Graphic novels, big questions

Doug TenNapel isn't your ordinary guy who doodles on a church bulletin when the sermon gets boring.

Instead, the Eisner Award-winning cartoonist scribbles in his daily calendar – creating a bridge from the pew to his studio. The result is a pocket universe of character sketches, strange movie ideas and graphic "plot wheels" in which he works out the twists and turns in his stories.

These days, swarms of Kid Elves on flying logs bump into sketches of Bigfoot, next to rough ideas for a violent, at times profane graphic novel that TenNapel is creating about crime bosses, invading aliens and an inquisitive priest.

"I can write 10 of these stories a year, but I only have time to draw one," he said. "When I see these things in my head, it's like I'm watching movies. ... But in the past they've been too far out for Hollywood."

TenNapel is a cult figure with online fanboys who admire his work in cartoons, video games, television and, especially, his book-length graphic novels with complex plots and images that resemble movie storyboards. But things will change if his "Creature Tech" reaches movie theaters.

What is the graphic novel about? Publishers Weekly said: "It's the story of the battle between the abrasive good-guy scientist Dr. Ong and the resurrected Dr. Jameson, a malevolent 19th-century occultist-mad scientist who sought to rule the world. Ong ... returns to his hometown after being appointed to direct a research facility locals call Creature Tech. There, he opens a crate housing the Shroud of Turin. Things get complicated when the ghost of Jameson ... steals the shroud, resurrects his own body and resumes trying to take over the world with the help of an army of conjured hellcats and a gigantic space eel."

Wait, there's more. Ong is also a seminary dropout and his father is a pastor who used to be a scientist. Then there's the 7-foot mantis the U.S. government sends as a security team and the symbiotic alien parasite that clamps onto the hero's chest and, strangely enough, makes him a better person.

This is a normal TenNapel plot.

It helps to understand that he grew up in rural Turlock, Calif., in a home that, during his childhood years, contained many religious influences – from atheism to evangelicalism. He studied art at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and eventually took a TV animation job with "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."

Then he moved into video games, leading to his 1994 hit "Earthworm Jim." Two years later, Steven Spielberg hired him to create the "Neverhood" games for Dreamworks. TenNapel was a digital success, but he also spiraled into burnout. Then, in 2002, he created "Creature Tech."

The key moment came when the blogger called "Moriarty" posted the following at the Ain't It Cool (aintitcool.com) site for film insiders.

"There's no doubt. It's weird. ... It's also very funny, profoundly sweet and heartfelt, touching in a strange way, and serious about concepts like faith and family without being in any way preachy or corny," he wrote. "Simply put, Creature Tech is the best American animated film since The Iron Giant. ... Better than anything from any studio. ... It's a movie that just happens to be in print."

Within minutes, studios started calling his agent. Regency Enterprises and 20th Century Fox won the bidding war and early work began on a live-action movie.

Part of the challenge, admitted TenNapel, is capturing his blend of fantasy and Christian faith. Some critics wish he would quit weaving sin, redemption, politics and science into his plots. Then there are church people who think he should be drawing evangelistic, "Christian comics" and avoiding his occasional blasts of sci-fi potty humor.

Church signs along the road

Donald Seitz had suffered through a long day during a bad week at his office on Nashville's famous Music Row.

On his way home from a business call, he drove past the Greater Pleasant View Baptist Church in Brentwood, Tenn. As usual, the no-tech sign out front offered a folksy thought for the week. This one caught his eye.

"He who kneels before God can stand before anyone," it said, in black, movable letters inserted by hand into slots on a plain white background.

Seitz pulled over and got out of his car to study the sign.

"It's all about timing," he said. "I've driven past thousands of church signs in my life, but this was the right sign on the right day. It got me. That's the thing about these signs. They grab you when you least expect it. They move you, somehow."

Before long, the president of Redbird Music crossed the line between intrigued and somewhat obsessed.

Along with his wife and their young son, he packed their car full of camera equipment and "lots of sippy cups" and hit the road. His goal was to find as many of these old-fashioned signs as possible – the kind that say things like "Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous," "Exercise daily, walk with the Lord," "God answers knee mail" and "Give God what is right, not what is left."

They spread their trips over three years and Seitz stopped keeping track of the miles after they passed the 20,000 mark. The result was "The Great American Book of Church Signs," which contains 100 photographs taken in nearly 40 states. The pilgrimage, he said, was like reading "one long American sermon."

Seitz did have questions. He wondered if these signs are still common at rural churches, but rarely used by city megachurches. Also, do some denominations embrace them, while others they are too simplistic? Would he find a red-church vs. blue-church pattern?

Many of his preconceptions were based on his experiences living and driving in the Bible Belt, especially two-lane roads in the Southeast.

"This book could have been done in Tennessee, alone. In fact, I think I could have done a whole book in Nashville," said Seitz, laughing. "In this part of the world, you can throw a rock in just about any direction and hit four or five churches that have these signs. ...

"Church signs are more common in some places than others, but if you keep looking you'll find them at all kinds of churches all over the country."

Thus, the Harmony Hill Church of God in Fayetteville, Tenn., proclaimed, "Faith is a journey, not a destination." But Seitz also found a sign that said, "Love God with all of your heart, then do whatever you want" in front of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, New York.

The Tompkinsville (Ken.) Church of Christ's sign warned rural drivers that, "A dam holds water back. It's not my last name. God." On the other side of the doctrinal aisle, the sign at the South Church Unitarian Universalist sanctuary in Portsmouth, N.H., announced – with typically broad-minded sentiments – that, "True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess."

Seitz said he was surprised that he saw very few signs that included political themes, although it was easy to read between the lines of one that said, "The Ten Commandments are still posted here." It was

also easy to interpret another marquee that stressed, "God is not a Republican or a Democrat."

This is not advanced theology. The message on a typical sign is only eight words long and is the product of a volunteer's clever imagination, research in old church bulletins or, in the digital age, a quick search on the World Wide Web. Most combine a chuckle with a moral message that strives to appeal to strangers as well as members.

After all of his travels, Seitz decided that the archetypal church-sign message was this one: "Life is fragile. Handle with prayer."

"It's succinct, it has that little pun in there and it's powerful, if you think about it for a minute," he said. "That's the essence of a good church sign message. That's what you're trying to do – get people to stop and think for a minute."

When journalists crash rites

The sanctuary was dark, except for candles near the altar, and it was quiet, other than the priest's prayers and hushed responses from the pews.

It was time for another execution in a North Carolina prison and, on this night more than two decades ago, I was kneeling with others opposed to the death penalty – not covering the rite as a Charlotte Observer reporter.

What I failed to realize was that other journalists would crash our vigil.

The television crew entered just before midnight. The cameraman clanked down the center aisle and, before reaching the altar, turned to shoot from behind the pulpit. His shoulder-mounted lights almost blinded people in the front rows.

Please consider this scene through the eyes of the angry, frustrated worshippers.

Would church members, if asked in advance, have approved what happened during our service? No way. But would we have been willing to discuss finding a way for reporters to cover the vigil without wrecking it? Of course we would.

Here's the key question: Was there a way to cover the news in this liturgy without convincing the participants that these journalists just didn't care? Could the broadcasters have sat silently, making recordings of the prayers to mix with images of the candles, sanctuary and worshipers that were filmed later?

It's important for journalists to ask these questions. However, I think it's crucial that clergy and laypeople think about these issues, too.

Memories of that Charlotte night in flashed through my mind recently as I read media protocols written by leaders of some historic, conservative Episcopal parishes in Northern Virginia that are trying to leave the Episcopal Church because of longstanding disputes over church doctrine and sexual morality.

Days before a key round of voting, parish leaders stated: "Please note that leaders of The Falls Church ? will prohibit any journalist who is not a regular worshiper from filming, researching or seeking to interview clergy or congregants about their votes on church property or inside a church facility. Journalists seeking to interview clergy or congregants off church property are asked to respect their individual wishes about dealings with the media."

Wait, what did the word "researching" mean?

This worried me as a reporter who has, for several decades, tried to cover the complicated global fights among Anglicans. To be blunt, I worried that these church leaders would end up barring veteran religion reporters – professionals whose faces they recognized – from entering these services, while admitting less-experienced, and therefore anonymous, journalists.

The good news is that these churches soon changed the ground rules after listening to the concerns of journalists. Media-savvy parish members made it clear they were not hiding and that they knew journalists needed some form of access.

There are lessons to be learned from these events.

One of the most crucial elements of journalism is the ability to hear words and then quote them accurately. This requires access. There are times when the sermons, prayers and scriptures included in worship services are vital elements of regional, national and global news stories.

Leaders of churches, temples and mosques must ask: How can reporters hear, record and report these words if they are not allowed polite access? How can they ?get? the religion in these stories if they are prevented from reporting the content of public events? Talking to people in the parking lot will not get you this theological content, other than through second-hand reports.

At the same time, there is no need for rude journalists to invade services and disturb the faithful. There is no need to badger worshipers who don't want to talk.

But if journalists – including religion-beat professionals – want to listen, it's in the long-range interests of honest, candid religious leaders to let them listen. Then journalists can leave the sanctuaries and talk to people who freely agree to talk.

It doesn't make sense to lock reporters out of newsworthy services. Sometimes, we have to be there because we have work to do. And part of that work involves finding a way to capture the words and images of the stories we need to tell. At the same time, it's wrong for journalists to wreck the very rites that we are trying to cover.

Perhaps it's time for leaders on both sides of this tense divide to show each other some respect.

Oprah and her American faith

Faithful members of Oprah Winfrey's TV flock know what's happening when guests start talking and their leader keeps saying "Amen," "Preach it" or even, "Sister, I understand the whole God connection!"

The host wants the guest to start "testifying," a confessional process in which believers look for God's healing hand in life's hard lessons. Winfrey learned all about "testifying" as a girl back in the Faith United Mississippi Baptist Church, where jealous peers often called her "Miss Jesus."

But here's the irony, noted journalist Marcia Nelson, author of "The Gospel According to Oprah." Winfrey has become a billionaire and one of world's most powerful women by baring her soul and urging millions of others to follow her example, resulting in what some critics call the "Oprahfication" of America. However, it's almost impossible to answer this simple question: What does Oprah believe?

"She sounds like a person who was raised in a Baptist church," said Nelson, who spent months digging into Winfrey's beliefs on suffering, gratitude, generosity, forgiveness and other spiritual topics.

"Still, it's hard to put a label on Oprah because she refuses to let people do that to her. ... You'd have to say that she looks a lot more like a Protestant than she does a Catholic, but what does that mean? It's hard to say what a person needs to believe these days to be called a 'Protestant.' "

Winfrey retains the ability to slip smoothly into the "mother tongue" she learned as a child in black churches, noted Nelson. For a few years as an adult, she attended the Trinity United Church of Christ, a progressive congregation in Chicago known as Sen. Barack Obama's home church. Then, during her "Remember Your Spirit" period in the 1990s, conservatives criticized her ties to Marianne Williamson ("A Return to Love") and other "New Age" writers who blurred the lines between Christianity and other faiths.

The key is that Winfrey has been a trailblazer who symbolizes many contemporary religious trends.

* Many Americans, said Nelson, are drawn to a "practical, how-to, self-help, just-do-it" approach to faith and personal growth that meshes smoothly with the parade of counselors, doctors, writers and ministers – of every conceivable faith – featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." It's crucial that the host looks straight into the camera and says: "This works."

Thus, noted Nelson, Winfrey has "been roundly criticized for making the spiritual too psychological, too therapeutic, too soft, too easy, too self-centered. The gospel according to Oprah doesn't appear to require some kind of doctrinal commitment or a community to ensure that the life-changing 'Aha!' moment of decision is more than a new year's resolution that is quickly made in isolation and broken two weeks later."

* The public loves complex, conflicted celebrities and Winfrey is the spiritual superstar. She quietly supports humble projects near home, yet courts publicity by flying off to start gigantic projects around the world – such as the new $40-million Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy near Johannesburg.

She tells women to love themselves the way they are, but keeps offering weight-loss tips. She urges viewers to give to others, but also pamper themselves. Winfrey says women should embrace their maturity, but shows them how to look 10 years younger. She advises women on private moral dilemmas, but fiercely guards her own privacy.

* One of the fastest growing segments of the population consists of people who call themselves "spiritual," but not "religious," noted Nelson. Winfrey clicks with media-driven, postmodern believers who stress the importance of personal experience and storytelling over the authority of religious institutions and doctrines. Meanwhile, many churches are trying to shed old names and labels, calling themselves "community churches" and adopting other post-denominational names.

The bottom line, said Nelson, is that for generations Americans were able to rally around a kind of tame, "nominal" Judeo-Christian faith that let them affirm a few common traditions and many old-fashioned values. But this has become harder after waves of immigration from the Middle East, Asia, Africa and elsewhere.

American is becoming more pluralistic on faith issues and that has always been just fine with Winfrey. She is all about spirituality, not doctrine. If she has a creed she keeps it hidden.

"Oprah's clothes may bear labels, but her faith does not," noted Nelson. "I don't know what her personal beliefs are."

Going in religion-news circles

Journalists may not know the precise meaning of the word "theodicy," but, year after year, they know a good "theodicy" story when they see one. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this term as a "vindication of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil." Wikipedia calls it a "branch of theology ... that attempts to reconcile

the existence of evil in the world with the assumption of a benevolent God."

There were three "theodicy" events in 2005, so the Religion Newswriters Association combined them into one item in its top-10 story list. What linked Hurricane Katrina, the Southeast Asia tsunami and another earthquake in Pakistan? Each time, journalists asked the timeless question: What role did God play in these disasters?

Last year, it was the schoolhouse massacre of five Amish girls in Bart Township, Pa. The stunning words of forgiveness offered by the families of the victims added yet another layer of drama to the story.

"Every year there is going to be some great tragedy or disaster and that causes people to ask, 'Where was God?' These events may not seem like religion stories, but they almost always turn into religion stories because of the way people respond to them," said Richard N. Ostling, who retired last year after three decades on the religion beat, first with Time and then with the Associated Press.

"This tells us something important – that it's hard to draw clean lines between what is religion news and what is not. ... Religious faith is part of how people think and how they live. This affects all kinds of things."

This is true in Iran and in Israel. It's true on Sunday mornings in American suburbs and during riots in the suburbs of France. It's true on the border between India and Pakistan and numerous other fault lines around the world.

Religion is a factor when people go to worship or when they decline to do so. For many, faith plays a role when they vote and when they volunteer to help others. Sadly, religion often plays a pivotal role when people go to war.

Thus, noted Ostling, events on this beat often seem to go in circles, with certain themes and conflicts appearing year after year, world without end – amen.

This is frustrating for editors, who struggle to understand why religious believers "keep getting so upset about what seem to be the same old stories," he said.

For example, mainline Protestants have been fighting for decades over hot-button issues linked to ancient doctrines about marriage, gender and sex. More often than not, this leads to headlines about another round of changes in the U.S. Episcopal Church. One of the major stories of 2006 was the election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori – an articulate feminist from the tiny Diocese of Nevada – as the denomination's first female presiding bishop.

"This was an important story," noted Ostling. "But was there anything all that surprising about it? Not really." Meanwhile, the bigger story – a chain reaction among parishes leaving the denomination – is "probably harder to cover because it is spread all over the country," he said.

The fall of the Rev. Ted Haggard as president of the National Association of Evangelicals was a big story in 2006, but the typical news year always includes at least one sexy scandal of this kind.

The list goes on. Every election year will include a wave of reports about the degree to which religious issues did or did not drive Republicans, and increasingly Democrats, to the polls.

There are annual stories that pit science against religion and Hollywood against people in pews. Can journalists separate politics and faith in the Middle East? Are clashes between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq about religious faith, political power or some combination of the two? What will the pope say that upsets people this year? Which church-state case split the U.S. Supreme Court this time around?

"The problem is that it's hard to know if any one event in this stream of events is the definitive one, the truly landmark event," said Ostling. "At some point, things change and they stay changed."

But journalists have to be patient, he said, because "people are looking for answers to the big questions and they don't change what they believe overnight."