WASHINGTON (ABP)—It’s not easy building green. But churches that take the call to wise environmental stewardship seriously have a wide variety of options—from simply changing light bulbs to elaborate new construction projects certified as environmentally friendly.

The key, experts in the field of congregations and green design insist, is figuring out what’s appropriate for the church’s ministry context—and then taking advantage of the many resources available to guide the greening process.

Discerning how green to go

For churches considering how to become greener, “Discernment sometimes ends up being a challenge, because so much can be done or should be done,” said Cassandra Carmichael, director of eco-justice programs for the National Council of Churches. “Even if they are just looking at the bottom line and want to do energy-efficiency stuff from a fiscal standpoint, they often have challenges coming up with the capital at the beginning—especially if they’re in a disadvantaged area.”

Most churches face those two challenges when making a decision to become greener—the vast variety of options and then the resources to accomplish their goals, Carmichael said.

“One is that they get so overwhelmed with all they need to do or want to do, they don’t know where to start. We try to help them get past that,” she said. “You get bombarded with all the options that you have to make your church building greener and build a more energy-efficient building.”

Carmichael’s program offers a guide for congregations specifically entering into green-building projects, as well as a separate guide for practical ways that churches can become more environmentally friendly short of a new building project.

Starting simply

The simplest ways to green a church’s facility can make congregations not only better environmental stewards, but also better stewards of their own finances.

“Some of the best low-cost, high-return improvements are compact fluorescent bulbs, LED exit signs, occupancy-sensor controls for lighting, programmable thermostats for heating/ air conditioning, yearly or ‘pre-season’ maintenance or ‘tune-up’ of HVAC systems,” said Jerry Lawson, national manager of the federal Energy Star Small Business and Congregations Network, in an e-mail interview.

“If the church is replacing a piece of equipment anyway, it is incrementally very inexpensive—sometimes no cost increase—to buy Energy Star-labeled products and equipment over non-Energy Star.”

The Energy Star program is an Environmental Protection Agency initiative creating energy-efficiency standards that generally are 20 to 30 percent higher than federal law requires for a variety of consumer products—including household and industrial appliances. Lawson’s network provides resources to congregations and small businesses to improve their energy efficiency. Among them is a guide that shows congregations how to make existing facilities more energy efficient.

The efficiency savings can put to good use, Lawson said.

“Many green efforts—especially energy efficiency—can save (a) significant amount of money that church members have pledged for the mission, only to have it go to pay for utilities,” he said. “Energy savings can be repurposed for the ministry of the congregation, and most congregations can cost effectively reduce energy bills (via increasing efficiency) by 25 to 30 percent.”

And, Lawson added, churches can educate their members to be more effective stewards of energy in their personal lives—which could, itself, have an effect on the church’s bottom line.

“A step further is that the church can help educate members that they can also cut energy costs by about 30 percent in their homes and their businesses, which could help people in their personal finances and enhance their ability to tithe,” he said.

He also noted some steps to increase efficiency could save on costs in ways beyond the simple utility bills.

“Certain green actions, such as replacing inefficient lighting with efficient, can actually save on personnel and maintenance costs due to the much longer life of efficient lighting, and HVAC tune-ups can help the equipment last years longer.”

Beyond increasing energy efficiency

Beyond simple retrofits, greening your church’s facility or building a green-friendly new building or campus becomes more complicated—and requires careful consideration of a church’s ministry context, resources and commitment to go to extraordinary lengths to embrace its call to environmental stewardship.

The 2,500-seat worship center and classroom addition for Crosspoint Community Church in Katy, near Houston, that currently is under construction utilizes sustainable design features. (IMAGE/Courtesy of Merriman Holt Architects)

“As building becomes more driven by sustainable design, it may change the way we define beauty. A beautiful building may be one that looks like it is sensitive to its environment,” said Bill Merriman of Merriman Holt Architects in Houston.

Merriman’s firm recently worked on its first LEED-certified church building project—St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Houston.

LEED is an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, an initiative of the U.S. Green Building Council. The certification program provides an internationally recognized set of standards for green buildings.

“The church had a great interest in doing a LEED-certified building. It reflected the will of the congregation,” he said, noting the decision was based more on ethical principles than cost savings.

“There was a natural sense that it’s the right thing to do—to be a good steward of the environment God made.”

Green building levels of commitment

Keelan Kaiser is chair of the architecture department at Judson University, an American Baptist school in the Chicago suburb of Elgin, Ill. Judson is the only evangelical Christian school in the United States to offer a fully accredited professional program in architecture. And the program focuses on green design—so much so that it, along with the school’s art and design programs, recently moved into a LEED gold-certified building.

“At Judson, the whole reason we’re interested in environmental stewardship is because buildings consume about 50 percent of the energy in America,” he said.

There are, Kaiser said, four basic steps to creating “a truly green building, and the first is to reduce the loads, or requirements, for energy-consuming equipment.”

That can involve reducing the amount of sun a building built in a climate with hot summers gets to reduce the energy load required to cool the building. Or it could mean maximizing the use of natural light in a facility in order to save on electricity costs.

“The second step is designing very high-efficiency mechanical systems”—such as higher-efficiency heating, cooling and lighting systems—including installing thrifty plumbing systems and water fixtures.

“The third step is providing renewable energy on site,” Kaiser said. That can include solar panels, hydroelectric generators and even windmills. For example, a church in a place like the flat, windy Midwest could place wind turbines atop the tall roof of a sanctuary to take advantage of greater average wind velocities at such heights.

The fourth step in greening a facility, he said, “is to purchase green power off-site—to purchase a portion of your electrical consumption from what’s called green-power sources.”

Many utility systems offer—usually at what Kaiser described as “a slight upcharge”—an option to purchase power that comes from sources greener than coal-burning plants or other high-carbon sources.

Building green wisely

Houston architect Merriman cautioned against “over-promising practical results” in terms of cost savings on utility bills when retrofitting or building a whole new green facility. While energy-efficient heating and air mechanical systems do produce monthly savings in utilities, the initial outlay for a high-performing mechanical system can be costly.

Early on, he recommended, the architect a church enlists when embarking on a green building or renovation program—together with others on the building team—should develop a feasibility study to help the congregation make informed decisions. The team would look at how the building is used and how often particular sections of the facility are utilized each week.

“Communication is all-important so there are no disappointments,” he said.

A life-cycle analysis of any mechanical heating and cooling system also provides vitally important information, he added. If the “payback” on a high-performance system is 15 years, a church might need to reconsider. But if the system paid for itself in terms of utility savings over five or six years, that might be worth consideration.

The unique setting of each church and the composition of its membership also must be considered. For instance, he noted, bicycle racks might be a positive, environmentally friendly addition to some facilities but completely impractical elsewhere.

Efficient use of space

Judson’s Kaiser said churches might make their first step in embarking on a green building plan a re-visioning of how they use their facilities—of how they operate as a congregation.

“Green buildings are the result of green operations,” he said. “You can’t operate a building efficiently if you’re not operating your programs efficiently.”

For example, traditional churches are, simply, inefficient buildings to begin with.

“One of the problems with buildings, of course, is that you want them occupied as much as possible in order to justify its existence, so from a green-building standpoint, a church is a difficult building type,” Kaiser said. “It’s not that you can’t do it, but it’s a building that’s only occupied a small percentage of the day and week.”

The NCC’s Carmichael said some churches have taken their commitment to environmentalism so seriously that they have decided to maximize their facilities’ efficiency by sharing with other congregations—and other alterations to the way they use their space.

“It’s more energy efficient to share a building than having two separate buildings,” she said. She noted one church in Wisconsin that not only shared its building, but also used its space for things like opening gardens to raise produce for the homeless and neighbors to mowing their lawn “with a lawnmower that’s run off of used vegetable oil.”

“They’ve taken the approach of not just the building itself and let’s look at the facility, but they’ve taken it a step further and tried to incorporate those practices into the life of the church.”

Above all, the choices a church makes when it comes to greening its facility come down to its view of its ministry priorities, Energy Star’s Lawson said.

“I believe the most powerful consideration (in greening a church) is the scriptural guidance on stewardship. We are called to be stewards of creation—to prevent pollution and conserve natural resources for future generations,” he said.

“Greening/stewardship efforts can be important and educational ways for the youth group and all members to contribute to the life of the church and community.”

Billy Graham tops pastors’ list. Evangelist Billy Graham was named by American pastors as the United States’ most influential living preacher, according to a recent survey by LifeWay Research. The study, conducted last November, interviewed more than 1,000 Protestant pastors by telephone. The participants were asked to “name the top three living Christian preachers that most influence you.” Graham was cited as most influential by 21 percent, followed by pastor and author Charles Swindoll, at 8 percent. Charles Stanley, pastor of First Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga., and Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., followed closely behind Swindoll with 7 percent of the vote each. The top 10 list also included John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, and Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, and Browns Bridge Community Church, all in the Atlanta area.

Pope clamps down on annulments. Pope Benedict XVI has urged church judges to limit the number of marriage annulments they grant by encouraging couples to stay together if possible. Benedict made his remarks to members of the Roman Rota, the church panel with the highest authority in marriage cases, at a ceremony marking the start of the judicial year. The pope told the judges that if they “glimpse hope” of a positive reconciliation, they should “induce the spouses to affirm if possible their marriage and reestablish their conjugal cohabitation.” Under canon law, a marriage can be declared null and void for a variety of reasons, including impotence, a previous marriage or a lack of psychological maturity at the time of the union. A Catholic who divorces and remarries must obtain an annulment of the first marriage in order to continue receiving Communion. Most decisions on annulments are made at the diocesan level, and degrees of strictness vary.

Pagans get space at academy. The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado will set aside worship space for followers of “Earth-centered” religions such as Wicca and Druidism. A stone circle atop a hill on the base in Colorado Springs likely will be dedicated in a ceremony March 10 and be available to cadets and other service members who live in the area. The base already has worship spaces for Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and Buddhists. The Air Force has been accused of allowing evangelical officers to openly proselytize and pressure cadets of other faiths. In 2005, the Air Force issued new guidelines pledging to “accommodate free exercise of religion and other personal beliefs.”

Catholic Charities offers syringes. Catholic Charities of Albany, N.Y., has launched a new program to provide free syringes to intravenous drug users—an unusual move for a church that preaches abstinence for overcoming drug addiction and stanching the spread of HIV/AIDS. After five years of studying the program, Project Safe Point began in two urban locations Feb. 1 in the Upstate New York diocese. The project will be funded by $170,000 in grants from New York State. While some secular social service agencies maintain syringe-exchange programs, the project is thought to be a first for a Catholic Charities agency.

–Compiled from Religion News Service reports.

HIGHLAND PARK, N.J. (RNS)—At A Better World Cafe, it’s not exactly “all you can eat.” It’s more like whatever you can pay.

The church-affiliated restaurant offers customers an innovative new dining option—choose the size of your portion, then pay what you want. People who can afford to pay extra help subsidize those who are less fortunate.

A Better World Cafe, housed at the Reformed Church of Highland Park, is the fifth restaurant of its kind in the nation, which some are nicknaming “Robin Hood restaurants.” The original socially conscious eatery was opened in Salt Lake City in 2003 by a former acupuncturist; now, advocates of the concept hope it will revolutionize eating out.

“It’s about how we’re going to need to change our systems if we’re going to survive as a planet,” said Tina Weishaus, a board member of the community group Who is My Neighbor, which co-owns the nonprofit cafe with Elijah’s Promise, a soup kitchen and culinary school based in nearby New Brunswick.

Besides the lack of official prices—only suggested fares—the eatery uses mostly food from local farms and no plastic or Styrofoam. It composts all food scraps and acts as a community forum by hosting talks and live performances by local artists.

The “Robin Hood” model aims to end hunger and waste and help bind local communities, said Denise Cerreta, 48, founder of One World Everybody Eats in downtown Salt Lake City. The entrepreneur has been living in Highland Park to launch the new restaurant and is in talks with “50 or 60” East Coast groups interested in copying the model.

The idea has become a movement that’s gained so much steam, Ceretta moved out of her Utah home in August and now is on tour teaching people what she knows.

“I’m down to a suitcase and a cat,” she said.

The Highland Park restaurant opened its doors inside the historic brick church in October. The simple dining room, with communal tables and metal chairs, has attracted roughly 50 to 125 customers a day, head chef Rachel Weston said. Three paid staff and volunteers serve food from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, and organizers are hoping to expand to dinner and weekend service. Advertising has been minimal. There’s no sign for the cafe in the front of the church.

Listed each day on a dry-erase board is a menu of roughly a dozen items that change every week or so, with suggested prices. One item, the “complimentary community entree,” is free to everyone.

A person who can’t pay anything is allowed to eat only the “community entree” but can volunteer at the cafe for an hour to get a bigger meal with more choices. Weston said all patrons are encouraged to volunteer—to consider, for example, “What if I came back and baked bread, or played the piano?”

Customer Kathleen Logue, 49, has been unemployed two years. But she still paid $6, more than the suggested combined price of $1.50 for a cup of Moroccan tomato consomme and $3 for a medium slice of roasted-tomato and Swiss cheese quiche.

“There are people worse off than me,” she said.

Highland Park is an ideal town to host the novel restaurant, said Weishaus, with a mixed-income population that includes residents of housing projects as well as Rutgers University professors. The borough also boasts of progressive policies such as promoting fair-trade products at local stores.

The seed of the idea for A Better World Cafe was planted a year ago, said Lisanne Finston, executive director of Elijah’s Promise. She was giving a talk at the church—commenting that the richest nation in the world should not have to have soup kitchens—when someone in the audience mentioned the new dining venture in Salt Lake City.

“It’s an idea whose time has come,” Finston said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Heated debate. Loss of faith. Religious discord. Questions about death, the universe, and our place in it. According to a new film, Charles Darwin saw—and wrestled with—all of that and more as the implications of his theory of evolution became clear for society as a whole, but even more so, within his own family.

Creation, a recently released film by director Jon Amiel, introduces Darwin as a 40-something father working on his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, which laid out his theory that would revolutionize society’s understandings of human history.

Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly portray Charles and Emma Darwin in the new film, Creation. (RNS PHOTO/Courtesy Liam Daniel/New Market Films)

Darwin (Paul Bettany) is haunted by the recent death of his daughter Annie (Martha West). His grief, along with his gradual loss of faith, creates a gulf between Darwin and his beloved wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly), a devout Christian.

“Two people who adore and respect each other are driven into opposite corners by firstly a desperate loss, the loss of a child,” Amiel said in an interview.

“But we also see that exacerbated by the fact that Charles rails against an uncaring deity that could make such a bad thing happen to such a good person, whereas Emma retreats to the consolation of religion that their child must be in heaven and takes great consolation from that.”

As his relationship with his wife and other children deteriorates, Darwin falls into the grip of a mysterious illness that some now believe may have been psychosomatic, or induced by mental stress. Enduring a potent treatment of laudanum—a medicine derived from opium—and water therapy, he begins to see visions of his departed daughter.

It’s all a lot to deal with when you’re already struggling with a book that you know will upend the social order.

Amiel describes Darwin as “a deeply shy and socially conservative man who finds himself almost unwillingly in possession of this ideological time bomb, and he is deeply unwilling to throw that bomb into the middle of a society he fundamentally respects and endorses.”

The film, based on the book Annie’s Box by Darwin’s great-great grandson Randall Keynes, is the latest salvo in an ongoing debate among Darwin scholars. Was Annie’s death the final fatal blow to Darwin’s Christian faith? Or was he agnostic as the result of dispassionate scientific research?

“I think (Annie’s death) was a very substantial factor,” Amiel said. And yet, “Darwin himself was very clear—and we quote this in the film—that his loss of faith was something that happened over a thousand afternoons. It was more like the slow shifting of continents for him than the sudden snapping of a tree.”

Michael Ruse, director of Florida State University’s history & philosophy of science program, said Annie’s death was less pivotal than the film portrays.

“I just don’t think the Annie episode was the key issue in Darwin’s religious life. He had become a deist (and) … remained one right through the writing of The Origin, and then became an agnostic because he did not like the idea of eternal punishment for nonbelievers, a group that included his father, whom Darwin thought was the best man he had ever known.”

For his part, Amiel cautioned against inferring too much religious fervor from Darwin’s early seminary studies. Darwin was, he said, “a man who never had a very powerful connection with faith.”

“Darwin went to Cambridge to study divinity, but frankly spent more time talking to … all the other great scientists there, and puttering around in the fens looking for mollusks, than he did studying divinity.”

Darwin had “a respect for (faith), but not a personal connection,” Amiel said. “And I think that connection was weakened substantially by the death of his daughter.”

The film touches on the divide between faith and science, giving the religious side a chance to air its views. However, the heart of the story is the break, and ultimate reconciliation, between Emma and Charles, lovingly depicted by real-life husband and wife Bettany and Connelly.

Ruse, who is not connected with the film, also feels the film overplays the divide between Charles and Emma over their respective beliefs.

Charles Darwin “saw the social value of Christianity and was not about to upset his wife with crude atheism. He was never a crude atheist and always believed in a God right through the writing of The Origin. Unlike (fellow naturalist Thomas) Huxley, Darwin was always first and foremost an English gentleman; he may have lost his faith, but he could not be strident.”

Amiel sees “a parable for all of us” in Charles and Emma, who were able to reconnect despite their strongly divergent beliefs.

“In a sense, without wanting to sound too corny,” Amiel said, “the story of Charles and Emma Darwin really has a lesson to teach us about how love and mutual respect can overcome seemingly unconquerable differences.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Having survived a devastating earthquake during a 10-day mission trip to Haiti, Freedom Gassoway savors every minute she spends at home with her family in Beaverton, Ore. But for this 33-year-old mother of two, some of life has also lost its sweetness.

Meals no longer taste good, she said, since she’s always thinking about the thousands of homeless and hungry people in Haiti. Her closet seems filled with “too many clothes,” she said, and she feels a duty—by virtue of her survival—to share Haiti’s suffering with other Americans.

“I didn’t even know where Haiti was before this trip,” Gassoway said. “But now I feel like I have a responsibility for Haiti and helping people be aware of how they can be involved.”

As the dust settles from Haiti’s devastating quake, mission workers of all types are pondering the deeper meanings of their survival. They’re wondering why they survived, why others didn’t and what they’re supposed to do with their new leases on life.

“As long as you’ve got something to occupy your mind, you can keep it off the horror of what’s just happened” in the field, said Randy Strash, strategy director for emergency response at World Vision, a massive Christian relief agency with almost 800 aid workers in Haiti. “But once that (urgency recedes), I think you’ll find that many of them are really struggling—in their families, in their personal lives, in their health and in their theology.”

While theological interpretations vary, missionaries who survived the quake are consistently professing a heightened sense of calling. They speak of feeling new “responsibility,” both to God and to the Haitian people, because they’ve been blessed to live another day.

As one of the world’s poorest nations, Haiti is a magnet for Christian ministries. An estimated 1,700 career missionaries serve in Haiti, according to Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of World Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Hundreds more travel to Haiti each year for short-term trips of a week or two at a time.

For many of Haiti’s surviving missionaries, the distance between life and death was only a few feet when the Jan. 12 quake struck. Tragic episodes left missionaries wondering “why?” and believing that God must have a plan in mind.

“I know that God has our family here for a reason and he kept us alive for a reason,” wrote Leslie Rolling, administrator of the Christian aid organization Clean Water for Haiti, in an e-mail from Haiti. “We now have an even greater responsibility to carry out the work we’re doing.”

On the night of the quake, Rolling’s husband tried to save a young girl named Jacqueline, buried in the rubble of a collapsed school. Unable to reach her, he eventually left the scene late at night to prepare for a work crew’s arrival.

Jacqueline later died. She had suffered such extensive injuries, she likely wouldn’t have survived even if she’d been pulled out alive. But the memory continued to haunt Chris Rolling.

“How could I leave someone who was dying, trapped in a building! That’s so wrong!” Rolling wrote in his blog. “Leaving her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done … I think this is going to trouble me for a long time.”

Kay and Gary Walla of Indianapolis felt similarly helpless after the quake rocked the mountain community where their United Methodist church group was helping repair a school and orphanage. The Wallas, both in their 70s, were in “survival mode”—foraging for wild coconuts and grapefruit by day, huddling close to other missionaries for warmth by night—when they heard scratching beneath a pile of rubble.

Buried alive were a 21-year-old woman who had been training for a religious order and the 18-month-old boy whom she had recently adopted. Unable to save them, the Wallas instead held a memorial service for them two days later.

“My husband and I said, `Why did we survive and all of these Haitians have not?”’ Kay Walla asked. “We know there’s more work for us to do. … God just spared us to help the Haitians.”

World Vision has dispatched a critical incident response team to Haiti to help its aid workers cope with emerging personal challenges. Some may fall victim to survivor’s guilt if they lost colleagues, World Vision’s Strash said. Others may grapple with the raw, unnerving fact that God doesn’t always protect his servants.

And then there’s the challenge of suddenly being seen as God’s ambassadors on a desolate landscape.

Aid workers “are wrestling with (God’s allowance of disaster), but they don’t want to say it out loud,” Strash said. Local “people are relying on the word that (workers) have been passing on to them about God’s care and provision. They search for a way to explain disaster that is consistent with how they’ve been teaching and living up to this point. And it’s a struggle.”

Why God spares some and not others is unknown, some mission workers said, but survivors surely inherit special responsibilities.

“We do owe it to those who lost their lives,” World Vision spokeswoman Maggie Boyer e-mailed from Port-au-Prince, “to commit to building a Haiti that they would be proud of.”

MIAMI (ABP) — Despite crackdowns from the National Football League in recent years that frightened many church leaders into abandoning watch parties for America’s biggest sporting event, experts say churches are free to host viewings of Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7 as long as they follow a few NFL guidelines.

“Churches, ministries and other non-profit organizations are free to show the game on large screens in their public facilities without fear of violating copyright laws so long as the church abides by three simple guidelines,” said attorney David Middlebrook of the Texas-based Church Law Group, in a YouTube video.

First, Middlebrook said. “the game must be showed on equipment the church regularly uses in the course of ministry.”

Second, “churches cannot charge admission for the party. The NFL has stated, however, that churches may take up a donation to defray the cost of the event if they desire.”

And, “Finally, to avoid any copyright infringements, churches may want to call their event a ‘big game ‘party rather than a ‘Super Bowl’ party.”

Middlebrook’s firm consults with churches and ministries on legal issues.

Many churches abandoned long-standing traditions of hosting Super Bowl parties out of fear of legal action by the NFL in 2007 and 2008. In 2007 Fall Creek Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Indianapolis, received a cease-and-desist letter from NFL officials ordering them to stop a “Super Bowl Bash” party they had planned for about 400 members and guests, who would have watched on the church’s wall-projection TV.

The case received significant publicity, and the NFL initially defended its copyright-infringement policy. But in early 2008, members of Congress threatened to alter copyright law to exempt churches — sports bars are already exempt — from provisions prohibiting large-group showings of copyrighted broadcasts.

The NFL then changed its rules to allow churches to show games as long as they followed the guidelines Middlebrook enumerated. According to a press release from the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based Christian legal group, church watch parties are kosher as long as a church shows the game on its own regularly used equipment, in buildings it regularly uses for ministry purposes, and doesn’t charge admission.

Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said her organization sometimes gets question from churches around Super Bowl time about broadcasts, and that Middlebrook's advice is accurate.

Super Bowl XLIV is scheduled to be played Feb. 7 in Miami. The game broadcast begins at 6 p.m. Eastern time on CBS.

–Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—When Switzerland recently voted to ban construction of minaret towers at mosques, some observers interpreted it as an expression of European xenophobia that never would find a home in multicultural America. But to say it couldn’t happen here would be wrong—or at least premature.

In hundreds of communities across the United States where Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and other religious minorities have sought to build or expand their houses of worship, private citizens have gone to great lengths to block their construction.

Tactics range from using eminent domain and citing traffic concerns to running pig races and stirring up fears of terrorism.

There currently are at least five such cases, including in suburban Chicago, where the DuPage County zoning board of appeals voted unanimously to deny the Irshad Learning Center a permit to build a mosque in upscale Naperville, Ill.

Decisions on construction permits also are pending for mosques in Piscataway, N.J., and Northville, Mich. A Muslim group in Lilburn, Ga., is threatening legal action after city officials rejected their proposal to expand their mosque, while neighbors in Morada, Calif., filed suit to stop construction of a 13,820-square-foot mosque.

Lawyers supporting religious congregations in land use disputes say the right to build houses of worship is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution, and amplified in laws such as the 2000 Religion Land Use & Institutionalized Persons Act, intended to protect houses of worship from onerous regulations.

Despite those legal protections, the fates of proposed worship spaces often are determined by local regulations, or lack thereof.

States like California, New Jersey, and Illinois are regulated extensively by such laws, requiring that proposed buildings meet strict requirements on noise, traffic, utilities and environmental impact of surrounding neighborhoods.

Worshippers and experts say they take those concerns seriously but argue that much of the opposition is rooted in bigotry. They say the not-in-my-backyard opponents use zoning laws to keep mosques, temples and other houses of worship out of their neighborhoods.

“It becomes a heckler’s veto. It empowers people who might not have a clean motive,” said attorney Eric Rassbach with the Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “Nobody admits to hating Muslims because they know they’re not going to win that way.”

Amin Mahmood, a member of the Morada, Calif., congregation, said he initially believed opposition to the proposed mosque was based on routine neighborhood concerns, but became doubtful when opponents in the Morada Area Associa-tion didn’t object to proposals for a new Baptist church nearby.

“They didn’t go to court to oppose the church, but they go to court to oppose the mosque?” said Mahmood. “Come on.”

Calls to members of the Morada Area Association were not returned.

While local zoning meetings usually attract just a few interested parties, hearings concerning mosques can attract dozens, and often hundreds, of people on both sides. Wasi Zaidi, a founding member of the 11-year-old Muslim congregation in Lilburn, Ga., said between 400 and 500 people attended the Nov. 18 city council when his mosque was discussed.

“We didn’t get our rights. To get our rights, we have to go to a higher authority,” said Zaidi, explaining his group’s decision to sue.

Zaidi said he believed some opposition was legitimately rooted in noise and traffic concerns, but noted many comments made on local news sites revealed deep-seated anti-Muslim sentiment among Lilburn residents.

“They don’t like Muslims,” Zaidi said flatly. “And they don’t want us in their backyard.”

Scott Batterton, a member of the Lilburn City Council, acknowledged bigotry may have motivated some opponents but said most had legitimate quality-of-life concerns. Lilburn is not a racist town, he said, noting that it’s home to two other mosques and a Hindu temple.

“I can’t say what’s in everyone’s hearts, but the opposition we listened to was based on merit, not religion,” Batterton said.

Some cases approach near absurdity. In Westchester County, N.Y., in 2001, neighbors cited noise complaints to try and prevent Buddhist monks from holding silent meditation services in a private home.

In 2006, when a group of Muslims sought permission to build a mosque on a rural road in Katy, west of Houston, neighbor Craig Baker hosted Friday night pig races. Muslims consider pigs to be dirty, and Friday is a holy day for Muslims.

Undeterred, the local chapter of the Muslim American Society obtained its construction permit for the mosque, and has in the meantime placed two modular buildings on the land for prayer services and community meetings.

Baker did not return phone calls, but Hesham Ebaid, director of the Katy Islamic center, tried to be diplomatic, conceding Muslims could have done a better job in outreach. More recently, the mosque has invited families for open house meet-and-greets.

As for Baker, Ebaid said, the pig races have stopped, and he even hired two Muslims to work at the bath and kitchen business he owns.

“He said, ‘I’m trying,’” Ebaid said. “So, I give him credit for that.”

Sermons on forgiveness often emphasize the Lord’s Prayer—“and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

But should Christians always forgive, regardless of circumstances? Is granting forgiveness always appropriate?

“Yes, but …,” four Christians who deal with the concept in different contexts responded.

Strive for justice

For Tarris Rosell, professor of pastoral theology, ethics and ministry praxis at Central Baptist Theological Seminary, justice is crucial to the ability to forgive another.

Rosell relates the story of an international student who had lost his family and several friends to genocide in his home country.

“Basically he said, ‘I cannot be a Christian because I cannot love or forgive the people who killed my family,’” Rosell noted. “That spoke to me about how easy it is to talk about love and forgiveness.”

Talk may be easy, but following through is much more difficult, he acknowledged. In contrast to some theologians, Rosell believes God instilled a natural desire to forgive.

“I think humans are amazingly forgiving, even though I know that goes against the theology of basic depravity. I think the natural tendency is to be forgiving,” he said.

Forgiveness comes more easily when the offender is up front and transparent. Citing former President Bill Clinton’s involvement with Washington intern Monica Lewinsky, “I think we are amazingly prone to forgive, but what we cannot tolerate, I think, is cover-up,” he said.

If Clinton and other politicians caught in immoral situations had been up front with the public, “at that point I think Americans naturally would have fallen over themselves to forgive.”

“I think this is the case in our professional and personal lives. … Somehow ‘I’m sorry’ matters,” he added. “What we cannot tolerate is cover-up and blaming.”

Rosell teaches ethics to and counsels with clergy-in-training and doctors-in-training. He believes openness by the perpetrator can facilitate the victim’s desire to forgive. Studies show doctors and hospitals that admit mistakes or wrongdoing are less likely to be sued than are those that do not, he said.

But, he added, true forgiveness must be rooted in justice. He follows Marie Fortune’s philosophy that forgiveness and justice must go hand-in-hand, often even when justice is not possible.

A United Church of Christ minister, Fortune is considered an expert in clergy abuse and is founder of the Faith Trust Institute, a Seattle-based organization focused on violence against women and children. She teaches there can be no forgiveness without justice.

Accountability and idolatry

Justice requires accountability, Rosell insisted. Ministers and their congregations sometimes act as though the only requirement to forgiveness is to change the victim’s attitude and to simply say: “We forgive you.”

“Sometimes what’s counted as forgiveness is the unwillingness to hold a brother accountable. … That is a sin,” he said.

Part of the problem in churches also stems from “pastor idolatry,” he added. “We make a god of the pastor, and when he sins, we often can’t recognize it because of our idolatry.”

Often clergy abusers aren’t held accountable because some church members will pressure the rest to “forgive” him or her. Lack of accountability opens opportunities for further abuse, he said.

Rosell encourages his ministerial students to view forgiveness as a process, rather than a platitude. “We ought not to press for forgiveness. Forgiveness is discovered, not forced,” he said.

Accountability is the primary issue for Speed Lea, as well. An expert in conflict management, particularly in churches, he is a consultant for the Alban Institute.

“It’s always important to maintain boundaries, and there needs to be consequences for missteps,” he said.

Consequences must be determined fairly, he stressed, rather than used as retribution. “Keep them within limits and avoid the vengeful kinds of responses our primitive brains might want to use to react.”

And victims must avoid becoming victims a second time by loosening or discarding consequences be-cause they fear the perpetrator will see them as being unforgiving—particularly if both claim to be Christians.

He tells the story of a church business manager who stole money from the offering plates and from a checking account during his 10 years of service. The congregation decided not to press formal charges but insisted the manager reimburse the church. And they insisted he find a job that did not involve dealing with money.

“Not all the congregation was happy, but the solution gave the opportunity for the individual to start a new life,” Leas said.

The author of Leadership and Conflict has identified five levels of conflict that can plague relationships. Forgiveness becomes more difficult as disagreement moves from problem solving to unmanageable conflict.

Sometimes finding forgiveness must be done through a third party. “It’s very hard when people are in the midst of the pain … to get to the possibility of repairing a breach,” he said. “Sometime the forgiveness is in the observers who can help until those involved can get beyond the pain.”

An act of obedience

Christians must forgive in obedience to God, said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

“It goes back to the Lord’s Prayer—forgive us as we forgive others,” he said.

Jesus added that believers would be forgiven in the same way in which they forgive others, Land stressed.

“Do we really want God to forgive us the way we forgive?” he asked.

Land emphasized that lack of forgiveness “will hinder growth and your spiritual relationship.” Believers should hold those who hurt them accountable, and in cases such as abuse, should remove themselves from the situation. But in every case, Christians must forgive.

“When we realize what Christ has done for us, how can we not forgive?”

And when believers find forgiveness difficult, they should “give it to the Lord,” he added. “Give it to Jesus, and then the power of the person to hurt you is gone.”

Releasing the burden to God

Roberta Damon, retired marriage and family counselor at First Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., and author of two books, believes forgiveness comes much more easily when the perpetrator repents and asks for forgiveness because the wounded individual can choose to forgive or not.

“But there are times when the perpetrator isn’t going to come to you … and there will be no reconciliation,” she said. That’s when the one wronged must release the pain and the burden to God.

“I don’t believe God’s forgiveness hinges on our ability to forgive,” she noted, pointing out that the Lord’s Prayer is sometimes misused to prove that it does.

When no accountability exists—either through the perpetrator’s seeking forgiveness or through the criminal justice system if a crime has been committed—the victim still must decide how he or she will react.

“The question is: What am I going to do with my own heart? The situation must be released into God’s hands,” she said. As a part-time counselor for First Baptist Church and for the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, the former missionary to Brazil asks counselees to visualize Jesus walking the road to Calvary.

“You see him stumble with the crosspiece and fall to one knee. Now visualize yourself placing your burden on that crosspiece,” she tells them.

“Our first reaction is that we feel sorry for him, and we don’t want to add to his burden,” Damon said. “But we know that we must release our burden and our heart into God’s hands.

“Add your burden, and watch him get up.”

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS)—The 2008 murder of 35-year-old Mashonda Griffin in her home was a blow to her fellow church members—especially when they learned one of the people charged in her death was a former parishioner whom Griffin had helped in the past.

Griffin’s death—an apparent botched robbery that landed the two suspects in prison with life terms—filled her pastor with anguish.

“It pretty much was the biggest thing I faced as a pastor,” James Stokes said of the woman, who had been a member of Stokes’ congregation 16 years.

Stokes said he would have wallowed in grief longer had it not been for an e-mail he received two days before Griffin’s funeral from John Smith, national and regional director of PastorCare, The National Clergy Support Network, who asked to meet with Stokes.

Smith fast-tracked his level of credibility with Stokes because of a similar tragedy the PastorCare leader faced when, as pastor of a church in Long Island, N.Y., a member of his congregation committed a brutal murder.

Smith infused Stokes with some much-needed solace.

“I was able to talk and release a lot of emotions, release a lot of things I was going through as a result of the murder,” Stokes said. “John was there for me in every sense of the word.”

Helping ministers get through their rough patches has been PastorCare’s mission since Filbert Moore founded the nondenominational ministry in 1995 on the campus of Peace College in Raleigh, N.C. Smith now runs the ministry from his Grand Rapids office.

From the start, the intent has been to provide confidential, Christ-centered ministry nationwide for pastors and their spouses, with the primary plan of helping them stay in ministry.

It’s a mission that regularly requires Smith to make the initial contact with ministers who sometimes are reluctant to reach out because of a compelling desire to keep their problems private, or because they are unsure who they can trust.

“What I’ve learned is many times, pastors are not good at seeking help themselves,” Smith said.

“There’s a fear of how this will be used against them. We always give them a choice of where we will meet.”

The ministry uses the term “coaching” instead of counseling, since its staff members are not licensed therapists. One-on-one sessions and small-group seminars are available.

The bulk of pastors’ problems are related to burnout—packing too many hours in a workweek that cuts into personal time with their spouses and family, Smith said.

Others have experienced some sort of moral failing, while still others wrestle with marital problems.

Perhaps the thorniest heartache ministers face is when they’re ousted from their pastorates, Smith said.

It’s often a double whammy for ministers who not only find themselves without a job, but also cut off from church friends and spiritual confidants.

That’s the quandary David Korsen and his wife, Joanie, found themselves immersed in when they relocated from Bellingham, Wash., in 2004 to serve a Reformed congregation.

On the surface, several visits to the church before accepting the call indicated a good fit, Korsen said.

Initially it was, Korsen said. His first year as pastor saw his new church add 60 people to its roster and another 40 the following year.

But those early victories hit a snag when a group of people Korsen calls “the gang of six” didn’t care for new outreach programs, or his stance that women are equally qualified to be ordained ministers and lay leaders.

“I didn’t quite grasp the church had a history with a certain group of people of power who weren’t real thrilled with some of the new innovations,” Korsen said.

By 2008, for the first time in his life, Korsen found himself unemployed following an evening phone call that ordered him not to set foot on church premises, despite John Smith’s attempts to represent Korsen as his advocate.

“John was at the door the next day at 9 a.m.,” Korsen said. “One of John’s great abilities is to listen and provide a safe place when there’s no safe place for pastors to process.”

Since then, Korsen said he and his wife are on the mend. He works part-time as PastorCare’s national communications director and has rolled up his sleeves to launch a new Reformed congregation in the Kalamazoo area.

“If people would understand the power and value of encouragement, a lot of pastors’ problems would be different,” Smith said.

“Too often they only say something when they have a complaint. They’re too self-focused and too self-absorbed.”

At age 8, Chris Carrier was abducted, stabbed multiple times with an ice pick, shot in the left temple at pointblank range and abandoned in the Florida Everglades.

Miraculously, he survived the ordeal, although the bullet to his head severed an optic nerve and left him blind in one eye. But perhaps the greater miracle occurred 22 years after the attack.

A police officer involved in the criminal investigation found the primary suspect, David McAllister—who never was convicted of the attack on Carrier—bedridden and blind in a nursing home. After the policeman told him he no longer needed to fear punishment, McAllister confessed to the crime.

When Carrier met the man who kidnapped and assaulted him, he told McAllister he had forgiven him many years earlier. In the week that followed, Carrier visited McAllister daily and ultimately led him to faith in Christ.

Carrier credits his ability to forgive his attacker to the faith commitment he made to Jesus Christ at age 13.

“That’s when my security issue was settled,” he said. Before he accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, Carrier confessed, he lived in fear, not knowing where his attacker was or when he might strike again. But that changed when he placed his trust in Jesus Christ.

“There’s no fear factor any more,” he said. “If Jesus is my Lord, what do I have to fear? Security’s no longer an issue.”

Ministry of reconciliation

But a former youth minister with whom Carrier reconnected to make the visit to McAllister challenged him to move beyond forgiveness. He urged Carrier to attempt reconciliation with his attacker, who had at one time been dismissed from a job by Carrier’s father.

The police artist's rendering of a suspect in Chris Carrier's disapearance.

Through his faith, Carrier saw himself as no different from McAllister—a man who apparently carried out a grudge against a father by attacking his son. Likewise, Carrier saw himself having been in rebellion against God the Father and guilty of the crucifixion of the Son of God. But from his cross, Jesus asked God to forgive those who crucified him.

In Carrier’s mind, he could do no less.

“It has to be bigger than forgiving because it makes me feel good about myself or forgiving in order to have closure,” he said. “It’s a calling to be involved in what 2 Corinthians 5 calls ‘the ministry of reconciliation.’”

Today, Carrier—a Bible teacher and interim campus minister at San Marcos Baptist Academy—volunteers in prison ministry. During weekend events, he spends the first couple of days just building relationships with inmates, who often tell him they are “too bad, with no chance of forgiveness.”

After he builds a rapport with the prisoners, then Carrier tells his story.

“I’m able to tell them miracles happen, and they have happened over and over in my life,” he said. “The greatest miracle is that God gave me the chance to go to the man (who assaulted him)… and say, ‘I want to be your friend, and I want that friendship to be eternal.’”

But if forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel and all Christians are called to a ministry of reconcilation, why is Carrier’s experience the exception rather than the norm?

Fuzzy understanding of forgiveness

Some theologians suggest many Christians struggle with forgiveness and reconciliation in interpersonal relations because they fail to grasp exactly what those concepts mean in terms of their relationship to God.

Chris Carrier is now a Bible teacher and interim campus minister at San Marcos Baptist Academy.

Varied views on Christian forgiveness came to light recently when veteran television journalist Brit Hume spoke on the Fox News Sunday program about whether Tiger Woods could recover from the revelations of his marital infidelity.

“He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith,” Hume said. “So, my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

Those comments by Hume—who reportedly made a deep faith commitment to Christ following his son’s suicide 11 years ago—prompted a firestorm. Some comments focused on the appropriateness of the remarks, or the chosen platform for delivering them, or whether Hume accurately portrayed Buddhism.

But the second-generation fallout of the controversy—the comments made about the comment—caused some Christians to raise concerns about a perceived cheapened view of God’s forgiveness that portrays it as a free pass based on easy belief.

For example, conservative commentator and provocateur Ann Coulter called Christianity “the best deal in the universe.” Crudely summarizing the incarnation and atonement, she concluded: “If you believe that, you’re in.”

Understanding distinctions

Coulter’s explanation illustrates the muddied understanding many Christians have regarding the related—but not synonymous—subjects of forgiveness, grace, repentance, reconciliation and redemption, some theologians insist.

God’s forgiveness of sinners is not based on anything humans do but on what God already has done, said Randall O’Brien, author of Set Free by Forgiveness.

“Contrary to popular opinion, forgiveness precedes repentance,” said O’Brien, president of Carson-Newman College, a Baptist school in Jefferson City, Tenn. “Repentance is the result of God’s forgiveness—not the cause of it. God does not love and forgive us because we repent. We repent because God loves and forgives us. That’s the radical gospel of the cross.”

Chris Carrier, accompanied by his daughter, Amanda, visits David McAllister, who had abducted and attacked Carrier 22 years earlier. Carrier befriended McAllister and ultimately led him to faith in Christ. (FILE PHOTO/Miami Herald)

Jesus demonstrated unconditional love on the cross when he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Nobody had repented of his involvement in his crucifixion before Jesus freely forgave, O’Brien noted. But God’s universal forgiveness of sinners does not mean universal salvation, redemption and reconciliation, he explained.

“Forgiveness is a necessary but insufficient condition for reconciliation,” said O’Brien, a former religion professor and administrator at Baylor University. “Reconciliation is always conditioned upon the response of the forgiven.”

What’s true in the relationship between God and sinful people also holds true in human relationships, he explained.

“Forgiveness is a one-way street. Reconcilation is a two-way street,” he said.

Jim Denison, theologian-in-residence at the Baptist General Convention of Texas and president of the Center for Informed Faith, agreed.

“Forgiveness makes reconciliation possible but does not ensure that it is achieved. Both parties must be willing to restore their relationship before reconciliation is accomplished,” Denison said.

The example of Christ—and the grace Christians receive from God—demands action on the part of the person who has been hurt, O’Brien insisted.

“The victim has the task of initiating reconciliation,” he said. “That sounds crazy. But it’s the gospel.”

No excuse for offense

Forgiveness does not “look the other way” and pretend no harm as been done, O’Brien added. It does not minimize the damage caused or the offense committed.

“Forgiveness is not a substitute for judgment. Forgiveness is judgment. It is saying, ‘I judge you guilty, but I forgive you anyway,’” he said.

Forgiveness involves choice—choosing not to punish an offense, Denison observed.

“It is not pretending that the person was not harmed or excusing harmful behavior. When a governor pardons a criminal, she does not deny the reality of the crime, but rather chooses not to inflict the punishment prescribed by the law. God forgives our sin in the same way and calls us to treat others as he treats us,” Denison said.

Forgiveness does not mean enabling future bad behavior or imperiling innocent people. O’Brien cited the example of a woman who has been physically abused by a spouse. Forgiveness does not mean placing oneself—or others who are vulnerable—in a position that facilitates future abuse.

“Forgiveness is not a synonym for foolishness,” he said. “We’re not called to cast our pearls before swine. We’re not called to put our own safety or health—or that of our children—on the line.”

Forgive and forget?

When God forgives sinners, he “will remember their sins no more,” according to Jeremiah 31:34. But some Christian theologians and mental health professionals question whether that is either possible or advisable for human beings.

“God possesses the ability to forget all he forgives. … Such capacity is beyond most humans,” Denison said.

Denison points to the example of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who offered a prayer of forgiveness for people who were beating him to death with stones.

“Had Stephen survived the stoning he forgave, it is unlikely that he would have forgotten the experience,” he said.

Psychologist Dan McGee of Arlington, who administers counseling services for Texas Baptist ministers for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, agreed.

“I doubt that Jesus forgot his excruciating suffering and death by Roman crucifixion, perhaps the most humiliating and painful means of dying ever conceived by depraved minds,” McGee said. “However, most of the pain we experience at the hands of others, friend or foe, is not the result of willful intent to harm us.”

McGee recalled a personal experience, when he asked a friend how a former colleague could be so cruel in his behavior toward people with whom he had worked. His friend advised him not to take it personally and said, “When people are motivated by fear, they will run you over with no thought of the body count in their wake.” 

“I discovered that it is far too egocentric of me to think they did what they did with my demise in mind,” McGee said. “What I am able to do in (Christ’s) strength is remember, not forget. Remember that what they did makes some kind of sense to them, and try to understand the circumstances they were dealing with to behave as they did. And when I find myself in such circumstances, think carefully of the impact my behavior could have on those God loves.”

Healing power

Forgiveness liberates the person who does the forgiving, O’Brien stressed.

“To refuse to forgive is to live life backward,” he said, noting the person who rejects the possibility of forgiveness can become “a pain junkie” who draws his or her identity from the hurtful experience.

“Only forgiveness sets us free to a brand-new future. The only thing harder than forgiving is the alternative of living in bitterness.”

Forgiveness possesses healing power for the person doing the forgiving, and it holds the potential of broader healing through reconciliation, McGee noted.

“Forgiveness is always appropriate because of what nonforgiveness does to us and what grace expressed has the potential of doing for those who have harmed us,” he said.

“Forgiveness frees up the energy it takes to bear the burden of anger indefinitely. Psychologists know that anger suppressed—conscious blocking—or repressed—unconscious blocking—creates and sustains depression.”

But at the relational level, reconciliation moves to the next level, he added.

“Forgiveness is the healthiest response, but reconciliation is a celebration,” McGee said. 

“And there is no bond as tight as that one that emerges from two friends, lost in conflict, recovering through reconciliation.”

–With additional reporting by John Hall of Texas Baptist Communications

ST. LOUIS (RNS)—Three hundred evangelical Christian college students sat in a dark, packed downtown hotel ballroom, the projected glow of a movie the only source of light.

Students in the room, however, would have argued the real sources of light were the movies’ subjects—missionaries bringing the gospel to what they believe to be the darkest corners of the world for Christians: China, Burma, India, Africa.

In watching examples of such films, these missionaries-to-be are participating in an artistic renaissance of sorts within the Christian community. The potential of narrative filmmaking as an evangelical tool has grown rapidly in recent years, as the technical tools used to make movies have become cheaper and available to more—and younger—people.

Christian film director T.C. Johnstone, seen here (right) shooting Hearing Everett, screened part of his movie at the Urbana film forum in St. Louis. (RNS PHOTO/Courtesy of Jon Beck)

“Film is ingrained into our culture, and Christians are using it more and more for God’s kingdom’s purposes,” said Drew Mason, a 19-year-old sophomore film major from San Diego State University who attended the film screening.

The screening was part of the Urbana conference, the largest gathering of mission agencies in the world. Its purpose is to connect more than 16,000 young, idealistic, energetic college students with the 280 mission organizations and seminaries that staffed booths for the five-day event.

Urbana is organized by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA every three years. The conference moved to St. Louis in 2006 after nearly 60 years on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But this was the first year Urbana organizers decided to tap into the younger generation’s interest in movies in a big way.

“At Urbana ’03, there wasn’t a peep about film or filmmaking, and in ’06 there were two discussions that brought in about 50 people,” said Nathan Clarke, 34, a documentary filmmaker with Fourth Line Films who organized the Urbana Film Festival and Forum.

At the recent event, organizers devoted three formal sessions to the subject, screening six movies. The festival drew more than 1,000 students to the sessions, and also to smaller workshops, roundtables, lectures and one-on-one meetings in which students could get critiques on their film pitches.

“Today there’s a community of Christian filmmakers out there who have access to the technical tools, but many of whom need to learn how to tell a story,” Clarke said.

Probably the most popular evangelical movie ever made, the Jesus film, was produced 30 years ago by the late Bill Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International. The two-hour movie features the familiar biblical story of Jesus’ life and, according to its website, has been translated into 1,000 languages and has been seen by 6 billion people.

But younger filmmakers are turning away from using their craft as an element of the conversion process itself. Instead, they are taking the skills they’ve learned in film schools and using both documentary and fictional narrative techniques to change the direction in which their movies find an audience.

Rather than making a movie that shows the story of Jesus to a Third World nonbeliever, as the makers of the Jesus film did, today’s Christian filmmaker might target an American audience and dramatize the dangers for those leading the underground church in China or examining the role of the prosperity gospel in Ghana.

Christian movie director T.C. Johnstone, 36, screened part of his movie Hearing Everett at the Urbana film forum, and he explained the movie’s genesis was as a promotional video for Rancho Sordo Mudo, a home and school for deaf children in Mexico.

But what began as a simple fundraising tool eventually became a feature-length telling of the story-behind-the-story—part documentary, part narrative history—of how an American missionary family left the comforts of home and began teaching deaf children in the Mexican desert.

Churches are the intended venue for free Hearing Everett screenings, after which members may take up a collection for Rancho Sordo Mudo.

But for Johnstone and, increasingly, other Christian filmmakers, the screening itself isn’t the end of the movie experience. Hearing Everett ends with an “action step” directed at the viewer. Pastors can request a tool kit that includes a small-group study guide Johnstone hopes will lead others toward church service projects.

Other Christian filmmakers have become activists for social-justice issues that both make good sources of drama and mesh with the tenets of their faith. They are unsatisfied just telling a story of injustice and letting an audience decide how to act. For many, their faith propels them to set up nonprofit organizations.

John Shepherd, president of Mpower and producer of last year’s controversial The Stoning of Soraya M., said a new generation of Christians is embracing the arts in a way their parents never did.

“If the body of Christ doesn’t get involved in film as a mission field, it’s missing a phenomenal opportunity to have their message heard by the world,” Shepherd said. “And this young generation gets it. The church had abandoned the arts, but young people are taking it back.”

Tim Townsend writes for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in St. Louis, Mo.

Sydney bishop dresses down casual clergy. An Anglican bishop in Australia’s largest city has dressed down his clergy over their lack of sartorial style. “Why are our clergy the worst dressed people in church?” wrote Bishop Robert Forsyth of South Sydney on a website for the city’s Anglicans. Forsyth, writing in his regular column, “The Grumpy Bishop,” said he is concerned the casual wear of some clergy sends a bad message to “unbelievers and outsiders.” Forsyth says the idea of “Sunday best” does not exist any more. Still, he continued, “There is a way of dressing casual that looks really good … (and) there is a way that looks positively … scruffy.”

Jordan files complaint over Dead Sea Scrolls. Jordan has complained to a United Nations agency after Canada refused to seize the Dead Sea Scrolls at a recent exhibit in Toronto. Jordan asserts the ancient manuscripts, on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, were stolen from a museum in East Jerusalem, which Israel seized from Jordan during the Six-Day War of 1967. Some of the earliest biblical and religious writings ever found, the 2,000-year-old scrolls were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 in caves overlooking the Dead Sea. Seventeen of the approximately 900 scrolls had been on display in Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum since June. After Canada declined to seize the scrolls, Jordan announced it had complained to UNESCO—the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization—citing the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict.

American faithful disapprove of marriage to atheists. Most Americans accept interracial marriage, but many people of faith say they would be troubled by a family member’s decision to marry an atheist, the Pew Research Center reports. Seven in 10 Americans associated with a religion said they either would be bothered but come to accept such a marriage (43 percent), or they would not ever accept (27 percent) it, the poll found.

Charges of religion-related job bias hits record. Incidents of alleged religion-based workplace discrimination hit record highs in 2009, along with complaints of bias based on disability and national origin, according to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission. Charges of religion-related bias in private-sector jobs have increased steadily from fiscal year 1997, when they amounted to 2.1 percent of workplace discrimination complaints, to fiscal year 2009, when they were 3.6 percent. The overall number of charges filed during the most recent fiscal year—93,277—was the second-highest ever. Victims received monetary relief of more than $376 million during the time period studied, which ended Sept. 30, 2009. Of the 3,386 religion-based charges received by the EEOC, 2,958 were resolved. About 60 percent of resolved cases—both overall and specifically religious ones—were found to have “no reasonable cause” based on evidence obtained during an investigation. Those bringing charges still could challenge their employers through private court action.