Define ‘fundamentalist,’ please

Few hot-button, "fighting words" are tossed around with wilder abandon in journalism today than the historical term "fundamentalist." The powers that be at the Associated Press know this label is loaded and, thus, for several decades the wire service's style manual has offered this guidance for reporters, editors and broadcast producers around the world.

"fundamentalist: The word gained usage in an early 20th century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. ... However, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians.

"In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself."

The problem is that religious authorities – the voices journalists quote – keep pinning this label on others. Thus, one expert's "evangelical" is another's "fundamentalist." For "progressive" Catholics, in other words, Pope Benedict XVI is a "fundamentalist" on sexuality.

Anyone who expects scholars to stand strong and defend a basic, historic definition will be disappointed. As philosopher Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame once quipped, among academics "fundamentalist" has become a "term of abuse or disapprobation" that most often resembles the casual semi-curse, "sumbitch."

"Still, there is a bit more to the meaning. ... In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views," noted Plantinga, in an Oxford Press publication. "That makes it more like 'stupid sumbitch.' ... Its cognitive content is given by the phrase 'considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.' "

This linguistic fight has spread to other faiths and, thus, affects religion news worldwide.

The Orthodox side of Judaism now consists of "ultra-conservatives," "traditionalists," "ultra-Orthodox" or "fundamentalists," depending on who defines the terms. There are "fundamentalist" Hindus, as well. In Islam, journalists keep trying to draw lines between "Islamists," "Muslim radicals," "fringe groups" and a spectrum of other undefined doctrinal camps including, of course, "fundamentalists."

This confusion makes it hard for researchers with good intentions to shed light on news events in complex cultures. Take Egypt, for example, a nation in which conflicts exist between multiple forms of Islam and various religious minorities, including the Coptic Orthodox Christians who are nearly10 percent of the population.

Recent surveys by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project tried to find defining lines between political and religious groups in Egypt, after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

"Egyptians hold diverse views about religion," stated the report. "About six-in-ten (62%) think laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Quran. However, only 31% of Egyptian Muslims say they sympathize with Islamic fundamentalists, while nearly the same number (30%) say they sympathize with those who disagree with the fundamentalists, and 26% have mixed views on this question."

Meanwhile, on two other crucial questions: "Relatively few (39%) give high priority to women having the same rights as men. ... Overall, just 36% think it is very important that Coptic Christians and other religious minorities are able to freely practice their religions."

So while only 31 percent sympathize with "fundamentalist" Muslims, 60-plus percent decline to give high priority to equal rights for women and 62 percent believe Egypt's laws should STRICTLY follow the Quran. Also, only 36 percent strongly favor religious liberty for religious minorities. Each of these stances mesh easily with alternative "fundamentalism" definitions offered by experts.

To add more complexity, 75 percent of those surveyed had a somewhat or very favorable view of the Muslim Brotherhood's surging role in Egyptian life – a group long classified as "fundamentalist" in global reports, such as historian Martin Marty's "Fundamentalism as a Social Phenomenon" in 1988.

While there is no Arabic word for "fundamentalist," Pew researchers believe many Egyptians have begun applying a similar term to some groups of "very conservative Muslims," according to James Bell, director of international survey research for the Pew Research Center.

However, he added, the complexities and even conflicts inside these new survey results make it hard to say specifically who is or who isn't a "fundamentalist" in the context of Egypt today.

"For our Egypt survey, the term 'fundamentalist' was translated into Arabic as 'usuuli,' which means close to the root, rule or fundamental," he explained. "It is our understanding that this Arabic term is commonly used to describe conservative Muslims. ... So that's the word that we used."

Dershowitz visits Oslo (sort of)

Ask Orthodox Jews in Norway where one can find a fresh shoulder of kosher beef and they will give the same answer – nowhere. There is more to this obscure fact than a clash between Jewish tradition and the concerns of animal-rights activists in today's Europe, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz told a Jewish forum in Oslo. This is a symbolic fact about tensions that surround Jews in Norway.

"You live in the only country in the world today that does not permit kosher shechita," he said, at the city's Chabad House. "Shechita" is a rite in which a skilled Jew uses an extremely sharp blade to swiftly sever an animal's trachea, esophagus and the arteries and veins of the neck, allowing blood to drain out.

"They wonder why there are only 800 Jews or 900 Jews living in Norway. This is a country that permits the butchering of seals, the butchering of whales, but not this ritual slaughter – which has been proved by every scientific means to be one of the most humane means of slaughter."

The audience grasped the big idea behind his words, since this March 25 event – which was recorded – was held in an outreach center for observant Jews. How can Jews honor the details of their ancient faith without keeping kosher?

However, Dershowitz noted that when he asked other Jewish community leaders about any anti-Semitic trends in Norway, all they would say is that "things are wonderful," before falling silent.

"How can things be wonderful," he added, "if you can't have your own meat? How do you deal with the meat here, do you have to bring it in from England?"

Someone in the audience quietly replied: "We don't talk about certain things."

Among First Amendment and criminal law attorneys, few are as famous and infamous as Dershowitz. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1964 and, three years later, was promoted to full professor at age 28. Even a brief summary of his courtroom career would include a gallery of clients such as porn star Harry "Deep Throat" Reems, British socialite Claus von Bulow and O.J. Simpson. In the 1970s his attempts to defend Russian dissident Anatoly Scharansky made global headlines.

Dershowitz didn't travel to Norway just to talk about dietary laws.

The goal was to lecture about legal affairs and, especially, the role of international law in Israeli-Palestinian conflicts through the years. However, the Zionist group that organized the tour – the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem – found that Norwegian academic leaders were not anxious to have Dershowitz lecture on their campuses, at no expense to the hosts.

The dean of the Bergen University law faculty, according to Dershowitz, said the school would "be honored to have Prof. Dershowitz give a lecture on the O.J. Simpson case, as long as he promises not to say a word about Israel." The Harvard professor has written six books about the Middle East, advocating a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian standoff.

Israel was the key, in part because of 2009 debates at Norwegian universities about a proposed boycott at Jewish Israeli scholars and others who support Israel. However, rather than focusing on recent conflicts about occupied territories, Dershowitz noted that the text defining the boycott began by saying: "Since 1948 the state of Israel has occupied Palestinian land and denied the Palestinians basic human rights."

In addition to challenging the founding of the state of Israel, the first academic leader to sign the boycott petition also offered a harsh critique of the "egocentric ... tribe-mentality" among Jews in Israel, Norway and "all over the world."

While Norwegian leaders keep talking about dialogue on these issues, said Dershowitz, it will be hard for Jewish leaders to take part in bridge-building efforts if their voices are not allowed to be heard. The only previous time in his career in which he was turned away from major universities was in "apartheid South Africa, when I was Nelson Mandela's lawyer."

The bottom line: Boycotts do not promote dialogue.

Based on recent events, Dershowitz said it appears Norwegian intellectuals want "dialogue with Hamas, but not with Dershowitz. Dialogue with Hamas, but not with Israel. … Dialogue with people that we agree with, but not with people we disagree with. This is not dialogue. This is a one-way monologue."

Shahbaz Bhatti, modern martyr

In the early days of Christianity, martyrs often gave their final testimonies of faith to Roman leaders before they were crucified, burned or fed to lions. Times being what they are, Shahbaz Bhatti turned to Al Jazeera and YouTube. The only Christian in Pakistan's cabinet knew it was only a matter of time before his work as minister for minority affairs got him killed. Threats by the Taliban and al-Qaeda kept increasing.

"I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his own life for us. I know what is the meaning of the cross and I follow him on the cross," said Bhatti, in a startlingly calm video recorded several weeks before his assassination on March 2.

"When I'm leading this campaign against the Sharia laws for the abolishment of blasphemy law, and speaking for the oppressed and marginalized persecuted Christian and other minorities, these Taliban threaten me. ... I'm living for my community and suffering people and I will die to defend their rights. So these threats and these warnings cannot change my opinion and principles."

The last straw was almost certainly the Catholic statesman's defense of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five who was sentenced to death last November for the crime of blasphemy after she publicly defended her faith in a village argument. The verdict – which must be upheld by a higher court – further polarized a tense nation and sparked a global firestorm.

Then again, in 2009 Bhatti received the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's first medallion for the promotion of religious freedom. A year later he met with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss interfaith work and religious liberty in Pakistan. Bhatti was not hiding his convictions.

The blasphemy laws in question went into effect in 1986, during the dictatorship of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. They ban, among other actions, the use of "derogatory remarks, etc; in respect of the Holy Prophet. Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine."

These blasphemy laws have been used against hundreds of Muslim dissenters and Ahmadi sect members, whose approach to Islam is specifically attacked in the laws. In practice, conversion from Islam to another faith is considered blasphemy, as are attempts to advocate or defend minority faiths, such as Christianity or Hinduism.

Vigilantes often kill those formerly or informally accused of blasphemy – making trials irrelevant.

This was the case with Bhatti's death in a wave of machine-gun fire into his unarmored car. Pakistani officials had denied his request for an armored car, despite the constant threat of drive-by shootings.

Formalities were also irrelevant on Jan. 4, when Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab Province, was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. This outspoken Muslim also defended Bibi and called for reform in the use of blasphemy laws.

Adoring crowds showered Taseer's assassin with rose petals and garlands as he arrived to face a magistrate, while moderate Muslim leaders remained silent. Pakistan's legislators observed a moment of silence for Bhatti, since it probably would have been fatal for anyone to offer a prayer in his honor.

After all, pamphlets left by those who killed Bhatti warned that they would keep fighting "all the world's infidels, crusaders, Jews and their operatives within the Muslim brotherhood. ... This is the fate of that cursed man. And now, with the grace of Allah, the warriors of Islam will pick you out one by one and send you to hell, God willing."

Apparently, many radicals in Pakistan have concluded – a perfect Catch-22 – that it is blasphemy to oppose the blasphemy laws.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani conference of Catholic bishops is preparing to render a judgment of its own. Later this month the bishops will review a proposal to ask the Vatican to designate Bhatti as a martyr.

"Bhatti is a man who gave his life for his crystalline faith in Jesus Christ," Bishop Andrew Francis of Multan told a Vatican news agency. "It is up to us, the bishops, to tell his story and experience to the church in Rome, to call for official recognition of his martyrdom."

College campus holy wars

Anyone who explores academic hallways on American campuses will find lots of cartoons posted on professors' office doors and bulletin boards. But what if the cartoons included the Prophet Muhammad?

In one famous case, a professor at Century College in Minnesota dared to post the Muhammad cartoons that were published in a Danish newspaper. Facing fierce criticism, she put the images behind a curtain so that anyone passing her bulletin board would not see them unless they chose to do so. Administrators quickly created a policy requiring advance approval of all posted items.

It's easy to find hot religion buttons on campuses. What if a club tried to screen Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and administrators banned it, citing its R-rating and controversial content? What if the same administrators allowed a play on campus in which a character pretended to perform a sex act on an image of Jesus?

What if a Jewish group sponsored a campus lecture by an Israeli official and it had to be cancelled due to heckling by Palestinian students? What if a professor urged students to destroy a campus-approved display of tiny crosses, created by pro-life students, that symbolically represented their opposition to abortion?

These cases are real and there are hundreds more.

Passions are boiling over on many campuses," stressed attorney William Creeley, who directs legal teams for the secular Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. "Students and professors and administrators are fighting about all kinds of things, but the surface issues are often proxies for the real issue – which is religion. ...

"The garb in which these clashes are clothed may be student rights or campus fees, but they are usually about religion, morality and sex."

A recent survey by the foundation, he said, found that 71 percent of America's campuses try to enforce codes that in some way clash with the First Amendment. Meanwhile, many private schools – which can create covenants that limit many freedoms – are failing to warn students, faculty and staff about the contents of the documents they sign when entering these voluntary associations.

Catholic educators at Georgetown University had a legal right to ask the abortion-rights group "Hoyas for Choice" to operate under the name "H*yas for Choice" and to deny it some campus benefits. DePaul University had a right to deny equal treatment to a group called "Students for Cannabis Policy Reform." The issue, said Creeley, is whether private-school leaders explicitly warn students and parents – before they enroll – about "what they are getting into."

Scratch the surface and it's easy to find religion in other campus conflicts. For example, "conservatives" often claim they face discrimination when seeking faculty promotions or jobs in prestigious schools, especially in science and political science departments. Programs that discuss Islam, or deal with Israel and the Middle East in general, continue to generate heat. Can faculty who dissect the Bible do similar textual criticism of the Koran?

However, any FIRE review of recent campus fights, said Creeley, would have to discuss whether or not religious groups on state campuses can insist that their leaders support their foundational beliefs. In other words, can a Jewish group insist that its leaders support the right of Israel to exist? Can a pro-life group insist that its leadership be limited to those who oppose abortion? Can an evangelical group require that all members of its leadership believe in the Resurrection of Jesus?

Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court – in another 5-4 decision – ruled that the Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco could require its Christian Legal Society chapter to use an "all comers" policy for members and leaders or lose its status as a campus organization. The case pivoted on the group's affirmation that sex outside of marriage – the union of husband and wife -- is sinful.

FIRE has tracked 40 or more disputes of this kind, noted Creeley, and there are sure to be more.

"I cannot think of anything less 'liberal' than what we are seeing on many campuses," he said. While most educators "pride themselves on offering a 'liberal education,' " many are now promoting "an orthodoxy that tempts them to edit the First Amendment. ... You end up driving certain points of view off campus and silencing the religious voices that trouble you. That's dangerous – period."

Thumbs down for Obama faith, again

For those keeping score, let it be noted that the White House transcript from the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony says that President Barack Obama shouted "Merry Christmas" before adding "Happy holidays." In fact, Obama said "Christmas" eight times, twice as often as he mentioned "holidays." With his family at his side, the president also used an even more controversial word – "Christian."

"Each year we've come together to celebrate a story that has endured for two millennia," he said. "It's a story that's dear to Michelle and me as Christians, but it's a message that's universal: A child was born far from home to spread a simple message of love and redemption to every human being around the world."

Politicos did the Beltway math and got this number – 2012.

God talk is back in the political equation, as the clock ticks toward another campaign. Insiders are counting how often Obama clearly mentions his Christian faith and then subtracting, to cite a key statistic, the number of times he quotes the Declaration of Independence while clipping God from the line that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

Many pastors seem to be paying attention as well, according to a recent LifeWay Research survey that asked 1,000 Protestant pastors to judge the faith of five public figures. Researchers interviewed a spectrum of clergy, with the selection of participants based on the sizes of their national denominations. Thus, conservative flocks had more votes.

The question: "Which, if any, of the following people do you believe are Christians?" It was thumbs up for former President George W. Bush (75 percent) and GOP lightning rod Sarah Palin (66 percent), but thumbs down for Obama (41 percent), as well as media superstars Glenn Beck (27 percent) and Oprah Winfrey (19 percent).

Among the pastors who said they were Republicans, 23 percent said Obama is a Christian, a stark contrast with the 80 percent of the pastors who identified themselves as Democrats. Among "independents," 52 percent called Obama a Christian.

Bush was viewed as a Christian by 75 percent of the pastors, including 84 percent of those who identified their politics as "liberal" or "very liberal." Meanwhile, 25 percent of the "very conservative" Protestant clergy declined to call Bush a Christian.

One thing this survey made clear is that many American clergy have clashing definitions of the word "Christian," said Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, which is linked to the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention.

For many Americans, he said, "Christian" is "simply an identification on a form. They see a box on a survey and they say, 'I am not Hindu or Jewish. I am from America, so I must be Christian.' ... Pastors may see this differently. For example, evangelical pastors tend to link the term 'Christian' with conversion experiences."

Thus, conservative Protestants believe that people are not born into Christianity, but enter the faith by being "born again."

This is why the Obama controversies are so hard to understand, stressed Stetzer. On several occasions – including in his memoirs – Obama has described what is "clearly a conversion experience of some kind" in which he made a public profession of Christian faith and joined the United Church of Christ.

Nevertheless, Obama supporters were stunned by last year's much-publicized Pew Research Center poll that said 18 percent of Americans continue to believe that Obama is a Muslim, while only 34 percent identify him as a Christian. Another 43 percent did not know his religious faith.

There is no way to be sure why so many of the clergy who participated in the LifeWay survey declined to call Obama a Christian, stressed Stetzer.

A few may think he is a Muslim, while others may believe that Obama is so progressive that he is trying to affirm multiple faiths at the same time. It is likely that many conservatives believe that Obama sincerely thinks he is a Christian, but that his religious beliefs are too unorthodox to be considered doctrinally sound.

"I just don't think that the Muslim controversy alone is enough to explain what we're seeing here," said Stetzer. "At the end of the day, we only know that the pastors answered this way, not why they answered this way. We have more work to do on this."

2010 was that kind of year in religion

President Barack Obama did something on Sept. 19th that caught many in the national press off guard. He went to church. The First Family walked across Lafayette Square Park to St. John's Episcopal Church, a parish so close to the White House that many call it the "Church of the Presidents." The Obamas set down front and received Holy Communion.

Was this really an important news story?

Timing was everything. The Obama family had not occupied a public pew – as opposed to attending services at Camp David – since Easter. And this church visit came shortly after a Pew Research Center poll found that 18 percent of Americans insist on believing that Obama is a Muslim, a stunning number that was up from 11 percent in March 2009.

Obama has, in numerous speeches and his two memoirs, offered detailed testimonies about his progressive faith and why he feels at home in the United Church of Christ, a freewheeling flock that has long helped define the left wing of Protestantism. Nevertheless, only 34 percent of Pew poll participants said the president is a Christian and a stunning 43 percent could not identify his current religion. Only 46 percent of Democrats, and 43 percent of African-Americans, said Obama is a Christian.

Like it or not, 2010 was that kind of year.

One Baptist progressive was blunt. While the president must continue to defend the "American principle of religious freedom for all, including Muslims and non-believers," it wouldn't hurt for Obama to join a local church, said the Rev. J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee.

"His recent Democratic predecessors did just that," noted Walker. "The public remembers pictures of President Clinton leaving Foundry Memorial United Methodist Church with Bible in hand during his presidency. President Carter taught Sunday school at First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C. ... President Obama should not do this simply for show; but an active, visible practice of his Christianity would help counter misunderstandings and lies about his faith."

It was that kind of year, with many of the most vital news stories and trends rooted in confusing clashes about religious liberty, law, history and tradition.

Debates about Obama's faith didn't top the Religion Newswriters Association list of the year's top stories, after figuring so prominently in 2008 and 2009. However, this year's No. 1 story – fierce debates nationwide about a planned mosque and community center near New York's Ground Zero – once again forced the president out onto a painfully familiar religious tightrope. The White House even became involved in efforts to convince an obscure Florida pastor to cancel his "International Burn a Koran Day" media event on, of course, Sept. 11.

Indeed, it was that kind of year. Here's the rest of the RNA top 10.

(2) The catastrophic earthquake in Haiti sparks relief efforts by many different kinds of faith-based groups. An independent group of Baptists from Idaho spends some time in a Haitian jail after accusations of child smuggling.

(3) Pope Benedict XVI is accused of helping to delay actions against pedophile priests in Ireland, Germany, the United States and other countries while, as a cardinal, he led a key Vatican office between 1981 and 2005. Several bishops resign.

(4) The Tea Party – Religious Right believers or talk-radio fans attacking government spending? Mormon Glenn Beck pushes both buttons on the National Mall.

(5) The nation's Catholic bishops oppose the White House health-care reform bill, in yet another clash over public funding for abortion. The bill passes, with strong support from many liberal Catholics and other religious progressives.

(6) The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) votes – for the fourth time – to ordain noncelibate gay clergy. Once again, regional presbyteries still have the option to say "no."

(7) Hard times force cuts in many religious headquarters, from the long-suffering world of old-line Protestantism to conservative groups, such as Focus on the Family.

(8) Religious groups debate whether links exist between traditional forms of many faiths and the suicides of gay young people who have been bullied by peers.

(9) The Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey finds that people with intense views about religion – whether pro or con – know the most correct answers.

(10) The U.S. Supreme Court convenes for the first time ever without a Protestant justice in its ranks – with six Catholics and three Jews.

Rights and wrongs of Pastor Terry Jones

The deaths of the 10 International Assistance Mission medical workers inspired headlines that were both shocking and numbingly familiar, since these are dangerous times for believers whose convictions steer them into Afghanistan. A Taliban blandly leader told the press: "They were Christian missionaries and we killed them all."

If the gunmen had only waited a few weeks, they could have claimed that their victims were linked to a powerful global conspiracy to burn Korans.

That's the kind of statement that the head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission was worried about when he – with countless other evangelicals – urged the Rev. Terry Jones to cancel his "International Burn a Koran Day" event on Sept. 11. The leader of the tiny Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., did precisely that, but not before forcing religious and political leaders to wrestle with agonizing First Amendment issues.

"The behavior of this church is not Christian. I cannot imagine Christ burning any religious texts," argued the Rev. Richard Land, in an online Washington Post forum. "This behavior is unfortunately one of the prices we pay for living in a free society with freedom of speech and freedom of expression, even when it is odious and reprehensible."

A protest of this kind would "besmirch the reputation of our Savior, and that makes it blasphemy," he said. The whole idea was "appalling, disgusting and brainless."

The bonfire would have made life more dangerous for missionaries, human-rights activists, diplomats and American soldiers. Those flames also would have made life much more dangerous for Christian converts and members of other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim lands.

Nevertheless, these clergy and politicos had to wrestle with the fact that Jones had every right to buy copies of the Koran and, after planning a fire small enough to wink at local laws, strike a match.

After all, this would, have been another act of painful symbolic speech.

Did the American Nazis have a constitutional right to march in Skokie, Ill., a Chicago suburb that was home to numerous Holocaust survivors? Yes, and demonstrators in the Reagan White House era burned the American flag. Muslims overseas have burned copies of the novel, "The Satanic Verses," by Salman Rushdie, and Bibles, too.

How many times have followers of the Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kan., waved their lurid signs – "God Hates the U.S.A." is one of the mildest – at funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? On Sept. 11, the Westboro Baptist Church crew burned a Koran and an American flag at the same time. For once, most journalists elected to look the other way.

In the case of Jones and his church in Gainesville, the Council on American-Islamic Relations decided that the timing of his Koran travesty was simply too hot to ignore. Even though the group regularly ignores the videos that it receives of people burning, shooting or ripping apart Islam's holy book, CAIR decided to issue a July 19 press release announcing its own protest of "International Burn a Koran Day." The group handed out free copies of the Koran.

The word was officially out and the media storm kept growing as angry reactions – from Arab streets to the White House – rolled into the world's newsrooms.

Lost in the din were the quiet, measured words of many religious leaders who tried to walk a knife's edge of logic in their public statements.

For starters, they had to note the painful fact that the Dove World Outreach Center was an independent Pentecostal congregation and its members were responsible to no higher religious authority than their own pastor. Thus, there was no one who could stop this event, other than public officials who, in order to do so, would have had to trample the rights of Jones and his flock.

The bottom line: Blasphemy is not illegal in the United States of America.

As the clock ticked down, Land stressed that the "only thing more dangerous than what this pastor is doing would be to allow the government to interfere. This would set a terrible precedent and would diminish all our First Amendment rights. The best way to combat this is to exercise our free speech right to condemn what he is doing in the simplest way and most direct terms."

Obama and Allah, past and present

In the spring of 2007, candidate Barack Hussein Obama met with a New York Times columnist and discussed his days as a "little Jakarta street kid" who once got in trouble for making faces during Koran classes. Obama proceeded to recite the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer in Arabic, with what Nicholas D. Kristof called a "first-rate accent." Obama described this chant as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."

This text, in one English translation, proclaims: "Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! ... I testify that there is no god but Allah! ... I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." These lines are known as the Shahada – from the Arabic verb, "to testify" – and reciting them, in public, with the intent of becoming a Muslim, is a crucial act in entering and then practicing the faith.

This is the kind of biographical detail that keeps complicating matters for journalists who try to make sense of the poll from the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life indicating that 18 percent of Americans think Obama is a Muslim, as opposed to 11 percent in March 2009.

Only 34 percent of those polled said Obama is a Christian and a stunning 43 percent did not know his current religion. Among his strongest supporters, 43 percent of blacks and 46 percent of Democrats said he is a Christian.

These numbers are strange in light of Obama's public testimonies about his conversion to Christianity, after years of spiritual struggle.

In his memoir, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama confessed that as a young social activist he realized, "Rich, poor, sinner, saved, you needed to embrace Christ precisely because you had sins to wash away – because you were human. ... I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized. ... Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth."

This was an open confession of faith, even if many conservative Christians choose to reject the liberal beliefs he has articulated through the years. During the campaign, the Rev. Franklin Graham asked Obama if Jesus was the only way to heaven. "Jesus is the only way for me," he responded.

Meanwhile, the Obama team has had difficulty communicating a clear message about his faith history. Campaign aides, at first, said he had never been a Muslim, but later stressed that he had never been "a practicing Muslim."

Obama's family history is hard to describe. His father was a Muslim from Kenya who became an atheist. His stepfather was a Muslim who, in Obama's words, was raised in an era in which Indonesia offered a tolerant approach to Islam that blended with "remnants of Hinduism, Buddhism, and ancient animist traditions." His mother was raised as a Christian, but adopted her own mix of secularism and spirituality.

While in Indonesia, Obama attended what he has called a "Muslim" public school and also a Catholic school. At both schools, according to educators interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, his faith was listed as "Muslim." School friends recalled that they often went to the mosque together.

Nevertheless, there is no single, definitive Islamic approach to questions about the role of birth and upbringing in establishing a person's religious identity.

Franklin Graham was only partially right when he told CNN: "The president's problem is that he was born a Muslim. His father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father. ... His father gave him an Islamic name." Graham added that Obama has "renounced Islam and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn't."

This view of Islamic tradition is much too simplistic, said Stephen Prothero of Boston University, author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World." There is more to this debate about faith and identity than DNA, he stressed.

"As a matter of jurisprudence, however, there is a presumption that a child born to a Muslim father is Muslim," said Prothero, in an email exchange. "This needs to be followed up with ACTION, however. ...

"Like Christianity, Islam is a matter of choice, not inheritance."

Obama's year: Cairo top story?

President Barack Obama deserved the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, said the Norwegian Nobel Committee, because his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen ... cooperation between peoples" had created a "new climate in international politics." Even Obama's fiercest admirers admitted that his best work for peace occurred at lecture podiums, where the new president offered more of the soaring, idealistic words that helped him rise to power. Nobel judges, in particular, had to be thinking about his June 4 address at Cairo University, in which he promised an era of improved relations between America and the Muslim world.

It's crucial, he said, for Americans and Muslims to realize that their cultures "overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings." Muslims and Americans must, for example, find ways to work together to defend religious liberty.

"People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, heart and soul," he said. "This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive. ... The richness of religious diversity must be upheld – whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. ...

"Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together."

The Cairo speech – which included quotes from the Koran, the Bible and the Talmud – was the year's most important religion story, according to a poll of mainstream reporters who cover religion news. The role of Obama's liberal Christian faith in the White House race topped the 2008 Religion Newswriters Association poll.

Religious-liberty issues will continue to test the Obama team, as illustrated by the sobering numbers in a new "Global Restrictions on Religion" study released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. It found that citizens in a third of all nations – representing 70 percent of the world's population – are not able to practice their religion freely, due to government policies or hostile actions taken by individuals or groups.

Among the world's most populous nations, Egypt, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan and India had the most intense restrictions on religion, especially limits on the rights of religious minorities.

The nations offering the greatest freedoms on religious practice were the United States, Brazil, Japan, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Here's the rest of the RNA top 10.

(2) Faith groups were at the center of debates over health-care reform, which was the hottest topic in Congress for most of the year. The U.S. Catholic bishops consistently opposed the use of tax dollars to fund abortions, thus clashing with other religious groups that supporting an expanded government role.

(3) The role of radical forms of Islam in terrorism hit the news once again, due to the disturbing history of statements and actions of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the accused gunman in the massacre of 13 people, including a pregnant woman, at Fort Hood.

(4) George Tiller, an outspoken specialist in performing late-term abortions, was shot while ushering at his Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation in Wichita. The antigovernment radical charged with the murder, Scott Roeder, had in the past supported the views of writers who argue – see ArmyofGod.com – that violence against abortionists is morally justified.

(5) Mormons in California were attacked by some gay-rights supporters due to their lobbying efforts on behalf of Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage. Anti-Mormon protests led to vandalism at some Mormon buildings.

(6) President Obama was granted an honorary degree in law from the University of Notre Dame, despite protests that this violated a U.S. bishops policy urging Catholic institutions not to honor those who openly oppose church teachings on the sanctity of human life.

(7) The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to ordain gay and lesbian pastors who live in faithful, committed, monogamous relationships, leading some congregations to start preparations to form a new denomination.

(8) The national recession forced budget cuts at a wide variety of faith-related groups – houses of worship, publishing houses, relief agencies, colleges and seminaries.

(9) Leaders of the Episcopal Church voted to end a moratorium on installing gay bishops, ignoring a request from the archbishop of Canterbury and many other leaders in the global Anglican Communion. The Diocese of Los Angeles then elected a lesbian as a new assistant bishop.

(10) President Obama's inauguration rites included a controversial invocation by the Rev. Rick Warren, a controversial benediction by the Rev. Joseph Lowery and, at a celebration beforehand, a prayer by New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay, noncelibate bishop.