BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS)—The archaic sounds that fill the historic former church sanctuary echo, hauntingly, like a whispering ghost from the past.

Inside the 1902 building that once housed Second Presbyterian Church, the elaborate archways bounce back the sound of Sacred Harp singing.

It’s a style of music that once dominated rural evangelical religion, in the days before the Civil War and church organs, when a capella singing was the norm. It’s never entirely died out, in part because of people like Tim Cook.

“It was once common throughout the South,” said Cook, a shape-note singing aficionado who brought his lessons to the former church that’s now part of the University of Alabama at Birmingham campus.

Cook’s group of more than a dozen interested singers sat facing Cook as the song leader, holding wide-page hymnbooks filled with notes in the shapes of open and solid squares, diamonds, triangles and ovals.

Throughout the 1800s, the mournful harmonious sounds of a capella shape-note singing reverberated in churches throughout the South. It’s now experiencing a renaissance of sorts in Sacred Harp songbooks and conventions. But while Sacred Harp singing has surged, the more-complicated seven-shape-note Alabama Christian Harmony singing struggles to stay alive.

“We certainly don’t want it to die out,” said Emily Creel of Burleson, Ala., who carries on her family’s generations-long love affair with the music. “We do it to promote the heritage and tradition of the music.”

The Internet has helped create a revival for shape-note singing, connecting singers and bringing them together for events across the country.

Cook says having the notes in different shapes makes it easier to read and sing the music in four-part harmony.

Participants sing the actual note sounds first: “fa” for triangle shape notes, “sol” for oval, “la” for square and “mi” for diamond-shape notes. Then they sing it with the lyrics.

The combination of archaic harmonies and old-style lyrics can be jolting to outsiders. To others, it’s addictive. Many of the shape-note songs were written by English composers such as Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, set to old English dance tunes and carried from churches in rural England by colonial settlers.

The tradition was carried to the South, where many churches continued the shape-note a capella singing of the hymns with complex harmonies. The songs may have archaic, cryptic names such as “Old Hundred,” better known in many hymnbooks as “The Doxology.” “Amazing Grace” appears in shape-note books as “New Britain.”

When pianos and organs became common in churches, a capella singing began to disappear, along with the complicated harmonies in the old hymnbooks.

Cook took up shape-note singing after moving from Michigan to Atlanta in 1995, and now he teaches it and leads singings.

“I’ve always like to sing a capella, four-part harmony,” Cook said. “When I heard this the first time, I said, ‘That is the voice of heaven.’”

—Greg Garrison writes for The Birmingham News in Birmingham, Ala.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. —While performing concerts around the country, Dove Award-winning recording artist Mark Schultz often shares his testimony and personal story of adoption in hopes of raising awareness for orphan care and helping young families recognize this desperate need.

“It must have been so hard for my biological mother to give birth to a baby and say with tears in her eyes: ‘There’s so much I want to give you that I can’t. So, I’m going to love you by giving you to someone who can take care of you,’” Schultz said. 

“That’s amazing to me, and every day I’m grateful for the parents who adopted me when I was two weeks old and helped me to become the person I am today.”

Schultz hopes that having his songs featured on national television programs such as 48 Hours and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will provide opportunities to spark conversations with non-Christians and lead them into a relationship with Christ.

His latest album, Come Alive, is a collection of songs that explore life’s greatest joys and toughest challenges while celebrating God’s presence in every moment.

“I would hope that as people listen to these songs and identify with the struggles, that they would know that God is the same through the struggles as he is during the triumphant moments,” Schultz said. ”His love and faithfulness never change.”

Desiring to help make a difference in the lives of orphans, Schultz went on a 3,500-mile bicycle ride across America in 2007, which raised more than $250,000. 

As a strong advocate for adoption, Schultz and his wife, Kate, who is a doctor, are considering adopting children with special needs.

“My wife came home one day from the hospital and brought up the subject,” Schultz explained. ”She asked me what I thought about adopting children with special needs, even children that the doctors believed would only live a short time on this earth. She lovingly said that caring for children in this situation is something we should consider and pray about for our future. 

“She shared: ‘Before they go to heaven, I want them to experience what a great Christmas is like, what a great birthday is like and most importantly, let them know they are loved well on this earth—before they get to heaven and are held in the arms of God.’ The more I thought about it, I realized that as Christians, we are called to love. If that means loving a baby that will be here seven minutes or 70 years, it’s showing love that makes a difference.”

MADISON, Ala. (RNS)—For the entire lifetime of his daughter, Joey Karr smiled into her eyes. Then the infant, who couldn’t overcome a fatal form of dwarfism, died in his wife’s arms as their other three children patted their sister.

Photographer Kelly Clark Baugher caught that lifetime of love in photos—images now sacred with the weight of life and loss that the death of a baby brings.

Joey Karr shares a lifetime of love with his daughter, Janie Beth, after she is unhooked from life support. The family was photographed as part of the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep project. (PHOTO/RNS/Courtesy Kelly Clark Baugher)

Baugher is one of a small but devoted number of professional photographers who volunteer their time at hospitals to take pictures of heartbreakingly short-lived joy.

A Colorado-based group, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, sends professional photographers—if the families request them—to record their child’s brief life.

“It’s one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever done,” Baugher said as she looked through photos from more than 60 families she and photographer Mary Ellen Pollard have served.

“It’s almost as though time slows down in that room. I will never forget the feeling. I felt God in that room.”

She refers to the hospital rooms where parents sit with an infant that was stillborn or has been disconnected from life support when death has become the kindest option. The photographers stay at the periphery, quietly working without a flash as they record the fleeting moments.

The idea is macabre only for people who haven’t lived through it, said Ken and Amy Salter, who became the parents of twin boys born last fall, one of whom died after months in neonatal intensive care. They agreed to have their last minutes photographed when nurses suggested they call Baugher.

“The photographs are a lasting comfort,” said Amy Salter, who now volunteers as a parent coordinator for Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. “Yes, it was difficult, but to have pictures, to remember the little smile he makes, his little fuzzy head—it’s priceless.”

The photographers make a CD of the photographs after they edit the photos, giving parents finished pictures with the calm sheen of magazine shots. Parents can choose to print them or look at them—or not. Many find themselves returning to them often for a quiet space of remembering and weeping, Salter said.

Nurses who have assisted families going through such a wrenching time have seen how the photos become, later, a source of comfort as people thread the long valley of grief.

“Pictures, as well as clothing, footprints, handprints, stuffed animals and blankets are tangible reminders to these families of the precious little life they have lost,” said Ashley Ray, a nurse in Huntsville, Ala., who works with bereaved parents.

“It is so awesome to be able to offer these families professional photos of their sweet babies.”

For the photographers, it’s a ministry, Mary Ellen Pollard said.

“I had my son two months early, and he is still with us on this side of heaven,” Pollard said. “He spent two months in the NICU. We were told he was not going to survive, but our son went home. Beside us, there was a family whose daughter didn’t. I needed to do something to give back.”

The photographs help to make the lifetime of their daughter real, said Joey and Michelle Karr, who lost their daughter, Janie Beth.

“The one time Janie Beth opened her eyes, Kelly happened to catch that on film. I never even noticed she was taking a picture,” Joey Karr said.

But Baugher noticed the moment when the tiny face peers up at her father from his arms.

“It’s like she looked right into his soul,” Baugher said,

—Kay Campbell writes for The Huntsville Times in Huntsville, Ala.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. —For almost 30 years, Michael W. Smith has been taking listeners on a musical journey into the heart of worship while delivering powerful messages about grace, love and redemption through his songs.

As one of the most popular contemporary Christian musicians, Smith has amassed an impressive catalog of achievements. His 21 albums have garnered multiple honors, including an American Music Award, three Grammy Awards, 44 Dove Awards from the Gospel Music Association and 33 No. 1 radio hits. In addition, he holds 16 gold, seven platinum and two double-platinum albums for career sales approaching 15 million. In 2009, he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

He also has scored several film projects and has been featured by a variety of media outlets including FOX and Friends, Hannity and Colmes, USA Today, Newsweek, NBC’s Today Show and Nightly News, Larry King Live, Good Morning America and many others. But Smith has remained committed to shining the spotlight on God. 

In addition to his music, Smith desires to create platforms that would reach out and help those in need. He established Rocketown in his hometown of Nashville, which serves as a safe place for young people to enjoy music and for artists to be discovered. 

He also raises awareness for a variety of mission organizations, including Compassion International and Samaritan’s Purse.  Following the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Smith traveled to Haiti with Samaritan’s Purse. He also co-wrote the song, “Come Together Now,” and gathered a community of artists to record the song to benefit Haiti relief efforts.

His tours consistently rank among the best-attended in the country, and he doesn’t miss a beat sharing the gospel with audiences.

His newest album, Wonder, chronicles songs about life’s most heart-wrenching moments, as well as the unexpected joys.

“I hope that these songs will help people to realize that they can get through whatever situation they are dealing with, if they trust in God,” Smith said.

“Even in the midst of adversities, just anchor down. Don’t cover it up with an addiction, but instead, trust in God’s promises and know that he will never forsake you. The ultimate goal is for these songs to lead people to believe in Jesus and accept God’s promises. If that happens, praise God, because I think it would allow a lot of people to be victorious and be able to finish well in this journey called life.”

This is a busy season in Smith’s life. This fall, he is on the “Make a Difference Tour” with speaker/author Max Lucado and musicians Third Day, TobyMac and Jason Gray. Immediately following this tour, he will join Franklin Graham’s Festival in Latvia and then embark on a tour in Hungary, Austria and Romania. 

In December, he will sing Christmas carols with symphony orchestras around the country. He will appear with the Dallas Symphony at the Meyerson Nov. 30-Dec. 1, and perform at Second Baptist Church in Houston Dec. 10.

While dealing with the demands of a hectic touring schedule, Smith emphasizes the importance of limiting distractions so he can spend time in God’s word. 

“There’s so much going on these days and so many distractions, especially with cell phones, computers and the Internet,” Smith said. 

“God continues to teach me the importance of just being still and being in awe of his creation. When I look up at the sky, I can’t help but think, ‘God is so awesome.’ 

“For me, the key to focusing on Christ and dwelling in his presence is removing all those distractions and finding a place where I can be alone and read his word. Sometimes that means turning the cell phone off, going to a park or someplace quiet and just spending some time reflecting on his glory.”

As the years pass by, Smith continues to be amazed and humbled by God leading this musical journey.

“I’m still amazed that I get to be part of building the kingdom through this gift that God has given me,” Smith said. 

“It’s something that I love to do and it’s changing the world a little bit, which blows my mind. Someone recently came up to me out of the blue and said they accepted Christ at one of my concerts 20 years ago. I thought that was incredible. 

“Another time, a man shared about a time when he was going to commit suicide and already had the gun loaded. By God’s divine intervention, just as this man was about the pull the trigger, he happened to hear one of my songs which addressed the issue of suicide and realized he couldn’t go through with taking his life. That man ended up giving his life to the Lord, and now, he’s married with a family. That story right there is worth my whole career.”

Study says more link Christian faith to being American. As the United States has grown more diverse, more Americans believe being a Christian is a key aspect of being “truly American,” researchers say. Purdue University scholars found that between 1996 and 2004, Americans who saw Christian identity as a “very important” attribute of being American increased from 38 percent to 49 percent. Scholars said the findings, published in the journal Sociology of Religion, couldn’t definitively be tied to a particular event, but they suspect the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could have played a role. The findings are based on an analysis of data from the General Social Survey, collected by the National Opinion Research Center, in which more than 1,000 respondents were queried in 1996 and 2004. In a separate survey, Public Religion Research Institute found 42 percent believe “America has always been and is currently a Christian nation.”

Most Protestant pastors nix Obama. Six out of every 10 Protestant pastors say they disapprove of President Obama’s job performance, a LifeWay Research survey found. Researchers said of the 61 percent who disapprove of Obama’s work, 47 percent disapprove strongly. The survey found 30 percent of pastors approve of the president’s performance, including 14 percent who strongly approve. Nine percent were undecided. When the Southern Baptist-affiliated research group surveyed Protestant pastors about their voting intentions just before the 2008 elections, 20 percent indicated they planned to vote for Obama, compared to 55 percent who planned to vote for GOP candidate John McCain. The new research was based on interviews with 1,000 Protestant clergy Oct. 7-14 and had an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. Researchers also found 84 percent of Protestant pastors disagreed with the idea of pastors endorsing political candidates from the pulpit.

Stem cell-funding agency apologizes for poem. The California agency that distributes public funds for stem cell research has apologized for honoring a poem that appropriated language from the Last Supper. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine held a poetry contest to promote Stem Cell Awareness Day and draw attention to the complex and controversial field of medical research. When the two winners were announced, some Christian groups protested that one, “Stem C,” by Tyson Anderson, was blasphemous. The poem begins, “This is my body/which is given for you,” and concludes, “Take this/in remembrance of me,” words of Jesus during the Last Supper as recorded in the Gospels and memorialized at Christian worship services during Communion. The California institute, which helps distribute $3 billion in state funds for stem cell research, said it has removed the poem from its website. While many scientists say embryonic stem cell research holds great medical promise, some Christians call it a wanton destruction of human life because embryos must be destroyed in order to harvest the stem cells.

–Compiled from Religion News Service

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)—Many churches and denominations put a lot of effort into attracting new members only to lose many of them through a “back door”—a term used to describe people who regularly attended a church in the past but stopped.

“Churches have gone to great extreme effort to get people in the front door of the church,” Brad Waggoner of LifeWay Christian Resources said in a 2006 podcast. “There’s been some success numerically in that strategy, but very few people are talking about the back door of the church. That is: ‘Where do the people go that slip out of the life of the church?’

“The back door is just as important as the front door in determining the health of a local church.”

LifeWay President Thom Rainer described in an article on ChurchLeaders.com a meeting with more than 200 church leaders where nearly 90 percent indicated their churches had a problem with closing the back door.

“For years, the primary focus in many churches has been on the ‘front door’—people coming into the church,” Rainer said. “While such an emphasis remains the Great Commission priority, our research shows that churches and their leaders must not neglect the issue of the back door, commonly called assimilation.”

George Bullard of The Columbia Partnership, a Columbia, S.C.-based organization that helps churches pursue and sustain vital ministry, said churches face an “assimilation challenge” in the first year after new people begin attending to influence whether they become part of a community or slip through the back door.

“Church growth is a pretty simple concept,” Bullard said. “You get more people who have not been regular attendees and members to become regular attendees and members. You get more regular attendees and members to deepen their involvement in their church and its disciple-making activities. You get less-regular attendees and members to become bored, apathetic or offended and leave the church. If the second thing does not happen, the third thing is likely to happen.”

Mike James, discipleship and assimilation coordinator for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, said in a blog that assimilation is the difference between a church that is like Velcro—where people stick—or Teflon—where people join but stop attending.

Every church should have a strategy for getting first-time visitors to return and a follow-up plan to get them back a second time, James said. It begins by placing value on guests. “Scripture tells us to be warm and friendly to the people we meet,” he said.

James recommends treating every person like he or she is a guest. “Even your own members need a good welcome and a warm greeting,” he said.

The simplest and most effective way to attract guests is to invite them, James said. Polls show that between 75 percent and 90 percent attend church because a friend or relative invited them.

“Churches must be intentional in this process, or we become a revolving door with as many people going out the back door as we have coming through the front door,” James said.

Four things need to happen within the first year for people to assimilate into a new church, Bullard said.

• Make attendance a habit.

First, he said, they must have established a pattern of regular attendance. By today’s standards, “in a culture that no longer sits around on Sundays,” Bullard said, regular attendance is between 39 and 42 Sundays a year.

Research indicates the American church went through a period of more than 10 years when churches significantly lowered their expectations of members and attendees, Rainer said. The result was an exodus of people from the church.

“Why would I want to be a part of something that expects nothing of me?” Rainer quoted a former active church member talking to the research team. Many churches now are attempting to remedy the problem with new-member classes, where expectations of service, stewardship and attendance are clearly established.

Common names for such classes are “Connections,” “Membership 101” or “Discovery,” James noted.

“Give it any name you desire, but by all means start one,” he said.

• Get connected.

Second, Bullard said, they must have connected with some kind of teaching/learning experience such as a small group or Sunday school class.

“Churches that close the back door seek to get as many of their members as possible into small groups,” Waggoner said. “In some churches, these groups meet in homes. In other churches, the small group is a Sunday school class that meets at the church. The key issue, according to our research, is that the small group is an open group, meaning it has no predetermined termination date, and anyone can enter the group at any point.”

• Develop deep relationships.

Third, Bullard said, they need to have developed friends “they call at 3 a.m.,” a reference to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign national-security ad featuring a ringing phone in the White House at 3 a.m. and posing a question to voters about who they want answering the phone.

Win Arn, a pioneer in church growth, showed years ago that if somebody can make five friends at a church, they are must less likely to drop out, Waggoner noted. “We need to create opportunities for people to build friendships and to get to know folks,” Waggoner said. “Just sitting in the pew is never God’s intention for any Christian.”

The more new members connect with longer-term members, the greater the opportunity for assimilation, Rainer said. One twist the research found, he said, is that most such relationships develop before the new member ever comes to church. In other words, members first developed relationships with people outside the walls of the church and then invited them after the relationship was established.

• Go to work.

Finally, Bullard said, they need to get “some kind of job,” whether elected, appointed or as an ongoing volunteer.

“There’s no doubt about it that when you involve people in the ministries of the church, they are much more likely to give and much more likely to stay,” Waggoner agreed. “If they’re just pew sitters, they are more vulnerable to become disillusioned, and we’ll lose some of the people”

The earlier a new member or attendee can get involved in a church’s ministries, the higher the likelihood of effective assimilation, Waggoner said. “Churches that close the back door have a clear plan to get people involved and doing ministry as quickly as possible.”

“If people don’t do those four things, at the end of their first year, they are going to re-evaluate whether they want to stay in this church,” Bullard said.

While not a primary motivation for assimilating new people, Bullard added, an “unintended consequence” is that people who buy into the church with their time give five times more money than those who do not invest their time and energy.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Oklahoma state Rep. Rex Duncan expects his “Save Our State” referendum to keep Islamic law out of state courts to pass easily on Nov. 2. He’s less certain a similar measure could pass in Michigan.

The reason? Muslims have have established a foothold in and around Detroit, and they wield enough political power to stop it, he insists.

“I don’t believe anybody who would spend five minutes looking at the landscape and the political dynamics of Dearborn, Mich., would for one minute entertain the idea that they could pass a preemptive strike to keep Shariah law out of the courts,” Duncan said.

Duncan and other conservatives—including Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle in Nevada—ominously warn that Muslims are determined to impose Shariah law on the U.S. legal system.

When opponents of a proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero rallied at the site in September, many carried signs that depicted “SHARIA,” dripping in blood. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich got a standing ovation at September’s Values Voter Summit when he called for “a federal law that says Shariah law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States.”

The odd thing is that no one in Oklahoma, Michigan or anywhere else is calling for Shariah—including and especially Muslims.

Instead, Muslim American leaders say Duncan’s referendum is a concrete example of fanning hyster-ia about the myth that they want to impose Shariah, which many Americans associate with misogyny, religious intolerance and cruel punishments.

“This is another right-wing fantasy that started on the hate blogs and worked its way into the mainstream media,” said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C. “Where is the evidence of the takeover?”

Perhaps the most frequently cited example comes from New Jersey, where a Moroccan Muslim immigrant who beat and raped his wife was acquitted by a local court that ruled the husband was acting according to his religious beliefs. An appellate court reversed the ruling, and many Muslim Americans say they found the initial New Jersey court ruling as absurd and cruel as non-Muslims.

What they do want, however, is protection for reasonable constitutionally protected acts, like wearing a headscarf or praying at work.

“Accommodating a Muslim employee’s request to wear a religious headscarf at work in no way imposes religious law on the workplace, any more than when employees wear a Latin cross or a Star of David,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s Freedom of Religion and Belief program. “Somehow, basic religious exercise by Muslims is viewed as imposition by that group of its own faith on others.”

Frank Gaffney, president of the conservative Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., disagreed.

“The principle difference is that Shariah calls for the destruction of our country; Jewish law does not,” said Gaffney, whose institute released a 177-page report recently called “Shariah: The Threat to America.”

Examples of “creeping” Shariah infiltrating American society cited in the report include Muslims building mosques, using Islamic financing to buy homes, and depositing money in Islamic banks, which forbid interest and avoid investments in products like alcohol and tobacco.

“So when you’re talking about saying, ‘Well it’s just another religious court system that is operating kind of like the Jews do,’ it’s completely different; it’s sedition,” Gaffney said.

Muslims say such views reflect either bigotry or ignorance about Shariah, which means “path” in Arabic and is based on the Quran and the recorded teachings of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, an Islamic scholar at Emory University, argues in his 2008 book, Islam and the Secular State, that Shariah is meant to be followed as a personal religious code, not imposed as a public legal system covering all citizens in society.

“The moment the state imposes Shariah, it stops being Islamic,” An-Na’im said.

Other Muslims acknowledge some Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, have legal systems based on strict interpretations of Shariah. That doesn’t mean, however, Muslims elsewhere desire the same thing. In fact, many condemn it.

“Assuming all Muslims follow medieval Islamic rules today is like assuming that all Catholics follow ninth-century canon law,” wrote Sumbul Ali-Karamali, a Muslim woman raised in California and author of The Muslim Next Door: The Quran, the Media and That Veil Thing, in a recent Huffington Post column.

Gaffney, whose report called Shariah the “preeminent totalitarian threat of our time,” dismissed alternative interpretations of Shariah as inauthentic. “There is only one interpretation of Shariah law,” Gaffney said.

Anti-Shariah legislation may never be introduced in Michigan, but Duncan believes other states will follow Oklahoma’s lead and pass similar legislation to ban Shariah.

“There are other states, I believe a dozen or so, maybe more, who are currently in discussions with me,” Duncan said, “and watching what we’re doing.”

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (RNS)—Harvard University scholar Robert Putnam has earned a reputation as an expert on the threads that hold America’s social fabric intact. His 2001 bestseller, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, drew national attention to an alarming decline in civic engagement.

His new book, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, with co-author David Campbell, plumbs the apparent divide between religious and nonreligious Americans. Across 688 pages, the two argue that Americans honor their neighbors’ religious differences largely because they’ve cultivated personal ties across sectarian lines.

Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam’s new book, American Grace,

As it turns out, Putnam lives by that same ethic, intentionally shortening distances between Jews and Christians, Americans and internationals, heartland believers and coastal skeptics.

It’s a long way from Putnam’s hometown of Port Clinton, Ohio, to the ivy-covered walls of Harvard, but friends and associates say the relationships he formed along the way continue to deeply inform his work.

“I’m talking to people in the grocery store; he’s talking to congressional leaders,” said Virginia Park, who’s known Putnam almost 50 years since their time together at Port Clinton’s Trinity Methodist Church.

“But he’s never lost touch. … He reaches back into the community and communicates with people,” especially during important times like reunions or a death in the family.

Putnam’s co-author, Campbell, said there’s still a lot of Port Clinton that shows up in Putnam’s approach to his work at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

“It’s easy to caricature someone like Bob as just a pointed headed intellectual who lives in Cam-bridge,” said Campbell, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame. “Bob is an intellectual, and he does live in Cambridge, … but he comes from a background that I think gives him a healthy perspective on the role of religion in American society.”

When research for American Grace brought Putnam from famously secular Cambridge to a conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran congregation in Texas, the evangelical terrain didn’t feel especially foreign to him.

“Actually, it wasn’t so strange,” he said. “We went to a church picnic up under the oaks on the grounds of the church, and it was wonderful. I didn’t feel like, ‘What am I doing here?’ I felt completely comfortable in that setting.”

Putnam is concerned, however, that many Americans don’t share his fluid comfort among believers and nonbelievers. Instead, they fear people unlike themselves, often out of ignorance.

“People who are really secular and don’t really know much about religious people at all … project their worst fears,” Putnam said.

“They imagine that all evangelicals are would-be theocrats, that they’re sort of Taliban-like and would like to get rid of all the non-Christians. Conversely, evangelicals (and) other deeply religious people know about secular people from what they see on TV and think, ‘These people are really godless. … They’re Satan personified.”’

When he started work on American Grace, he was confident “that they were both just wrong.”

Research for the book confirmed that hunch: on the whole, neither seculars nor religious people are as hostile or eager to undermine the other as they’re purported to be in popular media.

Putnam’s own religious journey mirrors many of the findings in his book. In 1963, he broke with contemporary norms by marrying a Jew from an intellectual Chicago family. Within a few years, he’d converted to Judaism.

Putnam isn’t one to debate theology. He says he’s “puzzled” on theological matters, though he declines to describe himself as agnostic or anything else. He notes that on high holy days, he attends services not as an academic observer but as someone “there to worship God.”

His rabbi at Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Mass., Howard Jaffe, said Putnam has helped him better appreciate the intrinsic value of tight-knit communities and improve his relationships with religious leaders in the area.

“My conversations with Bob always inspired me to be more open to and aware of what’s going on in other religious organizations,” Jaffe said. “Bob’s work on the importance of working together (with non-Jews) inspired me to be more involved in developing that kind of social fabric.”

Putnam brings his passion for well-formed communities to his professional life as well. The research team for American Grace included about 25 graduate students and other assistants, who were encouraged over meals to tell personal stories from their varied backgrounds as Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons and others.

So deep is Putnam’s commitment to learning from others that he keeps an easel upright in his living room at all times for spontaneous brainstorming sessions.

“He loves people, and he loves ideas,” said Sean McGraw, a former research assistant who’s now a Catholic priest and assistant professor of political science at Notre Dame. “Working in teams gives him the best of both.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Just as the band’s name reflects its one-of-a-kind identity, the Irish modern worship band Bluetree desires to stand out and make a difference by leading worship in places seldom reached with the gospel because of political oppression.

“Bluetree stands for standing out,” lead singer Aaron Boyd said. “The whole concept behind the name is that if you’re walking through a forest, everything you look at is pretty much going to be green. But if you saw this tree that was bright blue, it would stand out. You would look at it and take notice of it. As Christians, Jesus Christ has called us to be salt and light in this world and really make a difference.”

While on a mission trip to Pattaya, Thailand, the Belfast-based band was allowed to perform worship songs in the Climax Bar, a club which doubles as a brothel in the Red Light district. During this time, the band was inspired to write the worship song, “God of This City,” as a message of hope to the people of Pattaya.

The song gained international exposure when it was sung by American Idol winner Kris Allen and recorded by Chris Tomlin on the Passion: God of This City and Hello Love albums. The song has become a staple in contemporary worship services around the world.

Boyd has also written a book, God of This City: Greater Things Have Yet to Come, that provides an in-depth journey through the lyrics and story behind the song.

“We went to Pattaya to lead worship, help clean up the streets and help in orphanages,” Boyd said. “We wanted to see how bad the conditions were, so we could better know how to minister and let the people know that there’s so much more to life than how they’re living now. 

“Right in the middle of this horrific place, we were inspired to write ‘God of This City,’ as a desperate cry to proclaim the truth of who God is. The challenge in that song is for Christians to go into cities of this world, share Christ’s love and help people understand the truth of who God is. It’s been amazing to hear stories about how that song is impacting people around the world.”

Forever changed by witnessing the effects of the city’s harsh poverty, the band also was prompted to launch StandOut International, an organization devoted to rescuing children from prostitution and giving them a home, an education and skills to make a living on their own.

Bluetree is a Belfast-based band that takes seriously Jesus' call for believers "to be salt and light in this world and really make a difference.”

While desiring to make an impact around the globe, Bluetree recently went on another mission trip—entering Burma, where they led worship at a refugee camp. Despite the threat of persecution if they had been caught, Boyd said, they were grateful for the opportunity to spend a few hours worshipping with people who risk their lives every day for their faith in Christ.

“It’s horrific what is going on in Burma, the number of people who are living in fear for their lives every single day,” Boyd said. “It’s just not right, and we wanted to do our part to encourage Christians over there and let them know that they are loved and aren’t forgotten. As we were leaving, an 8-year-old girl came up and said, ‘Please don’t forget that we exist.’”

Boyd said this experience greatly affected the band and increased their desire to share the gospel around the world. 

“When you come to a night of worship with Bluetree, it’s not a spectator event or to be entertained,” Boyd said. “As a songwriter, I take what I learn from the Bible and translate it into songs that we can sing over our lives. Our heart is that people will come ready to worship and be engaged. We want people to walk away knowing that there’s so much more to a relationship with Christ than just having your sins forgiven.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—If you stacked all the Bibles sitting in American homes, the tower would rise 29 million feet, nearly 1,000 times the height of Mount Everest.

More than 90 percent of American households own a Bible, and the average family owns three, according to pollsters at the Barna Group.

The American Bible Society hands out 5 million copies of the Holy Bible each year; 1.5 billion Gideon Bibles wait in hotel rooms worldwide.

Scripture outsells the latest diet fads, murder mysteries and celebrity bios year after year. Evangelical publishers alone sold an estimated 20 million Bibles in recession-battered 2009, raking in about $500 million in sales, according to Michael Covington, information and education director of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

Experts say it’s nearly impossible to calculate exactly how many Bibles are sold each year. But one thing is clear: The Good Book is great for business.

“Bibles are in many ways a cash cow,” said Phyllis Tickle, a former longtime religion editor at Publishers Weekly. “The Bible is the mainstay of many a publishing program.”

However, some Christian scholars wonder whether too much Good News sometimes can be a bad thing, as a major new translation and waves of books marking the 400th anniversary of the venerable King James Bible inundate the market this fall.

The assortment of translations and “niche Bibles” (such as The Holy Bible: Stock Car Racing Edition) sow confusion and division among Christians, invite ridicule from relativists, and risk reducing God’s word into just another personal-shopping preference, the scholars say.

“I think we are drifting more and more to a diverse Babel of translations,” said David Lyle Jeffrey, former provost of Baylor University and an expert on biblical translations. Jeffrey believes Americans need a “common Bible”—a role the King James Version played for centuries—to communicate the grandeur of Scripture without reducing it to “shopping-center-level” discourse.

“When we have so much diversity, we lose our common voice,” he said. “It is in effect moving away from a common membership in the body of Christ into disparate, confusing misrepresentations of the rich wisdom of Scripture, which ought to unify us.”

Leland Ryken, an English professor at Wheaton College, a leading evangelical school in Illinois, was more blunt.

“When there is wide divergence among Bible translations, readers have no way of knowing what the original text really says,” Ryken said. “It’s like being given four different scores for the same football game, or three contradictory directions for getting to a town in the middle of the state.”

Christian publishers, meanwhile, say they have an obligation—even a divine calling—to make Scripture ready and readable to as many people as possible.

Despite the Bible’s ubiquity, Americans are not necessarily reading or absorbing Scripture, said Paul Franklyn, associate publisher of the Common English Bible, a new translation sponsored by five mainline Protestant publishers.

For example, half of Christians cannot name the four Gospels; a third cannot identify Genesis as the Bible’s first book, according to a recent study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The new Common English Bible aims to present an easy-to-read translation from the “theological center,” Franklyn said. Its New Testament debuts this fall; the entire Bible is due next year.

Despite the profitability of Bible publishing, penetrating the crowded and competitive market is a “big risk,” requiring equal parts scholarship and salesmanship, Franklyn said. The Common English Bible publishers spent $1 million on the translation and will spend another $3 million to get people to “pay attention” to it, he said.

Scholars estimate at least 200 English translations have been published since 1900—many of them revisions of earlier texts. The market can be so confusing and crowded that half of customers who visit Christian stores to buy a Bible leave without one, according to a study presented to Christian retailers in 2006.

“Heck, I’m overwhelmed, and I’m supposed to know what the hee-haw I’m doing,” said Tickle, author of The Great Emergence, a well-regarded book on the future of Christianity. “‘Bibliolatry’ is not a word I use very often, but we are probably veering very close to it.”

There’s even a cottage industry of experts—such as Paul Wegner, a professor at Phoenix Seminary in Arizona—to help people choose a Bible.

“People almost throw up their hands, there are so many Bibles out there,” he said. “Maybe they’ve created a market for me.”

To counter consumer confusion, publishers began marketing Bibles based on “felt needs,” or secular interests, said Andy Butcher, an editor at the journal Christian Retailing.

Christian publisher Zondervan’s 2010 catalog of Bibles (The Book of Good Books) runs 223 pages and includes Bibles tailored toward black children, students, spiritual seekers, women with cancer, busy dads, new moms, recovering addicts, surfers, grandmothers and camouflage enthusiasts.

Tim Jordan, a marketing manager at B&H Publishing Group, a leading Christian publisher that sells niche Bibles, compared them to conversation starters. “It’s just being smart about where people are at and trying to meet them there,” he said. “We need to engage people into the Bible.”

Ryken, however, suspects publishers’ motives may be more economic than spiritual. By definition, niche Bibles are designed to corner a market segment, he said. In the process, “the Bible loses its identity as the authoritative word of God and becomes something trivial, on par with shoes for hikers or luggage for the international set.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)—Seeking to develop strategies to prevent formerly active members from leaving through the so-called “back door,” LifeWay Research has conducted surveys to better understand why people leave.

“I think we have a lot of strategies for getting people into the front door but not necessarily (for closing) the back door,” Brad Waggoner, currently vice president of the Broadman and Holman Publishing Group, said in a podcast.

In the summer of 2006, the research arm of LifeWay Christian Resources, conducted a survey of “formerly churched adults” who regularly attended a Protestant church as an adult in the past but stopped attending somewhere along the way.

Most (59 percent) cited “changes in life situation” as the reason they stopped attending church. Some of those changes came down to personal priorities. One in five (19 percent) said they were “simply too busy” to attend church or cited conflict with responsibilities related to family and home. About 17 percent said they moved too far from church, 15 percent cited work, and 12 percent said a divorce or separation caused them to drop out.

The second-most-common category or reason adults gave for leaving the church (37 percent) was “disenchantment” with the pastor of the church. Common reasons were that church members “seemed hypocritical” (17 percent) or that the church members “were judgmental of others” (17 percent) or “the church was run by a clique that discouraged involvement” (12 percent). Those adults said they felt like outsiders looking in, revealing that dynamics of leadership and relationships within a church can become obstacles to assimilating new members.

Just two of the top 10 reasons named for leaving the church had to do with spiritual causes. Nearly three in 10 said either “church was not helping me to develop spiritually” (14 percent) or they “stopped believing in organized religion” (14 percent).

About one-third of formerly churched adults said either that nobody contacted them after they left or nobody seemed to care.

Another LifeWay study looked at “church switchers,” Protestant Americans who have attended more than one church regularly as an adult.

“There are two types of people who slip out through the back door of the church,” Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research, said in a press release. “One group is probably leaving church permanently, and the other group is going to find a new church.”

Other than moving, researchers found that people change churches for one of two reasons—they are fleeing their former church or being drawn to another. The former most often is the case—58 percent said the greatest impact on their decision to move was “my need/desire to leave my previous church” compared to 42 percent who said they were attracted by a desire to join their current congregation.

The most common specific reason given was that the old church “was not helping me to develop spiritually”—cited by 28 percent of church switchers. Another 20 percent said they left because they “did not feel engaged or involved in meaningful church work.”

Other common reasons were disenchantment with church members or the pastor. Sixteen percent said they left because they were unhappy with changes like a new pastor or a different worship style.

Finally, LifeWay Research focused in 2007 on young adults ages 18-30. That research found more than two-thirds of young adults who attend church at least a year in high school stop attending church regularly for at least a year between ages 18 and 22.

The vast majority (97 percent) of reasons young adults gave for leaving church related to changes in life situation. The most frequent reason was self-imposed change: “I simply wanted a break from church” (27 percent). But just one in five said they planned in advance to take a break from church after they finished high school.

One-fourth said they stopped attending church when they moved to college, and nearly as many (23 percent) said they stopped going because of work responsibilities. About one in five (22 percent) said they moved too far away from the church to continue attending, and for whatever reason, they did not find a closer church.

Of the 30 percent of former teens who stayed in church as young adults, two-thirds described the church as “a vital part of my relationship with God.” Those most likely to remain active in church—by a margin of 63 percent to 42 percent—found their pastor’s sermons relevant to everyday life. Nearly half (46 percent) cited meaningful relationships with multiple adults, such as Sunday school teachers and volunteers, as a factor keeping them involved in church.

HARTFORD, Conn.—Large congregations are more likely than small churches to emphasize evangelism and recruitment of new members but significantly less likely to contact members who stop attending, according to a recent study.

A little more than half of surveyed congregations said they definitely would contact an active member who stopped attending to find out why, and another quarter said they probably would.

mong churches larger than 500 members, however, just 37 percent reported a practice of contacting members who stop attending.

Hartford Seminary’s David Roozen, author of the Faith Communities Today 2008 survey, said the finding “suggests a potentially simple way such congregations could enhance their growth prospects.”

The study, conducted by the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership, an interfaith coalition of denominations and faith groups formed 10 years ago, found that churches that strongly view themselves to be “spiritually vital and alive” are more intentional in their attentiveness to new attendees than less spiritually vital congregations.

Just as there are obstacles to attracting new members, Roozen said, there can be obstacles that make it difficult for people to participate regularly in their chosen congregation. Time—typically because of school- or sports-related activities or work schedules—rated significantly higher than location factors like driving distance, parking and fear of crime, the study found.

A frequently used indicator of organizational vitality is how easy or hard it is for congregations to find people to serve in their organizational structures, Roozen said.

“The good news is that only one in 10 congregations say they often can’t find enough people to serve,” he reported. “Less encouraging is that only three in 10 say they have no problem.”

For the remaining 60 percent, Roozen said, “finding people to serve is a challenge, but they typically succeed.”

“Somewhat counter-intuitively,” Roozen noted, is that churches with fewer committees are the most likely to struggle finding people to serve, regardless of the church size. Less surprising is that congregations with declining worship attendance also are most likely to struggle finding people to serve.

Congregations that struggle to find people to serve are more likely to have the same people serving over and over again—resulting in a lack of rotation among leaders—and less likely to have lay leaders who represent the diversity of the congregation’s participants in terms of age, race and gender.

Lay volunteers provide the primary “labor force” for the vast majority of congregations, Roozen said, making their “care and feeding” a critical issue. He found it surprising, therefore, that less than half of congregations publicly recognize and thank volunteers for their service on a regular basis. A quarter said they provided regular training sessions to new leaders, which compounds the problem of finding new leaders among people who may feel unqualified to serve.

Congregations that recognize and train volunteers, Roozen said, are more than twice as likely to rate themselves as spiritually vital.

Conflict also was a factor in people leaving the church. The study found leaving is the most likely response to serious conflict, especially when it involves leadership issues or worship. Withholding contributions is not as prevalent a response as researchers expected, but the study said withholding money is more popular among old-line Protestants, while membership mobility is the preferred response of evangelicals.

“A leader leaving is rare except, as one would expect, in conflicts about leadership,” Roozen noted.

Faith Communities Today is a series of national surveys of American congregations launched in 2000. Involving more than 14,000 local churches, synagogues, temples and mosques, it was the largest national survey of congregations ever conducted in the United States.

The study, described as “a public profile of the organizational backbone of religion in America—congregations—at the beginning of a new millennium,” will be replicated in 2010.