A Proud Skeptic in the Pew

WASHINGTON, D.C. – James Kelley doesn't believe in God - Father, Son or Holy Spirit.

Kelley doesn't believe in the virgin birth, the resurrection or any of the miracles the Bible says happened in between. Kelley doesn't believe in heaven or hell. He isn't a Christian. He isn't even a theist. But Kelley is an Episcopalian and proud of it and he thinks that more skeptics should sign up - just as they are.

"I pay my pledge. I've taught Sunday school and been on the vestry," said the former Justice Department lawyer, who is now a full-time writer. "This is my church. I belong here."

It's been 14 years since Kelley and other members of his confirmation class faced the bishop of Washington, D.C., and took their vows. In his new book, "Skeptic in the House of God," Kelley recalls many details of that scene - but not how he answered the pivotal question: "Do you renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?" He was supposed to respond: "I do, and with God's grace I will follow him as my Savior and Lord."

"I honestly don't remember. ... I might have said nothing. I might have just mumbled," he said. "Then again, I might have said what was proscribed. But if I did that, then I did what I always do. I just translated it - line by line - in my head. I do that all the time with the creed and the prayers. ... I just do the agnostic's translation. But it doesn't really matter. They let me in."

Kelley knows that there are legions of Episcopalians who want to see a link between church membership and some basic Christian doctrines. That's fine. He also knows that there are plenty of bishops, priests and laity who are just as unorthodox as he is. Kelley is an active member of an historic parish - St. Mark's on Capitol Hill – in a prestigious diocese. He's safe.

These kinds of clashes are common in the "seven sisters," of liberal American Protestantism – the American Baptist Churches, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church. Year after year, they make news with their heated debates - usually about sex. Meanwhile, fights over the nature of God, biblical authority, salvation and many other crucial subjects continue behind the scenes.

The crucial question: What provides unity in churches in which members and even clergy are free to reject the basic doctrines of the faith?

Based on his own poll data, Kelley believes that 10 percent or more of the members of his home parish are skeptics. In his confirmation class, the priest wrote out the phrases of the Nicene Creed on newsprint and asked people to vote yea or nay. There were no wrong votes. Kelley said he signed up "expecting it to focus on the theology of the Episcopal Church. Coming from a Catholic background, I assumed there was such a thing."

Truth is, the sources of this parish's unity are its identity as an "open" community and its commitment to using specific rites - even if the clergy and worshippers have radically redefined or abandoned the conventional meanings of the words they recite. This has led to an inevitable side effect that could be seen in another recent parish poll. The least satisfied members were the few who hold any traditional Christian beliefs. It is the orthodox who are the heretics.

Kelley said he hopes they choose to stay, but he will understand if they choose to leave. Meanwhile, his years at St. Mark's have convinced him that pluralistic churches can survive and even thrive in urban areas close to universities, government complexes and other centers of skepticism and progressive lifestyles. They have something to offer.

"We all love the incense, the stained-glass windows, the organ music, the vestments and all of that," he said. "There will always be people who love that. ... It's drama. It's aesthetics. It's the ritual. That's neat stuff. I don't want to give all that up, just because I don't believe in God and all that."

Preaching to the Anti-Persecution Choir

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Arlen Specter was preaching to the choir and he knew it.

As the veteran Pennsylvania senator studied the crowd, he tried to spot the journalists sprinkled among the clergy, social activists and politicos jammed into the U.S. Senate's Mansfield conference room.

"I have been in this room many times," he said, at this week's press conference introducing the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act of 1997. "I have never seen such a disproportionate imbalance between the number of the distinguished people on the podium and the number of cameras."

The bill would require increased U.S. efforts against religious persecution, with special emphasis on attacks on Christians, Buddhists in Tibet and Baha'is in Iran. Sponsored by Specter, Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia and a bipartisan coalition, it would create a White House office monitoring persecution and authorize sanctions against offending nations, echoing earlier efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews and blacks in South Africa.

The long line of speakers backing the legislation ranged from Religious Right strategists to nationally known rabbis. Quiet, but intense, testimonies were offered by an associate of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Roman Catholic bishop of the southern Sudan, where Christians have been sold into slavery and, in some cases, crucified.

One after another, they addressed a handful of reporters - trying to find the right mixture of horror stories and appeals to shared moral values. Christians made it clear that they recognize that there is more to the persecution issue than bloody crackdowns on churches in China, North Korea and in countries led by militant Islamic regimes. Jews went out of their way to stress that it is no longer possible to deny that Christians are being tortured and killed for their faith.

The result was a series of political and religious role reversals. "We believe that human and civil rights and religious freedom and liberty should be at the center of our foreign policy," said one speaker. "We believe that if the United States makes the center of its foreign policy profits, rather than people, and money, rather than human rights, then we will have lost our soul as a nation."

This blast of global idealism didn't come from a World Council of Churches official, a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops staff member or a moderate Baptist with ties to the Jimmy Carter era. No, it came from Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition. He also stressed that this issue is "far more important than eliminating the deficit, far more important than lowering taxes."

Progressives face wrenching debates, as well. Many have hesitated to back this cause because so many of today's persecution reports center on evangelicals and Catholics. Often, those persecuted are not the polite believers who worship quietly in state-sanctioned pews, but those who aggressively - or even obnoxiously - proclaim their faith to their neighbors and in the public square. Another speaker alluded to these tensions.

"When God's children are denied their basic human rights because of their efforts ... to reach out to God, then America must speak out," he said. "When God's children are in prison for praying, America must speak out. When God's children are put to death for proselytizing, then America must speak out."

This defense of evangelism didn't come from a charismatic televangelist, a National Association of Evangelicals executive or a Southern Baptist missionary. No, it came from Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism - a body of liberal believers that frequently clashes with evangelicals.

The bottom line: this issue may be too complex to fit into a convenient news niche. It threatens the economic interests of many powerful nations, corporations and lobby groups. But religious persecution must not remain hidden in the shadows, said Wolf.

"We cannot be silent any longer," he said. "When we come to the defense of the 'least of these,' ... we raise the comfort level for all who are persecuted by dictators. When we speak for Christians, we also speak for Muslims. When we speak for Jews, we also speak for Baha'is. We are speaking for all."

Breaking the Silence on Sudan

Every month or so, Bona Malwal slips over the border into his south Sudanese homeland.

There are, in this age of satellite telephones, safer ways for an exiled journalist to contact his sources during one of the world's longest-running civil wars. But Malwal keeps going home - to see the bulldozed churches, to interview grieving parents, to document the torture.

The government declared him an enemy of the state in 1989. The Roman Catholic activist was writing stories that outsiders said were too outrageous to be true - reports that militias working for the National Islamic Front regime were kidnapping women and children from Christian and animist homes and selling them as slaves. Many still ignore the facts.

"Why is it that the Christian world continues to ignore the conflict in the Sudan?", asked Malwal, speaking last week to a conference for Christians in journalism at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. "Why doesn't the Christian world see ... that this conflict is really about whether Christianity will be able to survive in the south Sudan and in the rest of Africa?"

Finally, the work of Malwal and other human-rights activists is yielding results in the media and political arenas. Last summer, the Baltimore Sun conducted a fact-finding mission in the South Sudan. Traveling with a team from Christian Solidarity International, the journalists sought the most basic form of evidence. They paid a slave trader the equivalent of $1,000 – the value of 10 cows – for two young Africans and then reunited them with their families.

Here is how reporters Gilbert Lewthwaite and Gregory Lane described the moment of truth in a village marketplace: "Before us ... is a sight to chill the human heart: a dozen young boys, their bodies caked with dust, their eyes downcast. If we were Sudanese slaveholders, we might use such children for herding or for household chores. ...We might give them Arabic names and convert them to Islam. We might use a girl for sexual pleasure, perhaps as a wife."

Religion and race are key factors in these crimes. The northern two- thirds of the Sudan is ruled by a rebellious Islamic regime led by Arabs. The leaders in southern Sudan are African Catholics, Anglicans and Presbyterians. However, the most recent issue of Malwal's London-based Sudan Democratic Gazette noted a United Nations report that the northern regime's recent violations of religious freedom have included the increased "harassment and arrest of prominent religious figures belonging to the traditional Sudanese Islamic orders."

As always, politics and trade loom behind the clashes over faith and tribal ties. These issues will return to the news on Tuesday, when Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia introduce the Freedom from Religious Persecution Act of 1997. This follows months of lobbying by conservatives outraged by reports of growing persecution of Christians in China and other Communist lands and in at least eight countries led by Islamic regimes. The bill has a number of prominent Democratic cosponsors and specifically calls for increased efforts to protect two other religious groups – Buddhists in Tibet and Baha'is in Iran.

The legislation includes planks establishing a White House office on religious persecution, stopping non-humanitarian U.S. aid and loans to sanctioned nations and requiring the U.S. to actively oppose international aid to such countries. It would make sanctioned-country status a "serious factor" in world trade issues – such as divisive votes of the status of China. The bill also gives the Sudan the same kind of treatment previously granted to South Africa. To underline its already bold-letter intentions, the bill calls for sweeping changes in the Sudan by Christmas Day.

"The goal is to make Sudan the poster boy for incarnate evil," said Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute. "Otherwise, we're telling the world that it's open season on Christians."

Help cannot come too soon, stressed Malwal, after his speech. Right now, his tribesmen have few churches left in which to celebrate Holy Days.

"There are is not a single church left standing in the south Sudan," he said. "They are the first thing that the northern armies destroy. ... People meet under a tree. The buildings have been destroyed, but the church is still there."

A Musician Stuck in Orthodixie

NASHVILLE - G. Thomas Walker is a country singer who also happens to be a Christian.

The good news is that he lives in the capital of country and Contemporary Christian Music. The bad news is that he's the wrong brand of Christian. Executives in the Protestant-packed CCM market flinch when they learn Walker is a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. Secular professionals quickly note that he writes more than the country-music quota of songs about faith and family. Meanwhile, Orthodoxy has no idea what to do with an American with a guitar.

"I'm stuck. My music is built on my faith. I can't deny that," he said. "But I have learned that I don't have ANYTHING in common with the CCM industry. . Whenever I listen to Christian music, I always reach the same conclusion: I don't want to listen to it. It's empty."

Walker reached over and started punching buttons on his car radio. Every one tuned in a country station.

"At least these guys aren't lying about what's going on in their lives," he said. "Life just isn't as simplistic as most Christian music says it is. . Country singers have to sing about real life. I want to do that, too. But where?"

Right now, Walker continues to follow a common Guitar Town strategy. He has recorded a disc of music on his own, while keeping his day job. Most of his concerts are for folks who don't quite know what to make of the music he calls "Orthodixie."

In one gospel chorus, Walker blends Bible Belt language with images of ancient traditions: "I have come to the faith of saints and angels, and I have come to believe in mystery, and through windows of heaven I see Jesus, reaching out His endless love to me." Protestants sing along, but few realize that the "mystery" is the Eucharist and that the "windows of heaven" are icons. He has even managed to write a country song about going to confession.

Walker would love to share his gifts with the Orthodox. However, musicians who want to bring Western music with them into Orthodoxy are about as welcome as chanting monks at the Southern Baptist Convention. Some musicians have even been rejected when they set Orthodox texts to hymn tunes that are familiar to millions of Americans. The cultural gap is just too wide.

"Orthodoxy doesn't know what to do with us. At least, not yet," said Walker. "We aren't going to be Greeks. We aren't going to be Russians. We aren't going to be Arabs. We're Americans. We want to be Americans who are truly Orthodox."

And the converts keep coming. Walker, for example, is the son of Father Gordon Walker, a Southern Baptist minister and Campus Crusade for Christ leader who was one of the founders of a group called the Evangelical Orthodox Church. Ten years ago, this small body of evangelists and born-again believers made headlines when it joined the Antiochian Orthodox Church.

Today, G. Thomas Walker is active in a Greek Orthodox parish, singing its ancient hymns with the help of phonetics sheets. While he revels in Orthodox worship, he still wonders if it was necessary to cut all of his ties to the sacred music of his past. He would gladly - as a skilled musician and committed Orthodox Christian - assist in efforts to learn what parts of American culture are worthy of use in Orthodox worship.

Walker poured his feelings into a song called "Standing Here," which is rooted in his church's tradition of worshippers standing during most of the service. The chorus: "Singing Holy, Holy Lord. Through the joy, through the tears, through the seasons of the year, with the saints and holy angels, I'll be standing here."

"Evangelicals just love that song," he said. "They love the images, but they don't understand them. The Orthodox understand the images, but not the music. They don't understand the music that reaches most Americans. ... I don't expect to see this gap bridged during my lifetime – maybe during my daughter's lifetime or her daughter's lifetime. Maybe."