On Religion
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Why it can be so hard for modern pastors to keep answering their cellphones

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Why it can be so hard for modern pastors to keep answering their cellphones

Once upon a time, the average-sized American religious congregation had two telephones that really mattered.

There was the office telephone, answered by a secretary or receptionist during business hours. It was the job of this gatekeeper – who over time became an expert on life in the flock – to tell the shepherd which calls were urgent and which could wait.

The other telephone was at the pastor's home. Many people knew that number, but they also knew it was not business as usual to dial it.

"People knew they never should call the pastor's home number unless it was a real emergency," said the Rev. Karl Vaters, of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley, Calif. "There was a boundary there and people tried to help protect the pastor's time at home. That boundary was there to help protect his family and his ministry."

These days, both of those telephones, for all practical purposes, have been replaced by cellphones for the pastors and members of small congregations – usually defined as those with under 200 people attending the main worship service. For most clergy, the cellphones in their pockets are always there, always vibrating to remind them of cares and concerns that rarely, if ever, go away.

It was the one-two punch of cellphones and email that first pulled clergy into the social-media age, followed by digital newsletters, Facebook pages and constantly changing congregational websites. Even in small churches, the work of the "church secretary" has evolved, from answering the office telephone and preparing an ink-on-paper newsletter to serving as an all-purpose online networker.

"The old boundaries are vanishing and, for pastors in some parts of the country, they're almost completely gone," said Vaters, reached by telephone.

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The gentle, evangelical insider religious satire of The Babylon Bee

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The gentle, evangelical insider religious satire of The Babylon Bee

Anyone who visits a typical American megachurch worship service will get a quick education on the mechanics of contemporary praise music.

First, the band rocks into action, while swaying worshipers raise their hands high, singing lyrics displayed on giant screens. There may be lasers and smoke. A guitarist or keyboard player guides everyone through worship songs – loud then soft, softer then louder – linked by dramatic key changes and musical "bridges." Eventually, there's a sermon or worship video.

What if something goes wrong? This Babylon Bee headline was an online classic: "Worship Leader Caught In Infinite Loop Between Bridge And Chorus."

In this fake "news report," a weeping member of the worship band adds: "It's scary, honestly. … This is our third worship leader who's been sucked into a PCBV (Perpetual Chorus-Bridge Vortex) in the past year."

After the 14th chorus-to-bridge transition, deacons called 911 and the victim was rushed to an emergency room. "Physicians are subjecting him," readers learn, "to a barrage of classic hymns in hopes that he will recover."

This is an inside-baseball brand of satire that allows Babylon Bee creator Adam Ford to gently explore the yins and yangs of evangelical Christianity.

"While we satirize our own camp quite a bit, we don't limit ourselves to evangelicalism. We write about culture, politics, other religions, current events, etc., regularly," said Ford, who does email interviews since he struggles with anxiety attacks. He shares more of his personal story in his own Adam4d.com web-comics site.

Most Babylon Bee newcomers, however, are almost certainly be drawn there by social-media references to the site's popular items dissecting modern evangelical life.

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Explaining St. Teresa of Kolkata's dark night of the soul – to children

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Explaining St. Teresa of Kolkata's dark night of the soul -- to children

Like most illustrations in children's books, the image of Mother Teresa is quite simple, showing her kneeling in prayer beside her bed in a dark room, facing a bare cross and a single candle.

The tiny nun's eyes are open and her expression is hard to read. The text on the opposite page is candid.

"Mother Teresa experienced a great sorrow. Ever since she had moved to the slums, she no longer felt the presence of Jesus as she had before. She felt as though abandoned, rejected by him," according to "Mother Teresa: The Smile of Calcutta," a storybook for young children. "In her heart, she felt darkness and emptiness. She experienced the suffering of the poor who did not feel loved. She shared in the loneliness Christ suffered on the Cross."

Only the priests who worked with her knew about this "dark night of the soul," an experience seen in the lives of some other saints.

Working with text by Charlotte Grossetete, originally written in French, Ignatius Press editor Vivian Dudro said she "spent lots of time working on how to phrase that part. … You picture a young child reading about this pain in a saint's life or having this story read to them. How do you explain something like this in a few simple words?"

This dark night is clearly a crucial part of the life of the Albanian nun who was canonized this past weekend as St. Teresa of Kolkata. The formal petition to Pope Francis concluded: "Despite a painful experience of inner darkness, Mother Teresa travelled everywhere, concerned … to spread the love of Jesus throughout the world. She thus became an icon of God's tender and merciful love for all, especially for those who are unloved, unwanted and uncared for."

St. Teresa's sense of spiritual loss was the mirror image of the intense spiritual visions that, in 1946, inspired her to plunge deep into the slums of Calcutta (now called Kolkata) to serve the poorest of the poor.

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The Supreme Knight addresses Catholics, voting, abortion and listening to angels

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The symbolic fact passed quickly, during a long list of achievements in Carl Anderson's annual report as the leader of the Knights of Columbus.

Weeks earlier, the powerful Catholic fraternal order had donated its 700th ultrasound machine for use in crisis pregnancy centers. This was appropriate news to share during the Toronto convention, which took its biblical theme from Isaiah: "Before birth the Lord called me, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name."

"The Spanish language phrase that means 'to give birth' is 'dar a luz,' words that literally mean 'to give light' to the child," said Anderson, in his Aug. 2 text. "Our ultrasound program gives a light to the mother that enables her to see the reality and often the personality of her child in the womb."

Right now, he added, efforts to oppose abortion are linked to other public debates. For example, there are efforts to support the Little Sisters of the Poor's work with the weak and elderly, as well as their struggles against Health and Human Services mandates they believe attack religious liberty, seeking their cooperation with health-care plans supporting contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion.

This kind of work does require involvement in politics, noted Anderson, who held several posts in the Ronald Reagan administration. However, he noted that Pope Francis said: "Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good."

Thus, Anderson issued a familiar challenge to his audience, which included about 100 bishops.

"We need to end the political manipulation of Catholic voters by abortion advocates," he said. "It is time to end the entanglement of Catholic people with abortion killing. … We will never succeed in building a culture of life if we continue to vote for politicians who support a culture of death."

These are fighting words in a tense year in which the GOP White House candidate has clashed with Pope Francis and Catholic bishops – conservatives as well as progressives – on issues linked to immigration and foreign policy.