Copernicus. Galileo. Newton. Darwin. Freud. Spong?

Anglicanism begins and ends with The Book of Common Prayer.

Obviously, this volume is full of prayers – morning prayers, evening prayers and prayers for all the times in between. There are hundreds of pages of prayers for Holy Communion, baptisms, ordinations, funerals and other events and most begin with "O God," "Heavenly Father," "Eternal Lord God" or similar phrases. The working assumption is that the God of the Bible hears these prayers and can answer them.

Wrong, argues America's most famous Episcopal bishop.

The Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong believes the time has come for intelligent Christians to grow up and admit there isn't a personal God of any kind on the receiving end of these prayers and petitions. The bishop of Newark fired this shot over the bow in a recent missive containing 12 theses, starting with: "Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead." The logical implication appears as his 10th thesis: "Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way."

Traditionalists will jeer him, writes Spong, just as they attacked Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Freud. Also, this call for what one bishop describes as a "virtual atheism" may cause fireworks in Canterbury at next month's once-a-decade Lambeth Conference of the world's Anglican bishops – including Spong.

"The renewal of Christianity will not come from fundamentalism, secularism or the irrelevant mainline tradition" of Catholicism or Protestantism, writes Spong. "History has come to a point where only one thing will save this venerable faith tradition at this critical time in Christian history, and that is a new Reformation far more radical than Christianity has ever before known. ... This Reformation will recognize that the pre- modern concepts in which Christianity has traditionally been carried will never again speak to the post-modern world we now inhabit. This Reformation will be about the very life and death of Christianity."

After ditching theism, the bishop says it's "nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity." He rejects miracles in general, humanity's fall into sin and any belief that the Bible contains revealed, transcendent moral laws. He rejects the virgin birth, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as historical events.

In some of his most sweeping language, Spong writes: "The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed." Later he adds: "The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment."

Spong asked for open debate and 50 bishops responded with a letter publicly disassociating themselves from his views. "A bishop of the Episcopal Church," they note, "vows to guard and defend exactly the truths John Spong now denies. As a bishop he requires those he confirms and those he ordains to confess beliefs he himself now repudiates. Such self-contradiction is morally fraudulent and spiritually bankrupt."

The bishop of Newark's supporters cheerfully note that nearly 100 bishops have signed an earlier Spong statement opposing traditional church teachings on marriage and sex. As for the statement of disassociation, none of the 50 bishops dared to break communion with Spong or called for him to be disciplined. One Spong supporter, Father J. Michael Povey of Pittsfield, Mass., notes the bishop's Anglo-Catholic and evangelical critics didn't even call for public rites praying for the bishop's conversion. "I have to ask," adds Povey, "why is this statement so spiritually wimpy?"

The bottom line is that Spong yearns for a media-friendly trial and the candor it will force on his church. Also, bishops on an Episcopal court in 1996 – hearing charges against one of Spong's assistant bishops – decided that their church has no "core doctrines" on sex and marriage. However, the bishops said some "core doctrines" do exist, including doctrines that "God became incarnate in Jesus Christ," "Christ was crucified," "Christ rose again" and "There will be a day of judgment."

The question facing the Lambeth Conference is whether a specific bishop can get away with attacking the few specifics in Anglicanism's doctrinal core.

Big hats and black-church tradition

WASHINGTON – Viewed from their balconies, the pews in traditional black churches looked like waves of polished wood curving down to the pulpit and, through decades of Sundays, the crests were topped by graceful rows of women's hats.

Before the sea change of the 1960s, it was much more common for women to cover their heads in congregations of all kinds. Nevertheless, visitors would have to have been blind not to see that there was more to the hats in black churches than mere fashion.

"This is part of part of a distinction between the work-day world and that whole Sunday-go-to-meeting tradition," said Gail S. Lowe, curator and principal researcher for a new Smithsonian Institution exhibit on African-American faith. "If your whole week was ruled by uniforms and aprons and work clothes and boots, then you kept one good suit and you kept one really nice dress.

"And if the culture says that ladies are supposed to cover their heads, and the culture certainly said that the Bible said you were supposed to do that, then that meant you needed a hat. And if you needed a hat and it was Sunday, then you needed a SUNDAY hat. So the hats became more and more elaborate, to say the least."

On one level, this symbolized reverence for God, said Lowe. It also displayed respect for the church and for the authority of elders. But there was one more level to this tradition: a hunger for beauty and for self-respect in the generations leading up to the Civil Rights Movement.

A display of Sunday hats is merely one detail in the mosaic of this latest offering by the Smithsonian's Center for African American History and Culture. However, similar themes of tradition and change appear throughout the aisles of the exhibit, which is entitled "Speak to my Heart: Communities of Faith and Contemporary African American Life." It will remain open through the spring of 2000 and the museum plans a traveling version of the exhibition.

One of the most striking items is a set of glass-and-brass doors from Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston – doors that had once served as the entrance to a segregated movie theater. Another display features bricks and a burned lamppost from First Baptist in Centralia, Va., one of several churches hit by arsonists in the 1990s.

But most of the museum cases feature more subtle signs of what has changed and what has stayed the same – from the formal white gloves on a statue of a deaconess to the flowing robes of liturgical dancers and female pastors. "Speak To My Heart" also covers a wide range of religious traditions, including the worship and work of Muslims, Black Hebrews and others with African roots.

While black-church life has certainly changed in recent decades, it's impossible to predict which changes are permanent and which traditions will simply evolve into new forms, said Lowe. The key is that black Americans are, like so many others in this culture, picking and choosing which spiritual rites and symbols speak to them on a highly personal level.

"My generation doesn't wear hats. Why? Because we hated all of that," said Lowe, who attends a progressive Christian Methodist Episcopal congregation. "We understood that women wore hats because of modesty and because of the traditional values of the community. So we all said, 'That has to go. We're not going to do it.' "

But most of the pastors' wives, or "first ladies" of the congregations, kept the tradition alive, along with the revered older women often known as the "mothers of the church." And then the cultural search for African traditions led some women to try wearing forms of headdresses. Many Muslim women continued to wear simple head coverings. A few younger women simply decided gloves and hats were fashionable.

"Today, you may see hats or you may not see hats," said Lowe. "The key is that this is all a matter of personal choice. The theology is no longer there to back up the tradition. The links to the past are almost gone. Whether that's good or bad depends on your point of view."

Women and children first

WASHINGTON – The train from New York City was jammed as Matthew Chancey traveled back to the nation's capital after this spring's meeting of the Titanic Historical Society.

Lucky passengers sat shoulder-to-shoulder while others spent four hours on their feet. As he stood, Chancey quietly became angry when he noticed those seated included young and middle-aged men, while the throng swaying in the aisles included several elderly women. One pregnant woman eventually slumped to the floor to rest. No one offered her a seat.

"I saw the same thing in other cars," he said. "I started thinking about the Titanic. Certain principles are eternal. They are timeless. They deserve to be defended. One such principle is the idea that men are supposed to make sacrifices on behalf of women and children. What I saw on that train was just another sign of what we've lost."

This hasn't been an easy year to talk about the Titanic and traditional values, in the wake of director James Cameron's blockbuster about romance, modern art, class warfare and social rebellion. Nevertheless, Chancey and others in the Christian Boys' and Men's Titanic Society are doing everything they can to resurrect an earlier interpretation of April 15, 1912. This message is summed up in a sermon delivered only three days after the tragedy.

The Rev. Henry Van Dyke of Princeton, N.J., stressed that the Titanic left behind more than debts, sorrow and bitter lessons about North Atlantic icebergs, lifeboats and technology. This was a morality play that taught a sobering rule for life.

"It is the rule that 'the strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak'," he said. "Without it, no doubt, we may have riches and power and dominion. But what a world to live in! Only through the belief that the strong are bound to protect and save the weak because God wills it so, can we hope to keep self- sacrifice, and love, and heroism, and all the things that make us glad to live and not afraid to die."

To promote this unabashedly old-fashioned message, the Christian Boys' and Men's Titanic Society has reprinted one of the first books about the tragedy, "The Sinking of the Titanic," and is producing a documentary, "Women and Children First: The True Legacy of the R.M.S. Titanic."

One reason the Titanic story remains so intriguing is its blend of human drama with cosmic themes of fate, sacrifice and sin. It is the "closest thing we have to a modern Bible story," said Douglas Phillips, president of the two-year-old society. Also, this was the "the last stand of an older order" of cultural values, the last time when people heard the cry "women and children first" and obeyed without challenging its basic assumptions, he said.

"It isn't our goal to project a pristine, idealized view of the Titanic. That wouldn't be true," said Phillips. "And we know there were all kinds of people on that ship – Christians, Jews, agnostics and everybody else. What we are saying is that there were certain values, certain absolutes that these people accepted and were willing to die for. One of those truths was that the groom dies to save the bride."

Here in Washington, an 18-foot granite statue symbolizes how this message has slipped into obscurity. It shows a robed man rising out of the waves, his arms outstretched like a cross. At least 25,000 women, led by First Lady Helen Taft, donated $1 each to build it. The engraving reads: "To the brave men who gave their lives that women and children might be saved."

This Titanic memorial once had a prominent position near the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge. Today it's hidden behind Fort McNair, next to the waters of the Washington Channel. Few people see it, other than occasional fishermen and joggers. On a recent afternoon, the back was stained where men had used it as a urinal. A soiled condom marked the spot.

"If you ask a cabbie to bring you to the Titanic Memorial, they'll drive around for an hour or more. You could end up just about anywhere," said Chancey. "It seems like nobody has a clue where this statue is and what it stands for."

Who can be excused from class?

Try to imagine what would happen if the following scene took place in a "Religions of the World" class in a public school.

First, the social studies teacher explains the history of Pentecostal Christianity and offers a statistical snapshot of the movement. Then he says that students need to experience Pentecostalism, in order to understand it. So they are told to kneel, lift their hands high and try to join in as he speaks in tongues. Afterwards, the students sing a few choruses of "Jesus, name above all names" and are given an assignment to watch Pat Robertson on "The 700 Club."

What would happen? Many parents – Catholic, Jewish, Baptist, Presbyterian, agnostic or whatever – would scream bloody murder. If school officials insisted on spending tax dollars on these lessons, many parents would certainly ask that their children be excused or allowed to attend alternative classes.

This imaginary scene would never take place, of course. Nevertheless, this church-state nightmare is a mirror image of scenes Mathew Staver keeps hearing about at the Liberty Counsel office in Orlando. Parents call and describe classes in which their children are given an overview of various world religions. So far, so good. But some report that their children are then guided into experiential lessons in which they join in rites and prayers totally foreign to the faith practiced in their homes.

The result is one of the tensest standoffs in today's church-state arena, alongside older battles over evolution and sex education.

"One of the main things we keep hearing about is classes where students are told to pretend they're part of some other faith, especially Eastern religions such as Buddhism," said Staver. "They may be shown meditation techniques and asked to take part in simulated rituals – lighting candles and learning to do certain chants. ... Obviously, some parents feel threatened."

When parents complain, some school officials are cooperative. But some are not.

This raises obvious questions: If it's wrong to spend tax dollars in support of Christianity or Judaism, then shouldn't it be wrong to similarly fund activities that criticize these faiths or that promote other religions and rites? And what happens if millions of parents start asking that their children be excused from all school lessons that are even remotely linked to religion?

Last week, the White House released a revised set of guidelines intended to help ease these kinds of tensions. After all, said President Clinton in his weekly radio address: "Our founders believed the best way to protect religious liberty was to first guarantee the right of everyone to believe and practice religion according to his or her conscience; and second, to prohibit our government from imposing or sanctioning any particular religious belief. That's what they wrote into the First Amendment. They were right then, and they're right now."

Education Secretary Richard Riley noted that these guidelines were virtually unchanged from a 1995 set, which drew support from an unusually broad coalition – from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Association of Evangelicals. However, one of the few revisions will affect students seeking relief from objectionable lessons. This change came after the Supreme Court declared the Religious Freedom Restoration Act unconstitutional.

The earlier guidelines said that if officials could not "prove a compelling interest in requiring attendance the school would be legally required to excuse" students from objectionable lessons. The new guidelines, however, state that schools "enjoy substantial discretion" in such cases and that "students generally do not have a Federal right to be excused from lessons that may be inconsistent with their religious beliefs or practices."

Since 1995, said Staver, schools have been doing a much better job of allowing free speech about religion. However, it's hard to predict how state officials will react to this revised excusal clause in the guidelines.

"Students have a right to free speech," he said. "They also have a right not to have to listen to speech they find offensive, even in the classroom. Perhaps students and parents will be able to raise a free-speech objection the next time one of these cases comes up. ... But that's new ground that we haven't plowed yet."