China, Dobson and the Grahams

It's hard to keep personalities out of a global debate when the names are printed in bold on letters being passed around on Capitol Hill.

In this case, the key names are some of the best known in modern Christianity – evangelist Billy Graham, along with his son, Ned, and Focus on the Family leader James Dobson, along with his colleague Gary Bauer. The question: What should the United States try to do about religious persecution, especially in China?

Leaders on both sides insist they are doing what is best for Chinese believers. Also, there has been an obvious clash of styles. There are the Grahams, with their quiet, diplomatic willingness to work within any political system. Then there is Dobson, whose growing organization has increasingly welcomed clashes with the powers that be, especially on social issues such as China's laws on family planning and forced abortions.

The conflict surfaced before the June vote that renewed China's most-favored-nation trading status. Now, Dobson's September newsletter says he will press on, focusing on the next MFN vote and on events supporting the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act of 1997. A crucial date is Nov. 16, which an ecumenical coalition has designated as an International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.

The sharpest criticism he has received, wrote Dobson, has come from "the president of a well-known ministry outreach to China" who accused him of being more interested in bashing Beijing and raising money than in getting his facts straight and helping the Chinese church.

"It is puzzling why anyone who purports to be an authority on China would deny the brutality that is occurring there," wrote Dobson. "The statements I made about Chinese persecution are irrefutable, and if anything, were understated to avoid depressing my readers. No less an authority than the U.S. State Department ... has since issued a 'devastating' report that criticizes the Beijing government for its religious persecution. ...

"Why, indeed, would the leader of a Christian missionary outreach to China be angry at those of us who have called attention to the plight of our brothers and sisters in that country? I have no idea."

That missionary was Ned Graham, president of East Gates Ministries, International. Another symbolic detail: Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, was born into a missionary family in China. In his most recent statement, Ned Graham openly questioned the motives of those – on both the left and right – seeking sanctions against nations such as China.

"Is the motive behind a coalition such as this the propagation of the gospel of Jesus Christ?", he wrote. "Perhaps not. Could the possible motives be: (1) the political advancement of an individual or organization, (2) the overthrow of a sovereign government, (3) the financial gain for those who raise money from others' suffering, (4) a protectionist move by U.S. unions, or (5) the manipulation of evangelicals for the national security of another country? Who knows?"

The younger Graham doesn't deny that problems continue in China. But he insists that reports of arrests, torture and murder have been exaggerated. China is a maze of contradictions and conflicting reports. Christians are jailed in some places, yet hold tent revivals in others. He argues that diplomacy is yielding results, while political threats only hurt the church. These statements echo decades of similar words by his father.

Dobson and others openly fighting religious persecution say it is na? to trust positive reports from Chinese churches sponsored and controlled by the Communist government. Meanwhile, the anti-persecution coalition uses as its model earlier international efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews and South African blacks. Above all, its leaders say it is time to take a stand.

In their own way, the Grahams are doing just that.

"It is not my intention to become involved in the political aspects of this issue," wrote Billy Graham, in a letter pro-China legislators distributed during the MFN debates. "However, I am in favor of doing all we can to strengthen our relationship with China and its people. ... Furthermore, in my experience, nations respond to friendship just as much as people do."

Religious liberty is messy

It's a weekday morning in Dallas and, as the office crew gathers in the coffee lounge, a staff member hands out invitations to a seminar called "Moses and Jesus Were Frauds."

A hypothetical case, but one that echoes real life. Would this be religious harassment? What if the person was plugging a revival at First Baptist?

More questions: A third-generation Russian Pentecostal pastor asks an American megachurch for help. Is this an attack on Mother Russia? Or an underground Catholic priest in Beijing insists that Pope John Paul II is the true vicar of Christ. Is this a subversive act?

These are busy times for those who monitor clashes between the laws of heaven and earth. As always, one person's gospel is another's heresy and believers keep shooting at each other's sacred cows. Meanwhile, consumers in the spiritual marketplace are searching for answers. This raises questions about tolerance. For starters, is it safe to let politicians, police or even priests judge whether a man with a megaphone – or an Internet site – is a prophet or a lunatic? What if your children want to join his flock?

"This is definitely a worldwide phenomenon. We are seeing these kinds of conflicts from Saudi Arabia to Israel, from Russia to China and right here in the United States," said Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. "The big question seems to be: how do you treat religious minorities fairly if they seem to impinge on a society's core image of itself?"

It's impossible to legislate patience and understanding - even in free societies. Yet governments are being asked to take sides, often to defend the powerful or to appease those offended by aggressive religious faith. Here are a few snapshots from the front lines.

* Russian President Boris Yeltsin vetoed a recent bill to severely restrict the freedoms of Protestants, Roman Catholics and other groups said to threaten the "spiritual culture in the society," granting a virtual monopoly to Russian Orthodoxy. Talks continue about a slightly revised bill.

* Conservative religious-rights groups have circulated appeals on behalf of Mark Harding, a Canadian Christian arrested for "hate speech" after making inflammatory public statements and circulating tracts claiming that "Muhammad was a false prophet." His allies are raising money to defend his free-speech rights, while also contacting the U.S. Senate's foreign relations committee.

* Israeli leaders continue to discuss an "Anti-Missionary Bill" that would essentially ban all efforts linked to religious conversions. This would severely restrict the work of traditional Christians, "Messianic" Jews who claim Jesus as Messiah and even outreach programs by non-Orthodox Jews.

* In the United States, a broad coalition of religious groups remains concerned about Supreme Court's June ruling against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That bill had required the government to show a "compelling interest" before taking actions that infringed on the religious practices of individuals or groups.

There are, on occasion, quiet victories in these conflicts – when people strive to balance the rights of believers with loud voices with those who have thin skins. Last week, President Clinton ordered federal agencies to guarantee the religious rights of their workers, hopefully establishing a standard to guide the private sector. The new guidelines address issues ranging from religious apparel to handling holy days, from water cooler debates about abortion to supervisors inviting employees to church.

One crucial passage notes: "Employees are permitted to engage in religious expression directed at fellow employees, and may even attempt to persuade fellow employees of the rightness of their religious views, to the same extent as those employees may engage in comparable speech not involving religion. Some religions encourage adherents to spread the faith at every opportunity. ... But employees must refrain from such expression when a fellow employee asks that it stop or otherwise demonstrates that it is unwelcome."

And there's the rub. To give believers the right to speak their mind, others will need to tolerate a few highly opinionated messages. Some religious groups will face competition in the marketplace of ideas. Religious liberty is messy, but it beats all the alternatives.

Another departs the empty church

The year is 2012, as the joke goes, and two Anglo-Catholic priests in the back of National Cathedral are watching the Episcopal presiding bishop and her incense-bearing lover process down the aisle behind a statue of the Buddha, while the faithful sing a hymn to Mother Earth.

"You know," one traditionalist whispers, "ONE more thing and I'm out the door."

Yes, mainline Protestant conservatives have struggled trying to draw their doctrinal lines. After all, they may be ordered to cross them. Then what? No one has stated the problem more poignantly than Thomas Reeves, in "The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity."

"Millions of mainline Christians have spent all or much of their lives worshipping in the same congregation, and in many cases their ancestors also belonged," said the historian, a traditionalist Episcopal activist for two decades. "For better or worse, their faith is intimately linked with a specific denomination and a particular building within that tradition. To be cast from it could be personally devastating."

Reeves called his final chapter "Renewing the Mainline." The paperback edition comes out soon and he said he isn't making any changes – even though he escaped into Roman Catholicism on July 31. His conversion came days after the Episcopal Church's 72nd General Convention, which ordered traditionalist dioceses to begin ordaining women and rejected pleas to allow conservative parishes to freely form sacramental ties with sympathetic bishops. The convention also allowed dioceses to extend insurance coverage to clergy and lay "domestic partners," declined to forbid same-sex unions and elected as its next presiding bishop a key progressive on issues of sex and liturgy.

The irony is that the famous historian exited just as the tiny Episcopal Synod boldly informed the Anglican Communion that it was starting an autonomous North American province to shelter those who reject recent doctrinal innovations. The conservative American Anglican Council pledged to stand with the synod. The AAC includes many that support the ordination of women, but believe the synod should not be crushed.

This will soon lead to legal battles over millions of dollars worth of buildings and endowments. Meanwhile, it is only a year until Anglican bishops hold their once-a-decade global Lambeth Conference in Canterbury – a setting in which conservative Third World voices could speak out.

While many continue to try to use positive, optimistic language, key leaders have made clear how the two camps view each other's doctrines and demands.

The synod's executive director said the General Convention has "passed judgment upon itself" and "become the Unchurch." National church's leaders, added Father Samuel Edwards, now promote a worldview "derived from the kingdom of sin and death" and, instead of presenting the church as the bride of Christ, appear anxious to model something "off the rack at Frederick's of Gomorrah."

In his swan song, Presiding Bishop Edmond said his church has been sidetracked on sex because of "fear, and – let me name it – by hate. And I have wondered if this diversion does not come from the evil from which we pray daily for God's deliverance." Once, "biblical literalism" was used to justify slavery and sexism, he said. Now, conservatives use "the Bible to create prejudices against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters."

Reeves has seen and heard enough. "The key was the lack of tolerance. We have been banned in our own church," he said. "I decided that it was time to go. ... We were drowning and we've been lifted safely into the bark of Peter and we're extremely grateful."

The crucial question is not how the establishment will react to the synod. The question is whether Episcopal conservatives are truly serious and will hold their ground, when the legal wars begin. Reeves is convinced it would be better for Anglo-Catholics to simply swim the Tiber, rather than become another high-church splinter.

"I know Roman Catholicism has its problems, today. But you are not dealing with anarchy," said Reeves, who lives in the progressive Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee. "There are rules. There is authority. You can defend the catechism and know you are not alone. ... I don't have to be ashamed about being a Catholic, anymore. I'm through hiding."

True Love vs. the culture

It was two or three years ago that some of the teen-sex statistics began to dip, followed by telltale ripples in mass media.

Suddenly, people didn't laugh so hard when youth minister Richard Ross and other True Love Waits leaders told kids they could find romance and intimacy through lifelong fidelity. A few people began using words like "chastity" without smirking. And the telephone calls picked up, from the likes of CNN and "Nightline," USA Today and The New York Times, Vogue and Playboy. A few virgins showed up in prime time.

The good news was that there were signs of change. The bad news was that things didn't change very much. The result was usually a more nuanced version of the gospel of sexual freedom. Maybe true love waits for a year or two or true love waits until a guy whispers the magic word "commitment."

"What the culture is saying these days is that abstinence is an option teen-agers should pay attention to," said Ross, one of the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention's True Love Waits program. "Young people are no longer being told, outright, that they're strange and weird if they choose abstinence. ... You may even see some signs that the media and politicians are willing to affirm kids who make that choice."

Saving sex until marriage is now an option. But there are, of course, many other options. The message written between the lines of most sex education texts is this: wait until after high school. Meanwhile, Hollywood has offered a few cautionary sermons on promiscuity. But sex and romance – divorced from marriage – remain at the heart of most scripts.

"Young people today are hearing many messages from our culture," said Ross. "But here is what they WILL NOT hear. They will not hear anyone clearly say that it is morally wrong for them to have sex before they are married. And they won't hear anyone explain the painful emotional and spiritual consequences of that decision to become sexually active. ... No one is telling kids about the cost of forming that kind of bond and then ripping it apart."

Nevertheless, pro-chastity leaders believe they are making progress. This past weekend, 300 gathered in Washington, D.C., for a summit meeting sponsored by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas. One topic of discussion was a new set of government statistics showing that, in 1995, 50 percent of girls ages 15 to 19 said they'd had sex. That was down from 55 percent in 1990 - the first drop since 1970. At the same time, birth rates fell 8 percent and abortions declined among teens.

There is no way to prove this had anything to do with programs such as True Love Waits, which is known for its media-friendly events such as the 1994 posting of 211,000 pledge cards in Washington, D.C., or a 1995 rally with 350,000 cards stacked in Atlanta's Georgia Dome. Last year, 400,000 students took part in Valentine's Day activities and the 1998 goal is student-led programs in 56,000 secondary schools. The project's most symbolic work takes place in churches, where teens often sign pledge cards in rites that include gold rings – signs of a commitment to remain chaste until marriage.

It's crucial, said Ross, that congregations become more involved in complex issues linked to sexuality – such as crisis pregnancies and the fact that signing a pledge card often isn't the end of the story. But some clergy continue to duck sexual issues because they're afraid to offend grown-up sinners who happen to be married, divorced or single. Truth is, churches that can't talk about sin and repentance can't talk about healing and forgiveness.

"Jesus was as clear-cut as he could be about this," said Ross. "Whenever he dealt with people who had failed sexually, his goal was always forgiveness and restoration. ...We have to be able to tell young people that God still has a plan for their lives of teenagers, even though they have messed up. If we can offer forgiveness, we can help them get back on track."