Jerusalem, the in-between city

JERUSALEM – Hidden in the maze of passageways and shrines that is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the Chapel of St. Nicodemus.

In this lesser-known sanctuary there is an electric light.

The intricate details of life in Jerusalem's holiest Christian site are governed by a Turkish "Status Quo" declaration from 1852, which tells the Roman Catholics, Greeks, Armenians, Copts, Syrians, Jacobites and Ethiopians what they can and can't do in their corners of the church. But tensions remain, along with scores of unanswered questions.

So Daniel Rossing knew he was in trouble when his telephone rang at Israel's Ministry for Religious Affairs and a caller said that the light in St. Nicodemus chapel had burned out. He quickly confirmed that both the Syrians and Armenians were claiming the right to do this simple maintenance task. Leaders on both sides warned him: We will fix the light in the morning.

"I had to do something – fast," the veteran diplomat told a pack of journalists, during a recent walking tour of the Old City.

A reporter called out: "So, how many patriarchs does it take to change a light bulb?"

"No, no, that's not the point," said Rossing. "Let me finish."

Before dawn, Rossing slipped into the church and, when no one was watching, did what he had to do. Then he called the Syrian Orthodox bishop and, raising his voice in mock anger, told him that he had dragged himself out of bed to inspect the Chapel of St. Nicodemus only to find that the light was working just fine. Then he called the office of the Armenian patriarch and yelled exactly the same message.

Did Rossing change the bulb? In Jerusalem, it's best not to answer this kind of question.

"Yes, it was a game," said Rossing, who now serves as director of the Jerusalem Foundation's Christian Communities desk. "But there are a lot of dangerous conflicts and divisions in this city. ... In the end, I will always advocate that people learn how to play games, if they possible can."

Jerusalem is an ancient city with modern problems and a modern city with ancient problems. It is a Jewish city, a Christian city and a Muslim city. Everyone is part of a majority group, when viewed from one perspective, and a minority group, when viewed from another perspective. Police regularly encounter people claiming to be Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Mohammed or all of the above. The experts call this "Jerusalem syndrome."

The bottom line, said Rossing, is that Jerusalem is stuck at "a point of confusion somewhere between heaven and earth."

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a perfect example. Many pilgrims are disappointed when they enter and discover that, instead of one unified sanctuary, the church is like a liturgical chess board, on which players representing many church traditions move in intricate patterns that symbolize ancient divisions as well as common roots. Visitors expect to find perfection. Instead, they find the human as well as the holy.

"Holy Sepulcher isn't perfect. But it's real," said Rossing. "The same thing is true of Jerusalem. Many of this city's problems have no solution. ... We have to live in the in-between-ness of this city. Jerusalem is a laboratory of the in-between."

Rossing told a dozen true-life parables that made the same point. For example, an Eastern Orthodox church once received a donation to add two ornate domes, topped with Byzantine crosses. The problem was that this sanctuary was across the street from an enclave of ultra-Orthodox Jews. When the Jews looked up, to pray toward the Temple Mount, they could not avoid seeing these crosses. This was awkward, to say the least.

Israeli officials knew they could not require the Christians to remove the crosses. So Rossing asked them to turn the crosses – a one-quarter turn. For the Jews across the street, the crossbeams vanished. All they saw were poles pointing up.

"Jerusalem is not a city that needs, and I know I am using loaded, provocative language, final solutions to these kinds of problems," said Rossing. "We have to take little steps. We have to learn to turn the crosses 90 degrees."

The pope, the rabbi and a story from the past

JERUSALEM – In Pope John Paul II's first Christmas sermon, he shared his dream of making a pilgrimage to Israel, Jordan and the painful patchwork of land in between.

Any papal trip is a big news story. But the best way to grasp the historic nature of this pope's journey into the spiritual minefield called the Holy Land is to see it as a global story built on generations of personal stories – some beautiful, some horrific. It's like an ancient mosaic that includes many shattered pieces, but the image is still there for all to see.

Here is one of those stories. It's a story that even brought tears to the eyes of some journalists, when told by the chief rabbi of Israel.

"The pope and I, we have some memories that we share ... about the time of Holocaust in the city of Krakow," said Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, who was an 8-year-old orphan when liberated from the Buchenwald death camp. "The pope even knew my grandfather. ... He told me he remembers seeing him walking to the synagogue on Shabbat, surrounded by children."

It was these roots that reminded the chief rabbi of a story, one documented in historian Martin Gilbert's classic volume "Holocaust Journey."

In the winter of 1942, Jewish parents were forced to make agonizing choices as the Nazis swept through the ghettos of Poland. Moses and Helen Hiller rushed in secret – carrying 2-year-old Shachne – to the home of some family friends, a childless Catholic couple named Jachowicz. The mother begged them to take the boy and gave them the address of family members in Washington, D.C.

The Hillers were taken to a camp that was only 40 minutes away – Auschwitz.

"Three years passed," said Rabbi Lau. "World War II ended and they did not come back. The boy was a very Catholic boy and, by the age of four, he knew by heart all of the prayers of the church on Sunday. He understood that he was a Catholic boy, the child of the Jachowiczes. Nobody knew any different."

Finally, they decided to have Shachne baptized. They went to the nearest church in the village of Wadowice, where a young priest was completing his training. But before the rite was performed, Mrs. Jachowicz confessed the details of the boy's past. They loved the child, she said. They wanted him to stay in their home and in their church.

Father Karol Wojtyla listened and then asked one question: What do you think the boy's parents would want you do?

This devout Catholic woman was honest, said Rabbi Lau. She said, "I don't have to imagine. I know. I will never forget. My friend, Helen Hiller, my neighbor, stood at the door, giving the last look on her baby, which was in my arms, and she said to me ... 'In case, God forbid, that we will not come back, please, do all the efforts to give Shachne back into Jewish arms.' "

The priest was gentle, but firm. He would not baptize the child. Father Wojtyla, of course, became a bishop, then an archbishop, a cardinal and, in 1978, Pope John Paul II.

During an historic meeting at the pope's mountain retreat, Castel Gandolfo, the chief rabbi said he had a chance to ask John Paul – almost 50 years later – if the story was true. Yes, this was one of several such cases, said the pope. Also, the pontiff knew that the boy made it to America, where he had, in fact, become an observant Jew.

A story of this kind does not answer all of the questions that loom over dialogues between Catholics and Jews, or erase centuries of misunderstandings and betrayals, said Rabbi Lau. But what it does is suggest why this pope has made so many efforts to reach out to Jews, which John Paul calls the "senior brothers" of a monotheistic family.

"What I believe is this," said the chief rabbi. "John Paul knows, in his very heart, through his own experiences, our sufferings in the darkest time of history. I understand that he understands us."

The gospel according to Grisham

Something mysterious happened in the wilds of Brazil when the morally bankrupt lawyer Nate O'Reilly finally found missionary Rachel Lane, the illegitimate heir of a one of America's richest men.

She didn't want $11 billion. Instead, she wanted him to repent, be healed of his alcoholism and claim an outrageous gift – new life. The lawyer confessed his sins and then prayed his way through a case of jungle fever. But weeks later, he sat shaking in a pew, wracked by doubt. He wept and listed his many sins, one more time.

The story continues: "Nate closed his eyes ... and called God's name. God was waiting. ... In one glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God. He held nothing back. He unloaded enough baggage to crush any three men. ... 'I'm sorry,' he whispered to God. 'Please help me.' As quickly as the fever had left his body, he felt the baggage leave his soul. With one gentle brush of the hand, his slate had been wiped clean."

For decades, Christian writers have called this kind of plot twist the "Billy Graham scene," referring to the moments in Graham's old movies where the music swells and the protagonist gets born again. One reason "Christian" fiction is supposed to be so bad – and noncommercial – is that the genre's unwritten rules require zap-the-sinners conversion scenes.

These folks need a new excuse. The scene described above is from "The Testament," the 10th bestseller by John Grisham, that Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher with all the super-sized sales statistics. His new legal thriller, "The Brethren," can be found anywhere on the planet – except in "Christian bookstores."

So far, three of his 11 novels include conversions of this sort, said Grisham, during a recent "Art & Soul" conference at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. The novelist rarely speaks publicly – his family lives quietly on farms near Charlottesville, Va., and Oxford, Miss. – and he knew his appearance in such a high-profile Southern Baptist venue would take him into the tense turf between the Bible and the New York Times bestseller list.

"I am a Christian who writes novels. I'm not a Christian writer," he explained. "I'm not writing Christian literature. When I was a lawyer, I was a Christian who was a lawyer and tried to live my faith – not just in my profession, but in every thing that I would do. I think God is involved in (my writing), as with all the other aspects of my life."

When asked the source of his writing skills, Grisham noted that he studied accounting in college – drawing a roar of laughter. In law school, he emphasized tax law. He has never taken a creative writing course. But it was crucial, he said, that his mother "didn't believe in television." Instead, their family faithfully took three steps after each move – joining a Southern Baptist church, getting new library cards and finding a little league baseball diamond. The books soaked in and so did the sermons.

Later, Grisham's courtroom experience inspired his first novel, "A Time To Kill," especially the soul-searing testimony of a young rape victim. Church mission trips to Brazil inspired "The Testament." Another church project led to "The Street Lawyer," which was written in a 51-day frenzy after a freezing night in a homeless shelter.

The key, said Grisham, is that people who want to write suspense novels have to master that craft, with all of its ironic details and elaborate plot devices. Writers either learn how to do that, or they don't. Once someone has mastered the craft, then he can try to weave in a deeper message. It rarely works the other way around.

"Sometimes when I finish a book, I know I've done the best I can do. I know the story works," he said. "I know that the people are real and their problems are real. When I finished 'The Testament,' I was very proud. I'll do more books like 'The Testament.' I go back to those themes. I can see a few coming down the road.

"But I can't do it every time out. I have to watch it, because I'm writing popular fiction and you can't preach too much."

Bauer's sojourn in e-mail hell

The walls and shelves in Gary Bauer's new office are bare, since he only left the presidential campaign trail a few primaries ago.

But his e-mailbox is bursting and his fax machine is still humming, after his endorsement of Sen. John McCain's long-shot insurrection.

Bauer has been hearing from Christians "in Timbuktoo" who hope he spends eternity in a sizzling location – ASAP. But he has been just as stunned by the reaction of Beltway insiders, folks he has known since his Reagan White House days. They accuse him of being a schismatic heretic. Apparently, many GOP strategists believe the so-called Religious Right is exactly what journalists and Democrats say it is – a voting bloc that obeys a few all-powerful masters.

Read Bauer's lips: There is no monolith.

"I can't tell you how many times Republican leaders have said, 'GARY, where are these people going to GO? Wait a minute, you don't think they'll go vote for AL GORE?'," he said, mimicking a dismissive tone of voice.

"I say, 'Yes, some of them will.' There's this idea that evangelicals are conservative across the board, when, in fact, many are working class and lower middle-class people who ... would be liberal on some economic issues," added Bauer, who grew up in blue-collar Newport, Ken. "If they go to the polls thinking about abortion and gay rights, they'll vote Republican. But if they go to the polls wondering who's going to preserve their social security and who wants to make sure they have legal redress if their HMO mistreats them, then they may vote Democratic."

Politicos can't jam millions of white Protestants into a box plastered with a "Religious Right" label, said Bauer. Meanwhile, morally and culturally conservative voters also can be found among traditional Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Hispanics (Catholic and Protestant), black evangelicals, Jewish conservatives and in other pews.

It's also crucial to remember that the media hellfire that followed Gov. George W. Bush's South Carolina win didn't take place in a vacuum. It followed two remarkable years of bitter debate about the role that Christian leaders, especially clergy, should play in politics.

Focus on the Family patriarch James Dobson kicked things off in 1998 by accusing the GOP establishment of betraying Christian voters and said it might be time to abandon the party, even if that meant handing Democrats the White House and Congress. Dobson noted that he could not bring himself to vote for Sen. Bob Dole.

A year later, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation wrote a much-quoted epistle arguing that while religious activists have won a few political victories, they have done little to cleanse the "ever-wider sewer" of American culture. His bottom line: It's sinful to put too much faith in politicians, including Republicans.

Then two former Moral Majority leaders wrote a controversial book in which they said ministers and the ministries that they lead should flee partisan politics and focus on the spiritual needs of their flocks and of nonbelievers. Journalist Cal Thomas and the Rev. Ed Dobson of Grand Rapids, Mich., stressed that they believe many Christians must be active in the political arena – but not clergy.

Now, Bauer's open rejection of Bush – the establishment candidate – has provoked a fiery rebuke from James Dobson, including digs about McCain's personal life. Clearly, Dobson and his former Family Research Council colleague are not on the same map.

The ground is moving. But while Bauer stressed that is in full-time politics to stay, he isn't ready to say that the church and other religious institutions should be silent when America's hottest political debates veer into religious territory.

"All of the issues that really matter – whether its racial reconciliation, rebuilding the family, how we treat the poor, setting a place at the table for all of our children – center on profoundly moral questions," he said. "If they're going to be dealt with without having American citizens who come from a faith perspective leading the charge, then we're unlikely to come up with the right answers."

However, he said he has seen more evidence lately of "politics transforming Christians, than of Christians transforming politics."

Just another Sunday at Saddleback

LAKE FOREST, Calif. – The Saddleback Community Church bleachers were still filling up when the jazzy Latino pre-service music faded and, with a "One, two, three!" countdown, the 13-piece band rocked into their opening hymn.

"I wanna be like You. Live everyday, the way that You want me to," sang the throng, watching the JumbroTrons. "It's getting better. I read Your letter. These are the words you said to me. Love the Lord with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. These are the things that you must do, and my grace will see you through. ... It's all about love. Hey!"

Saddleback looks like a textbook megachurch, the kind that keeps inspiring sociologists to rush to their computers. The Rev. Rick Warren and friends mailed 15,000 invitations to their first service in 1980 and the church had 10,000 members before it built a sanctuary. Today, 15,000 or more attend five "seeker friendly" weekend services. The sunny baptismal pool welcomes a river of newcomers, with 1,638 baptized in 1999.

Outside the 3,000-seat worship center, booths offered programs for families, blended families, single parents, separated men, separated women and people struggling with almost every difficulty life can offer. Inside, the choir bounced through a reggae chorus, an oldie from 1979 and a gospel-rock anthem. Then Warren took center stage, dressed down in khakis and a black knit shirt.

"We've been looking at thinking clearly about your problems, about your relationships, about change, about sex, about stress," he said, starting one of many strolls away from the traditional pulpit. "But there's one area where people are more confused than probably any other area. It causes more divorces than sex. And it is finances, it's 'Til debt do us part.' "

The crowd laughed, because Warren is a witty storyteller and commentator on Orange County life. On this day, he told many in his flock: "You're spending money you don't have on things that you don't need to impress people you don't even like." This creates Saddleback Valley syndrome, with dreams and debts creating workaholism, then exhaustion, then depression, then shopping sprees, then more debt.

But this wasn't a megachurch sermonette for folks used to clutching a TV remote. Warren regularly preaches between 50 minutes and an hour, working his way through a dozen scripture passages and waves of illustrations from the news and daily life. Seeker-friendly sermons do not have to be short and shallow, he said.

"The idea that postmodern people will not listen to a 'talking head' for 45 minutes is pure myth," he said. "Of course, most people, including many preachers, couldn't hold an audience for 10 minutes. But that's due to their communication style, not the supposed short attention span of unbelievers. Any communicator who is personal, passionate, authentic and applies the scriptures to real life will have no trouble holding the attention of our generation."

Critics may scoff, but this Southern Baptist congregation is committed to developing techniques to help churches with 150 members, as well as 15,000. Saddleback services rarely include comedy and drama, because small churches struggle to find talented writers and actors. Saddleback rarely uses high-tech media in its services, because small churches don't have the resources to do so.

That's OK. Warren said that "if all seekers were looking for was a quality production, they'd stay home and watch TV, where millions are spent to produce half-hour programs."

But most of Warren's sermons do include breaks in which church members offer testimonies – sometimes chatty, sometimes wrenching – about how their lives have been changed by prayer, Bible study, giving and service. Why do this? Because all churches can ask members to offer testimonies.

Churches don't have to be shallow to appeal to the heads and hearts of unbelievers, stressed Warren. In fact, just the opposite is true.

"Unbelievers wrestle with the same deep questions believers have," he said. "Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Does life make sense? Why is there suffering and evil in the world? What is my purpose in life? How can I learn to get along with people? These are certainly not shallow issues."