WASHINGTON (ABP)—Differences in presidential candidates John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s plans for reforming the American health-care system reflect their differing views on the proper role of government.

Whether or not one of the plans more closely resembles Christian principles of justice and charity, however—or whether either will work at all—also may depend on how individual Christians view the proper role of government.

Both of the major-party presidential candidates’ plans are—like the industry they seek to reform—massive and complex.

McCain plan would rely less on government 

In a nutshell, McCain’s plan focuses on using market forces to drive down health-care costs, therefore shrinking the estimated 47 million Americans who do not have health insurance by several million. Obama, by contrast, envisions a stronger government role in expanding access to health insurance for the working poor as well as placing more responsibility on consumers, the insurance industry and employers alike for reforming the system.

“Without question, there are two distinct approaches on display by McCain and Obama,” said Kevin Schmiesing, a research fellow with the Michigan-based Acton Institute, in an e-mail interview. “To their credit, both recognize that no single element of reform is going to save the day; instead, the platform of each contains a number of reform proposals operating on a number of different fronts. Both recognize the need to control costs, to address the problem of the uninsured, and to improve the quality of delivery. Yet McCain’s proposals, on the whole, are striving for a system characterized by more competition, more choice, and more freedom; while Obama’s tend toward greater government intervention.”

The core of McCain’s plan involves what could be the beginning of the end of the employer-based system that many Americans—and particularly those in white-collar jobs—have become accustomed. Instead of exempting the costs of employer-paid insurance premiums from individual income taxes, McCain would instead give an annual tax credit of $2,500 to individuals and $5,000 to families. The funds would go to purchase health insurance.

Any funds left over after insurance is purchased could be deposited in health-savings accounts to reimburse taxpayers for any deductibles or other non-covered health expenses. In addition, the plan would include the self-employed, who currently get no tax benefits when they purchase health insurance.

However, it currently costs the average American family approximately $12,000 annually to have comprehensive health insurance. McCain’s plan aims to reduce the costs of insurance plans with a number of incentives—such as allowing insurers to sell their products across state lines—that would increase competition and consumer choice.

McCain advisers have said they hope to reduce the number of uninsured Americans by approximately 20 million with this plan, but some economists have said 7-10 million is more realistic.

Obama would expand Medicaid 

Obama’s plan, meanwhile, focuses more on a mixture of market reforms and government subsidies, and aims to reduce the number of uninsured Americans far more dramatically. In particular, Obama would require that all children be insured. He would dramatically expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, to increase the numbers of children form lower-middle-class families who would be eligible. He would also expand Medicaid to cover more children.

Obama would also allow people who are not insured by their employers but who make too much for SCHIP or Medicaid to participate in the same federally-subsidized insurance program that government workers use. He would also allow the self-employed or small businesses that currently can’t afford to buy private insurance for their workers to participate in the plan.

Finally, Obama’s plan would create a National Health Insurance Exchange for private insurers. Insurers participating in the exchange would have to meet certain standards for deductibles and services, could not turn away customers with pre-existing conditions and would be regulated in other ways by the government. Companies would have to disclose costs of procedures to consumers, and consumers would be able to compare the benefits of various plans participating in the exchange.

Schmiesing, whose Acton Institute is a Christian think tank that advocates for free-market capitalism, said he prefers McCain’s plan because he distrusts government’s ability to improve the situation through more subsidies and regulation. The core of the problem with the current health-care system, he claimed, is that it is overused.

“People need to be encouraged to consume just the amount of health care they really need—or can personally afford—and not any more,” he said. “This is what we naturally do in every other area of our lives. This can only be accomplished by returning responsibility for payment directly to the consumer—not routing it through a third-party, be that an employer or a government. McCain’s plan moves us in this direction; therefore, I believe it to be the most economically realistic over the long term.”

But, critics of free-market approaches to the health-care crisis have argued, health care is not like other goods and services.

Is healthcare a commodity or a right? 

“The commodity-based approach to health care is fundamentally flawed,” says a position paper from the Human Right to Health Program, a coalition that advocates for universal health care as a human right.

“It restricts access to health care to those who can afford to buy it and assumes that prices will be reasonable because supply and demand are linked. With most products, consumers limit their demand based on price. But in the case of health care, demand is not price sensitive. When you are sick you don’t have a choice.”

Schmiesing acknowledged McCain’s plan would leave significant gaps in the numbers of people who have access to affordable, high-quality health care. But he said that churches and other private organizations should embrace their role as healers to make up for the difference.

“Where people cannot afford the health care they need, that is where other institutions—families, communities, churches, and sometimes government—will need to intervene,” he said. “It’s no accident that many hospitals bear names reflecting their current or former religious affiliation. Some people on the margins of society will simply never be able to afford the level of health care that they need.”

Scott Morris agrees. Morris is a physician and United Methodist minister who founded the Church Health Center in Memphis, Tenn., in 1987. The ecumenical organization operates a clinic that serves about 36,000 patients a year in one of the nation’s poorest major cities. It aims its services at the working poor, and couples clinical care with programs that use faith communities as vehicles for encouraging better health practices among vulnerable populations.

“I think, No. 1, that people in the church and churches in general—and at a local level is what I’m talking about—have to care about these issues and se them as fundamentally issues of faith. Historically the church has done that,” Morris said.

A role for churches 

“This is fundamentally a theological idea. … So the first step is to say that the body matters, that God breathed the breath of life and the spirit into a human body. As Christians, we believe in the resurrection of the body. Jesus, in our Eucharistic settings, it’s all about a physical body and blood that we are partaking of, so first we’ve got to cross this line to say we care about that stuff.”

Churches, Morris continued, should take care of improving the health of their communities at a local level—by offering healthier congregational meals, for instance.

“If you’ve got to have fried chicken to draw a crowd, there’s something wrong with your message,” he said.

As for the candidates’ plans, Morris said neither is realistic—nor likely to make it, intact, through Congress regardless which party is in charge.

“The politics of it is brutal, and poor people have very little power in this mix. And somebody has to foot the bill. Health care in America is very expensive, and when people start figuring out who pays for all of this, that for me is when the rubber hits the road,” he said.

See for yourself …

Side-by-side comparison of McCain and Obama health-care proposals from the Kaiser Foundation

The Birmingham Airport Authority has voted to rename Alabama’s largest airport for civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth. Shuttlesworth, 86, grew up in Birmingham and was pastor of Baptist churches in Birmingham and Cincinnati. He helped Martin Luther King lead demonstrations that led to the Civil Rights Acts of the mid-1960s, as well as change racial attitudes nationwide.

Audio Bible wins Christian Book of the Year award. For the first time in its 30-year history, the Christian Book of the Year award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Associa-tion is going to a Bible and an audio product. The Word of Promise New Testament Audio Bible , produced by Nashville, Tenn.-based Thomas Nelson Inc., took home the award. The New Testament dramatization features the voices of actors Jim Caviezel, Stacy Keach, Louis Gossett Jr. and Marisa Tomei, among others.

British clerk wins discrimination claim. A city clerk who refused to conduct same-sex partnership ceremonies because they violated her Christian beliefs has won her legal action claiming discrimination against supervisors who threatened to fire her. Lillian Ladele declared it a “victory for religious liberty” when an employment tribunal found the Islington Council in London guilty of religious discrimination, degradation and hostility. Ladele, who has held the job nearly 16 years, testified she “felt harassed and victimized” by the council when she insisted she would not carry out gay ceremonies as a matter of religious conscience.

Church postpones gun giveaway. An Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church in Oklahoma City canceled plans for a gun giveaway at its annual youth conference, but officials said the contest will resume next year despite criticisms. Windsor Hills Baptist Church canceled the gun giveaway and a shooting competition after a local television station announced an AR-15 assault rifle would be given away as part of the shooting contest. In a statement released on the church’s website, Youth Minister Bob Ross said the giveaway was canceled because Pastor Emeritus Jim Vineyard injured his foot and would be unable to attend the event. Ross told the local ABC affiliate the gun giveaway is a marketing strategy to attract young people to the youth conference.

EEOC issues new religion manual. Citing changing demographics and a steady increase in complaints from people of faith, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released an updated compliance manual on religious discrimination in the workplace. It provides safeguards for workers who request time off for religious observances and protects workers whose faith requires they wear specific religious garments, such as a hijab, a head covering worn by some Muslim women. Allegations of religious discrimination still make a small fraction of the total number of complaints reported each year. Last year, just 3.5 percent of cases handled by the agency were religious in nature.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—Two months after the tragic accident that claimed the life of his 5-year-old daughter Maria Sue, Steven Curtis Chapman appeared with his wife and three oldest children on CNN’s Larry King Live to testify to the home they find in Christ.

Chapman, a Grammy-winning Christian musician, said he deals with the loss of the youngest of his three adopted Chinese daughters “sometimes in intervals of about 15 minutes at a time.”

One of the most pressing questions King asked was whether Chapman lost his faith at any point during the ordeal.

At the moment of his daughter’s death, Chapman said, he was “crying out to … my Father.”

King wanted to know if Chapman was angry.

“I really wasn’t angry at God,” he said. “And until you walk through that, I think I’m not sitting here saying, you know, ‘I’m so—we’re so strong and I made even a choice to do that.’ It was just my immediate natural reaction was—I mean I know I heard myself saying a lot, ‘God, You can’t ask this of me. You can’t ask this of my family. This is too much. We can’t do this.’”

Chapman was standing on the front porch of his home in Franklin, Tenn., May 21 when he saw his 17-year-old son Will Franklin coming up the driveway in an old SUV. Chapman said he believes it was providential that God allowed him to see that Will was driving uncharacteristically slow and wasn’t talking on his cell phone.

Will drove around to the back of the house, and as he was turning the corner, he didn’t see his little sister run into his path. Immediately he knew he had hit something, and he stopped, only to find something that would forever change his life.

“Right after the accident, I started just running because I just didn’t know what else to do,” Will said, referring to what he did after making sure other family members were responding to Maria.

“I just wanted to run and just be away—as far away from the site of the accident as possible—and just started running and was planning on just running as far as I could.

“And then Caleb, not too long after that, just kind of ran and tackled me and just kind of jumped on me,” he said of his 18-year-old brother. “… And it was just like, ‘You can’t leave, you can’t leave.’ (Caleb ) … was just on top of me saying, ‘Everything’s going to be OK. We love you. You can’t leave.’ And … that was super important.”

The Chapmans had adopted Maria and two other girls from China. (BP Photo)

Chapman said his memory of the immediate aftermath is foggy.

“I do remember running around to the back of the house and finding my wife, of course, just in hysterics,” he said. “… It was a lot of blood. And I, you know, of course, began … reminding God of all the great things he had done through history and that he could … give her life again. He could breathe life back into her.”

Maria had been on the playground in the backyard with her two sisters, and she ran toward her brother when she saw him coming in the SUV because she wanted him to lift her onto the monkey bars, Chapman said.

As they waited for medical personnel to arrive, Chapman and his wife performed CPR on Maria to no avail. The girl was flown by helicopter to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Will and the other children have been meeting with trauma counselors in order to work through their grief, their mother, Mary Beth, said while opening up about her own reaction to losing a child.

“I’ve been mad. I’ve been sad,” she said. “I’ve jumped up and down. I’ve crawled under my bed. I’ve gone in my closet. You name it; I’ve done it. And I know that I will never understand, this side of eternity, why Maria, why Will. I have a list of questions in my journal, you know, ‘Why?’”

"Your father loves you" 

The family agreed that they have never been angry at Will for the accident, and they rallied to show him their support. As Chapman was being driven to the hospital, he stopped in the yard to tell his son, who was doubled over in agony, ‘Will Franklin, your father loves you.”

Chapman told about a discovery he made in the hours after the accident that has provided comfort in the days since.

“Maria had the morning of the accident drawn a picture of a flower and had written a word that she had never written before. She knew how to write her name. That was all I had ever seen, and maybe ‘I love Dad’ or ‘I love Mom,’” Chapman said. “But she had never written any other words.

“And when she first died, Caleb and I, especially, kept saying if we could just see, if we could just have a dream, something, God, we’d believe it. If we could just see something that would tell us that she’s OK.

“And the day after the accident, we went home to get some clothes for the funeral, for the memorial. Sitting on the art table was this little picture that Maria had drawn the morning of the accident. She had drawn a six-petaled flower, and only one petal was colored in. We have six children. Only one is whole now, we believe, in the arms of Jesus.

“She wrote the word S-E-E. She wrote the word see. And she had never written that before. She was saying, ‘See, I’m good. I’m OK.’”

A promise to honor God

Caleb told King that the night Maria died, the family gathered around her body and made an oath that they would honor Maria by honoring God who gave her to them.

“And so the way I’m going to live my life from here on out is not be ashamed of what I’ve been created to do, and that’s just share the gospel, share Maria’s story, and by sharing Maria’s story, I get to share the hope that I found through tragedy,” Caleb said.

The Chapmans took questions from viewers who called and sent e-mails to the show, and one woman asked how she could minister to her close friends who had recently accidentally hit their 2-year-old neighbor with their car. Chapman said his family has learned a lot about what not to do if they ever “walk into someone else’s journey of grief.”

“I would say be really slow to feel like you have to say anything,” he said. “In fact, the most comforting things that we heard—and that’s probably the best way for me to answer it—is when people would say: ‘You know what, there are no words. I’m not going to try to put words to this. I’m not going to try to say comforting things. I’m just going to sit with you in the grief.’”

A hope in Christ 

Chapman said he chose to appear on CNN and on ABC’s Good Morning America the day before because he has a hope in Christ to share with people. Just days before Maria’s death, Chapman and his wife were sitting in an airport in China, having worked with some orphans. They got word that part of the country had been rocked by a major earthquake and thousands had died.

“Even as we were in the emergency room grieving the immediate news of Maria going to heaven, I immediately thought of the people of China and I thought, ‘We have a comfort,’” he said on CNN. “We don’t have words. We don’t have an explanation, as we’ve fumbled over trying to explain how, why, all that. But we do have a comfort and we do have a hope.”

Chapman has begun touring again, and he said the tragedy of losing Maria has given him more confidence as he sings.

“I know a lot less about God, but the things I know about God, I know a whole lot more, for sure,” he said.

As a tribute to God’s faithfulness, Chapman wrote another verse to “Yours,” a song that originally appeared on his album “This Moment,” released last year:

“I’ve walked the valley of death’s shadow/So deep and dark that I could barely breathe./

I’ve had to let go of more than I could bear/And questioned everything that I believe./But still even here in this great darkness/A comfort and hope come breaking through/As I can say in life or death/God, we belong to you.”

BUIES CREEK, N.C. (ABP)—Three of my friends and I were among the record-breaking crowd that appeared with money in hand to see The Dark Knight opening weekend. The second installment of the new Batman series from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, which sold over $158 million in tickets the first weekend, set a new record for most money made in the first three days.

The Dark Knight is superior to Batman Begins in many ways—plot-development, suspense, action, effects and, of course, villainy. One cannot help but think that the premature death of actor Heath Ledger had something to do with the buzz surrounding the new film. But let that not take away from his performance. He played a wickedly unpredictable Joker.

As we pulled into the theater parking lot Friday night, my friends and I were engaged in a heavy discussion. Of all things that could be discussed before seeing a Batman flick, we were talking about free will. I have no idea how we got onto the topic, and I certainly could not have known how relevant our exchange was to the movie we were about to see.

Nick was saying free will is tied to intention: knowingly choosing one thing over another. Free will is necessary because all of us are responsible before God for our actions. This implies that we somehow have a choice with regard to those actions. How can you be responsible for something you did not choose or something you were unaware of choosing?

Wes did not buy Nick’s argument that we can exercise real choice with eternal consequences. Wes contended that God had already made the greater choice—for forgiveness, salvation and eternal life. God’s choice was to redeem the world and not count our sin against us; any insistence on our part that we can escape or opt out of the love of God is illusory.

Choice is a key component of The Dark Knight. Every character is confronted by choices. Among the minor characters, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) must choose between two men. Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) must decide what to do with a certain letter. Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) must decide whether or not to help Batman by using morally objectionable technology. And Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldham) must choose between aligning himself with the vigilante caped crusader or arresting him.

Among the main characters, Harvey “Two-Face” Dent (Aaron Eckhart) sees all choices as a matter of random chance, a flip of a coin. The Joker is a nihilist for whom all choices are absurd. Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) walks a razor’s edge as Gotham’s unelected but semi-official vigilante, choosing to protect the innocent, do justice and (in his words) inspire goodness while trying to avoid his own personal vendettas and emotions. Bruce Wayne’s choice is even more complicated by his acknowledgment that vigilantism is not a good substitute for law and order, and if there was a way he could support the justice system without his bat suit, he would.

In The Dark Knight, more than a few characters—Batman/Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, Lt. Gordon, the mobsters and the people of Gotham—are faced with impossible choices. The Joker revels in creating situations that force people to act against their moral commitments, against the law, against their better natures, and against their best interests. Director Christopher Nolan said in a Newsweek interview: “The Joker gets pleasure from taking somebody’s rule set—their ethics, their morals—and turning them against each other. Paradox is the way you do that—giving people impossible choices.”

At first glance, one might say that, through his macabre “games,” the Joker is the champion of choice and the true believer in free will. He certainly gives everyone plenty of choices to make. But, his choices are demented: choosing one life at the expense of another or saving oneself by ruining someone else.

The Joker is not after money, fame or even control. He says he simply wants to “introduce a little anarchy,” “upset the established order.” But, in a twisted way, isn’t this the triumph of free will—choice that has been unmoored from the safe docks of law and order and morality?

As it turns out, what the Joker offers is not freedom or even choice. The characters in the movie act most freely when they can get around the Joker and outwit his false “choices.” But when they cannot, their actions become involuntary. They act out of compulsion, fear and necessity. Even the Joker seems to be driven by an unrelenting anarchical agenda from which he derives no pleasure or relief. He is a prisoner of his own design, or perhaps his own madness.

The Joker has brought to life Friedrich Nietzsche’s dream and St. Paul’s nightmare. Nietzsche, that notorious 19th-century German challenger of Christianity, declared that moral systems of good and evil, noble and ignoble, right and wrong, were nothing more than human constructions, social conveniences and silly customs. Rules of ethics are no more true or absolute or eternal than rules of etiquette. They are manmade and arbitrary, and for these reasons should be consigned to the flames.

According to Nietzsche, humankind must forge ahead, beyond good and evil: “What is strong wins. That is the universal law. To speak of right and wrong per se makes no sense at all. No act of violence, rape, exploitation, or destruction is intrinsically ‘unjust,’ since life is violent, rapacious, exploitative, and destructive and cannot be conceived otherwise.”

Survival of the fittest. What is strong wins. But, the game is given away in the last line of this passage, “and cannot be conceived otherwise.” Why not? Who says? Here we glimpse the rigid determinism and unquestionable dogmatism that lies just under the surface of Nietzsche’s so-called liberation of the will. There is no place for any alternative to the unswerving law of nature.

When Harvey “Two-Face” Dent becomes “liberated” and uninhibited, the result is monstrous. He looks and acts less than fully human, more like a rabid animal or a machine programmed for vengeance.

For Paul, the worst of all possible conditions is finding that “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15). These are exactly the kind of options the Joker (and Satan) supplies: the kind that we can only hate. Sin, selfish behavior and disobedience to the law are not Promethean feats of free will but signs of slavery. According to Paul, disobedience, rebellion, and sin do not liberate us to “do whatever we want,” as we might suppose, but trap and imprison our wills. We become “slaves to sin” (Romans 6:17).

Freedom, according to Paul and the Christian tradition, is not something we naturally possess and exercise. It is not our right or ability. Rather, like life itself, freedom is a gift. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). And a little further, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).

True freedom is not being able to do whatever we want any more than it is a choice between two options. True freedom means finding out who we really are, what we were created to be, and who our true family is. It does not mean declaring independence from all things, severing all ties to kin and kith, breaking all rules, and striking out on one’s own. It means being redeemed: identified in the pile, picked up, cleaned off and given a home. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12).

The Dark Knight poses dilemmas of choice and free will well worth pondering. But, the distance between Gotham and Jerusalem is considerable. In the world of Batman, choice is always tainted, plagued, tragic and maybe even absurd. In the free country of Zion, by contrast, choice is gift, adoption, recognition and—surprisingly—even love.

Adam English is assistant professor of theology and philosophy at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C.

RICHMOND, Va.—“Stay out of the limelight.”

That’s Amy Grant’s advice to celebrities who don’t want their personal failures aired in public.

The successful Christian pop singer should know. After her very public divorce in 1999, details of her marital troubles appeared in print and cyberspace across the country, leading some Christians to stop listening to her music and even question her faith.

“I feel protective of young women who are celebrities today, because somebody makes a decision, and then the whole world discusses it, and it’s a top story on the news,” Grant told the Internet religious news service beliefnet in a recent interview. “And I want to go, ‘Would you do that to your child, Mr. Anchorman? Would you want the whole world discussing your young 20-something when they screwed up?’ Because we all did it. Who has not made a bad decision?”

What is it about high-profile Christians that leads some believers to accord them celebrity status—and what is it about their missteps that rivets the attention of their less-public fellow believers?

“I think we like high-profile Christian leaders for much the same reasons we like any celebrity in entertainment, sports or politics,” noted Scott Spencer, professor of New Testament at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond (Va.).  “We like the glitz and glamour of the spotlight on certain charismatic figures.  We like being ‘performed for’ and entertained. And in most cases, very popular Christian leaders are public performers and entertainers. 

“By and large, I think our attraction to Christian celebs is rather naive and superficial.”

Part of the appeal is that Christians who succeed in the culture seem to legitimize their faith, added George Mason, senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.

“Despite Jesus’ assurances that the world will sometimes reject us and even hate us, no Christian likes to feel that their convictions make them odd or strange or marginal in the wider society,” Mason explained. “Some forces in society do contribute to those feelings—scientific snobbery about religion in general, media disregard for moral standards, and pluralism, to name a few. When celebrities come out in public with personal Christian claims, ordinary Christians feel a bit vindicated that they have people on their side in the culture.”

Seeking absolutes 

Keith Herron, senior pastor at Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo., thinks high-profile Christians—especially pastors—appeal to believers seeking absolutes.

“It comes as the price we pay for our need for someone powerful who can reassure us in an anxious time to speak authoritatively in the void of standing strong in faith,” Herron said. “The anxiety we feel in this new, complicated world is compensated by our need for certitude. Power and authority is offered by those in need of this false sense of security, and in exchange, power and authority are accepted by the pastor in the form of self-gratification.”

Widespread adulation of Christian celebrities may in part have replaced earlier Christians’ honoring of well-known saints, whose virtues believers were encouraged to emulate.

Now, those role models are found in popular culture.

“Theologically, we look for role models because we are created in the image of God and therefore are looking for our own reflection in the faith of others so created,” Mason said. “We don’t find it merely in shared ideas, because ours is an embodied faith. And so we look to behavior and example.

“We look to celebrities in part because we have lost the sense of spiritual mentoring that the church used to make a deliberate part of discipleship. And since we are inveterate imitators as human beings, we join the tabloid buyers and look for our role models there instead of in the church’s ordinary saints.”

But relying too much on those high-profile models to strengthen faith creates its own problems, Herron cautioned.

A sense of neediness 

“It’s easy to see how a sense of neediness by either can be unhealthy for both,” he said. “Likewise, it takes courage on behalf of the church to have its own resources of strength and assurance without having to borrow these characteristics from some significant ‘other,’ such as from a pastor.”

Some Christian celebrities—like vocalist Bono of the rock band U2, a believer who has been prominent in efforts to eliminate poverty and AIDS—use their influence to impact the world, and that’s a good thing, Spencer said.

In contrast to superficial celebrities, “I would quickly bracket out those rare dynamic public Christian leaders—Martin Luther King springs readily to mind—who, while popular to a point and able to rally the masses, dare to challenge the people and speak truth to power,” he added. “They incite as many as they inspire.  ‘Prophet’ is a good designation for such truly Spirit-driven leaders—and prophets make poor celebrities.”

So, is it fair to hold Christian celebrities to a higher moral or theological standard?

“Not really,” Spencer conceded. “Christian standards should apply to all Christians, and human frailty and fallibility will apply to all Christians.

“It should perhaps be said, however, that high-profile Christian leaders should hold themselves to a higher vigilance—given the extra pitfalls they may face and wider scope of people they encounter.”

Live from the inside out 

“Celebrities are often used to living from the outside in, instead of from the inside out,” Mason said. “And so they are not always well prepared for the role into which they are cast. Scrutiny of one’s Christian life is intensified for those in the public eye. Failure is inevitable, given both their humanness and exposure.”

And that results in repercussions for their admirers, Herron observed.

“Once star power has been established and defined, it’s hard to come to grips with the humanity of our celebrities,” he said. “Part of the power of having a star system is how we idolize such figures and yet put such distance between us and them. I guess it’s our way of expressing our own self-uncertainty by elevating someone else beyond our reach.”

Although at times it may shake a Christian’s confidence, the impact of a high-profile lapse can be a mixed blessing.

“The high profile ‘fall from grace’—with all the negative press it generates—can affect the faith of average believers, and non-believers, adversely and confirm the flawed nature of the whole celebrity system,” Spencer said. “But then, I’m less inclined to follow the next big thing after one falls—and that’s a good thing. I’ve got enough to worry about dealing with my own flaws and spiritual ups and downs.”

BOSTON (RNS)—To millions of fans, he’s “the Boss,” the blue-jeaned troubadour of the American heartland who finds nobility in the grind of daily life.

Across 35 years in dozens of rock anthems, from Born to Run to Glory Days to Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen has chronicled lost souls, haunted war veterans, gritty factory workers and highways jammed with broken heroes. But he also advanced themes of redemption, hope and keeping the faith.

It’s been a rich vein of spiritual motifs, and the politically progressive 58-year-old singer/songwriter has given voice to society’s dispossessed. His work of late has been bleak, brooding and introspective, even grieving.

But the Boss as spiritual guidepost?

Jeffrey Symynkywicz, a minister on Boston’s South Shore and dedicated Springsteen fan, has pored over the singer’s rich, multi-layered lyrics and viewed them through a theological lens.

The result is the new The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen , the latest addition to a crowded genre that mines the spiritual in pop culture.

A Harvard Divinity School graduate, Symynkywicz stresses he’s not out to peddle the First Church of Bruce. His admiration for Springsteen is rooted more in the inspirational and empathetic than the theological.

“What’s inspiring about him is that he has so much to say about different life stages that we all go through,” Symynkywicz said from his church in suburban Stoughton, Mass. “The thing I really like about his music as I’ve gotten older is that he gets older too. His music deepens and matures, and he sings like a grown-up.”

It’s been a frenzied, often frightening time—one Springsteen has faced unflinchingly—and he’s brought the rest of us along for the ride.

“When we discern that Springsteen is there for us—when we feel as though he is addressing us directly and personally in his songs,” Symynkywicz writes, “his work seems to put down strong roots in our own experience. His music helps us to make sense of the sometimes tangled, often disparate threads of our lives.”

At its foundation, Symynkywicz adds, it’s a religious undertaking, a ministry of healing—a task that gets to the very meaning of the word “religion.” But Springsteen’s canon is neither sufficiently creedal nor doctrinaire to stand up as theology, Symynkywicz emphasizes.

“What he does for me is help me discern my own traditions, my own personal theology and faith—but more deeply.”

So it’s more like good news—“the affirmation that no principality or power—no forces seen or unseen, no terror-mad souls or devilish plots—can ever separate us from the love that is in our souls.”

Religious imagery 

The Boss himself does not shy away from overt religious imagery.

“Jesus was an only son as he walked up Calvary Hill,” he sang on 2005’s Devils & Dust. Springsteen was raised a Roman Catholic in New Jersey and attended a parochial school where, according to one biography, he clashed with both the nuns and other students.

He told the New York Times a couple of years ago that he isn’t a churchgoer.

But it’s not so much Springsteen’s personal faith in which Symynkywicz finds comfort; it’s in the singer’s working-class roots.

“It was very much like the working class family I grew up in … the same kinds of fights with my father,” the author said. “That’s why I recognize in him the reality of when he sings about working people and (their) limited horizons, but also the palpable reality of real life. It’s authentic.”

Symynkywicz, 53, chuckles when asked whether his church members are accustomed to Springsteen-infused sermons.

“They’re probably sick of hearing it,” he said. He’s seen the Boss in concert seven times, which makes him a far cry from being a “Tramp”—diehards who follow the singer around everywhere.

Still, the author does what few fans have accomplished: dissect Springsteen’s 250-song catalogue over 14 studio albums, starting with 1973’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. to last year’s Magic. He unearths a treasure-trove of hard-knock life lessons, analogues to biblical passages and other spiritual writings, and examples of redemption, courage, hope and love.

Finding the spiritual in pop culture 

Symynkywicz’s book is the latest in a niche that looks for, and sometimes finds, the spiritual in the pop landscape, ranging from Peanuts to The Simpsons, Harry Potter, Seinfeld and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“Writers, singers, filmmakers and TV producers are the mythmakers for our times,” the author explained. “People don’t just want to consume popular culture—though some people do—they want to discern what’s deeper in there and what meaning it gives their lives.”

Ultimately, Symynkywicz sees a kind of rough, defiant hope in Springsteen’s songs.

“He’s hopeful rather than optimistic. ‘Everybody has a reason to begin again,’ he sings in Long Walk Home. There’s always a reason to go on.

“But it’s a tough hope in a tough world—a world that isn’t, on the surface, getting better. There is a hopefulness there—that we can turn things around and move in a more progressive direction.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Oprah Winfrey has become a catalyst for a new journalistic project and increasing news coverage by conservative Christians questioning and criticizing her spiritual beliefs.

Some evangelical Christians have voiced alarm Winfrey is introducing the 46 million viewers who watch her each week to nontraditional spirituality they consider unbiblical.

In May, two-dozen Christian newspapers pooled their resources to publish an article titled “Oprah’s ‘gospel’” that prompted higher readership and more letters to the editor than any story some of the individual papers ever published.

In a first-of-its-kind venture, the evangelical newspapers hired Colorado writer and editor Steve Rabey to write the story.

“For some Christians who have considered themselves part of Oprah’s electronic family, her sins against evangelical orthodoxy have increased in number and seriousness,” Rabey said.

In recent months, some Southern Baptist newspaper editors have written editorials declaring “It’s time for Christians to ‘just say no’ to the big ‘O’” and calling her a source of “foolish twitter and twaddle.” And Charisma, a prominent charismatic and Pentecostal magazine, ran a story in its July issue with the headline “Oprah’s Strange New Gospel.’”

Lamar Keener, publisher of the Christian Examiner regional newspapers in California, came up with the idea to work with a dozen “mom and pop” publishers to address Winfrey’s theology.

“Our point is we want our readers to be aware that what she is teaching does not represent traditional, historical Christianity, according to the Scriptures,” said Keener, who also is president of the Evangelical Press Association.

Twenty-three monthly papers from across the country and Canada published the story and distributed 500,000 copies to churches, Christian bookstores, doughnut shops and other outlets.

Keener was inspired after viewing a video titled The Church of Oprah Exposed , which has had more than 7.2 million hits on YouTube.

“It’s taking actual clips off programs,” Keener said. “That’s what got my attention.”

One of Winfrey’s quotes highlighted in the story is her belief that “there couldn’t possibly be just one way” to God.

“One of the mistakes that human beings make is believing that there is only one way to live,” Winfrey said.

A spokesman for Winfrey’s Harpo Productions said the celebrity is a Christian.

Raised a Baptist 

“Oprah was raised Baptist and has stated many, many times that she is a Christian and that she believes in only one God,” said the spokesman, who asked not to be named. “She has also said, ‘I’m a free-thinking Christian who believes in my way, but I don’t believe it’s the only way, with 6 billion people on the planet.’”

The spokesman noted Winfrey is hardly alone; 70 percent of Americans said “many religions can lead to eternal life” in a recent survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life .

Part of the evangelicals’ concern stems from Winfrey’s embrace of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth as the first spiritual book she included in her hugely popular book club. In the July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, she said the book’s advice on “putting the ego in check” had a “profound impact” on her.

“Spirit to me is the essence of who we are,” she said. “That essence doesn’t require any particular belief. It just is.”

Charisma editor J. Lee Grady has long thought Winfrey did not embrace “an orthodox belief in Jesus Christ,” but he thinks other Christians may just be starting to draw that conclusion, sparked in part by what they learn about her on the Internet.

More 'New Thought' than New Age 

“There’s definitely an alarm because so many people watch her, that she could lead people into New Age belief or deception,” he said.

Religion writer Marcia Nelson, author of The Gospel According to Oprah, said criticism of Winfrey by conservative Christians dates to 1998 when she included a spiritual emphasis on her TV show.

“Back then she got pretty much lambasted the way she is being lambasted now, for telling us what to believe and telling us the wrong thing to believe in, according to conservative Christians,” said Nelson.

But Nelson, who studied a year of Winfrey’s shows, differs with those who call Winfrey’s spiritual ideas “New Age.” Winfrey would be more related to the more mainstream “New Thought” movement, Nelson said, which focuses on positive thinking as a spiritual tool rather than crystals, for example.

“I absolutely regard her as a Christian but … she’s one of those capacious Christians,” Nelson said.

CENTER CITY—Dallas Huston has learned a lesson: never say never.

A well-known radio sports voice in Central Texas for five decades, Huston had settled into what he considered his more important role as a part-time preacher. Most Sundays were booked as a guest preacher at various Baptist churches throughout the area. He also led two or three revivals a year.

By serving as a traveling fill-in preacher, Huston could reach a larger audience. He had grown as comfortable in that role as he had in the football radio booth that bears his name at Gordon Wood Stadium in Brownwood.

Sportscaster Dallas Huston calls a Brownwood High School football game at Gordon Wood Stadium. Huston has been the voice of Howard Payne University and Brownwood High School football and basketball since the mid-1960s. (Photo courtesy of Linda Huston)

One place where Huston served as a guest preacher a dozen times over the past year was Center City Baptist Church, a small rural congregation 10 miles east of Goldthwaite that went 16 months without a pastor.

Huston flatly rejected initial inquiries by Center City’s three deacons and assorted members who approached him about becoming their pastor.

“Absolutely not,” Huston told them. “Other churches had talked to me about becoming their pastor, and I emphasized to them, like I did the folks in Center City, that I would never, ever pastor a church. Period.”

Huston never attended college or a seminary so, to him, becoming pastor of a church seemed beyond his qualifications. Being responsible for an entire church and the ongoing spiritual care of its members seemed daunting.

Then, Huston said, God came calling a couple of months ago.

“The Lord told me under no uncertain terms that he wanted me to pastor a church,” Huston said. “I said, ‘OK, let me pick out a couple of churches I might like.’

“Then he told me as plain as day, ‘I want you to pastor at Center City.’ I said, ‘Are you sure?’”

At first, Center City appeared to be a small stage for a big local celebrity. The rural church has 48 active members and on any given week, worshippers number between 25 and 40.

Huston has been the voice of Howard Payne University and Brownwood High School football and basketball since the mid-1960s. In March, he called five playoff games for the Howard Payne women’s basketball team on its way to winning the NCAA Division III national championship.

Huston has been named the best sportscaster in the state by Texas Monthly magazine. He also is a member of the Big Country Sports Hall of Fame in Abilene, as well as the Howard Payne Sports Hall of Fame.

His celebrity status, radio-voice delivery and graphic honesty about his battles with alcoholism and living “46 years on the edge of hell,” made Huston a charismatic speaker. His down-to-earth sermons drew emotional responses and large crowds at churches of all sizes.

On the surface, having a regional celebrity like Huston toiling in the obscurity of a small country church didn’t appear to be a good fit. But such an assumption couldn’t be further from reality.

Dallas and Linda Huston serve Center City Baptist Church, a rural congregation 10 miles east of Goldthwaite. (Photo by Mike Lee)

Heeding what he was convinced was God’s calling, Huston asked the Center City deacons if the offer to become pastor of their church was still good. They couldn’t say “yes” fast enough.

“We were real fortunate to get him. It’s really too good to be true,” said 80-year-old James “Potty” Carter, who was baptized at Center City 70 years ago. “He’s a bang-up nice fellow. Everybody likes him.

“We’re mainly a bunch of older folks. What you see is what you get with us. He keeps it low-key instead of being fancy.”

Some Center City Baptist members knew Huston as a radio sportscaster. Some didn’t. It didn’t matter to any of them.

“It doesn’t matter because he can relate to them. That’s all they care about,” deacon Gene Burton said. “He gets his point across, and then, he’s through. He doesn’t go over it again and again and lecture you. He’s so plain. He fits in so well with a country church.

“Some people that have accomplished what he has on the radio would want to brag about it, but not Dallas. He’s very humble. He’s just telling us what the Lord has done for him.”

Huston said while he likes being recognized at times, he prefers a situation where people haven’t heard of him.

“It’s kind of exciting to go some place, and all I am to them is a preacher. I’m not a sportscaster trying to preach,” Huston said. “A few in Center City know I’m a sportscaster, but I can tell you that none of them care. I’m their pastor, and they could care less if I do football or basketball games.”

Pastor Dallas Huston preaches at Center City Baptist Church. (Photo by Mike Lee)

On Sunday mornings, Huston and his wife, Linda, make the 45-mile drive from their home in Brownwood to Center City, which in 2000 had a population of 15 and is listed on the Internet among Texas ghost towns.

But the Brownwood native couldn’t be more at home than at the remote country church.

“Generally, the smaller the church, the friendlier they are,” Huston said. “Two friends of mine from Brownwood went to separate services at Center City, and they both called me later and said, ‘Dallas, that’s the friendliest church I’ve ever been to. Everybody there either shook my hand or patted me on the back.’

“The people in Center City, they love the Lord and they love each other. You can’t ask for much more than that. If I can get them to like me, there’s no telling what’ll happen.”

During the June 22 service at Center City Baptist Church, Huston celebrated his 20th spiritual birthday by sharing his testimony with the congregation. He told of how he smoked for 27 years, began drinking at age 12 and tried “every drug that was placed before me.”

“I’m a recovering alcoholic, and I was as sorry a human being as you can imagine,” Huston said. “I had no spiritual foundation.”

Huston said he mistreated his wife in the early years of their relationship, but she never gave up on him. “She prayed and prayed for me. Now, I’m not talking about for a weekend or even a week. She prayed for me for 10 years,” Huston said.

At age 46, Huston was baptized.

“I was lucky to still be alive,” he said. “The Lord gave me another opportunity and I took it. People that should have thrown rocks at me for what I’d done and what I’d been instead came up and hugged me.

“I’m one of the greatest examples I’ve seen of the Lord being able to use anybody—of taking the weakest of the weak and doing good things with them.”

Huston said God is using his past experiences—in the press box and on the rocks—to allow him to reach spiritually lost people.

“With men’s gatherings, they know my name from sports, and perhaps more will show up to see the person behind the voice. And by sharing the story of my prior life, it can reach out to others—especially men— who have had to deal with some of the same things.”

Huston said he keeps preaching separate from sportscasting, but being a born-again Christian has put sports in perspective.

“Sports was one of my gods,” he said. “I lived and died with sporting events. Now, sports aren’t even in the top five of my priorities in life. Sports are important for the kids and the fans, and those are the two reasons I still do games.

“I can tell you with all honesty that the greatest game I’ve ever called doesn’t compare with the worst sermon I’ve preached. Calling the Lady Jackets winning the national championship was a once-in-a-lifetime thrill. But I can’t put it in the same category as preaching.”

Huston said at 65, he didn’t take the Center City position as a steppingstone to a larger church. “I’ll be there until the Lord tells me to leave or until the people there get rid of me,” he said.

Center City Baptist has grown a bit since Huston became pastor in mid-May, adding a half-dozen new members. The only problem is where to baptize them.

“They tell me they’ve always performed baptisms down at the (North Bennett) creek just before you get into town,” Huston said. “I told them I wasn’t going to do that unless someone came with a gun to shoot the snakes.

“We may have to find a bathtub and use it. We’ll come up with something.”

JACKSON, Tenn.—Cody Strait has traded red for blue, but his message is still about white—as in Christian purity.

After four years with the Cincinnati Reds organization, Strait, from Sour Lake, was traded to the Kansas City Royals minor league affiliate in July. He left the Chattanooga Lookouts, the Reds’ AA Southern League affiliate, for the Wilmington (Del.) Blue Rocks, the Royals’ High-Advanced A team in the Carolina League.

Strait was drafted in 2004 after playing at Ranger Junior College and the University of Evansville.

While a sophomore at Ranger, he realized that to become the Christian he claimed to be, he had to step up to the plate.

Cody Strait at bat.

“Up onto that point, I considered myself a good guy. I played the good-guy role. I went to church, but I didn’t really live like a Christian,” said Strait, an outfielder who hands out autographed baseball cards with his testimony. “One of my teammates (pitcher Kelsey Cates) was living for the Lord. He showed me how a Christian should act.”

Wilmington Manager Darryl Kennedy said Strait has a reputation as a “very spiritual, Christian young man. I haven’t seen anything that would discredit him.”

Strait, the son of B.D. and Lynn Strait, grew up in a Christian home. He accepted Christ as his Savior when he was young and was baptized at Pinewood Baptist Church in Sour Lake, near Beaumont.

Realizing later that he did not have an intimate relationship with Christ, he said that his life revolved around himself.

“The decisions I made were based on my own desires. Although I seemed happy with the way my life was going, I knew something was missing,” he said.

“I had a choice to make. Was I going to continue to live for myself or would I start living the life God intended for me?’”

While getting to the major leagues is his ultimate goal, Strait, 25, has a goal of being a spiritual trailblazer with his teammates.

“I want to do something to try to set a good example, to be a spiritual role model,” he said.

Staying on the straight and narrow path in professional baseball requires discipline that he finds by studying the Bible, praying and through encouragement from his wife, Melissa. They are expecting their first child in December. He also attends chapel services.

“After a game, some guys go to a bar or out partying. I’m in my room talking to my wife. When you claim to be a Christian everybody looks at you that much closer; they are trying to find faults with you,” he said.

When asked how someone would know that Strait is a Christian, Chattanooga teammate Justin Turner took out Strait’s baseball cap from his locker and pointed to the top of it. Strait had written “7 (his number) To God Be The Glory.”

“He is real positive,” Turner said. “He is always in a real good mood. He talks about his life.”

Shaun Cumberland, a Lookouts outfielder, added: “Everybody knows he’s a firm believer. He is a good-hearted guy.”

After being all-state at Hardin-Jefferson High School, Strait was named 2004 Missouri Valley Conference Newcomer of the Year at Evansville and a MVC All-Star.

Cody Strait

Drafted in the 12th round (348th overall) of the First-Year Player Draft in 2004, Strait (6-1, 185) has played with Billings (Mont.) in the Rookie League, Dayton of the A Midwest League, Sarasota of the High-A Florida State League and three games with AAA Louisville. He went to Chattanooga in 2007. Strait, who lives in Marble Falls during the off-season, played in the Arizona Fall League in 2006.

“To get to the big leagues, you have to be a complete player. You have to have a good eye, play good defense, know the game and the situation,” said Strait. “In my opinion the most important thing is hitting which is also the hardest.”

This season in Chattanooga he batted .257 with 17 doubles, three triples and five home runs. He stole 50 bases while playing with Sarasota in 2006.

“He has a lot of power and he is a very good outfielder,” said Kennedy. “He is helping us by driving in runs which is what we were looking for when we acquired him.”

In spring training, Strait rubbed shoulders with major leaguers, including  Cincinnati superstar Ken Griffey Jr.

Major league players “have been able to perform on a more consistent basis than I have. I can hit for average and power,” said Strait. “I play good defense. I have a good arm and I can run. I have to stay more consistent with my hitting. The best thing to do is not to worry about that and do the best you can at whatever level you are at the time.”

Strait keeps his baseball cards in his pocket. A major league player usually sponsors a minor leaguer’s supply, which are printed by an organization promoting Christianity.

“When I was young, I would go to a baseball game and hang onto every word those guys said. I know how it is with little kids, you look up to those guys,” he said.

“If I give them a baseball card with an autograph, they’ll cherish it. They’ll read the back of it and hang onto every word,” said Strait, who still treasures a broken bat autographed by a Cincinnati player he got when he was a youngster.

Strait also distributes baseball cards when he speaks to church youth groups. “I may bring 200 or 300 cards and speak to 20 kids and they’ll all be gone.”

On his card is his favorite scripture, Luke 9:24, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

“I stopped living for myself and started living for Christ. When I step on the field, I feel that I have nothing to lose because I have already lost my life for his sake.

“I’ve surrendered my desires to Christ and replaced them with his plan and desires for my life. I now have everything to gain because Christ has my best interests at heart.

“At the end of the day, no matter how I did or if everything is falling apart in my life, it’s going to be great because I always have the Lord. My strength comes from the Lord.”

Bill Sorrell, a graduate of Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, is pastor of First Baptist Church in Whiteville, Tenn., and a freelance sports writer.

HANOVER TOWNSHIP, N.J.—It is a weekly ordeal at Pastor Donald Mossa’s church.

The moment the youth choir sings its last note, a swarm of parents descends to rush their kids to soccer games. Or they call to say they’re skipping Sunday services because of a tournament.

“The anxiety of ‘Do I go to church or do I take my kid to the soccer game?’ is a weekly ordeal,” said Mossa, pastor at the Presbyterian Church of Whippany. “It’s letting the team down versus letting God down.”

Mossa is part of a group of ministers from eight local churches that is asking township officials to ban sports games on Sunday mornings.

Restoring sacredness

The group, called the Hanover Township Interreligious Council, approached the township committee for help in “restoring sacredness to the Sabbath.” The holy day, the group contends, is crucial during a time when divorce rates and substance abuse appear to be on the rise.

The group represents all the churches in town and spans five denominations, serving more than 5,000 parishioners. The pastors also planned to e-mail 63 churches in nearby counties to ask for their support.

The conflict between religion and sports is a long-fought battle that gained the spotlight in the late 1990s when Pope John Paul II urged Catholics to “swim upstream” and keep their Sundays “sanctified” from other activities. New York’s late Cardinal John O’Connor also criticized Little League baseball and children’s soccer leagues for scheduling Sunday morning games.

Earlier this year, Ireland’s Roman Catholic bishops asked local communities to postpone Sunday games until the afternoon, but the Gaelic Athletic Association said ending morning plays was not feasible.

In Prospect Park, N.J., officials enforced a ban on Sunday work and play activities for nearly a century until the early 1990s, when the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit alleging that the law was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of church and state.

Still other churches have tried to accommodate busy Sunday schedules by adding weekday and summer services for families.

Is it feasible? 

In Hanover, township officials praised the pastors for their proposal but questioned its feasibility.

Mayor Ron Francioli said he agreed with the idea of more family time, but he felt banning Sunday sports would place Hanover kids at a disadvantage against outside teams unless other municipalities also enforced a ban.

A more realistic approach, he said, might be to enforce a half-day rule on Sunday. Games could begin at 12:30 p.m., for instance, giving families time to attend church in the morning.

Recreation director and committee member Judy Iradi also said with more than 600 kids participating in recreational sports, a Sunday ban could create a field shortage. The township currently has 18 playing fields, according to the recreation department.

“It should be pursued, but in reality it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve,” she said of the proposed ban.

However, some township residents support the ban. Karen Melvin, whose 9-year-old son, Stephen, plays baseball, said they miss between three and four church services every season because of game conflicts. On those Sundays, choosing between church and the game can be agonizing, she said.

“In those cases where we went to the game, you feel guilty,” Melvin said. “But he’s my one and only, and he lives for baseball.”

Even if banning Sunday sports does not bring back churchgoers, Mossa hopes families at least spend a quiet day together.

“We’re not against sports,” said Mossa, who plays on the Whippany Fire Department softball team. “We’re really in favor of trying to provide a time of rest for this culture. How are you going to bring families back together?”

Leslie Kwoh is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Giving to religious charities and congregations passed the $100 billion mark for the first time in 2007, according to a recent report by the Giving USA Foundation.

Giving to religious groups increased 4.7 percent, bringing the total to $102.32 billion. Overall giving to charitable causes reached $306.39 billion in 2007, a 3.9 percent increase from 2006.

The report shows donations to religious causes accounted for half of all individual charitable giving.

Three-quarters of all giving in the U.S. came from individual donations to charity, the report said.

Del Martin, chair of the Giving USA Foundation , said, “And what you can’t forget is that the ‘little guys’—the families most affected by the economy—kept on giving despite any worries they might have about their personal situations.”

Charitable giving consistently represents 2.3 percent of the average American’s disposable income year-to-year, a figure that held up in 2007, according to the report.

The report, conducted by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, analyzed eight charity sub-sectors—arts/culture/humanities, education, environment/animals, health, human services, public-society benefit, international affairs and religion.

Each saw individual increases last year, according to inflation-adjusted estimates.

Though not considered public charities, community and private foundations saw a decrease in giving last year, the report noted.

Researchers asked charities in the Public-Society Benefit category if they were worried that giving to political campaigns during the 2008 election year would hurt charitable donations. Groups reported back they are more concerned about the lagging economy and volatile stock market.

Presidential campaigns in 2007 raised $580 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, a mere one-quarter of 1 percent of the $306 billion raised for charity.

ARLINGTON, Va. (RNS)—There seems to be a striking symmetry on the rolling green hills of Arlington National Cemetery—rows upon rows of identical white limestone markers, perfectly spaced in every direction.

But underground, Muslims are laid to rest on their right side, facing Mecca, according to custom.

A Jewish Marine, meanwhile, might be buried in a traditional wooden coffin with wooden nails, which can be quickly absorbed into the earth according to Jewish tradition.

For the families of Jewish and Muslim members of the armed forces, challenges often arise when religious tradition conflicts with explicit rules that govern U.S. military cemeteries. Sometimes, an individual or family must choose one over the other.

For example, Muslims and Jews generally are not buried alongside members of other faiths. At military cemeteries, however, servicemen are not segregated by religion.

But a desire to be buried with their units sometimes trumps religious tradition. Many Jews are regularly buried in places like Arlington. Observant Jews, however, “would tend not to be buried there,” said Col. Ira Kronenberg, an Orthodox rabbi and chairman of the military chaplains’ committee of the Rabbinical Council of America.

Abdul-Rashid Abdullah, deputy director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, said the desire to demonstrate patriotism—especially in a post-Sept. 11 world—is a leading reason Muslim service members choose to be buried in Arlington.

This way, Abdullah said, a family makes an important final statement with their loved one’s final resting place, as if to say, “Hey, we are patriotic people, our child served this country.”

Abdullah, who is a veteran, understands the desire of a soldier to be buried with his or her unit. Still, he said, “I wouldn’t want to be buried there myself. This is not a proper Muslim cemetery.”

The two faiths share other requirements. Both Islam and Judaism take seriously the need for a body to be laid to rest quickly.

“A person’s body is made in the image of God,” said Kronenberg. “The body must be treated in an extremely dignified manner. … Burial must take place as soon as possible. A body is supposed to decompose into the earth, dust to dust.”

Islam has similar laws. Abdullah said the religious goal is “to bury it within a 24-hour period. … If you die in the morning, it should be buried in the afternoon before sunset.”

Brought home for burial 

In World War II, servicemen who died overseas were buried in Europe and elsewhere, but today’s service members are brought home for burial, which can make the two religions’ speedy burial tradition difficult to accomplish.

However, the military makes special accommodations to get the body to rest in American soil as soon as possible.

If a soldier dies close to a military base, the body can be transported from anywhere in the world to Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base in a little more than 24 hours, Kronenberg said.

“They go out of their way to treat the dead with the utmost respect,” he said.

In Iraq, sandstorms or lack of access to helicopters or other military vehicles could extend the wait for days. But the military moves so quickly and efficiently that a fallen comrade could receive full military honors, with an escort platoon and military band, immediately upon arriving home.

“If they get a call, (the honor guard) can be ready at a moment’s notice,” Kronenberg said. “Unfortunately, the military has had to do too many full honor funerals in the last five years,” he added.

Autopsy required 

Another factor comes from military law that mandates a “forensic pathology investigation,” or autopsy, is justified whenever a service member dies in an “unnatural” way, including being killed in combat.

Judaism and Islam strongly frown on autopsies for two main reasons: First, they prolong the time until a body is buried; and second, they are considered mutilation of the body and are therefore undignified.

“If you watch CSI and shows like this, there are a lot of gallows humor” during autopsies, Kronenberg said. If an autopsy had to be done, both Judaism and Islam would require an imam or rabbi to be present to ensure the procedure is done with care.

To comply with the Army mandate and still respect their religious traditions, some Muslim and Jewish groups are pushing for what is called a “virtual” autopsy. It involves using non-invasive methods like CT scans and MRIs to create a 3D scan that can be enlarged, rotated and, best of all, saved digitally.

“There are so many things that are shared between Muslims and Jews in regard to traditions. It behooves everyone to work together,” Abdullah said.