WASHINGTON (ABP) — A landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling June 28 that possessing a handgun is a constitutional right is expected to unleash a wave of new lawsuits, including challenges to state laws that forbid carrying of concealed weapons in church.

Two years after ruling the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals to own guns for protection while striking down a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., the high court voted 5-4 to overturn lower-court rulings that had upheld similar prohibitions on gun ownership in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill, as constitutional.

The court rejected arguments by the cities that the Second Amendment applies only to the federal government, holding the constitutional right to bear and keep arms “fully applicable to the states.”

Writing for the majority, Associate Justice Samuel Alito said the ruling striking down laws enacted to protect residents from “the loss of property and injury or death from firearms” does not mean that state and local governments cannot regulate firearms in ways like prohibiting gun ownership by felons and the mentally ill.

Alito did, however, recognize gun ownership as a fundamental right, rejecting arguments by gun-control supporters that the Second Amendment’s primary intent was to prevent the national government from disarming a citizens’ militia.

“This decision makes absolutely clear that the Second Amendment protects the God-given right of self-defense for all law-abiding Americans, period,” said Chris Cox, chief lobbying for the National Rifle Association.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called it “a landmark decision” and pledged to “work to ensure this constitutional victory is not transformed into a practical defeat by activist judges, defiant city councils or cynical politicians who seek to pervert, reverse or nullify the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision through Byzantine labyrinths of restrictions and regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical, reasonable way.”

John Monroe, attorney for the gun-rights group GeorgiaCarry.org, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution his group would look for “the lowest-hanging fruit” — provisions most vulnerable to attack — in a gun bill signed into law June 8 by Gov. Sonny Perdue. The new Georgia law lists specific places where guns are prohibited. They include churches, temples and mosques.

Currently 48 states allow citizens to carry concealed weapons either with or without a permit, but most don’t allow guns in places where large crowds or children are gathered or in “sensitive” locations like bars, government buildings and sporting events.

Ten states — Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Texas and Wyoming — specifically bar concealed-weapon permit owners from carrying their weapons into a church or other house of worship.

South Carolina prohibits guns in a “church or other established religious sanctuary” unless permission is obtained from the appropriate church official or governing body. 

In Utah, people who get licenses to carry concealed weapons can carry them in a church unless a “No Guns” notice is posted at the door or the church registers with the state as a no-guns site.

Virginia prohibits taking a firearm to a place of worship “without good and sufficient reason.”

While controversial, rare but high-profile incidents– like a 2007 church shooting that killed two and injured three at New Life Church in Colorado Springs; a July 2008 attack by a gunman to killed two and wounded six at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., and the murder of a Southern Baptist preacher shot down in his pulpit in Maryville, Ill., during a worship service in 2009 — have prompted some state lawmakers to view guns in church as a necessary evil.

On June 15 the Louisiana Senate resurrected a bill killed a week earlier in a committee that would allow congregants to carry weapons on church property as part of a security force.

Lawmakers in Kansas are trying to remove restrictions in a concealed weapons law adopted in 2006. Kansas voters will decide this fall whether to amend the state Constitution to include a right to bear arms.

Ohioans for Concealed Carry have petitioned lawmakers in their state to eliminate restrictions on carrying concealed weapons in church.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley moved quickly after the Supreme Court decision, calling the city council to meet in special session July 2 to get a new gun ordinance on the books in anticipation that the city’s 28-year-old handgun ban will be struck down by an appellate court. Observers expect the new ordinance to limit each resident to one handgun and prohibit gun stores from operating in Chicago.

“We can expect two things as a result of today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago,” Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center and Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said June 28. “The gun lobby and gun criminals will use it to try to strike down gun laws, and those legal challenges will continue to fail.”

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

LYNCHBURG, Va. (ABP) — Liberty University has demoted the president of its theological seminary after investigating claims that he exaggerated or fabricated parts of his testimony about converting from militant Islam to Christianity.

Trustees of the school begun by Jerry Falwell issued a statement June 25 saying Ergun Caner made "factual statements that are self-contradictory" and that he would step down as dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary when his contract expires June 30. The statement said Caner was offered and accepted a contract allowing him to remain on the faculty as a professor for the next academic year.

Trustees said they accepted Caner's basic testimony of growing up a Muslim before converting to Christianity as a teenager but "found discrepancies related to matters such as dates, names and places of residence."

Liberty officials originally defended Caner, dean of the theology school since 2005, against blogs questioning written descriptions of his academic credentials and recorded testimonies about being trained as a jihadist terrorist while growing up in Turkey.

After media outlets including Christianity Today, Associated Baptist Press and the Lynchburg News-Advance ran stories showing that Caner in fact grew up in Ohio the son of a divorced Muslim father and Lutheran mother, the university announced May 10 that a committee would conduct a formal review.

The June 25 statement said Caner apologized for "discrepancies and misstatements that led to this review." A school official told the Lynchburg newspaper that Liberty would not be making any additional comments or giving interviews at present.

Caner, 43, has not commented about the investigation since a Feb. 25 statement admitting to "pulpit mistakes" but insisting "I have never intentionally misled anyone."

Questions about Caner's veracity surfaced publicly after Mohammad Khan, a 22-year-old Muslim college student in London, produced and posted 17 You Tube videos labeling Caner one of several charlatans claiming to be former Muslims and misrepresenting Islam to audiences after 9/11.

Later, James White, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, started blogging doubts about claims by Caner that he debated Muslims.

Southern Baptist blogs including FBC Jax Watchdog and Ministry of Reconciliation got involved about time that Caner accused the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention of using deception to witness to Muslims on the mission field.

"I just can't imagine that type of lying, and that's exactly what I call it," Caner said in a February podcast interview criticizing a method used to engage Muslims in conversations that critics say downplays important differences between Christianity and Islam. "So you're saying [IMB President] Jerry Rankin lies?" he continued. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

Caner later apologized for calling Rankin a liar, saying he "became an idiot" and "stepped over the line" in extending his criticism of the method to casting "aspersion on a brother."

Liberty is not formally tied with the Southern Baptist Convention, but former SBC presidents Bailey Smith, Jerry Vines, James Merritt, Jack Graham and Johnny Hunt serve on its board of trustees. Other Southern Baptist trustees include Ronnie Floyd, who recently chaired a Great Commission Task Force that studied the denomination's effectiveness, and Doyle Chauncey, founding executive director of the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, which supports Liberty University as a ministry partner.

Caner, the author of books including Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs, which he co-wrote in 2002 with his brother, Emir, president of the Georgia Baptist Convention-affiliated Truett-McConnell College, has been quoted in Baptist and secular media as an expert on Islam.

He has preached at prominent SBC churches including Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, and First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., where archived recordings preserve sermons he preached claiming he came to America to do what the 9/11 terrorists did before being saved from a martyr's death by accepting Christ.

"Jesus strapped a cross on his back so I wouldn't have to strap a bomb on mine," Caner said in a sermon at the SBC pastor's conference in 2004.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous stories:

Liberty U. to investigate alleged untruths by seminary president

Liberty U. backs seminary president amid charges of misrepresentation

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Liberty University is expected to release a report soon on whether Ergun Caner, president of the school’s Baptist Theological Seminary, fabricated or exaggerated his life story as a former Muslim extremist rescued by Jesus.

Caner is no ordinary ex-Muslim. His story has made him a favorite in conservative Christian circles, and many credit the charismatic preacher with helping boost enrollment at the school founded by the late Jerry Falwell.

Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., is facing an investigation by school officials on charges that he exaggerated or fabricated parts of his background as a Muslim convert to Christianity.  (RNS PHOTO/Courtesy Ergun Caner)

At the same time, Caner has become the poster boy for critics who say he’s just the latest charlatan in a line of supposedly ex-Muslim terrorists who have found an audience among some Christian fundamentalists seeking to attack Islam.

Most worrisome, the critics say, is that the self-styled former terrorists have been welcomed as “experts” on Islam and terrorism by religious institutions, universities, media outlets, members of Congress and even the military.

“These guys are to real terrorists what a squirt gun is to an AK-47,” said Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who has battled claims of religious discrimination at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“But this is not a joke. This is a national security threat.”

Caner, 43, repeatedly has claimed to have been raised as a Muslim extremist in Turkey but moved to Ohio as a teenager in 1978 and converted to Christianity.

“Until I was 15 years old, I was in the Islamic youth jihad,” he said in a November 2001 sermon at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla. “I was trained to do that which was done on 11 September, as were thousands of youth.”

In 2002, he wrote Inside Islam: An Insider’s Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs, with his brother Emir, president of Truett-McConnell College, a Baptist school in Cleveland, Ga.

In recent months, however, skeptical bloggers, such as London-based Mohammad Khan of FakeExMuslims.com, and Oklahoma-based Debbie Kaufman of the Ministry of Reconciliation blog, began unearthing documents and statements by Caner contradicting his own claims.

The Caner brothers’ own book, for example, states they were born in Sweden, not Turkey, and spent most of their time with their non-Muslim mother, not their Muslim father, after the parents divorced in the U.S.

Records indicate the family arrived in the U.S. in 1974, four years earlier than Ergun Caner has claimed.

So far, Caner and Liberty officials have declined comment.

Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., in a terse May 10 statement, said only that “in light of the fact that several newspapers have raised questions, we felt it necessary to initiate a formal inquiry.”

Other terrorists-turned-Christians have invited scrutiny as well, including U.S. citizens Walid Shoebat, author of Why We Want To Kill You, and Kamal Saleem, who has worked for Focus on the Family, and recently wrote The Blood of Lambs. Like Caner’s book, their books purport to be insider explorations of radical Islam.

Shoebat, who has said “Islam is the devil,” claims to have been recruited by the Palestine Liberation Organization as a teenager. In 1977, he has said, he threw a bomb on the roof of the Bethlehem branch of an Israeli bank. The bank, however, has no record of the incident, which never was reported by Israeli news outlets.

When asked by The Jerusalem Post in 2008 why there were no records, Shoebat surmised that the incident was not serious enough to merit news coverage. Yet four years earlier, he told Britain’s Sunday Telegraph: “I was terribly relieved when I heard on the news later that evening that no one had been hurt or killed by my bomb.”

On his website, Saleem claims to have carried out terror missions in Israel, fought with Afghan Mujahedeen against the Soviets, and came to the U.S. hoping to wage jihad against America. He also once claimed on the site that he was descended from the “grand wazir of Islam,” until skeptics pointed out that it was a nonsensical term, akin to calling someone the “governor of Christianity.”

Skeptics point out Shoebat and Saleem claim to have carried out their terrorist activities in the 1960s and 1970s, long before modern Islamic radicalism emerged in the 1980s. They also question why, if their terror claims are true, they’ve been able to retain their U.S. citizenship.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Caner, Shoebat, Saleem and others like them belong to an “industry” that is often perpetuated by some fundamentalist Christians.

“The people that are doing this do it to make money, or get converts, or to get some personal benefit,” Hooper said.

Muslims and non-Muslims alike are troubled that these alleged former terrorists have been welcomed as experts. They have appeared on CNN and Fox News and spoken at Harvard Law School. In 2008, they were featured speakers at a terrorism conference sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Academy, the findings of which were to be distributed across the Pentagon and Capitol Hill.

With the U.S. engaged in active combat in the heart of the Islamic world, Weinstein believes Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. military are actively promoting terrorists-turned-Christians—with potentially deadly consequences.

“These guys are spewing Islamophobic hatred, and the Pentagon laps it up. This is the kind of prejudice and bigotry that can lead to genocide,” said Weinstein.

Despite the evidence against them, Hooper believes these people will continue to be welcomed by some institutions because they preach what some audiences want to hear.

“As long as you attack Islam and demonize Muslims, you’re going to get a platform,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if your facts and background are wrong.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)—The Census Bureau reports the Hispanic population in the United States has more than doubled in the last 20 years, from 22 million in 1990 to a projected 47 million in 2010. In 40 years, experts project that one American in four will be Hispanic.

While that alarms many white Americans who fear losing the privileges that come with being part of a dominant culture, many evangelical Christians view it as a mission field.

The Southern Baptist Convention leads all denominations in starting new churches, more than 100 each month. A major focus of the SBC North American Mission Board is reaching Hispanics.

Nine out of 10 Southern Baptist congregations are predominantly Anglo. Hispanics are the predominant ethnic group in about 3 percent of the convention’s churches, but the number is growing.

In the decade between 1994 and 2003, the number of Hispanic Southern Baptist congregations grew from 1,561 to 2,711.

Ed Stetzer, director of SBC-affiliated LifeWay Research, recently said 66 percent of all new congregations added to the SBC since 1998 were ethnic or African-American.

“The majority of the new churches are not Anglo,” Stetzer told the Tennessean in January. “You look across the spectrum, and the Christian influence in the Southern Hemisphere is well represented here, and it’s the leading edge of Christianity. Latino churches are now planting Latino churches.”

Even among predominantly white Southern Baptist congregations, more than one in four —27 percent—have adult participants who are Hispanic.

This growing Latino presence sheds light on the normally socially conservative SBC’s surprisingly moderate stance on immigration.

More than 7,000 students and leaders attended Congreso at Baylor University this year.

In 2006 the convention passed a resolution calling on Christians to care for the needs of immigrants “regardless of their racial or ethnic background, country of origin, or legal status.”

It urged churches to encourage undocumented immigrants toward the path of legal status or citizenship and called on all Southern Baptists “to make the most of the tremendous opportunity for evangelism” among the immigrant population “to the end that these individuals might become both legal residents of the United States and loyal citizens of the kingdom of God.”

Richard Land of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission—usually aligned with the Religious Right on issues like abortion, homosexuality and pornography—has shown up alongside liberal Democrats like the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen. Charles Schumer to call for comprehensive immigration reform.

“It should be remembered that most of these undocumented workers who have broken the law by coming here illegally and thus should be penalized, did come here in order to work, whereas most of our home-grown criminals break the laws in order to avoid work,” Land said on his weekly radio program May 15.

Land supports immigration legislation that secures America’s borders, enforces existing laws including hiring of undocumented workers and provides an earned pathway to legal status or citizenship for the estimated 12 million foreigners living in the United States illegally.

Land’s compassion for the foreigner is both spiritual and pragmatic. With America becoming 1 percent more Hispanic each year, Republicans must adapt to demographic realities and address the perception that immigration reform is a Democratic issue.

“Hispanics are hard-wired to be like us on sanctity of life, marriage and issues of faith,” Land recently told CNN. “I’m concerned about being perceived as being unwelcoming to them.”

This concerns Cuban-born Miguel De La Torre, who teaches social ethics at Iliff School of Theology and is an outspoken advocate for comprehensive immigration reform.

He called it “highly opportunistic as well as paternalistic” to support immigration reform for political reasons, but he said any religious denomination that ignores the growing Latino population “does so at their own peril.”

De La Torre, an ordained Baptist minister who earned his Master of Divinity degree at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he sees little evidence that the nation’s second-largest faith group is serious about including Hispanics as equal partners.

“My question would be: ‘How many Hispanics, how many Latinos, are trustees at seminaries? How many have key leadership positions in the SBC?’” he said.

De La Torre said those questions would clarify whether Southern Baptists speak about immigration with sincerity of if they are “just looking at how it is going to help the SBC.”

Stetzer agreed that while Southern Baptists have done well in planting churches among non-Anglos, they have done a poor job of mainstreaming them into convention life.

“As I see it, we have to find ways to move from planting to leadership partnership,” Stetzer said. “The SBC has a choice—we can increasingly reach, embrace and elevate to leadership new faces from our increasingly non-Anglo nation or become colonies of whites in the new multicultural American milieu.

“Southern Baptists are on the cutting edge of foreign missions but are too often unengaged with peoples next door. We need to do both.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Facing a reduced budget and a third round of layoffs, officials at Washington National Cathedral are considering disposing of priceless treasures—including a trove of rare books—no longer considered part of its central mission.

The cathedral has begun tentative talks with Washington’s Folger Shakespeare Library as it reorients itself as an Episcopal congregation, tourist landmark and promoter of interfaith dialogue.

The cathedral’s rare book library, dating to 1964, no longer can be considered a core function in the current economic climate, said Kathleen Cox, the cathedral’s chief operating officer.

“In tough times, you start having to pull away so you can make sure that worship continues,” she said. “So once that happens, you have to make sure that you are doing the best by those assets.”

Cox emphasized the discussions are preliminary and it would be premature to say if items would be sold or loaned.

“What would be an ideal situation is to find … through a partnership someone that might take on the responsibility of conserving and maintaining the books and then having them accessible to the public in some way,” she said. “This has to be consistent with any of the donor restrictions or intents.”

Stephen Enniss, Folger’s librarian, said the two institutions long have worked together, with Folger’s conservators advising cathedral staff on maintenance of the rare book collection.

“The two institutions have also had preliminary discussions about the long-term care of this historically important collection and how it might be made more accessible to researchers,” Enniss said.

Some tomes in the cathedral’s 8,000-volume rare books collection definitely will stay, Cox said, including the Prince Henry Bible, a first edition of the King James Bible printed in London in 1611 that belonged to Henry, the prince of Wales and the king’s eldest son.

The uncertain future of the rare assets—valued in the millions—comes amid a staff shake-up in which six employees were laid off. The cathedral has cut its staff from 170 to 70 since 2008, in large part because the cathedral outsourced its gift shop and discontinued residential courses at the Cathedral College.

Among the employees who lost their jobs in the latest round were the cathedral’s chief conservator, John Runkle, and its chief liturgist, Carol Wade.

Runkle, who will leave at the end of June, said he doesn’t view his departure as endangering the preservation of the iconic building.

“You just have to prioritize the efforts going forward,” he said. “It may slow things down, but I don’t think it will cancel or take off the table any efforts going forward in the future.”

Cathedral officials de-scribe the 2011 budget of $12.9 million, a 12 percent decrease from the previous year’s budget, as a “conservative” move, even as contributions increased by 14 percent from the last fiscal year.

Although he could not estimate individual worth of the cathedral’s rare items, Runkle said the collection includes a wide array of Bibles and prayer books.

“It ranges from hand-written Bibles before the printing press came into existence to a Bible that was given to the cathedral by Queen Elizabeth when she visited in the 1990s,” he said. The landmark building, which had 385,000 visitors in the last year and receives no funding from either the federal government or the national Episcopal Church, often does not receive funding for the maintenance of donated items, Cox said.

“Any kind of revenue that might be generated” through the transfer of rare items would be used for preservation and maintenance of the cathedral and its assets, she said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The National Association of Evangelicals has launched an initiative to reduce abortions by promoting a “theology of sex” for churches and pledging to find common ground with opponents on abortion.

“There’s a sense that, whatever our laws are, abortion is a problem because of the underlying issues of how we treat sex,” said Galen Carey, NEA director of government affairs.

NAE leaders have concluded churches are not doing a good job teaching about sex and marriage and should address the high percentage of cohabiting unmarried young adults—including many evangelicals.

“Addressing that subject will do a lot, we think, to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies and the number of abortions,” Carey said.

A Gallup poll commissioned by the NAE found 90 percent of evangelicals consider “hormonal contraceptives” to be morally acceptable, and three-quarters consider abortion and unmarried sex to be morally wrong.

Less than a third—30 percent—think national religious leaders are doing a good or very good job at addressing the issue of abortion.

NAE officials have planned nationwide forums to promote dialogue about abortion reduction. Carey hopes they will include academics, counselors, teachers and representatives of pregnancy resource centers.

“These conversations should build on our shared concerns for human dignity, protecting children and promoting healthy families and communities,” the NAE stated in a resolution.

Its new 24-page “Theology of Sex” booklet declares, “Yes, sex is good!” within the context of heterosexual marriage. “Sex is a responsible act only in a relationship in which the couple is willing to care for any children that can come from that union,” it states.

Doctors alleged to have experimented on detainees. The National Religious Campaign Against Torture wants the government to investigate claims that doctors and medical professionals performed unethical experiments on detainees in CIA custody during the Bush administration. The group voiced their concerns over a report from the Physicians for Human Rights, “Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the Enhanced Interrogation Program.” According to the report, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, doctors were asked to analyze and improve enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding, forced nudity, sleep deprivation and prolonged isolation.

Pope calls for peace in Middle East. Pope Benedict XVI called for an “urgent international effort” to bring peace to the Middle East, especially for the region’s dwindling Christian population, in a Mass at the end of a three-day visit to Cyprus. Quoting from a working paper prepared for a summit of Middle East bishops in Rome in October, he predicted the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the rise of “political Islam” would lead to greater violence. The 46-page document details threats posed by fundamentalist Christians who use biblical texts “to justify Israel’s occupation of Palestine, making the position of Christian Arabs an even more sensitive issue.” It also said the rise of “political Islam” in Arab, Turkish and Iranian societies and its extremist rhetoric are “clearly a threat to everyone, Christians and Muslims alike,” adding “the key to harmonious living between Christians and Muslims is to recognize religious freedom and human rights.”

Foursquare Church picks next president. Glenn Burris Jr. has been chosen as the next president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel after serving as interim president since last year. Burris, who previously served in the vice presidential post of general supervisor, was elected during the recent annual meeting of the Pentecostal denomination in Atlanta. He officially begins his new position Oct. 1. He succeeds Jack Hayford, a former megachurch pastor and longtime hymn composer, who decided in 2009 not to seek a second five-year term as president. The Foursquare Church includes about 8.7 million members and 66,000 churches worldwide.

Episcopalians lose posts on Anglican committees. The Episcopal Church has been removed from Anglican committees that engage in dialogue with other Christians and consider doctrinal issues the latest fallout from the church’s consecration of a lesbian bishop. Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, outlined the demotions in a recently published letter. Mary Douglas Glasspool is the second openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, after Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who was consecrated in 2003. After Robinson’s consecration, member churches in the international Anglican Communion were asked to abide by three moratoria—no more gay bishops, no official blessings for same-sex unions and no interfering in each other’s provinces.

–Compiled from Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The constant loop of disheartening images from the Gulf of Mexico—oil-covered pelicans, dead sea turtles, despairing fishermen—has prompted many Americans to seek ways to do something, anything, to take better care of the Earth.

But what? And how?

While the political debate over the oil spill’s cause and ripple effect remains polarized, Christian environmentalists pondering the familiar question “What Would Jesus Do?” believe part of the answer includes cutting back on fossil fuels.

P.J. Hahn, an employee of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, rescues a brown pelican from oil-filled waters on Queen Bess Island, Louisiana. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has prompted a round of soul-searching among religious groups about whether American consumer choices are in part to blame for the spill. (RNS PHOTO/A.J. Sisco/The Times-Picayune)

“He would probably take the bus,” said Matthew Sleeth, co-founder of Blessed Earth, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading environmentalism among churches.

In the weeks since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster, religious leaders and faith-based organizations have issued an array of responses, both in words—prayers for help, comfort and wisdom—and deeds, such as organizing aid and urging people to reduce energy consumption.

Regardless of the response from the government and private sector, the solution must involve changing individual behavior to recognize and respect the divine gift of creation, and the costs of carelessly pushing its limits, they agree.

An online petition from the Summer Institute at Duke Divinity School’s Center for Reconciliation urged Christians to observe an oil fast on June 20, the two-month anniversary of the spill. The Sabbath observance includes abstaining from motor vehicles, adopting a local-food diet, and “reflecting on the aspects of our lives that are so entrenched in the oil economy that we cannot even quit them for one day.”

Prayer is an important part of the response, particularly for distant viewers who feel helpless about the images of tarred beaches and frightened fishermen, said Mitchell Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network, which is leading a prayer walk through Gulf Coast communities directly impacted by the spill.

“The first thing we have to do is pray for the people, pray for the engineers and technicians who are trying to figure out how to stop this mess, then pray for the nation to find a way to find renewable and clean energy,” he said.

“There’s a tremendous emotional and spiritual need there, and the best thing we thought we could do as Christians would be to go and spend our initial resources listening and praying with the people to find out how the church could help those in need.”

Beyond BP’s obligation to plug the leak and pay for the damages, and the government’s responsibility to ensure this does not happen again, all Christians have a sacred duty to take care of the environment, said Russell Moore, dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a native of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.

Although he hesitates to call it a silver lining in the murky underwater plume, Moore believes this oil spill finally may be the “apocalyptic” disaster that rallies Christians behind the environmental movement, just as Roe v. Wade brought together people of faith opposed to abortion rights.

“Ultimately, the issue is the same—if you believe that human beings are creatures and not gods, then that means that human beings have limits, and so we must respect the dignity and sanctity of human personhood and we must respect the world that God has created around us,” he said. “Evangelicals have to reclaim our emphasis on protecting God’s good creation.”

While the rituals of confession and repentance are more closely associated with Catholicism, green-minded leaders from other faiths make similar references when preaching personal responsibility for the oil spill and urging more conservative use of nonrenewable resources.

“When I fill my car up, if I’m not combining my trips, I am part of that oil spill in the Gulf. It is a reminder that we live with the consequences for the way that we obtain energy,” Sleeth said.

“The church is waking up,” he concluded. “We’ve forgotten that nature is how God communicated—through bushes that didn’t burn, through waters that parted. God cares about these dolphins and birds, and we should too—period. It’s a biblical responsibility.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—American churches have less than one week to change their wireless microphone equipment or face more than $100,000 in fines.

In January, the Federal Communications Commission mandated that anyone using wireless microphones on the 700 MHz band must stop by June 12 in order to make room for use by police, fire and emergency services.

An unlicensed person or business—including churches—using microphones on frequencies between 698 and 806 MHz must stop or face action by the FCC. Violators could face up to $112,500 in fines or imprisonment for continued violation, according to the FCC. Violations will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Since December 2008, Shure Inc., a Niles, Ill.-based audio-visual company, has worked with churches to replace their audio equipment.

“It’s like being told that you got to replace your dishwasher even though it’s working just fine,” said Chris Lyons, manager of educational and technical communication at Shure.

“It affects any church that has any number of microphones that work in the 700 MHz band. For the last several years, that has been one of the very popular parts of the band. So, there is a big installed base of wireless life there.”

More than 75 houses of worship have petitioned Congress to pass the Wireless Microphone Users Interference Protection Act. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bobby

Rush, D-Ill., would allow places like churches, educational facilities, recording studios and museums to register their spots on the television airwaves, or “white spaces,” that their wireless microphones operate on.

Mark Brunner, senior director of global brand management at Shure, said the problem was, in many ways, unanticipated in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

“Licenses were not on the radar of the FCC until they recognized, that in order to share this spectrum with new broadband devices, we’re going to need to know where these mic’s are,” Brunner said. “And if they don’t know where they are, they can’t run air traffic control.”

Age can influence the career direction a youth minister or campus minister takes. Family transitions may lead to a ministry change, or the minister may feel age has separated him or her from students.

“There may be a time when you feel like you can’t relate. … You may think their world is so different than mine,” said Don Mattingly, assistant to the president for strategic initiatives at Mercer University.

Mattingly started his ministry as a youth pastor. Then he became a denominational worker specializing in youth and collegiate ministries, first at the Baptist Sunday School Board—now LifeWay Church Resources—and then at Baylor University and Samford University.

He believes two major factors influence the direction a youth minister’s career may take—the individual’s age when entering youth work and whether the minister earns a seminary degree.

“The first thing that takes them out (of youth ministry) is when they go into the pastorate,” Mattingly said.

Money often is a major factor in turning to the pastorate, but age also plays a role. As a young, single adult, Mattingly did “everything,” he said. “But when I married, I transitioned to become a person who loved young people but started investing in lay leaders … because God and then my wife had to come first.”

Some youth pastors seek a different ministry when their children reach junior high or high school.

“I see guys going into the pastorate when their own children come into the youth group, partly because of money—their children are getting closer to college—and because of their relationship with their children,” he said.

As a denominational worker, Mattingly has talked with many church leaders who were looking for a youth minister.

Jerry Carmichael

“They all asked about age—the smaller the church, the younger the age they look for. They are looking for an entry-level person,” he said. “The larger churches asked for experience, and so they usually looked at the 25- to 35-year-old range.”

Larger churches also usually can afford to hire a youth minister with a family, and they often insist upon looking only at candidates with a seminary degree. Mattingly believes youth ministers who complete a seminary degree, especially since many churches don’t require it, exhibit “the deep feeling that they want to do it for the rest of their lives.”

Longevity in youth ministry

Passion has kept Randy Johnson in youth ministry 35 years. At nearly 61, Johnson serves at First Baptist Church in Richardson, a post he has filled 25 years.

He sees three reasons for his longevity at the Richardson church. First, the church’s character allows him to stay. “There is a large core of people who value and appreciate the staff. … There is a culture here” that encourages staffers to stay.

Second, the three senior pastors under whom Johnson has served at First Baptist have been willing to work with him.

“They had the mentality that they were not going to ask people to leave. … Some of my peers have been told by new pastors, ‘You don’t fit my vision for youth ministry.’ That’s painful,” he said.

Third, Johnson’s passion for the ministry remains. “I have never lost my passion for what I do. … At times it’s waned, but I get a kick out of my teenagers and in getting adults involved.”

Continuing to learn about teenagers and their world helps him maintain a strong connection. “Taking a real interest in teenagers … being careful to remember they will be adults … is important,” Johnson said. “I’ve tried my best to see the adult in my teenagers. … I’ve worked hard at affirming them.”

Age has taught Johnson a lesson. “It’s not about me,” he said. He has learned to utilize a team of adult volunteers and to develop student leaders.

Age has made him back away from some activities. “I’m fearful to get on the basketball court,” he said, laughing. “I don’t do lock-ins. … I just show up and go home at midnight.”

At every opportunity to speak on college and seminary campuses, he tells youth ministers, “You can do this no matter what your age.”

‘Parents getting younger’

Jerry Carmichael began his ministry career as a youth pastor in Maryville, Mo. But while attending Northwest Missouri State University, he got a taste of student work as an active participant in and as a short-term interim director of the Baptist Student Union.

Now he serves as Baptist Student Ministries director at the University of Missouri’s main campus in Columbia, a post he has held since 1989.

Charmichael believes age is not as much a factor in a long-term ministry with college students as it can be with youth. “Essentially, you work with people who don’t age,” he said, because the director works with a student for only four years. “The only dose of reality is that parents are getting younger all the time.”

For Carmichael, three differences between youth and student ministries stand out. “The first is that you work with young adults who are involved … because they want to be involved,” he said. “And secondly, there is not as much contact with parents.”

He pointed to the short time a student minister has to work with college students as the third difference. “There is a four-year window of opportunity when young adults are determining what they are going to believe and what they are going to do,” he added. “I am passionate about being a Christian witness at this crossroads between freedom and responsibility.”

Age plays a role in reaching college students, he believes. Especially on a large campus, the director has learned to rely on three younger associate staffers. “I felt the Lord gave a clear direction to build the concept of a multiple-staff ministry,” he said.

Although Carmichael has backed away from some activities, “I still get out and do crazy things,” he said. But he focuses on giving students responsibility.

“My philosophy hasn’t changed over the years—and that is to enable and empower young people to step up into leadership, instead of providing it for them,” he said.

Age has an advantage when working with young adults. “Any time you’re closer to the age of the students, I think there’s more of an acceptance of you,” he said. “But I think the opposite is also true—with age comes wisdom.”

LUBBOCK—The death of a minister—or the minister’s spouse—marks a difficult phase in the life of both the church and the pastor’s family.

Wil Tanner, pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Lubbock, still struggles to fill the gap left after the death of his wife, Gaye.

“You are ministry partners. … There’s balance, clear communication, a dependency,” Tanner said. “I’m still working through the process of no longer being a team.”

The church and the spouse left behind must deal with the loss of that team concept, the intertwining of gifts and calling when a pastor or his or her mate passes away.

For Tanner, loss of his spouse pointedly reminds him how much he had relied upon her instincts.

“Pastors see everything, but we don’t always recognize what we see or hear. She filled that gap for me,” he said.

“I don’t go outside my box for others’ opinions. I’ve always been dependent on the Lord, but even more so now. I no longer have a confidant. I always knew two heads were better than one, but I didn’t realize there had always been three—me, my wife, the Lord.

“On occasion we take our spouses for granted … then we see he or she was an essential part of the ministry.”

Penny Akins not only deals with the hole left by her husband, Jim’s, death, but also with the loss of ministry identity.

Just walking into First Baptist Church in Winterville, Ga., takes effort for Akins, whose husband served the congregation as senior pastor three and a half years. It took her nearly a month to be able to enter the church facility, and she admits, “I still cry through every service right now.”

And because she viewed her role in her husband’s life as “complementary,” she has hit an identity crisis. Married in 2000, she ministered alongside Jim while he served as the North American Mission Board’s strategic coordinator for the country’s eastern region and then as First Baptist’s pastor.

“At this minute, I don’t know who I am anymore. … I’m just trying to be a helper where I am,” she said. “I don’t know where to park. I don’t know where to sit. … For 10 years, I lived in his shadow.”

Every activity, every item reminds her of her husband and his death on Jan. 31. “I see, feel, smell … him on every wall, in every room,” she said.

In the midst of struggling with personal grief, Tanner, whose wife of 22 years died a year ago, also had to deal with church members’ grief and the leadership holes her death left in the congregation.

Gaye Tanner led a women’s fellowship Bible study each Sunday, sang in the choir, participated in Woman’s Missionary Union and assisted with data input in the office.

“I can’t think of anything she didn’t do,” Tanner said. “You name it, she would step up and do it.”

The Bible study group struggled for a while, and attendance dropped off, he said. They couldn’t remove her personal items.

“Some took her death extremely hard and didn’t want to go back into the room,” he said. “Dealing with leadership holes is an ongoing process.”

Akins also helped church members deal with loss.

“I had a sense of ministering to them. Jim had asked me to be strong for him. … I think that helped them,” she said. “And my coming back … helped to ease the pain of losing Jim for them, too.”

Tanner and Akins agreed church members continue to help them deal with grief.

“They walked with us” for the 10 months the couple dealt with Jim’s brain tumor until his death. Since he died, “the church keeps me in the loop and are trying to help me feel part of it,” Akins said. “They are very sensitive to me. … They love me, and I love them.”

When Gaye Tanner was diagnosed with cancer in November 2007, the couple began to prepare for a ministry transition.

“We determined we needed more time together and began praying and began releasing some ministries and responsibilities to the congregation,” Tanner said.

Tanner and Akins noted that even though their relationships with their congregations have helped, God has been their primary strength.

“You have to have trust and know God is with you, or you will crumble,” Tanner said. “Throughout the day, my life is punctuated by ‘thank you, Lord’ … for his enveloping moments. I’m absolutely dependent on God. I thought I was, but now that I’m alone, I know I am.”

Whether the founding pastor of a church matures with the congregation or moves on once the new work is well established depends on a host of factors, according to three church-growth and church-planting experts.

And either the initial focus on which the church started or the pastor must change for the church to move forward, the three believe.

Paul Atkinson

Most new work begins with a target audience or with a church planter’s passion or vision, noted Paul Atkinson, director of church starting with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“There are two types of planters—those who get a vision or a passion for a people group and those who start with a planting style and look for a group,” he said.

Atkinson sees two patterns of length of service, as well—those who plant a church, stay until it’s established and then move on, and those who remain with the congregation for the long term.

“It’s more the rarity that the pastor stays more than 10 years,” he said. “Many times, it’s the guy who comes second who takes it to a new height because he has a different skill set.”

The minister instrumental in getting a new work started can get caught in the “founder’s trap,” said Baptist General Association of Virginia Associate Executive Director Glenn Akins. A church passes through growing stages—birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

Sometimes the pastor “hits a snag” during the church’s adolescent stage, Akins explained, and often seeks or attempts to leave.

The minister may be ready to retire, may feel he no longer is able to work with the congregation or has the skills needed to move it forward, or wants to move in a different direction. Or the congregation may feel it needs a different skill set, he added.

Larry McSwain

Glenn Akins

Attitudes about ministry objectives, rather than concerns over age, seem to determine whether and how long a pastor and congregation work together.

Should a new work’s initial ministry focus change as the pastor and the founding members age?

Not necessarily.

If the initial ministry is to reach a specific age group—young adults, for example—the target might change. The founding group will age naturally and will be about five to 10 years older than new members reached, noted Larry McSwain, associate dean of the doctor of ministry program and professor of leadership at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology.

But each young adult group is different. “This decade’s 18- to 29-year-old group is shaped by different cultural realities than previous decades’ cohorts of the same age,” he added. “This does not mean the focus of the church’s mission should not continue to be on young adults. However, the strategies for doing that will change with each decade’s differing group.”

That’s why churches must constantly evaluate their ministry direction. “Building relationships is more important than setting goals. Thus, evaluation is helpful but must be continuous,” McSwain added. “What is necessary is that evaluation focus on more than numeric goals. … We might have fewer people and be more faithfully fulfilling the mission of God in the world.”

Atkinson noted ongoing evaluation often can show a new work core or church planter opportunities they may have missed. “The target sometimes changes … because God gives them a different group. Maybe they are attracting a different age group or another demographic,” he said.

The pastor either will adapt his ministry and lead the congregation to develop new strategies or will choose to begin another new work. “Church planting is more of an art than a science. … You’ve got to take the available resources and build a church on that,” Atkinson said.

Many church planters choose to begin a new work, allow someone else to take up the reins as leader and then begin another church in a different location. “They learn with the first plant and do better with the second,” he said. “And most repeat the same type of church.”

He related the story of a pastor who started a church among young adults when he was a young adult himself and then resigned to begin another. Now in his early 50s, he recently has begun a third, also among young adults. Reaching that age group is his passion, and he has used a seeker-friendly model.

“The 20-somethings group seems to be who he’s best able to reach, and he has adjusted his style to where the 20-somethings are in 2010,” Atkinson added. “He uses a co-pastor. That’s different than what he has done in the past. He’s staffing any age differences.”

Longevity also requires adaptability. A recent study of 10 churches in the Atlanta, Ga., area indicates the longer a pastor’s tenure, the stronger and larger the church be-comes.

“But to stay in a place longer than 10 years requires adjustments in style, relinquishment of control and development of teams of leaders some pastors do not have the capacity to accomplish. If one cannot, it is best to move on and replicate a church plant in another environment,” McSwain said.

The most important factor, he believes, is God’s plan. “There is a mutual vocation necessary for long-term pastors—a loving and supportive church and a forgiving and patient pastor,” he said.

“When that happens, the church takes on increasingly the personality of the pastor. When these factors are not in place, it is best to follow God’s leadership in another direction for both the pastor and people.”