a resolution targeting Jews for evangelism 1996 and published a prayer pamphlet urging Baptists to pray for the salvation of Jews during their high and holy days in 1999.

But Carver has also been called out for using apocalyptic language of his own.

"The Scripture talks about how God is the One who raises up leadership," Carver said in a 2007 interview with Baptist Press. "For such a time as this, it has appeared that God has raised me up as a Southern Baptist chaplain to provide spiritual leadership for our chaplains in the Army."

He is on record finding parallels in the war in Iraq and situations written about in the Book of Daniel. Iraq is called Babylon in the Bible, and Carver said at a 2006 prayer breakfast he found it strange that Saddam Hussein believed he was the reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar.

Addressing an annual chaplains' luncheon at the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006, Carver described America's long war against violent religious extremism "as a war contending for the future of humanity as you and I know it."

"But as chaplains, this is my time and your time, your destiny," he said. "Like Daniel, you've been raised up to speak light into the darkness. Like Moses, you and I have been made shepherds to walk people from the darkness into the light of Christ Jesus. Like Caleb, we have been given a mountain and a vision to claim for the glory of God. Like Gideon, we have been given an army to lead."

Devil "turning up his attack"

Carver told an Alabama Baptist church in 2006 that converging disasters like hurricane season, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and America's crumbling moral fiber convinced him the devil was turning up his attack.

"I'm not an end-times preacher, but I think something is up," he said. He said the current times mirror verses in Daniel 12:1-3, a passage that prophesies tribulation and consummation at the end of the world.

Carver added that Christians were destined to respond like another Old Testament character, Esther, who was placed in a certain situation "for such a time as this."

According to Baptist Press, Carver chose April 8 for the prayer emphasis because it is a Wednesday, which is prayer-meeting night for Southern Baptists and provides an easy opportunity for churches to pray for the military.

Carver's office did not reply to an email requesting comment in time for this story.

The flap is the latest in a series of complaints by Jewish and religious-liberty groups about the growing power of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity in the U.S. military.

Weinstein wrote about it in a 2007 book titled With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press. 

WASHINGTON (RNS)—President Obama’s proposed 2010 federal budget contains a 7 percent cut in charitable tax deductions for the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers. Some religious groups are asking how that will affect their bottom line.

The answer: It depends who you ask.

Here’s what it means in real terms for the 5 percent of Americans whose household income exceeds $250,000 a year. Those families currently can save $350 in taxes for every $1,000 donated to charity; under Obama’s plan, that amount would drop to $280 per $1,000 donation.

“By doing this, you raise the cost of giving” said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at The Tax Policy Center, a liberal Washington think tank.

By Williams’ calculations, the change will result in a 10 percent drop in charitable giving by wealthy Americans, who typically contribute about 20 percent of all charitable dollars. In real dollars, Williams projects a decline of about $6 billion in charitable donations because of the change.

At the same time, Williams said religious institutions may be spared because most wealthy Americans funnel their biggest donations to education, the arts and health care. Think campus buildings, art museums and hospital wards with family names attached.

“My guess is that religious groups will not see nearly the drop that other charitable recipients will see,” Williams said.

That leaves religious groups at the mercy of rank-and-file members and donors who have been tightening their belts in the economic downturn. For now, experts say, religious groups probably are on fairly safe ground.

Sylvia Ronsvalle, executive vice president of the Illinois-based empty tomb research organization, has studied economic data over time and says religious groups often fare better than most.

“There does not seem to be an immediate economic relationship between church giving and the economy,” she said. Translation: When times get tough, people still give to their houses of worship.

Indeed, in 2007, Americans directed 61 percent of their charitable gifts to religious organizations, according to a study by Bank of America. By contrast, high net-worth households spent just 15 percent on religious causes; the bulk went to education.

“Our research of church member giving in past recessions found no direct relationship between recession years and church member giving,” Ronsvalle said. “In five of six first-year recession years, giving went up. In the six recessions, giving went up in three and down in three.”

In fact, the Salvation Army’s holiday Red Kettle campaign brought in a record $130 million at the end of 2008—a 10 percent jump from the year before—in the midst of a dark and gloomy economy.

Still, some religious groups worry the tax deduction change is coming at a bad time.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag said the tax changes, if passed by Congress, wouldn’t kick in until 2011, and he’s confident the economy will have recovered enough by then to offset any potential losses in charitable giving.

“The best way to boost charitable giving is to jumpstart the economy and raise incomes—and the purpose of the ($787 billion economic stimulus package) was to do precisely that,” Orzag said in a White House statement.

Orzag also pointed out that between 2002 and 2003, the top income tax deduction for charitable giving was reduced from 38.6 percent to 35 percent, but individual charitable contributions actually increased.

The 2007 Bank of America study also offered reasons to reassure religious groups. When asked how their charitable giving would be affected if they received zero income tax deductions, 52 percent of respondents said their giving would stay the same, 37 percent said their giving would decrease and only 10 percent said it would dramatically drop.

All of this may be moot by the time Congress takes up the budget. Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, told U.S. News and World Report he’s already heard so many complaints about the proposal that he could “absolutely be sure we can’t pass this budget.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—President Obama’s proposed 2010 federal budget contains a 7 percent cut in charitable tax deductions for the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers. Some religious groups are asking how that will affect their bottom line.

The answer: It depends who you ask.

Here’s what it means in real terms for the 5 percent of Americans whose household income exceeds $250,000 a year. Those families currently can save $350 in taxes for every $1,000 donated to charity; under Obama’s plan, that amount would drop to $280 per $1,000 donation.

“By doing this, you raise the cost of giving” said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at The Tax Policy Center, a liberal Washington think tank.

By Williams’ calculations, the change will result in a 10 percent drop in charitable giving by wealthy Americans, who typically contribute about 20 percent of all charitable dollars. In real dollars, Williams projects a decline of about $6 billion in charitable donations because of the change.

At the same time, Williams said religious institutions may be spared because most wealthy Americans funnel their biggest donations to education, the arts and health care. Think campus buildings, art museums and hospital wards with family names attached.

“My guess is that religious groups will not see nearly the drop that other charitable recipients will see,” Williams said.

That leaves religious groups at the mercy of rank-and-file members and donors who have been tightening their belts in the economic downturn. For now, experts say, religious groups probably are on fairly safe ground.

Sylvia Ronsvalle, executive vice president of the Illinois-based empty tomb research organization, has studied economic data over time and says religious groups often fare better than most.

“There does not seem to be an immediate economic relationship between church giving and the economy,” she said. Translation: When times get tough, people still give to their houses of worship.

Indeed, in 2007, Americans directed 61 percent of their charitable gifts to religious organizations, according to a study by Bank of America. By contrast, high net-worth households spent just 15 percent on religious causes; the bulk went to education.

“Our research of church member giving in past recessions found no direct relationship between recession years and church member giving,” Ronsvalle said. “In five of six first-year recession years, giving went up. In the six recessions, giving went up in three and down in three.”

In fact, the Salvation Army’s holiday Red Kettle campaign brought in a record $130 million at the end of 2008—a 10 percent jump from the year before—in the midst of a dark and gloomy economy.

Still, some religious groups worry the tax deduction change is coming at a bad time.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag said the tax changes, if passed by Congress, wouldn’t kick in until 2011, and he’s confident the economy will have recovered enough by then to offset any potential losses in charitable giving.

“The best way to boost charitable giving is to jumpstart the economy and raise incomes—and the purpose of the ($787 billion economic stimulus package) was to do precisely that,” Orzag said in a White House statement.

Orzag also pointed out that between 2002 and 2003, the top income tax deduction for charitable giving was reduced from 38.6 percent to 35 percent, but individual charitable contributions actually increased.

The 2007 Bank of America study also offered reasons to reassure religious groups. When asked how their charitable giving would be affected if they received zero income tax deductions, 52 percent of respondents said their giving would stay the same, 37 percent said their giving would decrease and only 10 percent said it would dramatically drop.

All of this may be moot by the time Congress takes up the budget. Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, told U.S. News and World Report he’s already heard so many complaints about the proposal that he could “absolutely be sure we can’t pass this budget.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Friday afternoons find Ann Holmes Redding at the Al-Islam Center in Seattle, reciting Muslim prayers. Come Sunday, she heads about two miles south to kneel in the pews of St. Clement’s of Rome Episcopal Church.

“My experience and my call is to continue to follow Jesus,” said Redding, an Episcopal priest for the past 25 years, “even as I practice Islam.”

Redding insists she is both Christian and Muslim, fully following both faiths.

And for that, Redding expects to be defrocked by the Episcopal Church, which has warned the 57-year-old to renounce Islam or leave the priesthood.

Some Episcopalians are urging the church to take a similar stand against Kevin Thew Forrester, who was elected bishop of the sparsely populated Diocese of Northern Michigan in February. The only candidate on the ballot, Thew Forrester, 51, has practiced Zen meditation for a decade and received lay ordination from a Buddhist community.

Conservatives are outraged at the election of this “openly Buddhist bishop,” as they call him, charging him with syncretism—blending two faiths and dishonoring both.

The bishop-elect and the Lake Superior Zendo that ordained him say the angst is misplaced. The ordination simply honors his commitment to Zen meditation, they say. He took no Buddhist vows and professed no beliefs that contradict Christianity.

“I am not a Buddhist, nor an ordained Buddhist priest,” he said in an interview. “I am an Episcopal priest who is grateful for the practice of Zen meditation.”

While people like Redding, who claim membership in two religions, are quite rare, scholars say the number of Americans who borrow bits from various traditions is multiplying.

Current sociological surveys, with their one-size-fits-all categories, don’t tell us exactly how many Americans hybridize their spiritual lives.

Sociologist Barry Kosmin, co-author of the recent, massive American Religious Identification Survey, said “the tendency of academics and everyone else is to try to disabuse them of this syncretism.”

For sure, “syncretism” is a dirty word to many Western monotheists; in Asia, “multiple religious belonging,” as scholars call it, is common.

Kendall Harmon, an Episcopal theologian from South Carolina, argues that Thew Forrester is a greater threat to his church than the openly gay bishop whose 2003 election has led four dioceses to secede.  

“It’s the leadership of this church giving up the unique claims of Christianity,” Harmon said. “They act like it’s Baskin-Robbins. You just choose a different flavor and everyone gets in the store.” 

The store, in this metaphor, is that big ice-cream parlor in the sky.

Fewer than three in 10 Americans claim their religion is “the one, true faith leading to eternal life,” according to data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, and 44 percent say they’ve switched religious affiliations since childhood.

At the same time, traditional religious boundaries are falling and interfaith marriages are rising, meaning Americans increasingly are likely to attend a grandmother’s church funeral and a cousin’s bar mitzvah.

It’s little surprise then, that people who pledge allegiance to two traditions are proliferating.

John Berthrong, a Boston University scholar whose book, The Divine Deli, explores multiple religious belonging, said: “While churches are still having formal discussions about religious pluralism, the laity has bolted down the street to a Buddhist temple where they’re learning meditation.”

Sometimes those temples house Catholic nuns like Sister Rose Mary Dougherty, who leads a multifaith group of Zen students in Silver Spring, Md.

A nun for 50 years, Dougherty also is a sensei in the White Plum Lineage of Zen Buddhism, meaning she is entrusted to teach meditation to others.

Like many Christians who practice Zen, she uses its meditation techniques to clear the mind and focus on the present moment, but she doesn’t consider herself a Buddhist.

But at a recent conference in Boston on multiple religious belonging, theologian Catherine Cornille argued it’s logically impossible to adhere to more than one religious tradition.

“It just doesn’t make sense to say you’re fully Buddhist and fully Christian. They make completing claims,” said Cornille, a professor at Boston College and editor of Many Mansions? Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity.