New questions about the shroud, part one

Once a week, Barrie Schwortz digs into the computer data that describe who is using his Web site dedicated to news, photographs and scientific papers about the Shroud of Turin.

The report doesn't give names, but does show where people work. Scrolling through the "dot.edu" addresses yields scores of hits from Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale and numerous other campuses. Some codes in the "dot.gov" listings are tougher to decipher. Nevertheless, a trained eye can spot the Los Alamos National Labs, the Lawrence Livermore National Labs, the National Science Foundation and other research centers.

And out in cyberspace, there are clusters of NASA folks who are still curious about that 14-foot herringbone sheet at the Cathedral of Turin. This, despite the 1988 carbon-14 work that indicated it was woven between 1260 and 1390.

"Carbon dating is like the Holy Grail of science for a lot of people," said Schwortz, the official photographer for the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project. "But if the carbon dating had really proven, definitively, that the shroud was fake, nobody would be hitting my site except religious fanatics. The fact is, there are fascinating unanswered questions that keep pulling hard-core scientists back to that piece of cloth."

Meanwhile, many Christians sincerely believe this is the burial cloth of Jesus, and cite historic and scientific reasons for doing so, as well as the testimonies of faith and church tradition. The shroud will be displayed between Aug. 12 and Oct. 22, the fifth public exhibition since 1898.

The problem is that each shroud study seems to raise new questions, while providing few rock-solid answers. In 1898, Secondo Pia discovered the image is a photographic negative and, in 1976, Colorado researchers proved that it contains three-dimensional data. The image contains scores of technical details about crucifixion that had been lost for centuries, only to be discovered by modern archaeologists and pathologists. All but a few researchers have concluded that its ghostly image of a whipped and crucified man consists of lightly scorched fibers, not pigments.

The 1978 project yielded a treasure drove of data and research materials, including the 2,700 photographs that form the backbone of the Schwortz internet site (www.shroud.com) and his upcoming book with British historian Ian Wilson, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence." But research money all but vanished after the carbon-14 test results and waves of headlines proclaiming "The Shroud is a Fake."

Meanwhile, critics kept suggesting ways that the shroud could have been created. Other teams of researchers tested each theory, and found them lacking. As a researcher at Los Alamos once told me: "We've tested every method we can think of and none of them work. ... It seems like we have proven that the shroud doesn't exist. The only problem is that it does."

By 1995, Schwortz said he was sickened to realize that the only place Americans could read about the Shroud of Turin was in supermarket checkout lines. Tabloid headlines screamed that Leonardo da Vinci had invented photography to produce the image, or aliens did it, or that scientists were poised to use DNA from blood samples to clone Jesus.

But behind the scenes, research was proceeding – work that is chronicled in a growing number of Web sites. There has been new work in Israel focusing on plant pollens that could help scientists trace the shroud's history, on characteristics of the cloth samples that may have skewed the carbon-dating process and on fascinating similarities between the shroud and the Sudarium Christi (Face Cloth of Christ) in the Cathedral of Oviedo, Spain.

The upcoming exhibit may inspire renewed media coverage and, thus, public interest, said Schwortz.

"At this point," he said, "I think that there is more evidence indicating that the cloth is authentic than there is that it's a fake. I say that, and I'm a Jew, so it's hard for people to accuse me of Christian bias. But there are so many questions to be answered and some that may never be answered. That's what this is all about – big, big questions."

An Easter question – liar, lunatic or Lord?

Every now and then, messiahs slip past newspaper security personnel and pay visits to religion reporters, offering scoops on the end of the world and other hot stories.

Guards can spot those who wear robes or offer other clues that they may not currently reside in a known zip code. Nevertheless, a prophet who looked like Elvis once reached my desk at the Charlotte Observer. The great religion writer Russell Chandler, now retired from the Los Angeles Times, has threatened to write a memoir entitled "Messiahs I Have Known."

The Rev. Lee Strobel encountered a few messiahs in mental hospitals during his years as the Chicago Tribune's ultra-skeptical legal affairs reporter.

"I met people who said they were Jesus on a fairly regular basis," he said. "But anyone can claim to be God. The question is whether they can back that up. That's why the resurrection is so crucial for Christians."

This controversy never dies. Thus, every Easter magazines and newspapers try to find a way to put Jesus on page one, often focusing on debates about the resurrection, life after death or the truthfulness of Christian scriptures.

Book publishers feed off this cycle as well, offering a stream of works by skeptics and believers. Most cover familiar territory in scripture, archeology, history and church tradition. But one chapter in Strobel's popular "The Case For Christ" veers off the usual path. It's called "Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed to be the Son of God?"

This was one of the hard questions that Strobel asked two decades ago, when he dissected his wife's newborn Christian faith using his Yale Law School skills. He spent two years investigating the evidence relevant to the story of Jesus and, in the end, the atheist was converted and then ordained. He currently is "writer in residence" at the giant Saddleback Community Church in Orange County, Calif.

Most Americans say that they believe in God, Jesus and the Bible. But in this tolerant age, noted Strobel, many gloss over the church's claims that Jesus is the only savior, for all humanity. This raises two questions: Did Jesus say that he is divine? If he did, was he sane?

Here is how Christian apologist C.S. Lewis put it: "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse."

Strobel asked the president of the American Association of Christian Counselors to describe sanity. The key, said Gary Collins, is not what a person says or even what emotions he displays. Psychologists are primarily interested in whether a person responds to his environment in a way that is inappropriate.

Thus, it's normal that Jesus wept when a friend died. Faced with injustice, he got mad. He knew that many opposed him, yet did not slide into paranoia. Jesus seems to have related well to ordinary people, yet also to leaders and crowds. Even some of the radical events in his life – such as his extreme fasting in the wilderness – fit within the norms for mystics of his day.

Yet when Jesus made messianic claims, many immediately said that he was insane and irrational. Disciples answered those charges by saying his actions, especially his miracles, are not those of a madman. The debates rage on, today. Some critics – such as British author A. N. Wilson now suggest that Jesus was a skilled hypnotist.

What's impossible to find is a safe niche in the muddy middle, said Strobel.

"We have so many people today who say they believe, but they live their lives like atheists," he said. "They want to say that Jesus' teachings were nice and that he was wise and compassionate, but then they don't follow through and make a decision about his central claim. At some point an honest person has to ask – was Jesus the Son of God, or a madman?"

Year 12 – Microsoft, Mozart & hell

For the principalities and powers at Microsoft, these are the times that try geeks' souls.

Then again, maybe an even more serious judgment day lies ahead.

Not long ago, Microsoft's advertising team came up with a cheery slogan to assure consumers that the software giant understands the daily challenges faced by ordinary people. One of these spots features a snippet of Mozart's Requiem, juxtaposed with Microsoft's omnipresent question, "Where do you want to go today?"

A recent issue of the journal InfoWorld noted that this was a strange question to ask while the choir urgently sang: "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis (The damned and accursed are consigned to the flames of hell)."

But there is hope. A friend who is a classics scholar, Father Patrick Henry Reardon, informs me that these lines from the "Dies Irae" are composed, grammatically speaking, in the "ablative absolute." This is a dependent clause and, thus, the thought should be completed with its principal clause, which is: "Voca me cum benedictis (Summon me with the blessed)."

So who is blessed and who is cursed? In this case, a federal judge will make that decision.

This bizarre anecdote can only mean one thing. Every year I mark the anniversary of the birth of this column – this is No. 12 – by offering a buffet of my favorite off-beat leftovers from my mailbox. It's that time again, so dig in.

* Columns about church-music trends always provoke reactions. My commentary on "post-contemporary worship" inspired several readers to send the same parable, which explained the difference between "hymns" and "praise choruses."

"It's like this," a farmer explained to his wife. "If I were to say to you, 'Martha, the cows are in the corn,' that would be a hymn. If, on the other hand, I was to say to you, 'Martha, Martha, Martha, oh Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black-and-white cows, the COWS, COWS, COWS, are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn,' that would be a praise chorus."

* A personal request: Please, do not send more updates about the photograph of Shirley MacLaine in Los Angeles that is supposedly weeping tears that heal people. That is so 1980s.

* Six prominent ministers recently gathered in Virginia Beach, Va., for a rite to renew religious broadcaster Pat Robertson's vows as an ordained minister, a role which he surrendered in 1988 to run for president. Among the clergy who placed his hands on Robertson's shoulders during the ordination prayers was Episcopal Bishop John Howe of Orlando. So I'm curious. Historically speaking, are we talking about the Rev. Pat Robertson or Father Pat Robertson?

* A reader's list of possible titles for Jewish country-western songs began with "I Was One of the Chosen People ('Til She Chose Somebody Else)." It ended with "Mamas Don't Let Your Ungrateful Sons Grow Up to Be Cowboys (When They Could Very Easily Have Just Taken Over the Family Business that My Own Grandfather Broke His Back to Start and My Father Built Up Over Years of Effort Which Apparently Doesn't Mean Anything Now That You're Turning Your Back on Such a Gift)"

* The end is near. Apparel Industry magazine noted that the peek-a-boo trend of girls flaunting ritzy bras, or faux bra-strap headbands, has reached some pews. "Even Mennonite girls are wearing it at church functions," wrote the editor.

* You have to admit that it took guts for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to put up a "Jesus was a vegetarian" billboard – with an image of Christ with an orange-slice halo – in cattle-crazy Amarillo, Texas. No, this had nothing to do with Oprah.

* If you get this joke, you probably grew up in the Bible Belt. "You might be a Southern Baptist if ... you know that Lottie Moon is not a member of the Unification Church."

* For those who remain anxious about the millennium, the Daystar International Ministry still has its 24-hour-a-day Webcam aimed at Jerusalem's Eastern Gate. The faithful can watch for the Second Coming at http://www.messiahcam.org.

* A reader passed along this puzzler: "Can atheists get insurance for acts of God?"

Why churches are silent on sex

All David Morrison has to do to find out what gay activists and religious conservatives are saying about each other is open his own mail.

"I guess the only way to end up on all the mailing lists that I'm on is to have lived my life," said Morrison, a thirtysomething journalist in Washington, D.C.

In college, he was a homosexual activist who specialized in arguing with Christians. Then he graduated into volunteer work with AIDS networks. In 1992, he burned out and embraced a gay-friendly brand of liberal Christianity. Today, Morrison is devout Roman Catholic who affirms all of his church's teachings on sex and marriage, including its stance that homosexuality is an "objective disorder." He has written an unusually candid book called "Beyond Gay" that challenges many dogmas on the religious right as well as on the lifestyle left.

As he reads his mail, Morrison said he is struck by a sad and ironic fact: He doesn't recognize the people that these culture warriors keep writing about.

"When you read the stuff on the gay mailing lists, conservative Christians are 10 feet tall and all-powerful and on a crusade to crush their enemies and destroy the freedoms that all Americans hold dear," he said. "But if you read what the conservative Christians are writing, it's the gays who are 10 feet tall and all-powerful and ruthless and they're taking over America. ... I always wonder: Who are these all-powerful people?"

Obviously, homosexuality remains a hot-button issue in most religious groups, from the Southern Baptist Convention to Reform Judaism and all points in between. There's no sign this will change anytime soon. But Morrison said he senses a radically different reality at the local level. In pulpits and pews, there is silence.

Why is this? Morrison has some theories of his own.

* Congregations rarely welcome realistic discussions about sex, whether from the pulpit or in religious education classes. Talking about heterosexual sex is bad enough. If they were honest, said Morrison, most conservatives would have to admit that they want gays and lesbians to simply go away, not to share their tough questions and painful life stories. This code of silence also applies to the parents of homosexuals, especially workaholic fathers, with their feelings of guilt and dread.

* As a rule, religious groups have trouble addressing feelings and issues faced by single adults – period. "Few people," he said, "ever stop and ask: What does God want single people to do with their lives? What is their unique, God-given role in the body of Christ?"

* Militants on both sides hate to admit it, but many questions about the roots of sexual orientation remain unanswered. In his book, Morrison admits that some homosexuals, through prayer and therapy, are able to take significant changes toward heterosexual orientation. But this doesn't seem to be true for all – including himself. The reality is that many people struggle to define themselves, as they experience both heterosexual and homosexual feelings.

"I think this is liberating, in a way," he said. "It means that everybody faces temptations. It means that feelings of confusion about sex are more common than some people want to admit. But this also means that more people find the subject threatening."

* Many clergy are afraid to admit that some married people wrestle with homosexuality, a fact that Morrison regularly encounters in Internet correspondence linked to a chastity-based Catholic support group called Courage. Of course, some pastors also fear confronting the reality of heterosexual sin in their flocks.

* Finally, many conservatives – in their hearts – believe that same-sex sins are truly more sinful than heterosexual sins, or non-sexual sins, for that matter. They believe that God considers gay sex more sinful than adultery or pre-marital sex. But they don't want to confess that this is what they believe.

So they remain silent.

"Let's face it," said Morrison. "It's always harder to confront the sins that are in our own lives or in the lives of people in our own families. That's just they way we are. That is what makes sin, sin, and so very personal."