Battleground: Religion 2 volumes (Battleground Series)

BATTLEGROUND RELIGION VOLUME 1 (A–G)

Edited by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Battleground religion / edited by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–34098–7 (set: alk. paper) ISBN 978–0–313–34099–4 (vol. 1: alk. paper) ISBN 978–0–313–34100–7 (vol. 2: alk. paper) 1. Religion and sociology. I. Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. BL60.B315 2009 200—dc22 2008038760 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2009 by Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008038760 ISBN: 978–0-313–34098–7 (set) 978–0-313–34099–4 (vol. 1) 978–0-313–34100–7 (vol. 2) First published in 2009 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS Guide to Related Topics Series Foreword Introduction

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Entries: Abortion

1

Addiction and Recovery

10

AIDS

17

Aliens

23

Amish

30

Animal Sacrifice

37

Animation as a New Medium

44

Anti-Catholicism and American Politics

49

Apocalypticism and Nuclear War

54

Bible and Poverty

63

Birth Control and Family Planning

69

Capital Punishment

77

Capitalism and Socialism

83

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Christian Zionism

89

Civil Disobedience

97

Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in America

104

Cloning

114

Cosmology

119

“Deep Ecology” and Radical Environmentalism

127

Divorce

133

Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide

141

Evangelical Christianity in America

153

Evangelical Men’s Movements

160

Evangelicals and Environmentalism

167

Evolution versus Creationism in Public Schools

174

Faith-Based Health Care, Religious Morality, and Institutional Policies

183

Female Subordination in Christian Thought

191

Gambling and the Religious Conscience

199

Genetic Research

206

Genocide

211

Global Warming and Prosperity Theology

217

Gospel of Prosperity

224

Graphic Arts

229

Health Reform Movements

237

Higher Intelligence Animals

244

Homeschooling

252

Homosexuality

258

Hucksterism and Religious Scandals

267

Hutterites: Communal Living versus Individual Freedom

274

Immigration

283

Islamic Nationalism

291

Jailhouse Conversions

299

Just War

305

Liberation Theology

311

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Marketing Religion

319

Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy

325

Muslim Minorities in the West

332

Nation of Islam

341

Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion

347

Native American Religious Freedom

353

Neuroethics

358

New Religions as Growth Industry

365

Organ Transplants

373

Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence

379

Prayer in Public Schools

386

Prime Time Religion

392

Religious Conversion

399

Religious Diplomacy

405

Religious Publishing

411

Religious Symbols on Government Property

417

Right-Wing Extremism

425

Rock Music and Christian Ethics

432

Same-Sex Marriage

439

Sanctuary Movement

445

School Funding

451

Science Fiction

458

Separation of Church and State

463

Terrorism

471

Universal Health Care as Religious Ethical Issue

479

Vegetarianism as Religious Witness

485

Western Cinema

489

World Religion Aesthetics

497

Bibliography

503

About the Editor and Contributors

505

Index

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GUIDE TO RELATED TOPICS art Animation as a New Medium Graphic Arts Prime Time Religion Science Fiction Western Cinema World Religion Aesthetics

culture Animal Sacrifice Muslim Minorities in the West Prime Time Religion Western Cinema

economics and business Bible and Poverty Capitalism and Socialism Gambling and the Religious Conscience Immigration Marketing Religion Prime Time Religion Religious Publishing Rock Music and Christian Ethics Sanctuary Movement

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extremism Apocalypticism and Nuclear War “Deep Ecology” and Radical Environmentalism Female Subordination in Christian Thought Gospel of Prosperity Hucksterism and Religious Scandals Nation of Islam New Religions as Growth Industry Right-Wing Extremism

personal behavior Abortion Addiction and Recovery AIDS Animal Sacrifice Birth Control and Family Planning Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in America Divorce Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide Gambling and the Religious Conscience Homosexuality Jailhouse Conversions Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy Same-Sex Marriage Vegetarianism as Religious Witness

politics and political ideas Bible and Poverty Capitalism and Socialism Christian Zionism Genocide Islamic Nationalism Just War Liberation Theology Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence Religious Conversion Religious Diplomacy Separation of Church and State Terrorism

religious impact on society Anti-Catholicism and American Politics Apocalypticism and Nuclear War Christian Zionism Civil Disobedience

Guide to Related Topics |

Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in America Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide Evangelical Christianity in America Evangelical Men’s Movements Evangelicals and Environmentalism Evolution versus Creationism in Public Schools Female Subordination in Christian Thought Gospel of Prosperity Health Reform Movements Hucksterism and Religious Scandals Immigration Islamic Nationalism Jailhouse Conversions Liberation Theology Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion New Religions as Growth Industry Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence Religious Symbols on Government Property Rock Music and Christian Ethics Sanctuary Movement School Funding Universal Health Care as Religious Ethical Issue

science Aliens Brain Research Cloning Cosmology “Deep Ecology” and Radical Environmentalism Faith-Based Health Care, Religious Morality, and Institutional Policies Genetic Research Global Warming and Prosperity Theology Higher Intelligence Animals Neuroethics Organ Transplants Science Fiction

social policy Abortion Addiction and Recovery AIDS Bible and Poverty Birth Control and Family Planning Capital Punishment Evangelicals and Environmentalism

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Faith-Based Health Care, Religious Morality, and Institutional Policies Female Subordination in Christian Thought Gambling and the Religious Conscience Genocide Health Reform Movements Homeschooling Homosexuality Immigration Jailhouse Conversions Just War Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy Native American Religious Freedom Prayer in Public Schools Religious Conversion Religious Diplomacy Same-Sex Marriage Sanctuary Movement School Funding Separation of Church and State Terrorism Universal Health Care as Religious Ethical Issue

subcultures Amish Animal Sacrifice Civil Disobedience Evangelical Christianity in America Evangelical Men’s Movements Evolution versus Creationism in Public Schools Global Warming and Prosperity Theology Gospel of Prosperity Homeschooling Hutterites: Communal Living versus Individual Freedom Immigration Islamic Nationalism Muslim Minorities in the West Nation of Islam Native American Religious Freedom New Religions as Growth Industry Prayer in Public Schools Religious Symbols on Government Property Right-Wing Extremism Vegetarianism as Religious Witness

SERIES FOREWORD Students, teachers, and librarians frequently need resources for researching the hot-button issues of contemporary society. Whether for term papers, debates, current-events classes, or to just keep informed, library users need balanced, in-depth tools to serve as a launching pad for obtaining a thorough understanding of all sides of those debates that continue to provoke, anger, challenge, and divide us all. The sets in Greenwood’s Battleground series are just such a resource. Each Battleground set focuses on one broad area of culture in which the debates and conflicts continue to be fast and furious—for example, religion, sports, popular culture, sexuality and gender, and science and technology. Each volume comprises dozens of entries on the most timely and far-reaching controversial topics, such as abortion, capital punishment, drugs, ecology, the economy, immigration, and politics. The entries—all written by scholars with a deep understanding of the issues—provide readers with a non-biased assessment of these topics. What are the main points of contention? Who holds each position? What are the underlying, unspoken concerns of each side of the debate? What might the future hold? The result is a balanced, thoughtful reference resource that will not only provide students with a solid foundation for understanding the issues, but will challenge them to think more deeply about their own beliefs. In addition to an in-depth analysis of these issues, sets include sidebars on important events or people that help enliven the discussion, and each entry includes a list of Further Reading that helps readers find the next step in their research. At the end of volume 2, the readers will find a comprehensive Bibliography and Index.

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INTRODUCTION Why dedicate one of the Battleground series of encyclopedias to the subject of religion and social issues in the United States? It is an important question to answer by way of the Introduction to the volume that follows. If there were ever any doubts about the importance of religion in modern social and politics issues, then these doubts have been laid to rest at the end of the twentieth century, and especially as the twenty-first century gets going. Religious concerns are not only on the sidelines but also at the very center of many social and political issues in this nation, and around the world. A LOOK AT RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES Consider, first of all, the extent of religious belief and practice in the United States. A poll conducted by Gallup, working with Baylor University, resulted in some very interesting information for the year 2006. For example, they found that religious affiliation in the United States includes: Jewish (2.5%); black Protestant (5%); white Protestant Mainline (22.1%); Evangelical Protestant (33.6%); Roman Catholic (21.2%); and others and unaffiliated (15.7%). In short, the overwhelming majority of Americans are Christian (81.9%), 60.7 percent of which are Protestants. Consideration of these numbers, however, is not complete until we consider what the implication of these numbers might mean for American society. The answer to that question, however, turns out to be a bit more complicated. Cathy Lynn Grossman, a journalist for USA Today, responded to this study at Baylor University by writing that American attitudes toward politics did not necessarily

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line up with specific church affiliation, but with more general religious attitudes— especially about the nature of God: Though 91.8% say they believe in God, a higher power or a cosmic force, they had four distinct views of God’s personality and engagement in human affairs. These Four Gods—dubbed by researchers Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical or Distant—tell more about people’s social, moral and political views and personal piety than the familiar categories of Protestant/Catholic/Jew or even red state/blue state. For example: 45.6% of all Americans say the federal government “should advocate Christian values,” but 74.5% of believers in an authoritarian God do. Sociologist Paul Froese says the survey finds the stereotype that conservatives are religious and liberals are secular is “simply not true. Political liberals and conservative are both religious. They just have different religious views.” (Grossman, USA Today Online, September 11, 2006) Clearly, religious belief is both widespread and influential on a host of life issues, and as Americans, we are used to the idea that religious beliefs influence and impact on attitudes toward social and political issues, especially in the United States. How do these attitudes influence political thought? The answer to that question is precisely the purpose of this collection of entries gathered in Battleground: Religion. Just looking over the list of general topic areas that organize the entries into general subject areas can be surprising. • • • • • • • •

Medicine Politics and Economics War and Violence Media and Business Art, Culture, and Aesthetics Science Environment Minorities and Social Relations

For example, many young people may not even know that there were religious attitudes toward something like animation as an art form—an important entry in this set. It is important to know that religious leaders are deeply concerned about fraudulent religious behavior, also, which is covered in the entry “Hucksterism.” Some may be surprised with an entry on “Aliens.” On alien life, for example, readers may be surprised to know that there has been considerable attention to the question “What if we discover intelligent life outside our world?” among religious thinkers. It may seem an even greater surprise to note, with Dr. Ed Higgins, that many religious thinkers, novelists, and philosophers find the prospect downright exciting, and hardly threatening at all. In fact, readers of Battleground: Religion may well be the most surprised at the fact that religious thinkers can be found on many sides of virtually any issue. Merely being religious does not automatically make one either politically conservative or liberal. Deeply religious social philosophers and theologians will be

Introduction

found on many sides of critically important social issues facing modern Americans. How can this be? RELIGION AND AMERICAN HISTORY: A SURVEY OF IDEAS The entries in this set do not usually address religion in American history, except in those few occasions where a historical perspective is important to understand the contemporary issues. However, in this Introduction, it is important to take a historical perspective in order to establish why religion in American life is so very central to the society that has emerged in the twenty-first century. Indeed, it would be difficult to argue with the fact that religion was a major element in the very founding of the colonies that led to the United States of America. Before it was part of the United States, for example, the colony of Penn’s Woods (Pennsylvania), administered by the young William Penn, the Quaker son of Lord Admiral Penn, was a haven of free thought and experimentation with tolerance. Quakers were not the only religious groups that were welcome there—other religious minorities who had faced serious persecution in Western and Eastern Europe found a refuge—including fellow religious pacifists like the Mennonites and the “Dunkers,” better known as the Church of the Brethren. In fact, it was Penn’s “Frame of Government” that provided a major source of inspiration for what would later become the Constitution of the United States. Relations with Native Americans were also deeply impacted by early European Christian settlers. The biblical stories of Joshua and the Israelites conquering the so-called promised land (and destroying the previous population of Canaanites), unfortunately provided inspiration for some of the worst abuses of the indigenous population of North America (as the same story inspired frightful behavior in other colonies like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). On the other hand, the religious interaction of European religious ideas, and some Native religious and cultural ideas, produced some fascinating social and religious movements and innovations. For example, the Iroquois Confederation of the Six Tribes in what is today territories in the northeast United States and South Eastern Canada, undoubtedly also had influence on some of the framing of the early United States’ Constitution. Interestingly, among the Iroquois converts to Christianity was a young woman named Kateri Tekekwitha, recently moving toward becoming the first Native American Saint in the Roman Catholic Church. The Seneca Prophet Handsome Lake inaugurated a religious movement among the Iroquois peoples that incorporated interesting aspects of the Christian message. Other Native Prophets would do the same, including the famous Wavoka, the prophet of the Ghost Dance of the nineteenth century. After the tumultuous Civil War, it was the Quakers that President Grant turned to for assistance in forming a policy of care and relations with remaining Native American peoples. The forming of a system of sending clergy and religious idealists as government representatives to Native American nations was known as Grants Quaker Policy, although many more than just Quakers were involved—and involved for specifically religious reasons, believing in justice for Native Americans. Even though their idealism did not always work out in

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instituting the best policies for Native cultural survival—the alternatives were arguably worse. The Civil War itself, of course, is hard to study apart from the tremendous religious influences. Slavery was a matter of religious devotion for many Southerners, who believed that God had “ordained” the white race to be superior. Just as powerful, however, was the religious zeal of Abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The Liberator, the Grimke sisters, and even the revolutionary John Brown. All of them were fiery abolitionists, but it was Brown who believed he was taking violent action to free slaves at the behest of God. Finally, it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the religious conversions of African Americans in unifying the African American population into a coherent and united cultural group in the United States. The Black Church was, and arguably still is, the center and key to survival for African American culture, and the Church remains a major cultural source and wellspring of such powerful cultural contributions as the many varieties of African American music which is now so much a part of the general American self-identity—so much so that it would be difficult to imagine a modern United States without the influence of these musical and cultural forms. The move westward—one of the great cultural legacies of American selfidentity—is also hard to imagine without the impact of the Methodist Tent Revivals and camp meetings. These were religious services, often conducted in series lasting a week or two, where people would come from far distances and literally camp in the vicinity of the central meeting tents. Established churches were rare in much of the Western movement, and camp meetings became one of the most stable forms of religious life and instruction during this period. Although forms of Methodism were often involved, other American Christian religious movements formed as a result of the camp meetings as well. Religious summer camps arguably evolved from such experiences in history, and today one of the most common American religious institutions are summer camps that cater to Christian, Jewish, and now Muslim young people and families. Finally, the nineteenth century also saw the rise of the anti-alcoholism movement often called The Temperance Movement, which combined religious zeal against the abuse of alcohol with a growing feminist element, as religious women especially rallied around the cause of anti-alcoholism because of its devastating impact on families. The movement led to the ill-fated American experiment of banning all alcohol consumption in Prohibition (1920–1933, see the entry “Addiction and Recovery”). Religious life seemed to take on a more supportive political and personal role at the beginning of the twentieth century, as the world faced two massive conflicts that disrupted life throughout Europe and involved major commitments of the United States as well. Although major and important religious thinkers were active during the two world wars in both Europe and the United States, more public forms of religious life experienced a fascinating renewal of interest beginning with the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s, and into the 1970s. The Jesus Movement in America is only recently becoming a subject of serious historical interest. As many young people became disillusioned with some

Introduction

of the more destructive aspects of the hippie movement (especially the use of more serious drugs and alcohol), many of these young Americans became attracted to a new, youth-oriented and trendy presentation of Christianity being preached in southern California, and other major cities like Nashville. Often called Jesus freaks, the movement gave a major boost to such contemporary American movements as Christian rock music and other forms of contemporary culture (e.g., Christian comic books) that throughout American history were often considered outside traditional Christianity. Finally, the rise of the religious Right in America seems to have been a response, ironically, to the success of President Jimmy Carter in asserting his evangelical upbringing as a part of his campaign. Before Carter’s campaigns, the presence of Evangelical Protestant Christianity was not an entirely public phenomenon, but Carter’s presidency changed this for a long period. It is now known to be one of the most numerous expressions of Christianity after Roman Catholicism, in terms of sheer numbers. Soon after Carter’s election, aspects of the more conservative side of Evangelical Christianity began to unite around the leadership of such conservative Christian spokespersons as Dr. James Dobson, Rev. Jerry Falwell, and the television magnate Pat Robertson. For the first time in American political history, the religious Right became deeply active in electoral politics, and their influence has been seen to be key in the success of both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as presidents. The end of the twentieth century, and beginning of the twenty-first century, however, has seen the renewal and rise of the Christian Left. The major movement of social concern for education, welfare, and care for the poor at the beginning of the twentieth century is often called The Social Gospel Movement. The son of a German American pastor, Dr. Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) was one of the most prominent advocates of this early twentieth-century religious movement that rallied many Protestant Christians toward supporting the creation of programs for the alleviation of social ills such as urban poverty, illiteracy, and slums in the United States. It is often suggested that two world wars dampened the hopes of the Social Gospel Movement, and gave rise to a more cynical, or even despairing and conservative sense of religious expression that found its height in the Religious Right. In such a view, evil is not to be overcome, but controlled by firm policies of government, and in the home. But times are changing yet again as we move into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Sojourners magazine is only one expression of the increasingly active Christian Left, arguably an update and renewal of the Social Gospel Movements of a century before, but now including such modern issues as global warming and environmental concern in its widening social agenda. Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, is now as prominent a spokesperson for American religious political attitudes as his religious/political counterparts on the right, with whom he is often matched up in radio and televised debates. Similarly, Rabbi Michael Lerner, as the editor of Tikkun (meaning to repair or reform) represents a progressive Jewish left movement increasingly outspoken in American and international politics. There are signs of unrest with traditional political views in the growing American Muslim communities as well.

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“WAVES” OF RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN AMERICAN LIFE In reading through this obviously brief religious survey of attitudes and events, it is hard to avoid the impression that religion in the United States seems to advance in waves—or perhaps in ways that remind us of Georg Friedrich Hegel’s notion that ideas seem to give rise to reactions, and then there is some kind of compromise which expresses another idea, which again gives rise to a reaction, and so on. It is certainly clear that religious trends are clearly traceable in American culture—an indication that religious attitudes, like other fashionable ideas, are also products of their time, as well as products of American religious devotion. The point is, of course, that each wave of religious attitudes, whether tending toward the Right or Left politically, convinces us that understanding social and political life without paying attention to religious attitudes is to have only a very incomplete understanding of those events. Along these lines, it is important to state clearly that these volumes make no claim to be comprehensive in their coverage of issues related to religion in American social and political issues. That would require a loose-leaf binder, with monthly updates mailed out every month. In short—religious life changes with the times, like the issues themselves. At the time of the writing of this set, for example, there is another religious movement that is very much a part of the American fabric—namely a kind of generalized spirituality that is not affiliated with any particular church, or even religion. The shelves of self-help books in national bookstore chains (a commercial phenomenon that itself has tended to increase the impact of religious books that are among the few selected for display in these chain stores) are lined with titles that tend to borrow ideas, rituals, and teachings from many different religious traditions, including Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian perspectives. For example, you can buy many different books on Christian yoga, and a book on the Muslim Jesus. An American musical group known as Aradhna is growing in popularity—singing Christian songs in Hindi, the national language of India, and performing with guitar and sitar. Jai Uttal is an American-born Jewish musician who performs a sophisticated musical form that combines South Indian musical forms and instruments with Western contemporary rock and jazz themes. The ultra-Orthodox Jewish-American Reggae singer, Matisyahu, packs concert halls throughout the world. Actor Richard Gere makes no secret of his Buddhist religious affiliations, and has been an outspoken advocate for Tibetan independence. Films featuring religious themes—Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ being the most startling example—have performed so well at the box office that they compete with even the most sophisticated products of Hollywood and are themselves, arguably, a product of Hollywood. In short, what we are seeing is a level of public expression of American religiosity that is not only unique for its public and thus visible expressions but also for the fascinating levels of mixture, influence, and involvement with virtually all aspects of American life, and into international themes as well. Whether American religious attitudes and practices will ever return to being a subject considered

Introduction

private and inappropriate for public display (as it was in the 1950s and before), is very hard to predict at this point in American history, but it seems highly unlikely. So much for the loud proclamations of sociologists and anthropologists who spoke in the 1950s of the rise of secularism. HOW RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES INFLUENCE PUBLIC POLICY AND ISSUES Religion, if nothing else, suggests some basic realities to its adherents. First, to believe in a religion usually involves the idea that there is a certain intentional order to the universe, the world, and human society. There is, in short, a way that human society is supposed to be, and it is not merely a matter of chance or random selection. This is already a powerful influence on people’s lives. This attitude can suggest to people that there is either an ideal we should try to return to (a kind of golden age), or an ideal that we ought to strive to achieve in the future; either way, religions can provide a guide to our efforts to build a better society. But these attitudes can go in different directions. In Christianity, for example, beliefs about what can happen in the near future can have a deeply determinative impact on political and social attitudes. For example, if you believe that what lies ahead of human society is increasing destruction and conflict until a sudden day of judgment or reckoning, this would tend to dampen one’s hopes for human achievement, and support a kind of life boat ethics that simply tries to survive the horrors of these troubled times. The commercial success of the Left Behind books by Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins, suggests that such ideas are not limited to a few. If, on the other hand, you believe that humanity was given instructions by God precisely because the ideals in those instructions are actually possible (why else, they would ask, were they given?), then such views can fire innovative, and even revolutionary attempts to transform human society and work for the solution of many social problems that have dogged the human experiment for as long as we can remember—unequal distribution of resources, and the suffering of people because of race or culture or gender. In other words—one can either take the view that humanity is permanently tainted, and thus we simply try to get through as best we can (and for the haves this often means a militant desire to just hold on) or humanity has simply failed to live up to its calling, and such a view calls on us to strive toward ideals of human creativity and flourishing that are possible precisely because they have been taught by revered religious leaders (Moses, Jesus, Muhammed, etc.). In either case, ethics matter, policies matter, and decisions matter. If one had very little sense of any actual intentions for humanity—that is, humans are just biologically random events—then it would be difficult to avoid a certain cynicism. But if there is a purpose—a reason, something that is greater than humanity itself—then it is hard to avoid seeing how such attitudes can have a powerful influence on social and political life, arguably both negative and positive. Religion, in short, provides a powerful form of what should be in the political vocabulary, something that is beyond merely what is.

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THE POLITICAL ROLE OF RELIGIOUS TEXTS Many religious traditions in the United States—and especially the three most prominent religious traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—have central texts. A rather important part of their religious life, therefore, is engaged in the interpretation and application of their religious texts to contemporary circumstances. They all share the conviction that these ancient texts can constantly be reinterpreted and reread to speak to the circumstances they are living through. This is already an interesting religious assumption, but what is important to note is this: the interpretation of religious texts is a critically important aspect of what religious Americans believe about faith, and social and political policies. How Americans read their religious texts, then, is critical. In some cases, it is hard to avoid the notion that some Americans make up their minds about social issues based on other, outside influences, and then simply find texts to justify those beliefs. In other cases, however, it is equally hard to avoid the clear influence of the texts themselves. For example, one can read the Old Testament Prophets like the eighth-century b.c.e. prophet Amos, who insisted that his hearers should: Let Justice roll down like waters; And Righteousness like an ever flowing stream. It is hard to miss why such words have fired the souls of such social reformers as William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Cesar Chavez, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At the same time, it is equally easy to see how some modern Christians might read St. Paul in Romans 13, who seems, anyway, to be calling for a certain kind of patriotic duty toward the state when he writes: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Rom 13:1–2) The point is, of course, that in each of these passages there are matters of interpretation. Amos’s call for justice was clearly not widely understood to apply, for example, to those Japanese Americans during World War II who lost farms and homes by being sent to American concentration camps in California, Colorado, and Arizona. Yet that same passage may fire social reformers to protest against such treatment of fellow citizens. Similarly, some Christians may quote Romans 13 to insist on a strong sense of patriotism and supporting all American military actions, but these same Christians would presumably be quite hesitant to apply the same passage to early American settlers facing oppressive laws from their British superiors in revolutionary times! Clearly, texts may not change, but times do; and with the times come different ideas about what these texts mean. In fact, a very interesting new field of biblical studies has begun in academic departments of religion and biblical studies called Reception History, which studies not so much the societies of the Bible, but the social responses to the Bible in the long history since it was written, and especially in recent centuries. As you read these entries, pay attention

Introduction

to the interesting ways in which texts are often cited, or used, or not used, in the various arguments presented. HOW TO USE THIS BOOK This alphabetical collection of entries is intended to introduce the reader to a wide variety of social and political issues on which religious leaders, thinkers, and practitioners have made significant contributions to the debates surrounding those issues. Each entry is a basic survey of the issues at hand, and often reflects on the different points of view that are represented by different religious affiliations. Given that the religious affiliation of the United States is overwhelmingly Christian, however, it is absolutely true that the majority of contributors are Christian, and reflect on social and political debates within the Christian tradition. Where possible, perspectives from minority religious perspectives were considered. There is, however, another reason why the book is overwhelmingly Christian in its orientation. Given the numbers of religious affiliations in the United States (76–82 percent depending on the poll numbers that you read compared to 10–13 percent nonreligious or secular, and less than two percent each for Muslim or Jewish) it is arguable that Christian attitudes have had the greatest impact on American perception of social and political attitudes. In short, what Christians believe and do matters a great deal for all American political and social issues. It is certainly the case that Judaism has also had a significant impact on many aspects of American society, and we have tried to take this into consideration as well, but this is clearly not a major focus of this work. Students looking for areas of research—perhaps to write a paper or begin a project—should survey a number of entries within a given area, for example medicine, the media, environmental issues, and then focus on some of the entries within that area. Each entry briefly surveys some of the issues, and then provides a list of suggested further readings. It is important to understand that each contributor has attempted to survey the issue, rather than provide a comprehensive overview of the issue. In conclusion, one opinion gives rise to another. If there is something that these volumes certainly celebrate in the midst of such divisive and often emotional issues, it is the American spirit of free and open debate. This nation was founded by deeply religious people who sacrificed heavily—often at the cost of their lives—for a place where they could live out their convictions. It would be a sad legacy for Americans if religious attitudes themselves were allowed to limit, or even in some cases end, this truly amazing experiment in religious and human achievement, namely religious tolerance itself. As such, even when readers disagree, they can celebrate precisely the testimony to tolerance that these entries represent. Dr. Daniel L. Smith-Christopher Prof. Theological Studies Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles 2008

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A ABORTION Debates on abortion involve legal, political, bioethical, theological, and social dimensions. Central aspects of these debates include claims about rights (e.g., rights of privacy, rights of women’s health, and rights on the unborn) and ethical values (e.g., the value of freedom, the dignity of life, and social justice). The abortion debate continues to be one of the most divisive issues in the United States, evidenced by active political demonstrations of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice groups, recent legal challenges to existing abortion laws, and sustained dialogue within the religious and public spheres. THE CURRENT SITUATION It is estimated that there are 1.2–1.3 million abortions a year in the United States, but it is difficult to estimate due to underreporting (frequently cited sources include the Centers for Disease Control and the Alan Guttmacher Institute). Statistics reveal that abortions cut across political lines (e.g., they occur with nearly equal regularity among the various states—both heavily Republican and heavily Democrat), religious and denominational lines (e.g., rates of abortions among Catholics are equivalent to national averages), and racial and ethnic lines (e.g., whites constitute the highest total numbers, though African American and Hispanic women have higher rates by proportion of their populations). About 88 percent of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or the first trimester. Abortions are performed for a variety of reasons, including problems with the fetus (e.g., extreme birth defects or other abnormalities detected in utero), threats to the health of the mother (e.g., ectopic pregnancies 1

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and other complications), and, most commonly, unwanted or unexpected pregnancies (e.g., rarer instances of incest and rape account for about 1 percent of the annual total), to more frequent choices based on evaluation of life circumstances such as work responsibilities, economic difficulties, or troubled relationship status. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ABORTION In the history of the United States, New York was the first state to restrict abortions in 1828. Prior to that legislation, states followed common law that allowed abortions prior to the sensed movements of the fetus, or “quickening” that occurs around the sixteenth to eighteenth weeks. After New York’s prohibition, the tendencies of state legislation on abortion moved from one of permissiveness to restriction, and, by 1900, all states had enacted measures outlawing abortion. In the decades that followed, many states began to define the legal parameters of abortion based on the unique circumstances involved in particular abortions. In the last 40 years, state laws moved to protect the right to an abortion (and to dissuade so-called back alley abortions), even as state programs helped to reduce teenage pregnancies and abortions. One of the central aspects of the debate involves the legal right to an abortion; however, it is the theological disagreement vis-à-vis the significance of this legal right that, in reality, drives the abortion debate. THEOLOGICAL VOICES Abortion constitutes one of the most polemic debates among persons who hold faith claims, theologians, and organized religious structures. Generalizations about theological views on abortion are frequently too simplistic and inaccurate. Theologians, such as Lisa Sowle Cahill, critique both sides of the debate for naively assuming their own conclusions and affirming their own worldviews. Cahill writes: Not infrequently, [both sides of the abortion debate] co-opt the ‘feminist; or ‘pro-life’ language of the opposition, reinventing its meaning within their own symbol system. They fail to engage their interlocutors in empathetic dialogue toward mutually acceptable solutions. Instead, they proceed as if their own narratives—symbolically enshrining the sanctity of unborn life on the one side, and women’s right to control their own bodies on the other—were a clear and adequate basis on which to enact policies that affect both fetuses and women. (2005, 178) The significance of these narratives and symbols—which underpin religious values, meanings, and self-understandings—helps explain why abortion constitutes one of the most contentious topics for religious groups. We can describe general positions undertaken by different theologians. Many evangelical Christians, whether individuals, such as Charles Colson and George Weigel, or denominations, such as Baptists (particularly Southern Baptists, as

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there are disagreements about positions within Baptists), and Pentecostals, argue that abortion is a sin that contradicts Jesus’s message of love and the integrity of life. In 1994, Evangelicals and Catholics coauthored a document titled Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium, which called for mutual cooperation based on shared beliefs and hopes. Among these shared beliefs, the document held: “As the unborn must be protected, so also must women be protected from their current rampant exploitation by the abortion industry and by fathers who refuse to accept responsibility for mothers and children. Abortion on demand, which is the current rule in America, must be recognized as a massive attack on the dignity, rights, and needs of women.” Other Christians contend that abortions, though unfortunate and usually tragic, can promote justice because they represent an individual’s exercise of God-given freedom, and prevent the proliferation of unwanted pregnancies that may result in low quality of life for the children. For example, The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a national coalition of religious and religiously affiliated organizations from 15 denominations, including members from the Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalism, and Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Judaism, defends the Constitutional rights of women to end pregnancies before the stage of fetal viability. They advocate for family planning through freedom of choice (including the exercise of contraception and, if necessary, abortion) that is governed by an individual’s choice and religious and moral beliefs. In response, theologians such as Stanley Hauerwas hold that the narrative context of Christianity renders abortion incompatible with the Christian witness. Focusing on the Christian community rather than on individual actors, Hauerwas believes that the fundamental question should be: “What kind of people should we be to welcome children in the world?” (Hauerwas 1981, 198). This normative question about parenthood reflects the decisive character and commitments of a Christian community. Hauerwas repudiates claims that abortion empowers women; he notes: “But even more ironic, for many women, rather than a declaration of independence, abortion is a subtle vote of no-confidence in their ability to determine their destiny” (Hauerwas 1981, 201). Whereas The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice affirms that an individual’s conscience may be the definitive guide vis-à-vis the choice of abortion, Hauerwas claims that conscience is deeply rooted in the communal witness of Christians and could never justify such a choice. A comprehensive articulation of the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion is developed in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae (1993). He argues that the incomparable worth of the human person must be extended to the unborn, for the Gospel of Life protects the integrity of life in opposition to the culture of death (e.g., abortion, murder, genocide, and euthanasia) that threatens innocent life. According to the Pope, “[t]his culture [of death] is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency” (Pope John Paul II 1993, paragraph 12). The Pope gainsays efficiency as a legitimate ground for

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abortion, for abortion violates God’s law not to kill. Though he does not equate abortion and contraception, the Pope identifies them as fruits of the same tree. While noting the pressure of real-life difficulties influencing decisions of contraception and abortion, the Pope cautions that God’s law disavows efficiency and individualism. While we are to trust on consciences, the Pope insists that our consciences may be wrong in guiding us toward undertaking intrinsically evil actions. Catholic ethicists, such as Lisa Sowle Cahill, support such claims, but they caution that church teaching on abortion should not focus solely on the authority of the church hierarchy, but rather should address broader questions of social justice and the common good. She writes: “What the Vatican fails to appreciate, however, is that abortion functions for many as a symbol of women’s rights; to effectively promote other means of limiting family size, the Vatican must also demonstrate strong, practical support for women” (Cahill 1996, 213). Pope John Paul II further insists that life begins at the moment of conception, and, hence, he describes abortion as always tantamount to murder: “The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life” (Pope John Paul II 1993, paragraph 58). The unborn human represents the most innocent life that requires protection and care—the same protection and care owed to a fully developed person. In terms of the political and legal mechanisms developed to ensure these protections, Pope John Paul II follows the model of laws developed by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). The root of law is eternal law (God’s eternal blueprint for an objective moral order), which underlies natural law (human participation in eternal law that requires humans to act rationally and virtuously and in accordance with God’s ordained natural order). In turn, natural law underpins human law (the application of natural law to specific communities). As such, God’s law applies to institutional and political structures; in terms of abortion, the right to life (secured by eternal and natural law) mandates duties of the states to protect it (human law). Failure to uphold these duties and rights has destructive social and moral ramifications: “Consequently, laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law . . . In this way the State contributes to lessening respect for life and opens the door to ways of acting which are destructive of trust in relations between people” (Pope John Paul II 1993, paragraph 72). These social aspects of relations reflect both the causes and effects of abortion. It is important to note that there is also a debate about abortion in the Jewish and Islamic traditions as well. Within Islam, some Muslims interpret the Quranic prohibition against killing children to apply to unborn children, while others do not. Like Judaism, Islam clearly favors the life of the mother over the life of an unborn child, but a child (and fetus) that is able to live apart from the mother is considered to have rights, suggesting a recognition within Islam of stages of life, and thus legal standing, during gestation. In Judaism, life is often defined as beginning at birth (that is, when the head leaves the womb), but here

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RECENT STATE MEASURES: SOUTH DAKOTA South Dakota lawmakers passed an abortion bill in February 2006 that challenged the precedent of Roe v. Wade. The Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Act makes it a felony for doctors to perform abortions (including cases of pregnancies resulting from rape and incest) except to save the life of the mother. The act responds to the Roe decision in that its purpose is “to reinstate the prohibition against certain acts causing the termination of an unborn human life” (Preamble to the act). Does this amount to an absolutist legal position that fails to address moral choice, religious freedoms, and the exercise of one’s conscience (as argued by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice)? Or, does it offer protection for innocent life from the “contraceptive mentality” and “culture of death” discussed by Pope John Paul II? The act contends that scientific discoveries subsequent to the 1973 Roe decision confirm that life begins at the moment of conception. Hence, the act asserts that the guarantee of the due process of law applies equally to born and unborn human beings: “a pregnant mother and her unborn child each possess a natural and inalienable right to life” (Section One). Section Two criminalizes any act—whether it involved administering, prescribing, procuring, or selling—that has the “specific intention of causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human being.” Section Four describes one qualification, where acts prohibited in Section Two may be allowable to prevent the death of a pregnant woman (even if “reasonable medical efforts” are required to preserve both the life of the mother and the unborn child). The challenge issued by South Dakota’s act will certainly receive extensive judicial scrutiny and another reevaluation of the Roe decision.

again, there are authorities that debate this issue, and the fetus is considered a partial life. When a full life (e.g., the mother) is threatened by a partial life, the full life takes precedent. Therefore, while Judaism does not normally allow abortion in circumstances of physical defects in the fetus, or as a means of mere birth control, it does allow for abortion in circumstances of danger to the mother. In some Jewish contexts, however, the definition of danger to the mother is a matter of serious debate beyond merely physical danger, as in the cases of rape, where serious emotional and psychological danger may be at play. BIOETHICAL ISSUES: STATUS OF THE EMBRYO Scientists debate the precise stage of cellular development when one can identify the organism as an individual person. Some argue, as does the Catholic Church, and theologians such as Germain Grisez (1970), that life begins when egg and sperm unite. Consequently, from the moment of conception the zygote is endowed with personhood and all the concomitant rights owed to such a person. Other researchers (and theologians such as Paul Ramsey and Allan Wolter) argue that this moment does not establish individuality, because thereafter the zygote undergoes cellular division, which may include splitting into identical twins, and therefore individuality is indeterminate and potentially reversible. This development, identified as the process of individuation, typically

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takes about two weeks. The moral implications of these two perspectives shed light on evaluations of abortion as either the murder of an innocent person, or the elimination of cellular material. These conflicts of interpretation emerge strongly in questions about the legal, ethical, and theological dimensions of stem-cell research or in vitro fertilization reproductive techniques. The conclusions of scientific analyses of cellular development thus become intertwined with ethical and theological inquiries into the moral status of the embryo. The debate emerges when science and medicine ask “what can we do?,” and ethics and theology ask “what ought we to do?” Fetal viability, that is, the ability of the fetus to survive outside of its mother’s womb, has become the legal standard for evaluating the legality of abortions. LEGAL ASPECTS: COURT DECISIONS ON THE RIGHT TO AN ABORTION A case involving a law against contraception would have significant ramifications for the legality of abortion. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the United States Supreme Court ruled that a Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraceptives violated a Constitutional right to privacy. Justice Douglas, in writing the majority opinion, cited the right of privacy among the “penumbras” of (or implied) rights afforded by the Bill of Rights. The decision and its appeals to the right of privacy were instrumental in the definitive abortion-rights court case, Roe v. Wade (1973). Roe v. Wade declared that a Texas law criminalizing abortion violated women’s Fourteenth Amendment rights (i.e., the state shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law) to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy. Current legal and theological opponents of abortion contend that such Constitutional rights conflict with duties to protect unborn life, and such disagreements carry forward in the debates that occur within the Roe decision itself. In his dissenting opinion, Justice White cautioned that such a right enacted a moral cost: “The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries.” Despite such objections, the Court held that abortion was to be protected as an individual’s right, but the Court also acknowledged that states could restrict this right based on fetal development, particularly in the second and third trimesters of such development. In the decades that followed, many legal challenges were launched, and commentators speculated that the Court might overturn Roe v. Wade. However, several cases affirmed the decision; in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), for example, the Court struck down a Pennsylvania law that required spousal notification prior to obtaining an abortion, because it unconstitutionally created an undue burden on women getting access to abortions. The Court did uphold the requirements for parental consent, informed consent, and a 24-hour waiting period. In sum, the relevant court cases promote autonomy as the central value (as embraced by philosophers such as Judith Jarvis Thomson), though, in noting specific restrictions, these cases do not advocate absolute autonomy (Thomson 1971). To what extent, then, can federal and national law mandate

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certain provisions in relation to autonomous choices and practices of abortion? In reflecting on these questions, religious voices are prominent, not only out of the Court, but within it: with the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito Jr., the Supreme Court’s nine members now include five Catholics. The Catholic Church calls upon all Catholic officials to advocate on behalf of innocent life; do the Catholic beliefs of the Justice compel them to challenge the legal protections surrounding abortion rights? POLITICAL MECHANISMS: PARTIALBIRTH ABORTION BAN In terms of the most significant federal legislative action regarding abortion, President George W. Bush signed into law the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act on November 5, 2003. The act, passed by both houses of the 108th Congress, differentiates partial-birth abortions from other types of abortions: “A moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partialbirth abortion—an abortion in which a physician delivers an unborn child’s body until only the head remains inside the womb, punctures the back of the child’s skull with a Sharp instrument, and sucks the child’s brains out before completing delivery of the dead infant—is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited” (Section 2 (1)). The act refutes claims that these types of abortion could benefit a mother’s health (though Section 3 does exculpate physicians who perform such abortions to save a mother’s life); a fortiori, the act claims that these abortions pose serious risks to a woman’s health (e.g., Section 2(14)A identifies numerous health complications, including increased risk of cervical incompetence, uterine rupture, and secondary hemorrhaging). Congress points to a governmental interest in protecting the life of a child: “A child that is completely born is a full, legal person entitled to constitutional protections afforded a person under the United States Constitution. Partial-birth abortions involve the killing of a child that is in the process, in fact mere inches away from, becoming a person. Thus, the government has a heightened interest in protecting the life of the partially-born child” (Section 2(14)H). Consistent with this interest, the act concludes with a punitive section that criminalizes partial-birth abortions and imposes fines and incarceration of up to two years (Section 3), as well as findings from the Senate that reiterate that Roe v. Wade “was appropriate and secures an important constitutional right . . . and such decision should not be overturned” (Section 4). Another relevant issue—one that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act does not consider—surrounds questions of the origins of life and the designation of personhood. In April, 2007, the United States Supreme Court affirmed that the partial birth abortion ban does not violate a woman’s right to an abortion. Theologians such as Cardinal Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia and Chairman of the Committee for Pro-Life Activities, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), voiced support for the court’s decision. Other religious groups worried that the decision begins to encroach on the rights of women.

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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: FDA APPROVAL OF PLAN B AND WAL-MART On August 24, 2006, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Plan B, a contraceptive drug containing the female hormone progestin, as an over-the-counter (i.e., nonprescription) option for women age 18 or older. For those women age 17 and under, Plan B is available only by means of a prescription. Plan B is called the “morning after pill” because it is taken within 72 hours of unprotected sexual intercourse. Although it is not equivalent to the abortion pill RU-486, Plan B is controversial because as an emergency contraceptive it can blur the lines between contraceptive devices and abortive practices. The demarcation of these lines, as mentioned above, depends on interpretation of the origins of individual life and the moral status of the embryo. Those who argue that it constitutes an abortive practice contend that the pills can prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg into the uterus; some believe that the White House and President George W. Bush sought to block Plan B’s entrance into the market on grounds that it destroys innocent life. The FDA’s decision occurred only after intense debate within its own administration, and among political action groups and lobbyists. The potentially widespread use of Plan B was enhanced when Wal-mart, the world’s largest retailer and an advocate of “family values,” indicated on August 25, 2006, that it would carry the Plan B drug for over-the-counter sale by the end of the year. Wal-mart received critical scrutiny when it initially considered selling the drug, but it consented to the sales when the FDA made its determination. Debates continue to emerge regarding the impact of future Plan B availability: will it provide an excuse for irresponsible behavior and destroy innocent life, or will it promote responsible, planned parenthood? An interesting dimension also emerges when pharmacists have refused to dispense the Plan B drug on ethical and religious grounds. Wal-Mart suspended one such pharmacist, Ethan Vandersand, but a U.S. district court in August, 2007, reversed Wal-Mart’s attempt to block the pharmacist’s lawsuit. CVS pharmacy recognizes the religious beliefs of a pharmacist as a legitimate ground for not dispensing such drugs.

SOCIAL FACTORS AND ABORTIONS: CAUSES AND EFFECTS Do economic disparities in the economic system of the United States create the conditions for the possibility of abortions? Does the number of abortions in the United States impact other facets of society? Some argue that the causes and effects of abortion are directly correlated to broader social trends. Legal theorist John J. Donohue III, and economist Steven Levitt, argue that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to crime reductions since the Roe v. Wade decision, accounting for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime. Their controversial thesis has earned accusations of “classism” and “racism” because it holds that abortions occur most frequently among women or families that are least able to provide the economic resources for a stable, nurturing home environment. This view would argue that the absence of a stable, nurturing home is considered one precondition for determining risk of engagement in criminal behavior.

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Others argue that social and economic variables are the causes of abortion, as illustrated by cross-cultural comparisons. Western European countries have low rates of abortion, the argument states, because they offer comprehensive social and health care safety nets (provided by the government and related social services) that mitigate extreme economic and social hardships. Widespread availability of contraceptive devices, encouraged by the more secular character of these European countries, also contributes to these lower rates of abortion. Additionally, some European countries also provide access to an abortive pill, RU486 (or Mifegyne). The pill is considered effective because it is taken in the early stages of pregnancy as a safer alternative to surgical techniques. Though their perspectives vary on the efficacy of Mifegyne, governments in Western Europe restrict the legal use of this pill to either the first seven or first nine weeks of embryonic development. Studies indicate that abortion rates have not risen since the legalization of Mifegyne in countries such as France, Germany, Sweden, and Great Britain. Some religious voices have opposed RU-486; Catholic officials in Bavaria, for example, objected to the distribution of the pill (even if German law requires proof of counseling prior to abortions). SUMMARY It is clear that the abortion debate is not a matter of simple arguments—but involves detailed consideration of often difficult moral and medical issues. Not only do religious traditions differ in their definition of the beginning of life, or taking life, it is also difficult to isolate the sole causes or effects of abortion, and, consequently, the terms of the debate need to be clarified and elaborated upon in more detail as theologians, philosophers, politicians, legal theorists, economists, and ordinary citizens struggle to discern the morality and legality of abortion. See also Birth Control and Family Planning. Further Reading: Bachiochi, Erika, ed. The Cost of Choice: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion. Preface by Jean Bethke Elshtain. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004; Cahill, Lisa Sowle. Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Cahill, Lisa Sowle. Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, Change. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2005; Donohue, James J., III, and Steven D. Levitt. “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, no. 2 (2001): 379–420; First Things 43 (May 1994): 15–22; Grisez, Germain. Abortion: The Myth, the Realities, and the Arguments. New York: Corpus Books, 1970; Harte, Colin. Changing Unjust Laws Justly: Pro-Life Solidarity with “the Last and Least.” Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005; Hauerwas, Stanley. Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981; Haussman, Melissa. Abortion Politics in North America. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005; Maguire, Daniel C. Sacred Rights: The Case for Contraception and Abortion in World Religions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003; Noonan, John T., Jr. The Morality of Abortion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970; Pope John Paul II. “Evangelium Vitae.” 1995. Available at: http://www.vatican. va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evange lium-vitae_en.html; Rudy, Kathy. Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: Moral Diversity in the Abortion Debate. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996; Shrage, Laurie. Abortion and Social

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| Addiction and Recovery Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003; Steffen, Lloyd. Abortion: A Reader. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1996; Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “A Defense of Abortion.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (Fall 1971): 47–66; Tribe, Lawrence H. Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes. New York: Norton, 1990.

Jonathan Rothchild ADDICTION AND RECOVERY In the United States, there have been major changes in the attitudes of the public toward the problems of smoking, drug, and alcohol addiction. In 2001, a Pew Foundation poll found that 52 percent of Americans believed that drug use should be treated as a disease, while only 35 percent believed that it should be treated as a crime. How are such attitudes expressed in religious contexts? Is addiction a matter of “suffering a disease” or “committing a sin”? The different attitudes would lead to radically different suggestions about social responses to addiction issues in this country. The use and abuse of different substances are certainly evaluated quite differently in the public mind. For example, smoking is generally thought of as an entirely negative habit—portrayed as a failure of will, while alcohol is considered negative only in cases of abuse (the majority of Americans, from a University of Minnesota poll, favor controls over Alcohol distribution, but not a ban), and attitudes toward drug use depends entirely on the substance in question—from mild irritation with marijuana (nearly 50 percent of Americans favor legalizing medical use of marijuana, for example) to widespread condemnation of the nonmedical use of opiates and other drugs. Alcohol and alcoholism are topics that reveal the changing attitudes toward the use of alcohol, and the relationship and controversies between many of these ideas about alcoholism and religious communities in the United States. The recovery industry (treatment centers, seminars, books, and plans), represented by dozens of different approaches to addiction treatments, has often interacted with religious organizations, but often also finds itself in conflict with what it sees as negative and unhelpful religious attitudes toward addiction. AMERICAN ADDICTION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ATTITUDES From the period beginning with the Civil War and into the era of World War II, the general public attitude toward drug and alcohol abuse was that such practices represented individual failures on the part of the addict, and the failures ought to be treated as character flaws, crimes, and by the religious community, as “sin.” These attitudes were also often expressed in negative language about “drunks” and other pejorative terms. Social and religious pressures against the use of alcohol in the United States began to build with the founding of movements such as Frances Willard’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU, founded in 1873), which defined alcoholism as a family issue, and drew on a massive mobilization of women who

Addiction and Recovery

treated alcoholism as a threat to family and home life. In 1895, the Anti-Saloon League was also founded, with considerable support from industrialists Henry Ford and Pierre DuPont. Unfortunately, some of these popular movements, however, also drew on widespread anti-immigration sentiments, as certain groups were quite unfairly associated with problem drinking. These social pressures eventually led to the legal banning of all alcohol in the United States during Prohibition (1920–1933). Although it is common today to portray this social experiment in American history as a dismal failure, there were arguably sharp reductions in alcohol consumption. On the other hand, it is also quite true that Prohibition gave rise to a massive black market in alcoholism, and Chicago became one of the national “centers” of the illegal alcohol trade. During the so-called Roaring Twenties, there were private (and illegal) drinking clubs that earned massive amounts of money for organized crime. Public pressure, and widely noted ambivalence about enforcement of the law led to President Roosevelt finally proclaiming an end to the Prohibition experiment in 1933. The widely held public perception was that the overzealous religious attitudes were largely responsible for the movement to ban alcohol in American society, and this led to a certain cynicism about religious “interference” with political issues as an attempt to “legislate morality.” THE RISE OF THE “ALCOHOLISM AS DISEASE” ATTITUDE The idea that alcohol dependency can be spoken of as a “disease” has its roots in America in the eighteenth century, when Benjamin Rush wrote An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind in 1784. However, the notion of treating alcoholism and other dependencies as “disease” rather than a “moral or spiritual failure” (e.g., sin), did not catch on until after the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, and its growing success in helping people recover from alcohol abuse. Theologian and historian Linda Mercandante notes, for example, that it was in 1935 that the American Medical Association (AMA) said that alcoholics were valid patients, and in 1952, the World Health Organization promoted treatment for alcoholism (Mercandante 1996, 100). More significantly, in 1956, the AMA referred to alcoholism as a “disease,” but it was in the 1970s that the public was widely in agreement in using this kind of language. One of the main events in public consciousness of addiction was First Lady Betty Ford’s candid revelations about her own alcohol and prescription drug abuse that led to her seeking treatment in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One of the most important attitude changes on alcoholism has come about based on the notion that alcoholism ought to be considered a disease that people struggle with. This idea involved far less social (and even religious) stigma on the individual alcoholic. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is most famous for its Twelve Step program. Each participant agrees to try to abide by, and act upon, these 12 steps in their lives, as well as meet regularly with fellow members to encourage one another. Although AA is notably only a mildly religious movement that is said to be compatible with a wide variety of spiritual traditions, it

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notably draws on ideas most often encountered in Christian religious thought. The Twelve Steps are as follows:

the twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. It is clear that this approach, which has proven effective for literally millions of people since 1935, has also hatched a virtual industry of Twelve Step approaches to all kinds of “addictions” and obsessive behaviors—there are now groups for sexual addictions, addictions to shopping, smoking, eating, and even overworking. Furthermore, it is clear that some believe that the Twelve Step process may even be a form of spirituality that not only supplements standard religious practices in Christian Churches or Jewish Synagogues, but actually replaces them. Some members of AA and other similar groups speak of their association with the recovery group as their “church.” This virtual transformation in some attitudes toward addiction as disease, however, had raised interesting controversies when brought into dialogue with the equally strong public religious attitudes in the United States. The AA approach, which states that a person is powerless over alcohol, is actually a notion that is arguably contrary to major Christian, Jewish, and Islamic theological teachings about the reality, and problem, of human sin. Many religions refer to the failure to act in a morally positive manner as sin—a moral failing that ought to be confessed, and changed. But an individual is not normally held responsible for an illness. Sin on the other hand, means that one ought to feel a moral and

Addiction and Recovery

spiritual guilt about wrong behavior, which hopefully leads one to change that behavior. Furthermore, one of the very central ideas of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic theology is that sin can be overcome by the help of God—it is not that sin is all powerful, rather we have recourse to the power of God who can strengthen our will and resolve. In fact, part of the Twelve Step program is the idea that an act toward recovery can be taken—you are not lost to alcoholism unless you willfully refuse at least the step of acknowledging the need to change. Often, in descriptions of recovery, this is referred to as hitting bottom—the moment you realize that you must do something to stop your own destruction. In a collection of such narratives written by celebrities who have struggled with alcoholism, comedian Richard Lewis spoke about this need to make a personal commitment: I’ve been to enough funerals in the last decade of people who I’d once held by their lapels, begging them to stay the course yet never ever seeing the light of belief illuminate their eyes. It was clear to me, even in very early recovery, that the only people who ultimately saved themselves and seriously entered recovery were those who not “just maybe” knew that they needed it, but also wanted it. I’ve discovered that those who tried to get sober for anyone other than themselves usually had a tough go at it or failed completely. It takes a lot of courage—and faith. I had that darkness of denial and disbelief in my own eyes up through that night when I looked in the mirror at my house and didn’t even recognize myself. (R. Lewis, in Stromberg and Merrill 2005, 226) Despite the widely noted and applauded success of the Twelve Step approach, some religious scholars have raised concerns. Mercandante points out that a primary focus on addiction as personal disease over which the individual has minimal control, is that it can lead to a view that not only avoids the stigma of being a sinner, and thus a failure (an attitude even most religious leaders would not advocate in those stark terms), but illness language avoids the harder issues of the often tragic results of alcoholism on others (Mercandante 1996). Theologians speak of social sins as well as personal sin—meaning that immoral behavior has wider consequences that may mean that social regulations and laws ought to be considered to end a threat to wider society—not merely to individuals in the privacy of their own self-destruction. Organizations like MADD (Mothers against Drunk Driving), for example, are more assertive about the need to legally control alcohol abuse, and may well be impatient with attitudes that can too easily dismiss the tragedy of alcoholism as “disease.” The idea of disease is that alcoholics have a permanent condition, and they will never be “normal.” Their disease requires constant monitoring. Part of the success of Alcoholics Anonymous is precisely this constant monitoring by attending meetings on a regular basis, and consulting and calling in with your partner in the organization who tries to help you through difficult times of temptation to drink. However, a Twelve Step approach to all of life can create a paranoia about the world around you—believing that anything and everything is a potentially predatory addiction behavior—and life consists of nothing but working hard on individual, personal purity. As Mercandante has suggested: “The result is an

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often intense preoccupation with personal behaviour akin to a pursuit for ritual purity” (Mercandante 1996, 107). Finally, the different attitudes can result in strong political and social advocacy for different national and legislative approaches. A disease model strongly suggests public investment in recovery programs, medical treatment facilities, and caregiving. A moral failure, or “sin” model, would tend to go with advocating at least an equal public emphasis on imprisonment and/or punishment of those whose behavior is socially destructive and is a danger to society. Those who advocate a stronger punitive line may well view a “treatment of disease” model as too soft on criminal behavior. Those who advocate the disease emphasis, however, view more punitive attitudes as doing nothing to actually prevent or reduce addiction, but simply trying to punish it out of existence. There are valid observations, obviously, on both sides of such a debate. DISEASE AND ECONOMIC MOTIVES Mercandante also notes that there can be economic reasons for perpetuating such a view of life, because it is certainly true that “a lucrative industry has emerged” (Mercandante 1996, 107). Historians of addiction treatment in the United States point out that there is a pernicious influence of economic motives that also enters into the debate. In short—alcohol and other addiction substances like tobacco, make a considerable amount of money for the producers of these consumer items. Social attacks on alcoholism that define the problem as sin and failure of moral character, tend to label the products themselves as sinful temptations to be avoided. But if problems of addiction are shifted to the individual—the idea that some people cannot handle drinking, but others can— then the problem is shifted away from the products, and the pressure is off the companies that actually produce consumer versions of these substances. For example, if alcoholism is considered a disease rather than an inevitably destructive substance in any form, then it becomes acceptable to drink moderately, but only unacceptable in those circumstances when it is abused. Cigarettes, for example, are now seen quite differently. In a large part of the public sector, cigarette use is condemned at all levels, and the banning of cigarette smoking in most public buildings, many restaurants in many states, and many private buildings, is indication of the wide public attitude against any form of smoking, whether addictive or moderate. It is in the interests of the alcohol industry to make certain that alcoholic beverages avoid the stigma of tobacco, and one way to do this, arguably, is to emphasize the problems of alcoholism, and not of alcohol itself. Critics have not only pointed to the economic motives served by a removal of a stigma that might lend more serious pressure to legislate against alcohol use, they have also pointed out that there is a class-oriented or even elitist attitude in ideas about alcohol abuse among certain sectors of society. For example, although the language of disease removes much of the tone of moral failure (or even sin) and the social stigma associated with an individual failure of moral resolve, this tended to be reserved to higher social classes where elites were considered good people with problems, rather than the much more inflammatory language used

Addiction and Recovery

to speak of the poor who are called drunks (Tracy and Acker 2004, 24). Attitudes toward drunks would obviously differ from attitudes toward the sick, and thus the very words used can suggest quite different policies and attitudes. Today, the religious communities are divided between treating alcoholism and drug addiction as a disease which involves mostly an attitude of support, encouragement, and counseling, and those who still insist that alcoholism and drug addiction are sins, and that sins should be condemned, avoided, and even lead society to limit activity seen as immoral through legislation of various kinds. Most religious leaders would distance themselves from a bitter condemnation of alcoholics, but are uncomfortable with dropping the idea of sin altogether. Even if the sinner is (at least in theory) treated with human respect (e.g., “love the sinner, hate the sin”), there are social implications to the reality of sinful and/or immoral behavior. If the language of immorality, injustice, and sin is used, then stronger pressures would arise to control the worst of the consequences of these behaviors for wider society. In the case of tobacco, for example, the growing negative attitudes resulted in greater legal limitations of the use of tobacco, especially in public places. So, negative attitudes are often at odds with sympathetic attitudes—because they suggest different courses of action (e.g., legislation, punishment, and limitation, as opposed to therapy, treatment, and institutional programs of recovery). Most religious leaders, of course, would say that there are elements of both attitudes that need to be a part of modern religious analysis of addictive behavior. It is both an illness and a sin. In fact, in her analysis of the mixing of recovery ideas with theological and religious ideas, Mercandante summarizes various views as follows: At least four often conflicting elements are combined in U.S. beliefs regarding alcoholism. First, the dispositional disease model is firmly held. Here, alcoholics are understood to bear no responsibility at all. They are seen as incapable of rational decision making, thus needing social intervention and coercion. Opposite that is the still influential moral-volitional model. This stresses personal choice and presents alcoholics as willfully aberrant. A personality model exists alongside these. It claims alcoholics ‘have a consistent and abnormal psychology’. And finally there is the AA model. It has elements of the moral, the medical, and the psychological, yet it primarily presents the problem as “a reflection of a human need—gone wrong—for spiritual life and growth. (Mercandante 1996, 103) RELIGION AND TWELVE STEPS: AN UNEASY COOPERATION? What, then, is the proper attitude of religious organizations toward addiction issues? Many churches provide space for AA and other recovery organizations as a part of their general commitment to service toward the rest of society. But some churches have embraced the Twelve Step process, and the disease concept of addictions entirely, almost replacing their own religious moral/ethical

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teachings about human responsibility for behavior. Wider social attitudes toward Christians who speak mostly about addiction as sin, for example, tend to be negative, so many churches have ceased speaking of sin altogether, replacing it with so-called negative or destructive behaviors—psychological or medical language that seems more acceptable to wider society. However, such diseasemodel discussions have an inherent weakness in the religious context—disease suggests passive suffering, not responsible action. But religious teachers would say that if you are sinning, that means you should stop sinning. It suggests responsibility and ability to act. No one must sin—by definition it is a choice. And this, finally, is an important point for religious leaders. Some theologians have started to suspect that a disease-only approach to addiction is virtually the same thing as a biologically determinist view—reducing human beings to biological machines with little choice who are driven by instincts that they cannot change, rather than persons who can make choices—whether bad or good. Theologians would argue that if you are not responsible for your actions, then you are not a free person. The basic notion of sin in the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions is that sin is a matter of choosing to do the wrong thing, not simply suffering from a disease. While it is true that theologians speak of how sin can become easier and lead to destructive patterns of behavior, if sin is simply a matter of disease, then human persons can be no longer responsible for their own conduct—and they are reduced to machines. To be a sinner means that you are responsible, and that you have choices. To suffer from a disease, on the other hand, does not empower the individual to act because there is nothing they can do to change. Christianity, for example, speaks of the ability to become a “new person” in the power of faith. The Twelve Step process, on the other hand, teaches that you will never not be an alcoholic—you will always live with it. In fact, say religious teachers, belief in sin is more respectful of human beings, but it insists that individual people are responsible for choices in their lives, and are thus to be held accountable for those choices. It is not a matter of being biologically programmed, with no choices. For some, recovery from addiction is made easier by acknowledging that they are not in control of their disease. But for many modern theologians, who may well support the Twelve Step–type addiction recovery programs as positive for specific issues of addiction, such approaches ought not to replace Christian theologies of sin and responsibility on all issues. See also Clergy House Scandal in America; Health Reform Movements; Universal Health Care. Further Reading: Alcoholics Anonymous. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Hazelden: Center City, 2002. Available at: http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/en_information_ aa.cfm?PageID = 17&SubPage = 68; Black, Claudia. It Will Never Happen to Me: Growing Up with Addiction as Youngsters, Adolescents, Adults. Center City: Hazelden, 2002; Cherry, Andrew, Mary E. Dillon, and Douglas Rugh. Substance Abuse: A Global View. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002; Efran, Jay S., and David Gregson. The Tao of Sobriety. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2002; Hickman, Timothy, “The Double Meaning of Addiction: Habitual Narcotic Use and the Logic of Professionalizing Medical Authority in the United States, 1900–1920.” In Altering American Consciousness, ed. Sarah Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004: 182–202; Lawson, Gary

AIDS W., Ann W. Lawson, and P. Clayton Rivers. Essentials of Chemical Dependency Counseling, 3rd ed. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen, 2001; Mancall, Peter, “‘I Was Addicted to Drinking Rum’: Four Centuries of Alcohol Consumption in Indian Country.” In Altering American Consciousness, eds. Sarah Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker, 91–107. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004; Mercandante, Linda A. Victims and Sinners: Spiritual Roots of Addiction and Recovery. Louisville: Westminster, 1996; Speaker, Susan L. “Demons for the Twentieth Century: The Rhetoric of Drug Reform, 1920–1940.” In Altering American Consciousness, eds. Sarah Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker, 203–224. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004; Stromberg, Gary, and Jane Merrill. The Harder They Fall: Celebrities Tell Their Real-Life Stories of Addiction and Recovery. Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2005; Tracy, Sarah W., and Caroline Jean Acker, eds. Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004; White, William L. “The Lessons of Language: Historical Perspectives on the Rhetoric of Addiction.” In Altering American Consciousness, eds. Sarah Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker, 33–60. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

AIDS Because AIDS is still often associated with the homosexual community, or with the abuse of illegal drugs, many conservative religious leaders considered it a “punishment” for sin. Other religious leaders, however, call for compassion for the sick in the tradition of religious concern for others. Is AIDS a unique case for religious morality? WHAT IS AIDS? AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which is spread through the exchange of HIV infected bodily fluids. The most common causes of HIV transmission are unprotected sexual intercourse with an infected partner and using non-sterile needles to inject drugs. The best means of protection against infection during sexual intercourse is to use a condom. Public health experts argue that the best way to prevent the spread of AIDS is to educate the public about how it is spread, to advocate for condom use during sexual intercourse, to make condoms easily available, and to provide clean needles to intravenous drug users through needle exchange programs. These prevention measures have been shown to be effective, yet within religious communities they are controversial. Some religious leaders object that they legitimize and encourage immoral behavior; others insist that religious values obligate people of faith to promote, and even participate in providing proven and effective ways to prevent the spread of AIDS. A BRIEF HISTORY OF AIDS AIDS emerged in the United States in the early 1980s, initially among homosexual men and then among injecting drug users. For a short time, this mysterious

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HIV TESTING CONTROVERSY Knowing one’s HIV status is essential to preventing the spread of AIDS, yet HIV testing was initially controversial. In the Western hemisphere, homosexual men were the first to be hardest hit by the disease; thus the gay community was at the forefront of educating people about AIDS and advocating for safer sexual behavior to prevent the spread of the disease. Yet the gay community was suspicious of widespread HIV testing because of concern about how results from such testing would be used. Homosexuals were subjected to discrimination before the emergence of AIDS; the spread of the disease only fueled already existing prejudices and hostility. Furthermore, early on there was widespread ignorance about how HIV is transmitted, and treatments for AIDS did not exist. As a result, there was a great deal of fear about AIDS, and those suffering from the disease faced stigmatization, isolation, and worse. Advocates for AIDS patients feared that discriminatory behavior would increase if HIV testing were widespread and test results became public information. When HIV testing was established, therefore, it was on a voluntary basis, and unlike as with other communicable diseases, the test results were confidential; only the person who was tested had the right to know the results of the test, and it was up to that person to inform others of his or her HIV status. Although some are now questioning the continued need for it, confidential and voluntary testing remains the policy in the United States and many other countries.

new disease was thought to be a “gay” disease; one of the earliest names given to it was GRID, or Gay-Related Immune Deficiency. Within two years of its first appearance in the United States, however, non-drug using women and children also were diagnosed with the illness, and the name AIDS was created. In Africa, medical personnel had been aware of a “wasting disease” in the heterosexual population since the 1970s, but it wasn’t until 1984 that Western scientists became aware that AIDS was widespread in Africa. In that year, as well, scientists discovered that the cause of the disease was a virus that they eventually named HIV. Once AIDS was known to be an infectious disease that is transmitted through the exchange of blood and other bodily fluids, effective preventive measures could be identified and promoted. Chief among these were safer sexual behavior, particularly avoiding promiscuity and using condoms during sexual intercourse. The world’s first needle exchange program for injecting drug users was set up in Holland in 1984. In 1985 a test to screen blood for HIV was licensed. Azidothymidine (AZT) was approved as the first drug for treating AIDS in 1987, but only in 1996 were combination antiretroviral drug treatments against HIV found to be effective. RELIGIOUS RESPONSES TO AIDS Among religious groups, as among other segments of society, responses to AIDS have varied. Because homosexual men and intravenous drug users were the first to be hit hardest by the disease, and because HIV infection is primarily sexually transmitted, some religious people believed AIDS to be God’s

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punishment for what they judged to be immoral behavior. Yet from the start, other religious people have insisted that blaming the victims of HIV/AIDS for their disease is not an acceptable religious response, and many have been motivated by their religious convictions to reach out with compassion to people with HIV/AIDS. All the world’s major religions include teachings that call their adherents to care for the most vulnerable members of society. In Hinduism and Buddhism, for example, leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Lama insist that believers must help those in need, and work to alleviate injustice and suffering. One of the five pillars of Islam is concern for, and alms-giving to the needy. In Judaism, the prophets continually called the Hebrew people to remember that they were once foreigners and slaves in Egypt. Knowing what it is like to be marginalized and abused, therefore, the prophets insist that the Jewish community must show particular concern for the marginalized and suffering in their midst. In line with the Jewish prophets, Jesus also called his followers to reach out to those on the margins of society. According to the Christian New Testament, when Christians feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned, they are, in fact, doing all these things for Christ (Matt 25: 31–46). As a consequence of such religious teachings, from the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, religious institutions and individuals have been among those providing services to help people afflicted with the disease, as well as their families. Today, there are organizations affiliated with every major religious tradition whose mission is to help people affected by HIV/AIDS. They include, to name just a few, the Positive Muslims support group for Muslims with HIV/AIDS; the Sangha Metta Project, which prepares Buddhist nuns and monks to work with those affected by the disease; the International Jewish AIDS Network; the Catholic Relief Services; and the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. Yet in 2004, religious leaders meeting at the 15th International AIDS conference in Bangkok, Thailand, agreed that religious communities have not done enough in the fight against HIV/AIDS. They acknowledged that often their response to the AIDS epidemic, and to those infected with HIV, has been marked by prejudice, fear, and judgment. These leaders signed a “Statement of Commitment,” pledging to work against the root causes of the spread of AIDS in the various regions of the world. Furthermore, they committed themselves to an agenda of actions to ensure “access for all” to accurate information about how to protect oneself against infection with the HIV virus; to effective medical care and treatment for those who are infected; and to acceptance and full inclusion in the community of those with HIV/AIDS. While religious leaders agree about their obligation to help those suffering from HIV/AIDS, and to work against the spread of the disease, they are not always in agreement about the best means of preventing HIV infection. RELIGIOUS RESPONSES TO AIDS PREVENTION One of the most widespread approaches to AIDS prevention is known by the acronym ABC: Abstinence from sex; Being faithful to one’s partner; and using Condoms during sexual intercourse. Needle exchange programs that allow drug

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abusers to turn in their used injections’ needles in order to receive sterilized ones also have been shown to be effective in preventing the spread of HIV. Yet there are those who argue that needle exchange programs legitimate the use of illegal intravenous drugs and thus promote drug addiction. Furthermore, they insist that advocating the use of condoms, and making them easily available, encourages immoral sexual behavior. Most religious traditions hold that sexual intercourse is morally acceptable only between a man and woman who are married. To make condoms widely and easily available, and to suggest that using a condom will protect sexual partners against contracting AIDS, some religious leaders argue, encourages sexual promiscuity and marital infidelity. Moreover, they insist that it is dishonest to suggest that using a condom during sexual intercourse will protect the partners from contracting AIDS, since condoms may tear or they may be used incorrectly. Therefore, the only sure way to prevent being infected with the HIV virus is to abstain from sexual intercourse before marriage, and to remain faithful to one’s spouse after marriage. According to this view, AIDS prevention programs ought solely to focus on promoting sexual abstinence before marriage, and fidelity within marriage. Against this, other people of faith argue that moral conviction and religious belief do not protect populations from HIV infection. They point out that even if religious teaching forbids extramarital sex and illicit drug use, this is not a view held by everyone. Furthermore, even religious adherents who acknowledge a particular teaching may not agree with or live by it. So that those who engage in risky behaviors know how to protect themselves, it is essential, and even religiously mandated, that all AIDS prevention programs provide information about the use of condoms during sexual intercourse, and the dangers of needle sharing. Proponents of this position base their argument on the high value their faith tradition places on human life. Both Judaism and Christianity teach that human beings are created in the image of God and that human life is sacred. Similarly, Islam holds that life is a gift from Allah. From the perspective of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, therefore, protecting life and caring for the health of one’s body are religious obligations. Since teaching about the proper use of condoms, and making condoms and clean needles easily accessible are the most effective means of protecting the health and lives of those who engage in risky sexual behavior or use illegal injectable drugs, these means ought to be included in all AIDS prevention programs. RELIGIOUS VIEWS ON CONDOM USE WITHIN MARRIAGE Some religious denominations, most notably the Roman Catholic Church (within Christianity), but also some Muslim and Jewish groups, teach that it is immoral to use condoms, even within marriage, as a means of contraception. The question arises whether this means that it is also immoral to use a condom during sexual intercourse within marriage if the intention is not to avoid pregnancy, but rather to avoid contracting HIV/AIDS. This might be necessary

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because one of the marriage partners is known to be infected with HIV, or because the HIV status of one or both spouses is unknown. One interpretation of the Roman Catholic prohibitions against condom use is that it is never acceptable to use a condom, even within marriage, and even if one of the spouses is known to be HIV positive. In the latter case, to protect the uninfected spouse the married couple must refrain from having sex. Yet Catholic moral theologians and even members of the Roman curia, the central administration of the Roman Catholic Church, have supported a more tolerant attitude toward the use of condoms in order to slow the spread of AIDS. The Catholic Church’s insistence that condom use is morally unacceptable, is based on its teaching that sexual intercourse serves two purposes within marriage. One is the creation of new life; the other is strengthening the love and unity of the spouses. These two purposes of the sexual act may never be separated, according to Catholic teaching, because to do so undermines the dignity of the sexual act and, therefore, of the two people engaging in it. An action that diminishes the dignity of human beings is evil and, according to Catholic teaching, one cannot engage in one evil (using condoms) in order to prevent another (HIV infection). Ultimately, the only effective way to end the scourge of AIDS, according to this teaching, is to act in accordance with moral values that build up the dignity of all human beings. AIDS TREATMENT AND THE COST OF DRUGS In 1987 AZT was the first drug to be approved for treating AIDS. Yet even with the discovery that AZT could slow the development of HIV infection into full-blown AIDS, being diagnosed as HIV positive was essentially a death sentence, since the mortality rate for AIDS patients was near 100 percent. Then, in 1996, combination antiretroviral treatments (sometimes referred to as “drug cocktails”) were found to be highly effective against HIV. Since then, while there is still no cure for AIDS, for those who can afford the new antiretroviral treatments, HIV infection has become a chronic condition rather than a fatal disease. Combination drug treatments have significantly increased the life expectancy of patients infected with HIV. Yet these new treatments are very expensive, and therefore are not available to everyone who needs them. In 2006, particularly in developing areas of the world such as Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia where the AIDS pandemic is most severe, only about a quarter of those needing treatment for HIV were receiving it, according to statistics provided by the World Health Organization (WHO). Spokespeople for the pharmaceutical companies that sell these new antiretroviral treatments insist that the cost of the drugs is high because of the high cost of research that led to their development. Drug companies must charge as much as they do for the medications, according to their representatives, in order to recoup the cost of research and development, and make enough profit to allow continued research. Yet representatives of countries which desperately need the medications but cannot afford them accuse the pharmaceutical industry of price gouging at the expense of their citizens’ lives. Religious organizations, such as the Catholic Relief Services, have become actively involved in working to make antiretroviral treatments available to all those who need them.

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While acknowledging the truth of the Catholic church’s position, others within the church argue out that even though condom use alone is not enough to prevent the spread of AIDS, it has been shown effectively to contain it. These Catholics support the church’s insistence that only the triumph of values that build up the dignity of all human beings will ultimately bring an end to the AIDS epidemic. At the same time, using the same logic by which the Catholic church teaches that under some circumstances it is permissible to kill another human being in self-defense, these Catholics argue that in the face of the AIDS epidemic, using a condom to prevent infection with HIV is also permissible. WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND AIDS Increasingly, everywhere in the world women and children are at risk of becoming infected with HIV, and many of these women are infected by their husbands. If an HIV infected woman becomes pregnant and has no access to antiretroviral medications, her child is at far greater risk of being HIV infected as well. In some parts of the world like sub-Saharan Africa, that have been worst affected by the AIDS epidemic, the greatest risk of becoming infected with HIV for some young women is getting married. Abstinence from sex before marriage, and marital fidelity, are not enough to protect them against AIDS. Part of the problem is a greater cultural tolerance of sexual promiscuity by men that needs to be addressed and changed. It is also the case that in almost all cultures, women are subordinated to men. Often, this is religiously justified, yet religious feminists point out that the subordination and mistreatment of women cannot be justified by religious teachings, if they are properly interpreted. For example, the book of Genesis, which both Jews and Christians accept as scripture, states that God created human beings, both male and female, in God’s image (Gen 1:27). Jewish and Christian feminist theologians argue, therefore, that God clearly intends women and men to have equal dignity. The Buddha taught that men and women are equal in their capacity to reach enlightenment. When asked, he said that whoever follows the path, man or woman, can reach the peace of Nirvana. Until women have equal status in their relationships with men, they and their children will be vulnerable to AIDS. One effective way to prevent AIDS would be if women would be able to control when, and with whom, they have sex. Some would argue that they must also have the ability to insist that their sexual partners use condoms. For this reason, religious leaders meeting at the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok included gender inequality among the root causes of the AIDS epidemic, that they committed themselves, and their communities, to work to eliminate. PROMOTING SOCIAL JUSTICE TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF AIDS Systemic inequality and unequal wealth distribution are two further root causes of the HIV and AIDS pandemic, named in the Bangkok Statement of

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Commitment by Religious Leaders. The poorest regions of the world have been hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and everywhere in the world those most in danger of becoming infected with HIV are the socially and economically marginalized. In impoverished regions of the world, for example, men often travel far from their homes in order to find work to support their families. While they are separated from their wives for extended periods, they may become involved in extramarital sexual relationships. Some women may resort to such relationships as a means of supporting themselves and their offspring. Yet it places both the man and the woman at great risk for becoming infected with HIV. Moreover, they may then infect their spouses. When the adults die of AIDS, they may well leave behind orphaned children who now are at even greater risk for HIV/AIDS as they struggle to fend for themselves. People of faith increasingly recognize that the social and economic conditions that render some segments of the population unduly vulnerable to HIV infection must change if the AIDS epidemic is to be brought under control. Lack of education, poverty, war, and conditions of political instability all lead to an increased risk for HIV/AIDS. From a religious perspective, these conditions must be addressed as part of any effective AIDS prevention strategy, whether or not it includes the promotion of condom use, and easy access to condoms and clean needles. See also Health Reform Movement; Homosexuality; Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy. Further Reading: Cimperman, Maria. When God’s People Have HIV/AIDS: An Approach to Ethics. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005; Fuller, Jon D., and James F. Keenan. “Tolerant Signals: The Vatican’s New Insights on Condoms for H.I.V. Prevention.” America, September 23, 2000, 183–188; Maund, Lawrence. “A Buddhist Response to the HIV/Aids Crisis.” Buddha Dharma Education Association Web site. Available at: www.buddahnet.net/sangha-metta/buddhim-aid.html (accessed July, 2007); Safavi, Kyan. “AIDS and Islam.” The Yale Journal of Public Health 2, no. 1 (2005). Available at: www.yaleph.com/archive/vol2no1/article1.html (accessed July 2007); Schenker, Inon. “Judaism and HIV/AIDS: A view within the Conference.” Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance Web site. Available at: www.e-alliance.ch/iac_2004.jsp (accessed July, 2004); “Statement of Commitment By Religious Leaders.” UNAIDS Web site. Available at: www.unaids.org/KnowledgeCenter/HIVData (accessed July, 2004); “UNAIDS/WHO AIDS Epidemic Update: December 2006.” Available at: www.unaids.org/Knowledge Center/HIVData (accessed December, 2006).

Elisabeth Brinkmann ALIENS IS THERE EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE? Currently, proof of extraterrestrial life remains problematically hypothetical. Only scant scientific evidence, which is itself highly disputed, supports speculations of any kind of life other than on Earth. But how might the discovery of life elsewhere in our own Milky Way Galaxy, or beyond, change, or even disprove

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our major religions’ belief systems, especially Christianity? Some advocates for extraterrestrial life say earthly religions cannot survive the discovery of life beyond our own world, especially if intelligent life is discovered. Others maintain we would at least have to radically alter our religious views if we encountered extraterrestrials (ETs). Still others, with a more literalist approach to interpreting the Bible, view the existence of extraterrestrial life as incompatible with scriptural revelation regarding God’s creation. Theologians considering these issues are seeking to come to grips with the probability that there is indeed life, and perhaps even intelligent life, beyond our own planet. They are concerned what impact such a discovery would have on our long-standing religious views: particularly within Christian traditions embracing the centrality of humankind in the cosmic scheme of things. ANCIENT ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE SKY Modern Christians are familiar with the Hebrew Psalm from the Bible, which appears to presume someone looking up into the night sky long ago, and declaring: “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1, New American Standard). Contrast this with a popular poster showing the Milky Way Galaxy, upon which the star-gazing psalmist reflected with such poetic wonder. Far to the edge of this band of stars and nebulae—100,000 light years across—there is an arrow drawn on the poster with a caption reading: “You Are Here.” Here, as it happens, is not even at the center of our vast disk-like Galaxy. Yet as far back as ancient astronomers, and until the early modern period, the Earth and our sun and planets were generally thought to be the center of the universe. For Christianity, this was an essential element of faith, as an accepted truth of a literal reading of Scripture. This geocentric view of the universe was accepted by Christianity well into the sixteenth century. The Church harshly resisted the challenge of a Copernican heliocentric cosmology confirmed by the invention of the telescope and Galileo’s observations, which only gradually prevailed. Despite the psalmist’s exaltation, and former geocentric beliefs, it is now clear, thanks to such contemporary instruments as the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, and other ongoing technologies since the time of Galileo, that there are a staggering 125 billion (and counting) galaxies besides our own in the vastness of the universe. One can only imagine that such a figure would make the ancient psalmist’s poetic jaw drop at the mere contemplation of that far greater expanse. Are we alone then in all this immensity? Perhaps. But the odds, as well as much scientific speculation and ongoing search, would seem to favor aliens of some kind out there—wherever “out there” might be. We haven’t found them yet despite four decades of searching by such projects as SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), and even a goodly number of unmanned space probes sent into our own solar system. But we’re still looking, and listening.

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HABITABLE PLANETS? Meanwhile, presumed habitable planets, or other astronomical bodies, keep turning up with increasing frequency: with maybe Earth-like conditions favorable to sustaining life. We know the basics for life flourishing here on Earth: solar energy neither too hot nor too cold (called the Goldilocks Zone) needed to sustain the chemistry of life, liquid water, and complex organic molecules— principally carbon—to build whatever organisms arise. Scientists talk about galactic habitable zones, such as our Milky Way Galaxy’s edge, as likely lifesuitable or life-opportunity places where potentially life could exist. Astrobiologists concern themselves with identifying such planetary habitability, yet, along with astronomers, the view remains cautious, with lots of speculation about feasibility—all awaiting solid evidence. Still, the four most basic elements vital for life here on Earth—carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen—are abundant throughout the universe. In addition, a suitable habitable zone could be even larger given extreme environments that nevertheless might still sustain life. We know, for example, of such extreme environments as Antarctica’s permafrost or ocean floor volcanic vents that sustain various, unusual life forms. Life could exist, it is thought, on planets far more extreme in resources than our Earth. The universe might be teeming with life, even intelligent extraterrestrial life. Cosmic optimists insist that seriously huge numbers do indicate the possibility of a repeat of Earth’s biological evolution somewhere in the vast universe. There are billions of possible or potential Earth-similar planets, it is thought, so surely life cannot be that rare. “Almost beyond doubt,” the British astronomer David Darling (2001) observes, “life exists elsewhere.” So can our religious thinking—especially Christianity’s homocentric (that is, humancentered) theologies—accommodate such a discovery? If, in particular, sentient (intelligent) life exists, do we need to adjust our long-standing religious assumptions about our own uniqueness, and our biblically interpreted relationship to God? There would be little to upset most Earthly religious notions if the only aliens we discover turn out to be of the microbial or biologically non-intelligent kinds; not that evidence for any past or present non-Earth life forms would not engage philosophical-theological questions. Margaret Race, a biologist at the SETI Institute, observes: “If we find evidence for past or present Earth-like life on Mars, it would be extremely interesting scientifically, but less so theologically or philosophically because it could be explained as the result of dispersal between neighboring bodies. . . . If, however, Martian life were found to use a completely different biochemistry, it would be suggestive of an independent origin of life, with significant philosophical and theological implications” (Race 2007). Implications grow even more interesting if intelligent aliens show up with maybe their own religions and theological traditions; possibly far different from our “Terran” (Earth-based) ones, also likely far different from Christian traditions constructed out of sacred texts and traditional doctrines.

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ASTROBIOLOGY AND THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE Astrobiology, based on evolutionary assumptions, seeks to discover and understand life in the universe combining the scientific approaches of biology, astronomy, and planetary geology. Astrobiology addresses such fundamental questions as: “What is life? How did life originate on Earth? What kind of environments might support life?, and What might the search for life beyond Earth look like?” So far, potential life beyond Earth (at least in our own solar system) seems to hold out some possibilities on Mars, Europa (one of Jupiter’s four moons, slightly smaller than our own moon), and Saturn’s moon, Titan. Mars and Europa have subsurface possibilities of liquid water, necessary for life as we know it. Titan’s atmosphere is speculated to be identical to early Earth’s and the beginning of life here. Titan has liquid hydrocarbon lakes that might sustain at least microbial life. Nevertheless, astrobiology is mostly speculative science, extrapolating from a paucity of empirical evidence. However, reputable scientists pursue the field, and growing observational evidence supports many of their responses to the possible existence of life in the greater cosmos, even where such life need not be carbon-based or dependent on oxygen. The most well-known scientific search for extraterrestrial life is the SETI project, the cosmic search for transmitted radio signals which would confirm an advanced technology, and thus, intelligent life. But such long-shot radio astronomy has yet to detect a verifiable signal while scanning the distant skies with their listening radio telescopes. Still, British physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies believes a first contact of some kind, either as radio signals, or even perhaps of optical communication such as by laser, if and when it does happen, will have an impact on a historical par with Copernicus or Darwin (Davies, 2003). If we have genuine two-way contact, he believes our world would be changed in irrevocable ways. The Christian church has continually had to revise firmly held doctrine to take into account centuries of scientific discoveries, often after fighting a rear-guard action: 400 years after the burning of Giordano Bruno at the stake for asserting the idea of other inhabited worlds, the Catholic Church expressed “profound sorrow”; 375 years late, the Church finally admitted Galileo was right; and only recently has the Pope granted Darwinian evolution the Church’s official approval. Times, however, keep changing. For example, The Independent of London reported in May 2008, that the Pope’s astronomer insists alien life “would be part of God’s creation.” Journalist Peter Popham reported that: “The Vatican’s official newspaper has endorsed the possibility that the universe could contain intelligent life beyond Earth, while insisting that aliens would be ‘our brothers’ and ‘children of God’ as much as human beings are” (Popham 2008). It still seems likely, however, that intelligent extraterrestrials would undoubtedly call for even the most literal, as well as many liberal Christian biblical scholars, to revise their perceived unique focus of God’s singularly created and chosen Homo sapiens.

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RECOMMENDED SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS WITH RELIGIOUS THEMES Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Ballantine Books, 1980. Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1985. Blish, James. A Case of Conscience. New York: Del Rey Books, 2000[1959]. Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. New York: Aspect Books, 1993. Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. New York: Tor Books, 1991. Compton, D. G. The Missionaries. New York: Ace Books, 1972. Dick, Philip K. Valis. New York: Vintage, 1991[1981]. Forward, Robert L. Dragon’s Egg. New York: Del Ray Books, 1980. Gloss, Molly. The dazzle of day. New York: Tor books, 1997. Herbert, Frank. Dune. New York: Ace Books, 2005[1965]. Hoban, Russell. Riddley Walker. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998. LeGuin, Ursula K. The Telling. New York: Ace Books, 2001. Lewis, C. S. Out of the Silent Planet. New York: Scribner, 2003[1938]. Mieville, China. Perdido Street Station. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001. Miller, Walter M. A Canticle for Leibowitz. New York: Bantam Books, 1959. Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996. Slonczewski, Joan. A Door Into Ocean. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.

One of the most promising prospects for astrobiology and extraterrestrial life is recent and ongoing discoveries since 1996 of extrasolar planets: those beyond our solar system, but which reside near suns within the habitable zone of our own Earth-sun relationship. Assumed plausible since the time of Newton, extrasolar planets now appear numerous enough to suggest life might well be supported in some of these Earth-like systems. Yet many critics remain skeptical, if only because our present technology is unable to confirm tantalizing speculation. SCIENCE FICTION, ALIENS, AND RELIGION Although the concerns of religion have been typically rebuffed or set aside without due consideration by science—this is often not the case with science fiction. Indeed, modern science fiction frequently addresses matters engaged by theology and philosophy, in part perhaps because science has often abandoned them. Astronomer and historian of science Steven J. Dick, seeking to define a new “cosmotheology,” speaks of the contribution of science fiction to studying the theological implications of cosmic evolution and the implications of extraterrestrial life: “the best of it is a source of original thought that should not be ignored” (Dick 2000). Dick goes on to conclude that such stories “force us to consider our place in the universe; they make us wonder whether the universe is full of good, as in E.T., or evil, as in Alien. And they make us realize that terrestrial concepts of God and theology are only a subset of the possible” (Dick 2000).

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Science fiction has long been a place of speculation about aliens and other worlds, but until the late nineteenth century, aliens were little more than carbon copies of Earth’s inhabitants. However, since Darwinian evolution was set forth, science fiction writers have been more keen to follow known science as they began to construct E.T. possibilities beyond a strictly human model. Such speculative storytelling has conjured all sorts of evolutionary alien life forms, from sentient plants, to mineral life forms, to avian species, to various reptile forms, and even entities of pure energy. Also, of course, there have been many a dangerously monstrous alien (know as BEMs, or bug-eyed-monsters, among science fiction fans), often bent on Earth invasion and genocidal destruction of humankind. Complex alien cultures with exotic alien biospheres have emerged as fiction pursued more sophisticated advances in life sciences, and an awareness of possible environments on other planet bodies. Most of these E.T. conceptualizations remain standards of popular science fiction, in print, in film/television or other media variations. Whatever theology aside, we are very used to intelligent, sentient aliens and non-Terran life-sustaining planets in our popular culture. Even the extremely popular Star Trek series often explores religious issues from, or within an alien point of view. Religious themes appear in all the several Star Trek incarnations. Often an alien—a Klingon, a Bjoran, a Vulcan, a Betazoid, a Changeling, or some other humanoid or non-humanoid being—importantly brings forward their own religious-philosophical tradition as a contribution to the storyline (even though, ultimately, these themes are variously taken from both Western and non-Western religious traditions). At its theological core, most are recurring Christian themes probing the transcendent and seeking to fit humanity (or non-humanity) into the broader scheme of the universe. “Is there a God behind it all?” is a central question with a supernatural view of the cosmos implicit, as humanity and non-human aliens encounter each other in technological, cultural, and religious terms. The best of science fiction uses established scientific theory and technology in treating cosmology, physics, biology, computers, astronomy, space flight, genetic engineering, terraforming, or possible extraterrestrial life as story elements. Time and again various science fiction authors include moral-spiritual awareness to support their stories’ concerns, alongside elements of modern scientific knowledge, gauging its religious impact. Examples and writers abound from C. S. Lewis’s Christian theological allegories, to Orson Scott Card’s Mormonism or Philip K. Dick’s modernist theological explorations to Ursula K. LeGuin’s much honored work with philosophicalreligious underpinnings shaped by Taoist tenets. Quakerism is a central shaping faith structure for Joan Slonczewski’s alien-planet novels, and likewise undergird the moral-ethical-spiritual storyline of another Quaker-informed spacecolonizing novel by Molly Gloss. Catholicism pervades the novels of several renowned classical to contemporary science fiction writers, including Walter M. Miller, James Blish, and very recently, Mary Doria Russell’s alien first-contact novel. The Baptist background of feminist, African American author Octavia E. Butler, figures prominently in her award winning novels. Many other science

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fiction writers, as well, have little trepidation about steering their science-based stories into serious theological speculation, often enough dealing with extraterrestrial life. Characters, human or alien, struggle to interpret their religious faith in tension or dialogue with scientific “faith” into either guided or misguided applications reflecting our present cultural tensions between accepted scientific and religious views. THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS Cosmotheology, or exotheology, seeks to ask and answer questions in light of contemporary scientific knowledge arising out of our eventually discovering we are not alone in the universe, not even in our own galaxy. Most of contemporary science assumes the cosmos is biophilic, that it loves life. And for whatever uniqueness of life forms we find here on Earth, the greater cosmos is probably plentifully hospitable to life of all sorts. This, of course, is a grand assumption, since we have no evidence beyond speculation and a measure of tantalizing empirical evidence. While the leap from the least microbe to intelligent life is mostly the excited and mathematical hope of those who professionally gaze out at the stars, or turn their instruments toward them listening for a ping of some sort, even if it isn’t ET calling, then indicating some intelligent activity beyond the usual cosmic background noise. Belief in extraterrestrial life is actually quite ancient, and has seldom stood in conflict with religious notions. Although, to be sure, concepts of gods, angels, demons, and the supernatural generally intermix with any modern sense of other-than-Earthly life. The Jewish Talmud notes that there are at least 18,000 other worlds, and that such life as might be there would not necessarily resemble our own life here on Earth. Hindu belief likewise sees no contradiction between multiple worlds of innumerable universes, with the essential purpose of creation to magnify the supreme Godhead. Even the Qur’an speaks of God as “Lord of all the worlds,” at least implying worlds beyond this Earth-bound one. Ancient commentators on the Qur’an note that the creator of the heavens certainly might have peopled life elsewhere, if it so pleased Him. Christianity has been more resistant to extraterrestrial life. With the adoption of Greek Ptolemaic and Aristotelian cosmology, the Church theologically and culturally embraced a geocentric model of the universe for centuries. Earth was the center of that universe and God’s shining creation—with humankind at the top of any meaningful order. The invention of the telescope and the rise of contending cosmologies eventually brought about a revision. God’s omnipotence had apparently allowed for other worlds, even universes— although, too often, proponents of such thinking found themselves at dangerous odds with Church orthodoxy. The Bible, of course, does not directly address if alien life exists, much less intelligent extraterrestrial life (unless you consider angels or demons as such). Biblical texts serve little distinction when read as textbooks on astronomy, planetary geology, biology, or astrobiology.

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AFFIRMING OUR RELIGIOUS VIEWS Fr. George Coyne, a Jesuit priest and director and senior scientist at the Vatican Observatory Research Group heads a small but intensive group of cosmologists and astronomers funded by the Holy See. Fr. Coyne insists “nothing we learn about the universe through science threatens our faith. It only enriches it.” Using the latest advanced technology telescopes, he and his team are searching what he calls our “cosmic backyard” looking for signs of extrasolar planets and their potential for extraterrestrial life. Such potential is very much there, he feels, yet Christianity remains very much resilient. Perhaps we do have intergalactic siblings; perhaps we are not alone (McKay 2000, 50). Also, as Lutheran theologian Ted Peters, with the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, observes: “Christian Theologians have routinely found ways to address the issues of Jesus Christ as God incarnate and to conceive of God’s creative power and saving power exerted in other worlds” (Peters 2003, 125). Extraterrestrial life is still a search-in-progress. If and when we find aliens, they will surely be accommodated into our religious and theological considerations. Maybe not traditional ones. But theology itself, by definition, is likewise a search-in-progress. Nonetheless, along with the Hebrew Psalmist we might still anticipate the “expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 102:25). Our awareness of that expanse now crisscrosses vaster thresholds of both our own stellar regions, as well as far, far beyond. See also Science Fiction. Further Reading: Alexander, Victoria. “Extraterrestrial Life and Religion.” In UFO Religions, ed. James R. Lewis, 359–370. New York: Prometheus Books, 2003; Darling, David. Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology. New York: Basic Books, 2001; Davies, Paul. “E.T. And God.” The Atlantic Monthly (September 2003): 112–118; Dick, Steven J. “Cosmotheology: Theological Implications of the New Universe.” In Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life and the Theological Implications, ed. Steven Dick, 191–210. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2000; McKay, Christopher. “Astrobiology: The Search for Life Beyond the Earth.” In Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life and the Theological Implications, ed. Steven Dick, 45–58. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2000; Peters, Ted. “Exotheology: Speculations on Extraterrestrial Life.” Science, Theology, and Ethics, 121–136. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003; Popham, Peter. “Pope’s Astronomer Insists Alien Life Would Be Part of God’s Creation.” The Independent (May 15, 2008); Race, Margaret. “Societal and Ethical Concerns.” In Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology, eds. Woodruff T. Sullivan III and John A. Baross, 483–497. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Ed Higgins AMISH CULTURAL SEPARATION VERSUS CIVIL SUBORDINATION The Amish are a 300-year-old community of Anabaptist Christians who practice cultural separation, yet seek peaceful and cooperative relationships with modern civil institutions. Since their division from the Swiss Brethren in

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1693, they have sought to maintain communities that are visibly and practically ordered after the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and the 1632 Dordrecht Confession of Faith. Such faith commitments have led to numerous internal divisions over the proper application of Anabaptist convictions to specific cultural developments, such as the adoption of new technologies, as well as to conflicts with the modern state over their withdrawal from civic regimes that contradict Amish faith, including the military draft, public schooling, and various regulative structures. ORIGINS AND DIVISIONS The Swiss Brethren, from whom the Amish derive, were the earliest form of European Anabaptism, parting ways with the Zwinglian Reformation in 1525, and articulating in the 1527 Schleitheim Brotherly Union, a confessional identity shaped by Christian nonviolence and social separation from territorially and regionally identified forms of Christendom. According to the Schleitheim confession, “everything that has not been united with our God in Christ is nothing but an abomination which we should shun” (see www.anabaptists.org/ history/schleith.html). For the Swiss Brethren at Schleitheim, such “abominations” included attendance at the official state churches of their non-Anabaptist neighbors and the use of all “weapons of violence.” True to their Anabaptist convictions, the Swiss Brethren practiced believer’s baptism and refused to baptize their children, which also separated them from the rest of Catholic and Protestant Christendom. These practices of separation, which were based in an earnest response to the study of the Bible and to the teachings of Jesus, were qualified by an acknowledgment that God also worked outside the faithful defenseless church through the worldly office of the magistrate, who governed by the sword. As the Schleitheim Brotherly Union put the matter delicately, “the sword is an ordering of God outside Christ’s perfection.” However, in the church, only the ban and not the sword was to be used in order to maintain the purity of the congregation. This approach ruled out the use of coercion or violence in order to force compliance with Christian orthodoxy. Swiss Brethren convictions and practices were considered spiritually and politically dangerous by both Catholic and Protestant authorities, and thus were combated with the full repertoire of deadly and painful coercion available to early modern magistrates and territorial rulers. Because of the hundreds of Swiss Brethren who were brutally tortured and executed, as well as the thousands who were impacted by imprisonment and exile, the Brethren were gradually transformed from an activist-missionary movement to a withdrawn-quietist sect, seeking toleration from, rather than the conversion of their Christian neighbors. Disagreements existed among the Swiss Brethren concerning how to embody the commitment to Christian separation from worldly society, including the issue of how to regard neighbors who were sympathetic to Swiss Brethren commitments but who either refused to join the Brethren or were excommunicated from a congregation of the Brethren. In 1693, a group of congregations led by Jakob Amman discontinued fellowship with Swiss Brethren who refused to

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socially shun excommunicated neighbors, and who refused to condemn “halfway Anabaptists” (sympathetic but incommunicant neighbors). This division eventually became known as the Amish schism, with the followers of Amman called Amish, and the Swiss Brethren becoming identified with the broader European and American Mennonite networks. The Amish impulse since the 1693 schism has been to strengthen rather than to weaken cultural boundary markers distinguishing their Christian communities from assimilated forms of Christendom. Amish communities that have moved toward weakening such boundaries have often become identified with the Mennonites, who have usually stressed a more flexible and pluralistic response to cultural assimilation. The Amish, like their Mennonite cousins, migrated to North America beginning in the early eighteenth century, establishing Amish communities in eastern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and central Indiana, and then eventually throughout North America, in 26 states and one province (Ontario). Although there are no longer any Amish in Europe, there are Mennonite congregations in France who had at one time been Amish. The most significant North American Amish schism took place in 1865 between Amish congregations that were change-minded and those who sought to retain strict traditions of visible cultural separation. During the annual gathering of Amish ministers from around the country in 1865, tradition-oriented ministers presented a position paper that outlined a number of rules that they agreed to maintain, and that they posed as a challenge to the larger body of ministers. Among the rules were injunctions against wearing “speckled, striped, or flowered clothing,” displaying photographs of persons, attending fairs, driving “pompous carriages,” taking out insurance on property, putting up lightning rods, singing “fast tunes” in church gatherings, mingling the horse and the donkey to produce a mule, serving in worldly offices, “especially those which use force and also the military or penal offices.” The larger body of ministers considered the document politely, but refused to officially adopt it. In response, the conservative ministers refused to attend future ministers’ meetings, and separated their congregations from those that continued to identify with the ministers’ meetings. These tradition-minded congregations became known as the Old Order Amish, and are today the largest group of easily-identifiable Amish communities. The majority of the remaining congregations identified with the annual Amish ministers’ meetings eventually formed regional AmishMennonite conferences that eventually merged with Mennonite conferences or became independent Mennonite conferences. CONFLICTS WITHIN AMISH COMMUNITIES The issues which divided the Old Order Amish from the change-minded Amish in 1865 involved the kinds of cultural and lifestyle details that continued to preoccupy the Old Order Amish until the present. The Amish tended to view any innovations or trends related to clothing, transportation, and church order with a critical eye, assessing the impact on their communities of such changes,

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and typically laying the burden of proof on those who argued for change. They also resisted the organization of central decision-making bodies, such as the ministers’ meetings of the mid-nineteenth century, preferring instead informal relationships among districts and regional communities, and typically refusing to publish the lifestyle rules observed by the districts. Although accepting the Dordrecht Confession of Faith, especially as a catechism tool for candidates for church membership, contemporary Amish rules or “ordnung” are generally maintained as an oral agreement that is renewed through regular council meetings prior to communion services. The Old Order Amish struggled for many decades over their relationship to the more change-minded Amish-Mennonites who remained with the ministers’ meetings of the mid-nineteenth century, and had formed regional conferences. Initially, Old Order Amish who left in order to join a change-minded AmishMennonite congregation were not excommunicated or shunned, as was the case if a member joined a Mennonite church or another Christian denomination. Eventually, though, as differences between the two groups became more visible, it became a standard procedure by Old Order groups to excommunicate those who joined the Amish-Mennonites. Yet, the Old Order Amish themselves often argued bitterly over whether such excommunicated members should be socially shunned, and if so, for how long. Another issue that Amish disagreed about was whether or when it was valid for nonresistant citizens like the Amish to vote in local and national elections. This issue continued to be debated among the Amish as recently as the 2004 election, but has not been a church dividing controversy. The technological innovations of the twentieth century were particularly challenging for Amish communities to navigate, and led to numerous schisms within the Old Order Amish. For example, in the latter part of the nineteenth century some conservative-minded Amish from Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, felt that their Old Order community was becoming too assimilated, and moved to Nebraska, where they strengthened their resistance to changes in clothing and transportation. When many of these Amish moved back to Pennsylvania in the early part of the twentieth century, they became known as the Nebraska Amish, and were distinguished as more strict than neighboring Old Order Amish districts. Among the significant technological issues in the early twentieth century were the telephone and the automobile. Perceptive Amish leaders realized that these technologies had the capacity to change their local and distinctive cultures in ways that would extend rather than limit outside influences and patterns of life. Arguments over whether to adopt the telephone in individual households, and whether to permit member ownership of automobiles, divided Amish districts, with the Old Order groups maintaining rules against the ownership of such technologies. The Amish who opposed these technologies did not view them as intrinsically evil, and thus were not opposed to either riding in cars or using public telephones. They rather saw their opposition to these technologies as a way of maintaining their separated culture as a Christian expression of faithfulness to God and to the New Testament vision of a called-out people of God.

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Some groups left the Old Order Amish church in order to maintain greater flexibility with respect to new technologies; however, other groups splintered in a more conservative direction. While the hallmark Old Order approach to new technologies was to accept only those technologies with limited likelihood of negative cultural impact, some splinter groups, such as the Swartsentruber Amish with roots in Wayne County, Ohio, stubbornly opposed practically all innovations whatsoever. Old Order communities came to reject electricity generated by public utilities, personally-owned automobiles, and the use of tractors for field maintenance; they eventually came to accept gas-powered appliances and lighting, indoor plumbing and bathrooms, and the use of belt power from tractor engines. The Swartzentruber Amish stood firmly against all such changes, including even the placing of safety reflectors on their buggies. Throughout the twentieth century the Amish have also considered innovations related to their organized religious life, the most significant being the adoption of Sunday schools and mission programs. The traditional Old Order Amish pattern of spiritual life is organized around the twice-monthly gathering of believers in homes and barns for worship in high German, which typically includes unison singing from the ancient Anabaptist hymnbook, the Ausbund, an impromptu message by a minister, and responses to the sermon by other ordained ministers. Amish leaders who were influenced by Mennonite and evangelical practices sometimes urged their communities to develop Christian education programs or Sunday Schools, in which biblical and doctrinal teaching could take place; others encouraged the support or development of local and overseas mission programs. While the Old Order groups rejected these religious innovations, the New Order Amish hold Sunday Schools on the Sundays between their regular worship services, support mission and relief programs, and publish pamphlets and booklets explaining and supporting Amish principles and practices. The Beachy Amish are another group of more change-minded Amish who not only support missions and incorporate Sunday Schools, but also have accepted personal automobile ownership, electricity generated by public utilities, and English language worship. More recently, New Order Amish districts have themselves splintered over the use of computers and cell phones, especially in their places of business, with some districts now permitting the use of phones and electricity in their homes, while retaining horse-drawn carriages for transportation. In all of these conflicts and discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of innovations, the Amish focus tends to be on the collective social implications of the innovation, rather than on personal preference or desire. Amish communities prize the virtue of yieldedness, of submitting to the will of the community, rather than pursuing individual goals. Even so, disagreements persist about the definition of the community’s will. CONFLICTS BETWEEN AMISH COMMUNITIES AND CIVIL SOCIETY The Amish have been remarkably successful at carving out social and cultural space for themselves in American society. Driven partly by memories of their

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Anabaptist foreparents found in their revered book of stories about Anabaptist dissenters in Reformation Europe, Martyrs Mirror, the Amish have been tenacious about disobeying laws they believe compromise the integrity of their communal life and Christian witness, often willing to accept prison sentences over compromise (Braght 1985). In all of the central features of life shaped by the intervention of the modern state, from health care, to military conscription, to education, to social welfare programs, to a host of regulative regimes, the Amish have insisted on maintaining practices consistent with their own faith traditions, even when these practices have conflicted with state-enforced laws. At the same time, the Amish have viewed the function of the state from the perspective of the Anabaptist version of two-kingdom theology, where the state is outside the perfection of Christ, but nevertheless an instrument of God’s will. Thus, while the Amish do not believe that the exercise of political and civic authority is a proper occupation for believers, they are nevertheless respectful of the office and seek to be subordinate to it, so long as its dictates do not violate their own convictions about faithfulness to God. Perhaps the most consistent conflict between the Amish and the state has arisen whenever a system of conscription seeks to draft the Amish into the military. During the Civil War, the refusal of the majority of Amish young men to participate in war was generally managed through the granting of deferrals, following the draft of 1863, by paying a $300 commutation fee, or by hiring a substitute. During World War I, conscientious objectors like the Amish and Mennonites were drafted and sent to military camps, where they were subject to harassment, and in some cases torture, with the purpose of encouraging conscientious objectors to enter noncombatant service, which nearly every Amish conscientious objector refused. However, a significant number of Amish escaped military camps through farm deferments. When an Amish bishop from Kansas wrote a letter to an Amish newspaper, The Budget, encouraging readers to stand with the conscientious objectors in prison by refusing to buy war bonds, he and the editor of the paper were arrested and hauled in front of a Cleveland, Ohio, court where they were convicted and fined $500 each for “inciting and attempting to incite insubordination, disloyalty and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States” (Nolt 2003). During World War II, the Amish joined with Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers in supporting the Civilian Public Service (CPS) system, where conscientious objectors could perform “work of national significance” such as forestry and mental health care without joining the military. In 1952, the CPS system was replaced by the IW classification, which enabled drafted conscientious objectors like the Amish to work in nonprofit service organizations like hospitals and government agencies instead of within the military. Many Amish feared that the placement of their young men in such locations as urban hospitals would encourage them to leave their home communities for good. While this did happen on some occasions, the Amish had little choice but to comply with the system. Nowhere have the Amish exercised more influence over American civic life than in their challenge to state compulsory education laws, which required attendance by students until at least age 16. While numerous court cases in the

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twentieth century involved the Amish refusal to comply with such laws, the most significant case by far was the State of Wisconsin v. Yoder, where a group of Amish fathers successfully won the right of the Amish to keep their children out of public high schools following the conclusion of the eighth grade. This case began in a dispute between officials of the New Glarus, Wisconsin, school district and Amish families who refused to send their children to high school there. Although the Amish were unwilling to pursue the case themselves because of their opposition to active use of the court system, the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom (NCARF) organized a defense that found its way all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which found on behalf of the Amish. NCARF consisted of Amish sympathizers who sought to protect the Amish from cultural interference by the state, including those who saw the Amish as a useful vehicle for preserving religious liberty rights more broadly for conservative Christian groups and their institutions. The Amish have not always agreed about the appropriateness of the activities of NCARF on their behalf. NCARF continues to the present day, and was the subject of controversy among the Amish when one of its members wrote an editorial in The Budget encouraging the Amish to vote for George Bush in the 2004 election. In any event, the effects of the State of Wisconsin v. Yoder have been quite significant for Amish communities, making it unnecessary for any Amish youth to attend high school, and thereby significantly increasing the retention of young people in the Amish church. Another area where the Amish have pressed their own habits of life against state regulatory regimes has been in the area of health care in general, and birthing in particular. Because they refuse to purchase any type of insurance, the Amish have needed to find ways to finance their use of the American health care system, typically relying on the informal raising of large sums of money through the network of Amish church districts, where members are expected to contribute substantial amounts of money to health care funds set up to pay for hospital bills that individual Amish families are unable to foot by themselves. While the Amish have generally been willing to accept modern medical technologies as a last resort, while preferring their own practices of folk medicine in the first instance, they have sought to preserve their own traditions of childbirth by employing midwives, and establishing birthing centers which offer low cost alternatives to hospital births. Amish midwives have often been unlicensed, and as a result, have frequently been the subjects of lawsuits and fines by state health agencies. Numerous other areas of state regulation have frequently produced conflicts with Amish habits and practices, including non-participation in the Social Security system, noncompliance with various safety codes associated with slowmoving vehicles, and sale of unpasteurized milk. The most recent conflict has involved a Swartzentruber Amish school building in Western Pennsylvania, whose outdoor privy was found to be in violation of state laws for septic systems, since the Amish farmers used the waste from the privy for fertilizer on their fields. The Amish have consistently been willing to endure the penalties of their resistance to state authority when it has conflicted with their way of life, a

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stubbornness that has won them significant privileges under the American legal and political system. Moreover, their neighbors have increasingly found the Amish to provide a boost to local commerce through potential for tourism in Amish communities, and have thus encouraged the negotiation of mutually satisfying solutions to conflicts that arise between the Amish and state authorities. Finally, in recent years, the Amish have begun to produce spokespersons that are able to show how Amish practices provide meaningful challenges to the excesses of American consumer culture. One such notable writer is David Kline, who has written and spoken extensively on the benefits of small-scale horse farming for audiences interested in sustainable agriculture and the survival of local economies (Kline 1997). See also Hutterites; Personal Pacifism vs. Political Nonviolence. Further Reading: Biesecker-Mast, Gerald. Separation and the Sword in Anabaptist Persuasion. Telford, PA: Cascadia Publishing House, 2006; Braght, Thieleman van. Martyrs Mirror. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985; Hostetler, John. Amish Society, 4th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993; Kline, David. Scratching the Woodchuck: Nature on an Amish Farm. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1997; Kraybill, Donald, and Marc Olshan, eds. The Amish Struggle With Modernity. Hanover, NH: The University Press of New England, 1994; Kraybill, Donald., ed. The Amish and the State, 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003; Nolt, Steven M. A History of the Amish. Revised and Updated. Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2003; Peters, Shawn Francis. The Yoder Case: Religious Freedom, Education, and Parental Rights. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003; Yoder, John H., trans. and ed. The Legacy of Michael Sattler. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1973; Zimmerman-Umble, Diane. Holding the Line: The Telephone in Old Order Mennonite and Amish Life. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996; Zimmerman-Umble, Diane, and David L. Weaver-Zercher. The Amish and the Media. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

Gerald Biesecker-Mast

ANIMAL SACRIFICE As a religious phenomenon, animal sacrifice is ancient and perseverant. Even those religions with a long history of official bans against the practice witness to its continuation. In the West, public debate has increased, and governmental entities have intervened more frequently in their attempts to regulate and/or prohibit the practice. At the same time, increased sensitivity to the rights of minority religions assert themselves. Understanding more accurately the phenomenon of animal sacrifice is essential to advancing the debate. RECENT TENSIONS OVER RELIGIOUS SACRIFICIAL PRACTICES Animal sacrifice has been, and remains a part of religious observance in numerous parts of the world. In more industrialized societies, its existence

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sometimes creates tensions. In 2001, for instance, the French government, faced with episodes of foot-and-mouth disease, requested that Muslims refrain from slaughtering cattle as part of their annual Eid al-Adha festival. Legal confrontations were averted when the Imam of the Paris Mosque, and other clerics, ruled that sacrifices could be replaced by alms to the poor. Turkey, under pressure from the European Union, recently introduced fines for those who slaughter animals outside designated municipal facilities, as well as regulations concerning the procedures by which sacrificial animals are to be slain. In the United States, despite a 1993 Supreme Court ruling striking down a Hialeah, Florida, municipal ordinance outlawing animal sacrifice, litigation and police intervention continue both in Texas and in Florida over the rights of adherents of Santeria to engage in the sacrificial offering of animals. ANIMAL SACRIFICE PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD From time immemorial, animals have played various but critical roles within human cultures. They are sources of food, clothing, commerce, and labor. They provide transportation, protection, and companionship. They have also figured prominently in religious and other belief systems. In some cases, such as with the ancient Egyptians, animals were thought to possess divine qualities, and thus they were recipients of cultic activity. In other contexts, animals played some sort of religiously symbolic role. In Mithraism, for instance, the god Mithras’s mythic slaughter of a bull was believed to be the source of salvation for believers. Bulls and other animals, therefore, were used as symbols for the initiation and spiritual development of adherents, but they were neither slaughtered nor offered in sacrifice. In a third context, animals have been treated as means and instruments for fruitful communication and relations with the divine. It is within this context that animal sacrifice occurs. Sacrifice in the strictest sense always comprises two essential elements. On the one hand, it involves a supernatural being to whom the offering is directed. This being may be a deity, but it may also be a spirit, a deceased human being (hero or ancestor), or a demon. On the other hand, sacrifice also involves a transfer to this supernatural being of some object, which leaves the realm and/ or possession of the offerer. In the case of animal sacrifice, this act of transference almost always involves slaughter. Understood in this way, some instances of cultic slaying would not be considered sacrifices in the strictest sense. For instance, scapegoat rituals involve the symbolic transfer of individual or corporate culpability onto an animal, which is then either released into the wild and perhaps even killed, often to prevent its return. Rather than communication with the divine, or even transfer of the animal to the supernatural realm, the disappearance or demise of the creature serves to effect the removal of culpability from the interested parties. Likewise, some argue that since the still practiced Japanese Ainu ritual of bear slaying serves the purpose of releasing a bear’s divine spirit back into the spirit world, it, too, fails to qualify as sacrifice.

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FIVE DISTINGUISHING COMPONENTS FOR CLASSIFYING ANIMAL SACRIFICE Failure to appreciate the variety of motivations and meaning given to animal sacrifice has been widespread. Current researchers differentiate among various instances of animal sacrifice by cataloging their distinguishing characteristics. Doing so allows for a more nuanced understanding of their specificity. First, one must consider the sacrificer. Is the agent of sacrifice an individual or a corporate body, a head of household or an official religious representative? Is the right and duty to sacrifice restricted to an official ritual caste, a specific gender or vocation, or is it more open? Second, one must identify the recipient(s) of the sacrifice. As already noted, they may be divine, spiritual, diabolic, or ancestral. Third, one must define the matter that is offered. In the case of animal sacrifice, is the animal domestic or wild? The vast majority of sacrificial animals are domestic. Are certain characteristics (color, size, age, or gender) pertinent to its selection? Also, which part(s) of the animal are actually offered (e.g., blood, flesh, fat, entrails, or bones)? Fourth, one must identify the means by which, and the setting in which the sacrifice is enacted. In ancient Mediterranean cultures, for instance, one can distinguish four phases in sacrificial ritual. First, the animal is prepared for slaughter. Next it is immolated. Following the killing of the animal, there is an inspection of its viscera in order to divine the dispositions of the gods. And finally, in the most common sequence of events, there follows a sacred meal in which human participants feast on those portions not offered to the gods, while the gods themselves are nourished by the aroma and smoke of the burnt offering. Even within this general sequence, however, numerous distinctions are possible. Is the animal killed by the shedding of its blood, by drowning, or by throttling? Is the slaughter seen to be part of the ritual or is it simply a necessary prelude? Furthermore, is the offering burned, buried, lifted up, or simply abandoned? If burned, is it destroyed completely (holocaust) or only in part? If blood is involved, is it poured out (libation), sprinkled, or smeared? As for the setting, does the sacrifice take place in an edifice of human making (temple, home, or public square), or does it occur within nature? Does is involve an altar or a grave? Finally, is the sacrifice linked to a particular religious or agricultural calendar, to the rhythms of the day or seasons, or to life events such as birth, marriage, puberty, and death? The fifth and final component by which to distinguish various animal sacrifices is the stated intent or purpose behind it. Gilhus summarizes: “In Carthage, Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome, sacrifices were staged differently and in different contexts, with different functions and meanings. Sacrifices of animals on the Capitol in Rome differed from offerings of animals and children to Baal-Haman and Tanit in Carthage. The sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem were different from those on the Acropolis in Athens. The taurobolium, where the bull was killed in honour of Magna Mater and where the blood of the animal bathed the sacrificer, had a function and meaning different form the killing of a dove or a cat to make a magical formula work” (Gilhus 2006, 277). Thus, sacrificial

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activities can embody quite different attitudes and dispositions: praise, thanksgiving, supplication, or purification. Some are intended to establish, renew, or restore covenant or communion with the divine. Others exist for the purpose of expressing human submission or homage. To neglect the radical differences among these various practices is to misunderstand the phenomena as they exist in their natural contexts. THEORIES OF ANIMAL SACRIFICE As Western scientists begin exploring the phenomenon of sacrifice, they attempt to find universal theories and explanations for it. In the nineteenth century, for instance, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, an English anthropologist, proposes that all sacrifice at its core functions as a divine bribe. Alternative explanations follow in which the phenomenon is understood primarily in terms of homage (Wilhelm Schmidt), communion (W. Robertson Smith), consecration of the object offered (Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss), magical manipulation of the cosmos (Gerardus van der Leeuw), and also reenactment of primordial cosmic events (Adolf Jensen). A very popular twentieth-century theory, proposed by René Girard, posits that sacrifice finds its origin as a sublimation of human jealousy, aggression, and violence. By occasionally destroying one victim, the larger society is preserved. Finally, Walter Burkert holds that in order to maintain peace among groups vying for limited resources, rituals, including sacrifice, arise as a means of redirecting primordial hunting and killing instincts (Burkert et al. 1987). More contemporary writers criticize these theories precisely because they tend to ignore the radically different practices, motives, and theologies alluded to above. Moreover, as these differences have been explored, it appears that the Western tendency to focus on the bloody slaying of animals as central to the phenomenon of sacrifice might itself be misdirected. Obviously, if the animal is not killed, its offering to the supernatural cannot take place. Nevertheless, the growing consensus among experts is that the slaying of the sacrificial animal is often of secondary importance within the larger complex of sacrificial rituals. The tendency of Western scientists to focus on slaughter, therefore, seems to reflect more their modern sensibilities, and especially the influence of Christian theological interests, than true practice. Finally, the accompanying tendency to attribute tremendous importance to the substance and offering of blood—which is appropriate only in particular cultural contexts—and the tendency to equate blood with death—rather than seeing it as a vehicle of life and vitality—cast further doubt on the above theories and their focus on slaughter. In contrast, ancients often seem to place much more emphasis on two other moments in the ritual. The first of these moments is comprised of preparatory rituals, most often focused on the dedication of the animal. This may involve a procession of the animal among the people, and a prayer of dedication and petition. In Roman practice, for instance, the name later used to designate the animal’s slaughter, immolatio, is in fact originally used for these initial acts of dedication. The second ritual moment that commands much greater attention in

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the ancient world is the divination of divine inclinations through the interpretation of the animals’ entrails. In this case, the animal’s body serves as a sort of medium through which the gods reveal their pleasure or displeasure. The act of slaughtering the animal—at least from the perspective of the offerers—appears once again to be quite secondary. Rather than generating universal theories of sacrifice, therefore, most recent studies attempt to explain how particular rituals operate within their respective contexts. Numerous scientists focus on the ability of sacrifice to establish boundaries, distinctions, and connections involving the supernatural, human, and animal realms, but especially between the various classes of human society. Especially noteworthy is Nancy Jay’s attention to gender roles and the parallels between the role of women and child-bearing on the one hand, and the predominance of males and father-son dynamics in blood sacrifice on the other. Finally, other researchers analyze sacrifice as an economic activity, and more particularly as a social institution for the distribution of power and/or the ongoing maintenance of societies. OFFICIAL SUPPRESSION AND POPULAR PERSISTENCE OF ANIMAL SACRIFICE In many contexts, animal sacrifice is, for various reasons, officially abandoned or banned at some point. It is clear, however, that these official stances never preclude its continuation at more popular levels. The generally accepted understanding of Zoroastrianism, for instance, holds that animal sacrifice was prohibited by Zarathushtra as early as the ninth or tenth century b.c.e. It continues, however, into the late nineteenth century c.e. among the Parsis of India, and into the present day in Irani Zoroastrianism. The often repeated position in the Vedic, and later Hindu religion in India, is that the Buddha rejects animal sacrifice as constitutive of a more global attitude reflecting the relationship between human beings, animals, and meat-eating, including a belief in rebirth and the proscription of injury to any living being. This fact, however, is now debated. And, regardless of the Buddha’s dietary practices and teachings, it is undeniable that animal sacrifice still continues in some Hindu circles. Kali, Durga, and even Shiva are counted among the deities who receive bloody sacrifice, particularly among tribal peoples. In Islam, Muhammed permits the continuation of animal sacrifice out of respect for the prophet Abraham. Thus, even though sacrifice has never held an official place in Muslim worship, Muslims have always performed animal sacrifices, most notably on the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha), which commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Sacrifices continue as well on occasions such as the fulfillment of vows, the seventh day following a child’s birth, and in atonement for transgressions committed during a pilgrimage to Mecca. Although it remains impossible to discern with accuracy the historical details of the sacrificial cult of ancient Judaism, it is clear that a variety of animal sacrifices abound; the Deuteronomic reforms’ attempt in the seventh century b.c.e. to centralize and regulate these practices in Jerusalem, for example, highlight

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this. Sacrifices continue both during and after the Babylonian exile, gaining particular prominence after the exile, but then coming to an abrupt end with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 c.e. By the time Constantine associates himself with Christianity, sacrifice in the Greco-Roman context has become almost exclusively imperial. Constantine’s conversion, therefore, results in a dramatic de facto reduction of animal sacrifice. In 391 c.e., the growing influence of Christianity results in an official ban, by Emperor Theodosius I. Despite this ban, however, repeated decrees and other testimonials give evidence of the persistence of animal sacrifice within the Roman Empire, well into the fifth and sixth centuries c.e. On the African continent, animal sacrifice has been, and continues to be a component of many indigenous religious practices. It is used to communicate with deities, to maintain communion with ancestors, and to provide nourishment to other spiritual entities. In Benin, Nigeria, Ghana, and other parts of Western Africa, for instance, Voodoo (also known as Vodou, Vodoun, or Vudun) is practiced, complete with animal sacrifice. Through the slave trade, it is introduced into the Western Hemisphere, where it continues today in Brazil and in parts of the Caribbean. Related to Voodoo is Santeria, a religion born in Cuba, and incorporating elements of Roman Catholic devotion into the indigenous belief system of the African Ifa religion. It is practiced today in parts of the Caribbean and the United States, and its adherents defend their right to participate in animal sacrifice. ANIMAL SACRIFICE AND CONTEMPORARY TENSIONS Contemporary debates and governmental interventions concerning animal sacrifice in the West highlight tensions that exist between protecting the rights of minority religious practitioners on the one hand, and minimizing harm to, and suffering of animals on the other. These tensions increase as animal rights activists become more organized and vocal, but also as the rights of minority groups are advanced. Although more historically prominent in the East, criticism of animal sacrifice is not new to Western civilization. As early as the second century c.e., for instance, Neo-Platonists in the Roman Empire argue against it, based on the bloodthirsty image of the gods that it portrays, and the savage human instincts it nurtures. These critics advance the proposal—not unlike that of late Judaism and nascent Christianity—that sacrifice is primarily a spiritual reality. In this vein, the spiritual sacrifice of a virtuous life, as will be argued later, distinguishes a true Roman from the meat-eating tribes of northern European invaders. Nevertheless, absent until very recently in Western debates over the value and validity of animal sacrifice, has been reference to the status of animals and the value of their lives. Some have even argued that as the predominant religion of Western civilization, Christianity has contributed to the weakening of any argument against animal sacrifice. They note that not only is the Christian critique of animal sacrifice founded solely on the disavowal of other gods (and therefore with no reference to the value of animal life itself), but that Christian theology

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emphasizes from its earliest days the marked differences between human beings, who are rational and who have souls, and animals, to whom all spiritual status is denied. Thus, contemporary questions concerning the spiritual status of animals, and proposals to extend an ethic of life to them, do not find immediate resonance within the Western tradition. In conclusion, the offering of animals or animal parts to supernatural beings embodies and manifests a fundamental human recognition of dependence and need, and a primordial desire to connect and communicate with the realms of the transcendent. Through the ritual expression of this need and desire, therefore, innumerable human societies have sought to sustain, restore, and promote a favorable cosmic order. The role of animals in this exchange reflects perhaps the recognition that something intimately connected to human life itself must be engaged—and even sacrificed—in order for human beings to maintain securely their place and role in the cosmos. As beings more similar to humans than any other on earth, and as domestic partners critical to the sustenance of human life, animals have been instrumental (and even instrumentalized) in this exchange. The question that poses itself today is whether or not this role continues to be an appropriate one. See also Higher Intelligence Animals. Further Reading: Baumgarten, Albert, ed. Sacrifice in Religious Experience. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002; Bowersock, G.W. Hellenism in Late Antiquity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996; Burkert, Walter, Rene Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith. Violent Origins: Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987; Detienne, Marcel and Jean-Pierre Vernant, eds. The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the Greeks. Trans. Paula Wissing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989; Eliade, Mireade. “Man and the Sacred.” In From Primitives to Zen: A Thematic Sourcebook of the History of Religions. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. Available at: http:// www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/man.html; Foltz, Richard. Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006; Gilhus, Ingvild Saelid. Animals, Gods, and Humans: Changing Attitudes to Animals in Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Ideas. New York: Routledge, 2006; González-Wippler, Migene. Santería: The Religion. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1999; Gordon, R. “The Veil of Power: Emperors, Sacrificers, and Benefactors.” In Pagan Priests, eds. M. Beard and J. North. London: Duckworth, 1990: 199–231; Harvey, Graham, ed. Indigenous Religions: A Companion. London: Cassell, 2000; Henninger, Joseph. “Sacrifice.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade. New York: Collier Macmillan, 1987; IslamicConcerns.org. Available at: http://www.islamicconcerns.com/eid.asp; IslamOnline. net. http://www.islamonline.net/english/index.shtml; Jacobsen, K.A. “The Institutionalization of the Ethics of Non-Injury toward All ‘Beings’ in Ancient India.” Environmental Ethics 16 (1994): 287–301; Johnston, Sarah Iles, ed. Religions of the Ancient World. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2004; Linzey, Andrew and Dorothy Yamamoto, eds. Animals on the Agenda. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998; Murphy, Joseph. Santería: African Spirits in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988; O’Brien, David. Animal Sacrifice and Religious Freedom: Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004; Ogilvie, R. M. The Romans and Their Gods. London: Hogarth Press, 1986; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Available at: http:// www.peta.org; Regan, Tom, ed. Animal Sacrifices: Religious Perspectives on the Use of

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| Animation as a New Medium Animals in Science. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986; Sorabji, Richard. Animal Minds and Human Morals: The Origins of the Western Debate. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993; Stowers, S.K. “Greeks Who Sacrifice and Those Who Do Not: Towards an Anthropology of Greek Religion.” In The Social World of the First Christians in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, eds. L.M. White and O.L. Yarbrough. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995: 293–333; The Pluralism Project. “Religious Diversity News.” Harvard University. Available at: http://www.pluralism.org/news/index.php?xref = Santeria+and +Animal+Sacrifice&sort = DESC; Trout, D. E. “Christianizing the Nolan Countryside: Animal Sacrifice at the Tomb of St. Felix.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 3 (1995): 281–298; Vernant, J. P. Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.

Stephen Sauer ANIMATION AS A NEW MEDIUM Animation has emerged as one of the most powerful media forms in the twenty-first century. Animation, however, has evolved far beyond the cartoons of the mid-twentieth century. Animation techniques can often be indistinguishable from “real” photography, which is why the revolution in special effects has impacted the film industry. However, with the ability to make “make-believe” almost entirely “believable”—what are the possible religious implications, not only of the ability to make the unreal more real, but the ability to portray religious films with even more impressive representations of the “miraculous”? Does modern animation take the debates between religious claims to truth and power to an entirely new level of debate? HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Animation has deep roots in art history. Perhaps the earliest precursor is the cave art which simulates motion and represents narrative. More closely resembling modern animation is Chinese and Indonesian shadow theater, which takes its form from artist-actors (operators) who move their hands or other objects, such as paper puppets, behind (or before) a lit surface or screen, to tell a story. Around 7–8 b.c.e. this art form was used in temples to promote Buddhist teachings, particularly about the dead. Later, during the Song Dynasty, the shadow theater was a popular form of entertainment. Qu You’s novel, New Tales under Lamplight (dating from the Ming Dynasty), refers explicitly to the shadow theater in a town’s entertainment center, and thus, evidences its popularity. Rashideg, the Persian historian, attests that shadow theater made its way into his homeland through Genghis Khan’s militia. Later, in 1767, Chinese shadow theater was brought into France by a missionary returning home from the Orient. Within ten years, this folk art was introduced in England and Germany, where the poet Wolfgang von Goethe used it to entertain the German imperial circle. Flip books were a later innovation than the shadow theater, and they, too, are used to achieve an illusion of moving characters. These books are a sequential compilation of drawn (or photographed) animations, frame by frame. When the

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viewer flips the pages quickly the images appear to move. How the visual effect is achieved is too complicated to pursue here. However, it is important to note that for a long time people thought that the effect of movement was due to “persistence of vision.” In other words, it was thought that images “freeze” or persist on the retina or in the brain for a very short time. According to that outdated theory, if we flip the pages faster than our eyes and brains can separate the images, then the images will seem to run together and appear to move. This visual persistence theory has been discredited; now we understand that the brain does not record the dark, short intervals between images. Toward the end of the 1600s, Athanasius Kircher’s Magic Lantern was pictured in Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae. The Magic Lantern is basically a slide projector that shines light through painted glass slides. This device gave way to optical toys called the thaumatrope, phénakistiscope, stroboscope, and choreutoscope. The latter (circa 1866) is a key pre-Cinematic invention. In the late 1800s, Emile Reynaud invented the praxinoscope. It replaced the zoetrope because the image it produced was brighter and not distorted by moving slots. The praxinoscope works when the outer cylinder ringed with a picture strip spins and reflects on the inner circle of mirrors (one mirror for each picture). George Méliès, in 1896, used film or single-frame exposures to prove that the visual effect of the moving image could be achieved through this medium. Ten years later, J. Stuart Blackton shot his chalk, sequential images on film. Blackton’s Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is the earliest animation film still intact, and he is sometimes credited as the father of animation. Blackton was the first to create drawings that live. Characters would be acting and reacting, sequentially, to each other. Blackton, through animation, gave life to a whole new art form with his pioneering efforts. The same year that Humorous Phases was released, 1906, British Walter Booth screened Hand of the Artist. From 1908–1918, Emile Cohl produced over 218 films, though not all of these were animated. In America, besides Blackton, the top animators of this period were J.R. Bray, Earl Hurd, Raoul Barré, and Winsor McCay. In 1914 McCay’s Gertie, the Trained Dinosaur was released. One remarkable feature of this clip is the interaction between the dinosaur and its creator. Not only did McCay animate—“give life to”—the cartoon dinosaur, he also illustrated the character’s responsiveness to his command. Winsor McCay was a prolific artist who drew thousands of line drawings for each of his three films released from 1911 to 1914. By 1920, the labor intensive animation production was streamlined through technical innovations including cel sheets. It was then that animation became profitable. At first, dialogue was represented in the period’s silent films through the word balloon—just as in comic strips. Later, the dialogue could be followed through movie inter-titles. Animators experimented in their craft, but the more mainstream films usually featured a hero. For this reason the era is known as the Hero Period. Felix the Cat is noteworthy because its hero was the first animated character to be merchandized. In 1928, Walt Disney used a synchronized sound track to put together the dialogue, music, and sound effects for his animated Steamboat Willie. A year

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later, Disney produced the Skeleton Dance, and in 1937 he released the first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This particular animated film was novel because it was completely shot on color stock and did not have to be re-colored. Disney swept the Academy Awards for animation from 1932 to 1940, mostly because he had employed the best artists and writers. During that time, his cartoon characters such as Mickey, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy reached star status. Disney, however, soon lost outstanding animators such as Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. In 1930, Leon Schlesinger produced Sinkin’ in the Bathtub for Warner Brothers Studios, the first of the Looney Tunes cartoons. A year later they released Merrie Melodies. These Warner Brothers cartoon series took inspiration from Disney’s Silly Symphonies series, and helped to give exposure to Warner Bros’ music. When television replaced movie theaters, the standards for cartoons dipped. Deadline sensitive production buzzed at such a frenetic pace that artistry suffered. No mainstream animated feature was explicitly religious up to this time. It was only in 1965 that Peanuts comic strip writer, Charles M. Schulz, released his religious-themed Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon, and won an Emmy award for it. Animation in the Japanese school is known as anime, and it is not unusual to see overt religious symbolism in this genre. Sometimes, religious stories and symbolism from different traditions are mixed for dramatic effect. This syncretic approach to religion changes the original religious content of the images and stories into something which religious practitioners will sometimes not recognize, or, even find offensive. Spriggan and Ghost in the Shell mirror something of biblical stories, and Fist of the North Star and Nausicaä feature Christ-inspired figures. Because Sailor Moon was particularly offensive to Christians for its use of cruciform images, it was heavily edited for its U.S. release. The heroine of Tragedy of Belladonna resembles Joan of Arc. Hellsing takes something of its storyline from the bloody Catholic-Protestant conflicts and wars. The violent and pornographic anime Trigun, One Pound Gospel, and Holy Virgins features nuns and priests. Angel imagery derived from the Judeo-Christian tradition takes a different meaning in some of the anime. It is completely subverted in the pornographic cartoon Angel Core. Offensive, too, is the anime tendency to make the five-pointed witchcraft symbol interchangeable with the six-pointed Jewish Star of David. Muslims, too, find terrorist stereotyping in Little El Cid or Gosho-Gun offensive. The Japanese Shinto religion provides the background for My Neighbor Totoro. Peacock King includes the religious practice of a Buddhist monk figure in the story. Greek, Scandinavian, and even Polynesian gods show up in Saint Seiya, Ulysses 31, Arion, Oh My Goddess!, and Neoranga. Anime is also an intentional vehicle for religious education. In the Beginning and Superbook are animated Bible stories. Anime features some parts of Buddhist and Shinto religion in Space Firebird, and, Buddhism inspires Night Train to the Stars. Anime has also been used by sects to recruit young people, especially through Laws of the Sun and Hermes. The AUM Shinrikyo

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organization, associated with the Tokyo sarin gas attack, used anime as a recruitment tool as well. In the United States, The Simpsons and South Park occasionally feature religious figures and elements, not to offer glimpses into the divine mystery but, to parody society and its foibles. The predilection for irreverent humor and creedal distortion is, at times, offensive to believers. RELIGION AND ANIMATION: THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION The word animation comes from the Latin animātiō which means a bestowing of life. Theologically speaking, the animator assumes the role of a god in the cartoon world. But what kind of God is he or she? One of the first animators, Winsor McKay, highlighted the fact that he could make his dinosaur character, Gertie, do all he commanded. At the same time, viewers are required to suspend disbelief to enter into the whimsical world that the animator presents. While this does not mean that audiences cannot critically engage with the animator’s work, it does make the latter very powerful. Marshall McLuhan’s slogan, “The medium is the message” can help one appreciate what is partly at stake when religious stories and symbols are translated by animators. What he meant by this statement is that a cartoon form is content, not simply an inert package. McLuhan associated the multimedia content with “acoustic thinking.” According to McLuhan, this new kind of thinking is interconnected, simultaneous, and holistic; it is conditioned by our ears that help us know and relate to the persons speaking around us. Acoustic thinking is replacing linear thinking, which is conditioned by our eyes. Visual thinking is not as subjective as acoustic thinking; it “sees” space, sequential structure, and permanence. If Christianity regards its Founder as the Word spoken by God, then might modern animation retrieve a mode of thinking that was eclipsed by reliance on the printed rather than the proclaimed Word? Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, who draws on the work of Richard Viladesau (2000), writes that “theological aesthetics is concerned with questions about God and issues in theology in light of and perceived through sense knowledge (sensation, feeling, imagination), through beauty and the arts” (Thiessen 2005). In other words, art has a revelatory power, and thus it has a place in pastoral practice. But what place will it hold? Is it possible to look for God in cartoons, one of the products of our popular culture? Is animation beautiful enough to somehow mirror the divine? Or is its beauty discerned in its instrumentality in spreading the Gospel (“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Rom 10:15; cf. Isaiah 52:7). Do intended audiences regard a cartoon Jesus differently than a documentary or drama Jesus? Are animated parables, like Veggie Tales, better suited to convey religious truth than cartooned religious figures? What are the implications of a multimedia experience that brokers religious content for faith? Do the immediacy, sound and pace of multimedia experience afford faith a new mode to seek understanding? By what criteria do we evaluate the results to such questions?

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As we proceed into the twenty-first century, the religious debates about the use, and abuse, of “special effects” as well as conventional animation, will intensify as animated no longer means only “make believe”, but enters into the realm of “presenting the credible.” While there is a conceptual difference between a NASA “animation” of a Mars Landing (especially when it is an animated representation of an actual flight) and Mickey Mouse—what are the conceptual problems raised by comparing the NASA “animations” and, for example, a film portrayal of the resurrection of Jesus—made more “believable” by the scientific achievements of media animation? Religious teachers may find themselves wanting to more clearly differentiate between “truth claims” that use animated “representations”, especially when these animated features attempt to blur the difference between “real” and “proposed.” In a recent Time article, Carolyn Sayre writes, “Allah, Jesus Christ, Moses and Buddha have all undergone transformations (pop-cultural makeovers) designed to appeal to a wide variety of people and cultures” (Sayre 2006). Does marketability or faith drive sacral representation, or to varying degrees, do both? What are the repercussions on faith? What are market-based and demographic projections for future productions of religious-themed animation? See also Rock Music and Christian Ethics. Further Reading: ASIFA-Hollywood: Animation Archive. Available at: animationarchive. org/2006/01/animation-100-press-release.html; Andreopoulos, Andreas. Art as Theology: From the Postmodern to the Medieval. London: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2006; Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane, ed. Art, Creativity, and the Sacred. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1984; Arnheim, Rudolf. Visual Thinking. Berkley: University of California Press, 1969; Babin, Pierre. New Era in Religious Communication, trans. David Smith. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991; Baugh, Lloyd. Imaging the Divine: Jesus and Christ-Figures in Film. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1997; Besançon, Alain. Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm, trans. Jane Marie Todd. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000; Campell, Stephen J. “ ‘Fare una Cosa Morta Parer Viva’: Michelangelo, Rosso, and the (Un)Divinity of Art.” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 4 (December 2002): 596–620; Daniel Z. Sui and Michael F. Goodchild. “A Tetradic Analysis of GIS and Society Using McLuhan’s Law of the Media.” Canadian Geographer 47, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 5–17; Davis, Richard H. Lives of Indian Images. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997; Denery II, Dallas G. Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology and Religious Life. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Dixon, Jr. John W. Art and the Theological Imagination. New York: Seabury Press Inc., 1978; Eck, Diana L. Darsan, Seeing the Divine Image in India. 3rd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998; Horn, Maurice, ed. Encyclopedia of Cartoons. Vol I. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999; Johnston, Robert K. Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2000. Available at: library. thinkquest.org/05aug/01780/perfoming-arts/shadow-theater/index.htm; Lenburg, Jeff, ed. Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. 2nd ed. New York: Facts on File Inc., 1999; Marsh, Clive, and Gaye Oritz, eds. Explorations in Theology and Film: Movies and Meaning. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004; Marsh, Clive. “ ‘High Theology’/’Popular Theology’? The Arts, Popular Culture and the Contemporary Theological Task.” Expository Times 117, no. 11 (2006): 447–451; May, John R., ed. New Image of Religious Film. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1997; Metz, Christian. Film Language: A Semiotics of

Anti-Catholicism and American Politics | the Cinema, trans. Michael Taylor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974; Moore, Albert C. Iconography of Religions: An Introduction. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977; Morgan, David. Visual Piety. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998; Plate, Brent S., ed. Religion, Art, and Visual Culture: A Cross-Cultural Reader. New York: Palgrave, 2002; Pontifical Council for Culture. Toward a Pastoral Approach to Culture. Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1999; Protestants and Picture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999; Romanowski, William D. Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001; Rozak, Theodore. Where the Wasteland Ends. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1972; Sayre, Carolyn. “You Gotta Have Faith.” Time 168, no. 18 (October 2006): 22; Stewart M. Hoover. “Visual Religion in Media Culture.” In The Visual Culture of American Religions, eds. David Morgan and Sally M. Promey. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001: 146–59; Stone, Karen. Image and Spirit: Finding Meaning in Visual Art. Minneapolis: Augsburg Books, 2003; Thiessen, Gesa Elsbeth, ed. Theological Aesthetics: A Reader. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005; Trouve, Marianne, ed. Sixteen Documents of Vatican II. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1999; Van der Leeuw, Gerardus. Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963; Viladesau, Richard. Theology and the Arts: Encountering God through Music, Art and Rhetoric. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2000.

Deborah Pavelek ANTI-CATHOLICISM AND AMERICAN POLITICS Negative, prejudicial bias toward Catholics is a part of American history, and it was one of the first trans-Atlantic imports during the colonial period. In fact, William Brewster came over on the Mayflower with an anti-Catholic tract in 1620. Anti-Catholicism is spread like other ideas, breeds a culture of fear and hate, and shows up in politics. Anti-Catholicism, like anti-Semitism and racism, has been institutionalized through American political associations and campaigns, voting behavior, and law. When anti-Catholicism becomes political, persons, on the basis of religion, are excluded from enjoying their full rights, and are barred from offering their necessary contributions to society. A UNITED NATIONS DEFINITION OF DISCRIMINATION The notion of “discrimination” has been interpreted by the U.N. Human Rights Committee to mean, “any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference which is based on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or status, and which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by all persons, on an equal footing, of all rights and freedoms” (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 1989). HISTORICAL BACKGROUND It was illegal to be Catholic in New York when it was a Dutch colony in 1609– 1664, and when the English took over in 1664. All Christians were tolerated there

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in 1674–1688 under Governor Thomas Donagan, a Catholic. Later, in 1688, after Donagan’s governorship, Catholicism was banned again in New York, and it was not until the American Revolution that religious rights were extended to Catholics throughout the republic. However, even if it was no longer against the law to be Catholic, just five states offered Catholics full civil rights at that time. It was not until 1806 that a discriminatory state law was reversed, and full civil rights were enjoyed by Catholics in New York. About 25 years later, anti-Catholicism became associated with an antiimmigrant mind-set and behavior. In the first big wave of immigrants (1830– 1860) Catholics, mainly from Germany and Ireland, came to the United States. The Irish, in particular, were generally poor and disadvantaged, sometimes sick, and were fleeing starvation associated with potato blights back in Ireland. Residents often looked on the newcomers with disdain and suspicion, and resented the new competition for jobs occasioned by the influx of employable persons. At first, the negative anti-immigrant/Catholic bias was expressed in cultural products, such as George Bourne’s The Protestant and William Craig Brownlee’s American Protestant Vindicator. In 1834 Samuel F. B. Morse, in his Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States, alleged that the Pope wanted to take over the Mississippi Valley. That same year, a convent was burned in Charleston, Massachusetts. Within the decade a Protestant edition of the Bible (the King James Version) was mandated for public school use, and this, along with the Protestant services that Catholic children were obliged to attend, sparked a Catholic protest. Some persons, such as Fr. John Hughes of New York City, and Bishop Kenrick of Philadelphia, lobbied unsuccessfully for a balanced share of the taxes to go to Catholic schools. In 1844, nativists, that is, the settled residents who wanted to set their interests over and above those of the immigrants, rioted in Philadelphia. Thirteen protestors were killed, many more were injured, and a few Catholic churches were destroyed in the violence. By the 1850s there were a number of nativist associations, such as the Order of United Americans (New York), United Sons of America (Philadelphia), and the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner (established in 1849), which became the American Party, also known as the Know-Nothing Party. The political success of the Know-Nothings was strong in Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York, and they passed laws to quash Catholic immigration (their 21-year naturalization law failed), inspect convents for supposed wrongful imprisonment of women, and to require that church property belong to lay people. In Louisville, Kentucky on August 5, 1855, dozens of people—mostly Irish Catholic—were killed, and homes were burned as a result of Know-Nothing agitation. While Know-Nothing influence was felt across the nation, in places like Galveston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Manchester, their presidential candidate, Millard Fillmore, lost by 75 percent of the votes in 1856. Anti-Catholicism abated in American politics during the Civil War, but it resurfaced again in 1884 when Dr. Samuel Burchard (a Presbyterian minister in New York City) launched an anti-Catholic slur against the Democratic Party. By 1890, other nativist, anti-Catholic groups, such as the American Protection

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Association, and National League for the Protection of American Interests (NLPAI), were established. Four years later, the NLPAI at a New York Constitutional Convention, led the effort to refuse Catholic schools and charitable organizations a share of public funding. In the 1920s, immigration was severely curtailed by a quota system that was biased against “undesirable” Catholic countries. Even so, anti-Catholicism persisted, particularly through the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. Though the Klan’s influence was concentrated in some parts of the Midwest, it was instrumental in defeating the Catholic presidential candidate Al Smith. Demonstrating an anti-Catholic bias, Oregon voters made public school attendance mandatory, and Catholic schools illegal in 1922; the U.S. Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1925. Anti-Catholicism disappeared from the political arena during the Depression, and World War II, but it reemerged later. In 1947, President Harry Truman tried to appoint an American ambassador to the Vatican, but the public outcry stopped this diplomatic action from being realized. Two years later, Paul Blanshard published his popular American Freedom and Catholic Power in which he argued that Catholicism was intrinsically un-American (Blanshard 1951). As late as 1960, famous Protestants, including Norman Vincent Peale, expressed qualms about the suitability of a Catholic for president. The American Jesuit theologian, John Courtney Murray, countered this negativity. He helped U.S. bishops respond critically to a set of 1940s Supreme Court interpretations of the First Amendment articulated in its decisions on the separation of Church and State. Murray resisted the anti-Catholic activities of Blanshard, and especially in the 1960s, advocated a public philosophy and Christian humanism which underscored the need for religious liberty and dialogue. Murray’s work encouraged Catholics to engage in their society and culture. It was in this climate that Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy spoke to Protestant ministers in Houston prior to his election as the first Catholic President of the United States. Kennedy assured them that his religion would not impinge on his public duties. President Kennedy’s assassination, and the wide, sympathetic media coverage of his Catholic funeral three years later, seemed to positively change public opinion about Catholicism, and thus mark an end to anti-Catholicism in American politics. Immigration had been severely restricted from the 1920s, but was encouraged again by the Refugee Act of 1980. While some resisted the new immigrants, many of whom were Catholics from Asia and Latin America, the nativist language was not religiously charged, as it had been previously. Alan Wolfe, a political scientist and Director of the Boston College’s Boisi Center for Religion and American Life, may offer some insight into the change in political climate. Wolfe thinks that the modern experience of changing religion, intermarriage, and “theological ignorance” all have worked against antiCatholicism. Philip Jenkins, on the other hand, contends that anti-Catholicism persists to this day as the “last acceptable prejudice” in American culture (Jenkins 1997). If history does teach us something, however, it is that ideas including anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and racism are transmitted through cultural

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products and practice, and that these carry into the political sphere where they have historically misinformed and subverted democratic practice. According to theologian and authority on public policy, Kristin Heyer, we have today a more complex political scene. What may be perceived today as an anti-Catholic impetus, may actually be resistance to hijacking religion for political agenda. Ideology, not religion per se (e.g., Catholicism or anti-Catholicism) is perhaps the greatest voting predictor. Given religious-based objections to Mormon Mitt Romney’s bid for presidency, however, it is apparent that anti-religious bias persists in American politics. THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION The Religious Basis of Solidarity Catholic theologians point out that all Christians hold that the Book of Genesis belongs to their sacred canon. The creation story in this book offers a theological grounding for solidarity: there is a common human family; all people are created in the image and likeness of God; all people come from God and are called to life with God (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace 2001, Part III, nn. 19–20). Pope John Paul II claimed that this religious perspective derived from Genesis is critical for believers in their daily interactions with others, and accordingly, placed freedom of conscience and freedom of religion at the head and center of all other freedoms. Ironically, groups such as the American Protestant Association fomented anti-Catholic feeling and, at times, violence. On November 22, 1842, nearly 100 ministers from a dozen Christian denominations signed the American Protestant Association constitution which condemned “popery.” This document’s preamble and articles reflect the structure of the United States Constitution and manifest negative polemic rather than scriptural reflection. Over a hundred years later, the Vatican II Declaration Nostra Aetate, which spells out how the Church is to relate to other religions, stresses that “we cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat any people in other than brotherly [or sisterly] fashion ( . . . ) No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between [individual persons] or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned” (Declaration on the Relation of the Church 1999, n. 5). During his 2008 address to the United Nations, Pope Benedict XVI condemned regimes that require persons to suppress this spiritual dimension in order to participate in society. Thus, Pope Benedict did not claim religious liberty merely for Christian believers, but for all human beings, and so reaffirmed the Vatican II teaching dealing with religious liberty. Pope John Paul II, during his 1995 South Africa visit, declared that solidarity is “the only path forward, out of the complete moral bankruptcy of racial prejudice and ethnic animosity” (Pope John Paul II 1995). The Pope argued that solidarity needs to be developed among nations and within them; this solidarity is the antidote to a widespread breakdown in society and the racism, xenophobia, and rejection of the weakest that can intensify in social chaos. As the history of

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American politics makes clear, this tendency toward antipathy is also directed against religious groups. The perennial challenge of solidarity lies in the last command of Jesus: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). See also Christian Zionism; Nation of Islam; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Anbinder, Tyler. Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know-Nothings and the Politics of the 1850’s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Bennett, David. Party of Fear: From Nativist Movements to the New Right in American History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988; Billington, Ray Allen. Protestant Crusade, 1800–1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism. New York: Macmillan, 1938; Blanshard, Paul. Communism, Democracy, and Catholic Power. Boston: Beacon Press, 1951; Cooperman, Alan. “Anti-Catholic Views Common, Poll Shows.” Washington Post, May 24, 2002; Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, Proclaimed by His Holiness Pope Paul VI (October 28, 1965). Vatican II Council. Nostra Aetate, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. In Sixteen Documents of Vatican II, ed. Marianne Lorraine Trouvé, 395-399. Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1999; Dolan, Jay. Immigrant Church: New York’s Irish and German Catholics, 1815–1865. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975; Drury, Marjule Anne. “Anti-Catholicism in Germany, Britain, and the United States.” Church History 70, no. 1 (2001): 98–131; Franchot, Jenny. Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism. Berkeley: University of California, 1994; Greeley, Andrew M. An Ugly Little Secret: Anti-Catholicism in North America. Kansas City, MO: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1977; Guilday, Peter. “Trusteeism in New York.” Historical Records and Studies 18 (1928): 44–74; Hayes, Zachary. “Fundamentalist Eschatology: Piety and Politics.” New Theology Review 1 (May 1988): 21–35; Highham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns in American Nativism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955; Hofstadter, Richard. Paranoid Style in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996; Jenkins, Philip. Hoods and Shirts. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1997; Kemp, Anthony. Estrangement of the Past: A Study in the Origins of Modern Historical Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991: 66ff.; Kinzer, Donald. An Episode in Anti-Catholicism, The American Protective Association. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964; MacLean, Nancy. Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Moore, Edmund A. A Catholic Runs for President. New York: Ronald Press, 1956; Mulkern, John. The Know-Nothing Party in Massachusetts: The Rise and Fall of a People’s Movement. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990; Murray, John Courtney. We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Propositions. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2005; Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. General Comment No. 18: Non-discrimination: . . . , October 11, 1989; Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Church and Racism. Contribution of the Holy See to the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. Vatican City: Vatican Press, 2001; Reimers, David. Unwelcome Strangers: American Identity and the Turn against Immigration. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999; Schultz, Nancy Lusignan. Fire and Roses: The Burning of the Charlestown Covent, 1834. New York: Free Press, 2001; Seaton, Douglas P. Catholics and Radicals. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1981; Taylor, Mary Christine. A History of the Foundations of Catholicism in Northern New York. New York: U.S. Catholic Historical Society, 1976.

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APOCALYPTICISM AND NUCLEAR WAR Apocalypticism has been a part of Christian history since at least the end of the first century. Christianity has been replete with examples of apocalpytic fever, sometimes stemming from arcane mathematical equations, sometimes from dramatic political and social events. The rise of Protestantism with its move to put the Bible into the hands of laity, created a new world in which apocalyptic speculation was now available to everyone. The tumultuous political events in seventeenth-century England, and the rise of Dispensationalism in the nineteenth century, both were the result of this. However, when Dispensationalism became dominant in the United States, a new chapter of apocalypticism, this time tightly focused on political events, dominated the stage. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki along with the brutality exhibited in the two World Wars and the subsequent establishment of the state of Israel, created a new environment for an unexpected validation of Dispensationalism. With the continual threat of nuclear annihilation as part of the cold war, a new popularized understanding of the imminence of the end of the world erupted. This new millenarianism was propagated by a variety of groups, most notably, Evangelical Christians. Today, the Left Behind series (LaHaye and Jenkins 1995) has continued the dispensationalist tradition of terror, but voices have been raised in protest to it, including a new eschatological movement called “Preterism.” HISTORY OF APOCALYPTICISM “Apocalypticism is the mother of Theology.” This statement, made by Ernst Kasemann, one of the preeminent New Testament scholars of the twentieth century, indicates the importance of apocalypticism for the development of Christianity (Kasemann 1982). While the debate rages as to whether Jesus himself advocated the imminent end of the world, there is little doubt that the notion of an apocalyptic climax to history coming extraordinarily soon was advocated by the apostle Paul, and reaches a full canonical exploration in the book of Revelation. Likewise, the historical Jesus aside, the first presentation of the life of Jesus in the New Testament, the gospel of Mark, is unrelenting in its interpretation of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet culminating in the so-called little apocalypse in Mark 13. The apocalypticism of the New Testament thus is undisputed. In fact, the early Christians’ emphasis on the end can be seen in the writings of later epistles, who continued to defend the notion even when it became clear that Jesus’s return, and the soon to follow end of the world, was not immediately forthcoming. Peter II (an epistle probably writing in the late first century c.e. or early second century c.e.) quotes scoffers who say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” The epistle writer’s response is to argue that God’s time is God’s own saying, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:4–9). Even in the light of unfulfilled eschatological expectations, early Christians maintained an allegiance to an apocalyptic theology.

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The practice of setting dates started not long after Christianity started. The Epistle of Barnabas in the second century predicted the demise of the world after 6,000 years from its creation. This was derived by taking the book of 2 Peter’s helpful equation of a day equaling 1,000 years, and then multiplying it by the days of creation (chapter 6). While no exact year was set by Barnabas, the focus on temporal calculations was thereby established. By the third century, Jesus’s life had been inserted into the calculation as the midpoint of the last day by Hippolitus of Rome. By exactly setting the date of Jesus’s birth, the end could be reliably predicted as 500 years after that date. In the fifth century this was extended to both 700 and 800 c.e., yet as those dates drew near, the apocalypse still seemed forestalled. Ultimately, as the year 6000 (from the supposed date of creation) approached, the whole system seemed problematic. In light of this, the calendar change to Anno Domini (a.d.), which changed year one to the year Jesus was born, functioned to revise all dates and calculations. The fact that this shift occurred about the time the old calculation system appeared to be heading towards disconfirmation should not be ignored. As the year 1000 c.e. approached, another rise in apocalypticism occurred. Previous scholars have actually overemphasized the importance of 1,000. Two factors were important here: First, the Anno Domini system had yet to be universally accepted within Christendom. Second, historical evidence shows a lack of signs of true apocalyptic fervor, items like wills, weddings, and contracts appear to have been made with no fear of an impending end. Still, there is evidence of a “heightened millennial expectation” (Baumgartner 2001, 56). Additionally, political stresses seemed to indicate that the time of the end was at hand. With the Norse attacks in the north, and the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, many saw signs of the end clearly fulfilled by current events. And as Pope Urban inaugurated the first Crusade, he referred to the impending Second Coming, which demanded that Jerusalem be retaken for Christ’s return. With Martin Luther and the rise of Protestantism, the focus on eschatology changed its tenor. Luther himself was not an apocalypticist. While he understood the papacy as a form of generalized antichrist, he eschewed any sense of date setting. While previously he had a sense that the end might be near; as the Pope failed to heed his call to reform, the Turkish continued incursions into Christian lands (including the capture of Constantinople), and his movement met trouble in some quarters, so he was led to a surer conviction that the apocalypse was at hand. Still, more important than his own convictions, was the move to put the bible in the language of the laity. Suddenly, in conjunction with the advent of the printing press, the book of Revelation went from being something selectively quoted from by the clergy (mostly on All Saints Day), to something available for the masses to use for millennarian speculation. Despite his own vacillation and misgivings on apocalyptic in general, and the book of Revelation in particular, Luther must be credited with being the father of modern apocalyptic speculation, even if unintentionally, through the widespread distribution of the Bible in the vernacular. A good example of this can be seen in England in the seventeenth century. The Puritan Revolution of England was infused with millennial concerns

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from its very inception. The Pope was identified as the antichrist, and when King Charles I proceeded to try to have Parliament arrested, he was seen as ally of the antichrist, and an apocalyptic battle was joined between the forces of Christ (Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army) and the forces of the Beast (Charles’ loyalists). When the King was ultimately defeated (in 1646) and the Puritans took control, there was a new expectation that the time was at hand when “King Jesus” would come and take the throne. This was conjoined with the idea that 1666 was a momentous year prophetically. Different millennialist groups arose around this time including the Ranters, the Levellers, the Diggers, the Quakers and the Fifth Monarchy Men (who included Lords, generals and members of parliament). The apocalyptic flame dimmed considerably after the Restoration, yet the Quakers (though in a decidedly less millennialist version) still continue to this day. The explosion of millennial groups during this time can be linked, at least partially, to the availability of the biblical text started by Luther. In England, the creation and distribution of the King James Version Bible fueled the proliferation of apocalyptic movements. THE RISE OF DISPENSATIONALISM As we move to the modern era, the single most important person to the apocalypticism found in evangelical and fundamentalist denominations and churches, is John Nelson Darby. John Nelson Darby developed the notion of dispensationalism. The basis of dispensationalism was the notion that the world could be divided up into seven ages (dispensations). The first four dispensations are mostly found in the first two books of the bible: The Adamic Convention, The Noahic Covenant, The Abrahamic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant then lasts for the rest of Jewish history until the coming of Jesus. Jesus’s death initiates the fifth age of the Gentiles, and the sixth age of the Spirit. The seventh age would follow with Jesus’s return and the advent of the millennium reign of Christ. While Darby eschewed any attempt to set the time of Jesus’s return, his approach to Jesus’s first coming was less circumspect. Darby held that Jesus’s earthly appearance in Galilee had been divinely and accurately predicted by Daniel’s 77s prophecy in Daniel 9. While the dating had some problems, Darby argued that Jesus’s life was exactly 69 weeks of years (69 × 7 or 483 years) from the time of Artaxerxes’s decree, allowing Nehemiah to return to Jerusalem and reconstruct its walls in 444 b.c.e. Christ’s return therefore should have occurred in the seventieth week, seven years after his crucifixion by this dating system. However, when the Jewish people of the time failed to embrace Jesus as their messiah, Darby believed, the prophetic time clock was stopped. Christ returned was thus postponed to a later time. This was predicated upon a division Darby made that was pivotal for dispensationalism: the distinction between earthly Israel and the heavenly Church. For Darby, the prophecies in the Bible were either about the Church or Israel.

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Prophecies pertaining to Israel could not be applied to the Church, and vice versa. The result of this is that prophecies relating specifically to the church are very few. Most pertain to the Church’s establishment and power and then its removal before the great tribulation. It is Israel that is center stage for most prophecies, and particularly those at the end. The dispensationalists hold that the Church exists in the great parenthesis between dispensations; a time not included in the biblical timetable of history, and of indeterminate length. Of course, with the dissolution of Israel as a nation following the Jewish War of 70 c.e. and the Bar Kochba revolt of the second century, Israel was no longer a player on the world stage. Dispensationalism held that the end times would begin with the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel where the temple would be rebuilt. Thereafter, the anti-Christ arises, who would appear to bring peace to the Jews, but ultimately breaks his agreement with them and plunges the world into a time of great tribulation. The tribulation will last 1,260 days (3 1/2 years) ending with the final battle of Armageddon, the defeat of the anti-Christ, and the return of Jesus. A key doctrine that the dispensationalists held was the notion of the “rapture.” The rapture is the taking of the church off the earth by God. Christ will descend in the air, and the believers will be caught up with him and be taken to heaven, safe from the ensuing terrors on earth. There is some dispute as to when the rapture occurs. Three positions, pre-tribulationist, mid-tribulationist and post-tribulationist have been suggested. However, the majority of dispensationalists have held to a pre-tribulationist understanding of the rapture. The rapture will occur before the tribulation, and the church will be spared the horrors that will confront the rest of humanity. The actual development of the doctrine of the rapture is a debated area. The term “rapture” does not appear in the Greek text of the New Testament, it is rather an English translation of the Latin word used in the Vulgate (raptio) which means caught up and derives from 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which says, “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up (raptio) together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” While Darby claimed the notion of the rapture was apparent from his reading of scripture, modern historians have suggested that it was first formulated in the visions of a teenager named Margaret MacDonald, and taken over by Darby from her (Rossing 2005, 22). Nevertheless, regardless of its origin, the rapture became a distinguishing doctrine among dispensationalists. In the United States, the historical popularity of dispensationalism can be attributed to several factors. First, dispensationalism was adopted by a number of traveling evangelists, such as Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday, who were extremely popular. Second, in the wake of modern biblical criticism, that was seen by many as casting doubt on the biblical text, the hyper-literalism of the dispensationalists seemed a bulwark against liberal questions. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the Schofield Reference Bible became an immensely popular version of the Bible, which contained in its footnotes the dispensationalist reading of the scriptures. Dispensationalism then was now readily

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accessible to the lay reader, shown in the footnotes of the Bible itself. These three things came together to foster a growing movement of dispensationalism among Evangelicals, and soon led to the dominance that premillennarianism dispensationalism came to have. It is perhaps also important to note one other momentous point in the development of dispensationalism: The founding of the nation of Israel in 1948. Dispensationalists were active in supporting Zionist causes as far back as the nineteenth century. Still, when the United Nations acted to form the nation of Israel, this was, in the eyes of dispensationalists, the unmistakable hand of God at work in history. The dispensationalist had predicted the return of the Jews to Israel, and now their greatest hope had been fulfilled. Likewise, with the expansion of Israel in the 1967 war to include the capture of Jerusalem, dispensationalists thought they saw the fulfillment of scripture before their very eyes. In every timetable that would be established after this point, the founding of the state of Israel would be the key starting point. APOCALYPTICISM AND THE COLD WAR The founding of Israel was preceded by the end of World War II, and was clearly an important event for apocalypticists of the dispensationalist variety. However, another extraordinary event occurred at the end of World War II, which would likewise have tremendous import for modern apocalypticism: the advent of the nuclear age. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were traumatic historic events, and they highlighted a new expansion in human destructive ability. When the Russians followed with a demonstration of their own nuclear ability, the nuclear arms race began with a vengeance. Christian apocalypticists quickly turned to 2 Peter 3:10, which said, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” The similarity with the devastation wrought in Japan was apparent for the pre-millennialists. Moreover, a corner had been turned. Humanity’s newfound destructive power would soon initiate the cataclysm of the end. As Donald Grey Barnhouse stated in 1945, “It is already too late. The threads of inevitability have been caught in the mesh of the hidden gears of history and the divine plan moves towards the inexorable fulfillment” (Boyer 1994, 117–118). Never before had humanity the power to bring the kind of destruction prophesied in Revelation. Now it had. In light of this mounting threat to human life, prophecy writers emphasized the inevitability of the future cataclysm. The Bible had predicted such disaster, they insisted, and any attempt at mitigating or controlling this power was ultimately doomed to failure. The words of the prophet Zechariah (14:12) seemed particularly apt, This is the plague with which the LORD will strike all the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.

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These words seemed an accurate representation of the effect of a nuclear explosion, and were predicted by God. To this end, nascent peace movements in the 1950s and 1960s were spurned by dispensationalists as vain attempts to change the preordained future that had been spelled out by prophecy. The nuclear arms race with its motto of “peace through strength” was only the precursor to the end. Prophecy clearly foretold the fiery future, and human actions could not prevent it. Note that during the 1950s and 1960s this was a time of political quietism for most evangelicals. The time would come later when evangelicals would be far more activist in their support for notions of nuclear development. The first 70 years of the twentieth century then, represents an interesting conflation of events that were all appropriated within the dispensationalist schema of the end times. While often times, dispensationalists were perplexed at exactly how world events fitted into their vision of the end, they remained confident that it was only a matter of seeing events through “God’s eyes.” Yet at the same time, the increase in conflict in the Middle East, and the constant threat of nuclear war, moved apocalyptic notions out of the pulpit and on to the front page. Government construction of bomb shelters, the game of nuclear chicken during the Cuban missile crisis, and the various conflicts engaged in by the United States and the Soviet Union, all made apparent that a final cataclysm was no longer a matter of religious speculation confined to a few “bible-thumping nuts,” but a real and present possibility that could occur at any point. Cinematic explorations of the possibility of nuclear annihilation from On the Beach to Dr. Strangelove, indicated a new apocalyptic pocket in the American psyche. This then became fertile land in which dispensationalism might speak a message that both played upon those fears, and spoke of escape from them. In 1973, Hal Lindsey published There’s a New World Coming, which popularized dispensationalism in a way that hadn’t been done since the Schofield Bible. The book was quickly a best seller and was followed up by a series of books, Late Great Planet Earth, Rapture, and The Liberation of Planet Earth. Lindsey continues to publish into the 2000s, though his later books have not been as popular as his earlier work. Lindsey’s work was well received because of its relevance. Lindsey argued that John of Patmos (the author of Revelation), being a first-century Christian, could not have viewed the technology and events of the twentieth century and understood it; he did not have the technical background to be able to do so. Thus Revelation, for Lindsey, is written in the conceptual language of the first century to describe the events of the twentieth century. For Lindsey, nuclear war is part and parcel of the end-time scenario. Written in the midst of the cold war, Lindsey imagines the war of “Gog” against Israel as a Russian invasion. The European Union (here called New Rome) mounts a defense. Lindsey quotes from Ezekiel 38 which predicts “torrential rains and hailstones, fire and brimstone.” This, says Lindsey, “could well be describing the use of tactical nuclear weapons” (Lindsay 1972, 149). Likewise, following the defeat of the Soviet Army, Lindsey once again turns to Ezekiel 39:6 which predicts “fire on Magog and upon . . . the coastlands.” Here Lindsey substitutes the U.S.S.R. for Magog and “various continents” as the coastlands, suggesting, “God

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could allow the various countries to launch a nuclear exchange of ballistic missiles upon each other” (New World, 150). More recently, the popularity of Hal Lindsey has been eclipsed by the literary phenomenon know as the Left Behind series, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Sales numbers have been staggering, and the authors continue to churn out book after book, series after series, envisioning the end times. Much like Hal Lindsey’s work, the appeal of the Left Behind series is that it translates the hyper-symbolic language of Revelation into an action-packed narrative. But here again, the threat of nuclear war is present. The anti-Christ launches an attack on major cities in the United States, England, Mexico and Canada, which at first appears to be nuclear, but in the end, only the missile launched against London has a nuclear warhead. Later, the anti-Christ goes nuclear again against the Christian community which is located in Chicago. The narrative point is clear, during the time of the tribulation the anti-Christ will feel free to use a form of nuclear terror to ensure his will is obeyed. While this is different than the nuclear exchanges envisioned by Lindsey, the ever-present fear of nuclear war is still effectively marshaled by dispensationalists. What remains consistent between Lindsey and LaHaye and Jenkins, and indeed between most premillennarian dispensationalists, is the promise of escape. The rapture remains the ultimate trump card of the dispensationalist. However horrifying the visions of nuclear disaster are, the promise of dispensationalism is that the Christian can walk free from fear, for they will not be present for the tribulation. Dispensationalists have been criticized for more and more elaborate visions of the world devastated by nuclear, ecological, and biological catastrophe, yet they only do so because they are confident that they will be exempted from such suffering through the secret rapture of the church. We thus can see the intersection of modern apocalypticism and the threat of nuclear destruction. The terror of the atomic age has, on the one hand, made apocalyptic notions a concern of modern people, as they see increasing threats that look to bring about the end of the world. As fear rises about our perilous position in the world, the message of dispensationalism, which on the one hand emphasizes our powerlessness in the face of such threats, and on the other hand offers a free pass out of this impeding doom, has a new appeal. Now, instead of dreading the progress on nuclear arms and the threat of nuclear war, one can relish it, as it is a sign of the ever-closer arrival of Jesus with the rapture. This approach to the threats concerning humanity has been criticized by a number of writers. Barbara R. Rossing states, “In place of healing the Rapture proclaims escape. In place of Jesus’ blessing of the Peacemakers, the Rapture voyeuristically glorifies violence and war. . . . This theology is not biblical” (Rossing 2005, 1–2). Daniel Wojick suggests “apocalyptic traditions tend to deny the efficacy of human effort to improve the world and may encourage a passive acceptance of human-made crises and potential disasters” (Wojick 1999, 214). And Tina Pippin reminds us about apocalypticism in general: “If hope is a moral action, we must be moral about the way we hope” (Pippin 1999, 8). A vision of mass slaughter through nuclear annihilation may generate hope for those expecting the rapture but such hope is clearly morally questionable.

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Such criticism has not been always general, or from academic sources. Two conservative Christian leaders, Gary North and Gary DeMar have both been very critical of the dispensationalist vision, arguing that dispensationalism essentially looks forward to another Jewish Holocaust. They argue it is an unequivocal part of the dispensationalist schema, that after the rapture, Israel will experience significant persecution that could well number in the millions. Such a program that encourages Zionist objectives, only to see those same Jews massacred by the forces of the anti-Christ, is morally unconscionable, they argue. What is clear then, is that while the Left Behind series, and the dispensationalist vision they novelize, has tremendous popularity, it bespeaks a desire to escape the world’s problems, and often marshals those problems as a way of forwarding itself. Such a position is not without its critics, though they have nowhere near the mass appeal of LaHaye and Jenkins. But a new eschatological position which rejects dispensationalism, called “Preterism,” is starting to become more popular, forwarded by Hank Hanegraaffof of the Christian Research Institute, R.C. Sproul, and Gary DeMar. Preterists believe that all prophetic texts in the New Testament have already been fulfilled with the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. While this movement is still in its infancy, it may ultimately represent a theological challenge to dispensationalism and its terrifying future. See also Christian Zionism; Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Baumgartner, Frederic J. Longing for the End: A History of Millennialism in Western Civilization. New ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001; Borg, Marcus J. “A Temperate Case for a Non-Eschatological Jesus.” Forum 2 (September 1986): 81–102; Boyer, Paul. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1994; Cohn, Norman. The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970; Kasemann, Ernst. Essays on New Testament Themes. 1st ed. Polebridge Pr. Westar Institute, 1982; LaHaye, Tim F., and Jerry B. Jenkins. Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1995; Lindsey, Hal. The Late Great Planet Earth. 22nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972; Lindsey, Hal. The Liberation of Planet Earth. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974; Lindsey, Hal. The Rapture: Truth Or Consequences. New York: Bantam Books, 1972; Lindsey, Hal, and Carole C. Carlson. Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth. Zondervan Publishing House, 1972; Pippin, Tina. Apocalyptic Bodies. New York: Routledge, 1999; Rossing, Barbara R. The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in The Book of Revelation. New ed. Westview Press, 2005; Sanders, E. P. The Historical Figure of Jesus. Penguin (NonClassics), 1996; The Late Great Planet Earth. Westlake, CA: Trinity Home Entertainment, 2004; Weber, Timothy P. On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend. Waco, TX: Baker Academic, 2005; Wojcik, Daniel. The End of the World As We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. New ed. New York: NYU Press, 1999.

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B BIBLE AND POVERTY The Bible offers insight into the meaning of poverty and responsibilities for the poor. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, there is an emphasis on the theological dimensions of poverty. One of the principal theological disagreements pertains to different interpretations of these dimensions. Some argue that God wants believers to be blessed with material goods, whereas others argue that God commands solidarity with the poor oppressed by unjust social structures. BIBLICAL THEMES ON POVERTY In the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, there are numerous references to wealth, money, poverty, and the poor. These references can be categorized according to different theological themes. One theme pertains to social obligations toward the poor. Psalm 12:5, for example, states: “ ‘But now I will come,’ says the Lord, ‘because the needy are oppressed and the persecuted groan in pain. I will give them the security they long for.’ ” Just as God has provided for God’s people, there is a mandate that God’s people not trample on the poor and oppress the resident alien. The book of the covenant, Exodus, describes one mechanism for providing for the poor: “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard” (Exodus 23:10–11). The basis for God’s care for the poor (and human response to it) involves considerations of the interconnections between mercy

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and justice. In terms of mercy, Isaiah 55:1 proclaims: “The Lord says, ‘Come, everyone who is thirsty—here is water! Come, you that have no money—buy grain and eat! Come! Buy wine and milk—it will cost you nothing!’ ” In terms of justice, the prophet Amos castigates those who neglect the poor as an offense against righteousness (living rightly before God) and justice (living rightly before others): “Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. For I know many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate” (Amos 5:11–12). In the New Testament, Jesus preaches that his followers must reach out and serve the poor, the hungry, and the outcast. Jesus insists that those who suffer have a special place in the Kingdom of God. The Beatitudes laid out in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5–7 include those who are poor in spirit (“theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” 5:3) and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (“they will be filled,” 5:6). The Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6 extends further the message to the concrete realities of the poor. Jesus states: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled” (Luke 6:20–21). Some interpreters focus on the more spiritual aspects of suffering and poverty, whereas others contend that the material conditions of poverty are paramount. Jesus integrates the two together to present a holistic vision of poverty. This vision includes one’s ability to contribute to the kingdom despite one’s limited material resources. In Mark 12:41–44, Jesus presents a parable on the widow’s offering. The poor widow offers two small copper coins as an offering; Jesus teaches: “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she has, all she had to live on” (Mark 12:43–44). This theme raises significant questions about how persons should relate to their material possessions. In Mark 10:17–31, Jesus instructs a rich man about salvation. Though he has fulfilled all the commandments, Jesus cautions him: “ ‘You lack one thing; go sell what you own, and then give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions” (Mark 10:21–22). In the same pericope, Jesus later informs the disciples that their own detachment from worldly possessions to follow Jesus (imitatio Christi) will be rewarded a “hundredfold” in the age to come (Mark 10:30–31). Similar ideas can be found throughout the New Testament, including 1 John 2:15–17: “Do not love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you do not love the Father. Everything that belongs to the world—what the sinful self desires, what people see and want, and everything in this world are so proud of—none of this comes from the Father; it all comes from the world. The world and everything in it that people desire is passing away; but he who does the will of God lives forever.” Are Christians, then, called to be poor? Can a Christian be wealthy and still be a disciple of Christ?

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THEOLOGICAL DEBATES ABOUT GOD AND POVERTY One current theological perspective on poverty includes the Gospel of Prosperity, principally held by Pentecostal theologians and their followers. They appeal to Scripture to confirm that God provides material resources to the faithful. Representative passages include Malachi 3:10: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.” Additionally, passages such as Mark 11:24 (“So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours”) and John 14:14 (“If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it”). Yet, critics insist that such interpretations fail to appreciate the detachment from the world preached by Jesus and Paul. For example, 1 Timothy 6:7–10 describes the calling of a Christian to be in the world and not of the world: “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Similar understandings of the tensions between pursuing wealth and establishing the kingdom of God are presented in Matthew 6:19–21 and Luke 18:22–25. Considerations of the Bible and poverty require that we attend to the present contexts of interpretation and their normative implications. Liberation theology is a theology concerned with the oppression of the poor through unjust social structures. Based on Jesus’s ministry to the poor in the Gospel, liberation theology focuses on the contexts of exploitation. One such context is Latin America (though, as is the case with feminist, womanist, Asian, and African theologies, Latin America represents only one context). Originating in the Medellin conference of Latin American bishops in 1968 (though many point to Bartolomeo de Las Casas (1484–1566) as the father of liberation theology), liberation theology is the reflection on God’s activity and God’s transforming grace among those who are the victims of modern history. Liberation theologians seek to challenge and transform oppressive social structures, and transform the challenges of poverty, starvation, and oppression. They appeal to political theology (Christianity must be reformulated in light of events of massive suffering), Marxism (a theoretical tool of social analysis for evaluating class struggle), and popular religion (option for the poor as a way of life rooted in praxis). Key figures include Gustavo Gutierrez, Clodovis Boff, Leonardo Boff, Juan Segundo, and Jon Sobrino. Gustavo Gutierrez’s A Theology of Liberation is a seminal text within liberation theology. Within his analysis of the meaning, form, and function of liberation theology, he examines the meaning of the word poverty. Gutierrez submits that poverty is an ambiguous term. Its meanings include material poverty, “that is, the lack of economic goods necessary for a human life worthy of the name” (Gutierrez 1988, 163), and spiritual poverty, or “an interior attitude of attachment to the

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goods of this world” (Gutierrez 1988, 164). Gutierrez argues that these notions of poverty do not represent the true meaning of poverty; he therefore attends to the biblical meaning of poverty. Appealing to the writings of the Hebrew prophets (notably Amos, and his condemnation of the actions that cause poverty), Gutierrez notes that protest against poverty is an important biblical theme. Furthermore, he posits that “[t]he Bible speaks of positive and concrete measures to prevent poverty from being established among the people of God” (Gutierrez 1988, 167). He contends that there are deep theological reasons for opposing poverty. Poverty is an evil; a fortiori, “[p]overty is an expression of sin, that is, a negation of love. It is therefore incompatible with the coming of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of love and justice” (Gutierrez 1988, 168). Based on his exegesis of the biblical meaning of poverty, Gutierrez concludes that the meaning of poverty requires “authentic solidarity with the poor and a real protest against the poverty of our time” (Gutierrez 1988, 173). The institutional Catholic church resonates with—but also has objected to— liberation theology. In terms of shared themes, the Catholic Church advocates for the importance of self-determination (of which economic conditions play a part), and the mechanisms such as the principle of subsidiarity that support such self-determination: “Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help (subsidium) to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.” (Pope Pius XI 1931). Moreover, building on the insights of earlier popes such as Pope Leo XIII, Pope John Paul II contends that it is incumbent upon society to recognize persons as persons, not as instruments. He insists that those with a greater share of goods and common services have a responsibility for the weaker members of society, and thus help overcome the structures of sin. Exercise of this responsibility includes the necessity of public demonstrations in solidarity with the poor without violence (see, for example, On Social Concern). Another theme prominent in Catholic social teaching and liberation theology concerns a preferential option for the poor. In their 1986 Economic Justice for All, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops clarified the meaning of the expression option for the poor: “The ‘option for the poor,’ therefore, is not an adversarial slogan that pits one group or class against another. Rather, it states that the deprivation and powerlessness of the poor wounds the whole community. The extent of their suffering is a measure of how far we are from being a true community of persons. These wounds will be healed only by greater solidarity with the poor and among the poor themselves.” Yet, there have also been tensions between liberation theologies and the Magisterium. In such documents as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Instruction on Certain Aspects of the ‘Theology of Liberation’ (Ratzinger 1984), the Vatican castigates liberation theology’s method of addressing the needs of the poor: “[This warning] is, on the contrary, dictated by the certitude that the serious ideological deviations which it points out tends inevitably to betray the

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THE BIBLE AND THE INTERNATIONAL DEBT CRISIS The international debt crisis represents one of the most widespread and debilitating effects of poverty. In sum, the crisis is the result of numerous developments. Developing countries were loaned money in the 1960s and 1970s by international structures such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to reconstruct their infrastructures. Through the rise of oil prices and the mismanagement of monies because of dictatorships, civil wars, or unskilled production, these debts increased (as the price of oil skyrocketed), and has resulted in loan defaults, and in debilitating economic implications for the poorest populations in these countries. Should these debts—given that they represent small percentages for industrialized, developed countries, and enormous percentages for developing countries—be forgiven? Or, would it violate principles of justice and fairness if the debts were cancelled? The Bible offers insight into these questions. Leviticus 25:35–55 warns against charging interest on loans to the poor (e.g., “Do not make him pay interest on the money you lend him,” 25:37). Moreover, Deuteronomy 15:1–11 advocates for loan forgiveness: “At the end of every seventh year you are to cancel the debts of those who owe you money” (Deuteronomy 15:1). Yet, in the same pericope, it differentiates between types of loans: “You may collect what a foreigner owes you, but you must not collect what any of your own people owe you” (Deuteronomy 15:3). On the other hand, Sirach 29:2–4 extols the virtues of repaying loans (“Lend to your neighbor in his time of need; repay your neighbor when a loan falls due,” Sirach 29:2). These differences underscore the challenge of biblical hermeneutics and the continued debate on international debt and other issues regarding poverty.

cause of the poor.” These “serious ideological deviations” include the liberation theologians’ appeal to Marxism as a conceptual tool for analyzing the structures of poverty. The Vatican text believes that such a tool attenuates the authentic biblical witness: “Concepts uncritically borrowed from Marxist ideology and recourse to theses of a biblical hermeneutic marked by rationalism are at the basis of a new interpretation which is corrupting whatever was authentic in the generous initial commitment on behalf of the poor.” THE CLASS SYSTEM: IS EQUALITY POSSIBLE? Another aspect of the debate on God and poverty pertains to the class system. Many theologians argue that work is constitutive of being fully human, and being a member of the Kingdom of God; Adam and Eve tended the garden in the Genesis creation account. In developing his account of the social gospel (and based on his experiences of ministering to the poor in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City) Walter Rauschenbusch describes the theological significance of work: “Sanctification, therefore, can not be attained in an unproductive life, unless it is unproductive through necessity. In the long run the only true way to gain moral insight, selfdiscipline, humility, love, and a consciousness of coherence and dependence, is to take our place among those who serve one another by useful labor. Parasitism blinds; work reveals” (Rauschenbusch 1997, 103). Nonetheless, Rauschenbusch

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believes that universal sin constantly threatens the work of individuals, and the construction of the kingdom of God. Rauschenbusch denominates class contempt among these sins: “Class pride and its obverse passion, class contempt, are the necessary spiritual product of class divisions. They are the direct negation of solidarity and love. . . .The class system, therefore, is a sinful denial of the Kingdom of God, and one of the characteristic marks and forces of the Kingdom of Evil” (Rauschenbusch 1997, 256). If persons are willing to work, and if Jesus challenged all artificial boundaries, can society ever move beyond a class system? Thinkers such as Duncan Forrester posit that equality can be achieved (even if it remains a utopian objective). In envisioning the Kingdom of God as gift and grace, Forrester holds: “But the church, in using such language, is committing itself to being a community which seeks to follow and exemplify the kind of egalitarian, inclusive fellowship which was characteristic of the disciples and others who gathered around Jesus. Only thus may it be a sacrament, sign, and instrument of the equality and unity of all humankind” (Forrester 2001, 196). Forrester grounds his claims on the table fellowship of Jesus that destroys boundaries: “The overcoming in the practice of Jesus and the early church of the division between Jew and Gentile was seen as indicative of the establishment of a new form of loving, equal community” (Forrester 2001, 205). Realist theologian Reinhold Niebuhr is less sanguine about the realization of this “loving, equal community.” Influenced by the depths of human sinfulness and struggles for power, Niebuhr affirms that justice as equality remains unattainable: “Justice by a careful calculation of competing rights is equally difficult, if not impossible” (Niebuhr 2001, 266). He adds: “Egoistic impulses are so much more powerful than altruistic ones that if the latter are not given stronger than ordinary support, the justice which even good men design is partial to those who design it” (Niebuhr 2001, 266). Perfect justice (in the form of love) remains an illusion because these egoistic impulses preclude the possibility of true equality. See also Capitalism and Socialism; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Forrester, Duncan. On Human Worth: A Christian Vindication of Equality. London: SCM Press, 2001; Gutierrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev ed., trans. and ed. Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988; Hoppe, Leslie J. Being Poor: A Biblical Study. Forward by Rembert Weakland. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1987; Niebuhr, Reinhold. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics. Introduction by Langdon Gilkey. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001[1932]; Osiek, Carolyn. Rich and Poor in the Shepherd Of Hermas: An Exegetical-Social Investigation. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983; Pilgrim, Walter E. Good News to the Poor: Wealth and Poverty in Luke-Acts. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1981; Pope Pius XI. Quad Ragesimo Anno. 1931. Available at: www.vatican.va/holy.father/pius_xi/ency licals/documents/hf_p-xi_cnc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html; Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal (Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith). Instructions on Certain Aspects of the “Theology of Liberty.” 1984. Available at: www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congrega tionsoffaith/documents/re-caoffaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html; Rauschenbusch, Walter. A Theology for the Social Gospel. Introduction by Donald Shriver, Jr. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997[1917]; Sider, Ronald, ed. Cry

Birth Control and Family Planning | Justice: The Bible on Hunger and Poverty. New York: Paulist Press, 1980; West, Gerald O. The Academy of the Poor: Towards a Dialogical Reading of the Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.

Jonathan Rothchild BIRTH CONTROL AND FAMILY PLANNING Religious debates on birth control typically center on claims about natural law and Catholic Church teaching, on the one hand, and women’s liberties and evolving socioeconomic realities, on the other. Questions emerge about traditional understandings and practices of family planning in light of the complexity and technological options available in the contemporary context. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND RECENT TRENDS Birth control methods have existed in a variety of forms from the earliest recorded histories. Some of these methods functioned as preventative measures, and some of them functioned as abortifacients. They included withdrawal techniques (coitus interruptus), various ways to block the transmission of sperm (such as intrauterine devices), and natural methods (such as the rhythm method). Around the middle of the nineteenth century, the condom first appeared in the United States, principally the result of Charles Goodyear’s mass-produced vulcanized rubber. It gained popularity during the early part of the twentieth century (particularly after World War I). In 1873, the United States passed the Comstock Act, a federal law that made it illegal to send any “obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious” materials—including artificial contraceptive devices—through the mail. The target of the act (and subsequent states measures that, with the federal act, became known as the Comstock Laws) was pornography, but it also prohibited educational materials explaining the use of artificial contraception. The Comstock Act thus raises a central question: Are matters of family planning to be the private choice of an individual or a couple; or, does the means and mechanisms of family planning pertain to general discussion about public morality and the general welfare of society? The invention of the pill in the 1950s and 1960s provides a highly effective and widely distributed form of birth control. These improvements in technology coincide with social changes in the 1960s, including greater sexual freedoms and increased lifestyle choices. Women gained wider and more substantive career choices, which challenged traditional conceptions of women as homemakers and mothers. Women (and men as well) began to defer having children until after they had established careers; moreover, some women decided not to reproduce at all. Hence, increasingly, forms of artificial birth control functioned as the means to expand choices for women. The emergence in the early 1980s of HIV/AIDS galvanized a culture of “safe sex”; condoms and other devices were now viewed as necessities to avoid life-threatening sexually transmitted diseases. The numbers of persons with HIV/AIDS steadily rose; the Center for Disease Control estimates that at the end of 2003, 1,039,000 to 1,185,000

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THE VATICAN AND CONDOMS: A PARADIGM SHIFT? A current debate involves the Catholic Church’s prohibition against artificial birth control and the AIDS epidemic. Though it has not promised to amend its teaching, the Vatican is studying the harm caused by AIDS, and the potential use of condoms as a solution. The Church has not explicitly addressed the AIDS question, but it does preach abstinence. Some hold that the church will not alter its teaching on artificial birth control due to AIDS because it invites a slippery slope justification for other reasons proffered for condoms. Some believe that the AIDS epidemic does not fundamentally challenge the Church’s reasons for rejecting artificial contraception. Others, however, insist that the Church’s traditional teaching risks becoming irrelevant, or even harmful, if it does not revise its teaching in light of the current context.

persons in the United States were living with HIV/AIDS (CDC Web site, www. cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/unitedstates.htm). Though HIV/AIDS is spread through a variety of ways, an estimated 80 percent of females contracted the disease through heterosexual sexual contact. World estimates for HIV/AIDS vary (as it is difficult to calculate the figures with precision), but the World Health Organization indicates that approximately 33 million people worldwide suffer from HIV/AIDS (WHO Web site, www.who.int/research/en). Sub-Saharan Africa countries have disproportionately high numbers of cases, and countries such as India are experiencing rapid increases. LEGAL DEBATES In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the United States Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of two (1958) Connecticut statutes. The statutes criminally penalized the following actions pertaining to artificial contraception: “Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned” (Griswold v. Connecticut 1965, Section 53–32); “Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender” (Griswold v. Connecticut 1965, Section 54–196). In delivering the opinion of the Court, Justice Douglas writes: “We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights—older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.” The Court determines that a constitutional right to privacy cannot be rescinded by a state statute. The decision to plan a family—as a couple determines that is in their best interest to do so—appears to be a constitutionally protected right.

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REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES Since the creation of the first test-tube baby (Louis Brown) in 1978, there have been enormous debates about whether artificial insemination and other forms of reproductive technology should be used to produce children. Increasingly, in vitro fertilization (IVF), where conception occurs in the laboratory and uses multiple embryos, has been utilized in the United States. The main techniques of IVF include homologous or husband IVF (which uses the genetic material of husband and wife) and heterologous IVF (which uses a third party donor, e.g., donor egg, donor sperm, or donor womb). Numerous ethical questions arise: Are we designing babies (particularly if donors are selected from a review of their profiles)? Can embryos leftover from the IVF process be discarded? Should they be placed up for adoption? Should donors have to disclose their identities and bear some responsibility for their genetic contribution? Should single persons and same-sex couples be allowed to use IVF? In terms of social justice, do the significant costs of IVF disqualify its use by lower socioeconomic classes and marginalized groups? The Catholic Church has argued that all forms of IVF are morally illicit (see Ratzinger 1987), but several theologians have contended that homologous IVF should be viewed as ethically justified. Other thinkers have argued that the good of creating a child outweighs any potential concerns about harms generated by the means of the process.

THEOLOGICAL DEBATES The Catholic Tradition The Catholic Church has voiced its criticisms of artificial birth control for centuries, based on fundamental theological and moral principles. Two leading theologians provide the basis for the contemporary church’s positions. St. Augustine (354–430) developed an account of marriage, sexuality, and family in his treatise On the Good of Marriage (c. 401). Concerned about the lascivious and sinful dimensions of sexuality, but determined to defend the goodness of creation (and, by extension, the goodness of the Creator), Augustine articulates three goods of marriage: fidelity (a bond with one’s spouse that functions as a remedy for lust); sacrament (a bond with God that is eternal and indissoluble); and offspring (children). Augustine characterizes the first two goods as the unitive goods or aspects of marriage, and the third good as the procreate good or aspect of marriage. He concludes that the unitive and procreative aspects are inseparable; hence, anything that severs them (e.g., artificial birth control, as well as other reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization) is not morally licit. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) also repudiates any practice that violates a divinely ordained process. In his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas argues that God establishes an objective moral order (eternal law) that humans can discern and participate in (natural law) through their uniquely rational capacities. Natural law, or “the law written on our hearts” (taken from the apostle Paul’s writings, particularly his epistle to the Romans), requires humans to seek good and avoid evil by following what God has established through laws of nature and what is

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naturally morally virtuous. Human law, or the application of natural law to particular communities, mandates that civil authorities cannot introduce legislation that will violate the natural moral law. Thomas Aquinas opposes artificial birth control because it violates the moral character of all three of these interrelated laws. Artificial acts betray the basic rational, natural, and virtuous character of being human. Modern Theological Views: Humanae Vitae In 1930 at the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Church declared that the use of artificial birth control by married persons constituted a valid theological and moral approach to family planning. The Catholic Church continued its stance, and rejected proposals to amend tradition and endorse artificial birth control. As mentioned above, the creation of the highly effective birth control pill in the 1950s and 1960s stimulated opposition to the Church. In 1963, Pope John XIII began to revisit the Church’s position on birth control; he established an international papal commission to study the different aspects of the birth control debate. When Pope John XIII died, Pope Paul VI expanded the commission to include doctors and research scientists, demographers, theologians and bishops, and married couples. The majority of the members on the commission concluded “it is impossible to determine exhaustively by a general judgment and ahead of time for each individual what these objective criteria will demand in the concrete situations of a couple” (cited in John Mahoney 1987, 266). Would the Church revise tradition and find artificial birth control to be morally permissible? On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI responded with his encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, discussing the right and moral ordering of reproduction. The Pope reiterates the Church’s position that artificial birth control is immoral and detrimental to a loving marriage. He insists that each and every act of marital intercourse must be open to the transmission of life. He constructs his argument around several key concepts and norms. The first term is conjugal love, which the Pope holds must be fully human (of the senses and of the spirit at the same time), a total self-gift (it is a very special form of personal friendship, where husband and wife share everything), faithful and exclusive until death, and fecund (for it is not exhausted by the communion between husband and wife, but it is destined to continue, raising up new lives). The fecundity of conjugal love simply symbolically refers back to Augustine’s claim about the inseparability of the unitive and procreative aspects. Artificial contraception severs them and imposes a (literal and figurative) barrier that prevents total self-gift. Another central term is responsible parenthood. Pope Paul VI contends that responsible parenthood means that knowledge and respect of biological functions and their importance for being human exist. Responsible parenthood also means understanding the consequences of these functions with respect to the creation child; that is, if a couple faces challenging physical, economic, psychological, and social conditions, responsible parenthood means the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or the decision to avoid for the time being a new birth.

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Finally, responsible parenthood “also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the objective moral order established by God” (Pope Paul VI 1968). In advocating that humans must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, Pope Paul VI follows Aquinas’s assertion that humans cannot artificially manipulate natural processes, and violate the natural moral law. Pope Paul VI recommends that couples can pursue family planning in and through natural family planning, or the rhythm method. Natural family planning occurs when couples engage in sexual intercourse only during the infertile periods of a woman’s cycle: “the Church teaches then that it is licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the earlier moral principles” (Pope Paul VI 1968). Moreover, the Church argues that any other (artificial) method of family planning has grave social consequences. Pope Paul VI proclaims that the widespread use of artificial birth control in society will result in the loss of respect for women (who will be reduced to instruments of selfish enjoyment), and the loss of respect for the human organism and its functions. Artificial birth control will additionally result in the lowering of moral standards in society; hence, the Pope warns public authorities: “Do not allow the morality of your peoples to be downgraded; do not permit that by legal means practices contrary to the natural and divine law be introduced into that fundamental cell, the family” (Pope Paul VI 1968). Reactions to Humanae Vitae The reaction to Humanae Vitae among Catholic theologians and lay persons has been mixed. Some theologians were critical of the Pope’s insistence on authority and hierarchy: “The painful experience of the reactions to Humanae Vitae in the Church as a whole points, rather, to the need for more thorough consideration and broadening of the sources of consultation and co-responsibility in the Church” (Mahoney 1987, 278). Some theologians left the Church because they felt that Humanae Vitae signaled a regression in the progressive Church teaching after the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Other theologians have argued that the moral reasoning behind the Church’s argument does not correlate with lived experience. For example, theological ethicist Lisa Sowle Cahill argues that the Church’s position regarding the openness to the transmission of life and conjugal love as total self-gift is unrealistic: “The idea that each act is total self-gift depends upon a very romanticized depiction of sex, and even of marital love . . . because in the ideal of circumstances, human beings rarely if ever accomplish ‘total self-gift’ ” (Cahill 1996, 203). Rather than focus exclusively on the rightness or wrongness of the act itself, Cahill maintains that we must evaluate the context (e.g., economic and political conditions (particularly in developing countries), the status of the spousal relationship, familial and communal relationships) in which the act is performed, to arrive at a moral judgment. She therefore holds that the use of artificial birth control can be justified because it enables women to become equal partners in determining the regulation of new births. Cahill envisions artificial birth control as a possible means for liberating women from

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mere procreative agents, and thereby establishing social justice. She concludes: “Considerations of personal, marital, familial, and social justice will be more important in determining times and means of fertility regulation than a truncated version of their human context, as a reproductive structure” (Cahill 1996, 211). Other thinkers have refuted natural family planning as either being highly ineffective (resulting in a very large family), or incompatible with the human expression of love through sexual contact. Other theologians continue to defend the Church’s position on the use of artificial birth control. William E. May, for example, worries that artificial birth control encourages the “culture of death” (May 2001). He argues that artificial birth control creates a dual anthropology between the personal and the biological, whereby “biological fertility is . . . a lesser good—a good for the person (something like a coat), not a good of the person” (May 2001, 183). In this way, artificial birth control risks falsifying conjugal love, and denying the importance of responsible parenthood. May also worries that any children conceived, despite the use of artificial birth control, will be “unwanted,” raising concerns about abortion. He defends natural family planning, and insists that artificial birth control hinders the construction of a moral civilization: “And the only way to build a civilization is to respect both the life-giving (unitive) and life-giving meanings of human sexuality and marriage” (May 2001, 196). Pope John Paul II upheld the perspective of Pope Paul VI, and refuted the morality of artificial birth control. Cognizant of contemporary demographic and geopolitical challenges, Pope John Paul II criticized those who justify artificial birth control: “They too are haunted by the current demographic growth, and fear that the most prolific and poorest peoples represent a threat for the well-being and peace of their own countries. Consequently, rather than wishing to face and solve these serious problems with respect for the dignity of individuals and families and for every person’s inviolable right to life, they prefer to promote and impose by whatever means a massive programme of birth control” (Pope John Paul II 1995). The pope admonishes individuals not to relinquish responsibility and giftedness in favor of technological efficiency and convenience; he argues that the mindset of convenience inevitably pushes those who use contraception to contemplate abortion: “But the negative values inherent in the ‘contraceptive mentality’—which is very different from responsible parenthood, lived in respect for the full truth of the conjugal act—are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived” (Pope John Paul II 1995). See also Abortion; AIDS; Female Subordination in Christian Thought. Further Reading: Cahill, Lisa Sowle. Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics. New Studies in Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Callahan, Daniel, ed. The Catholic Case for Contraception. New York: MacMillan, 1969; Critchlow, Donald T. Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; Davis, Tom. Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and Its Clergy Alliances. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005; Maguire, Daniel C. Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten

Birth Control and Family Planning | World Religions. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001; Mahoney, John, S. J. The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Paperbacks, 1987; May, William E. “Contraception and the Culture of Death.” In Marriage and the Common Good, ed. Kenneth Whitehead. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001; McFarlane, Deborah, and Kenneth Meier. The Politics of Fertility Control: Family Planning and Abortion Policies in the American States. New York: Chatham House Publishers, 2001; Moskowitz, Ellen, and Bruce Jennings, eds. Coerced Contraception?: Moral and Policy Challenges of Long-Acting Birth Control. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996; Pope John Paul II. “Evangelium Vitae.” 1995. Available at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_ 25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html; Pope Paul VI. “Humanae Vitae.” Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1968; Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal (Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation.” 1987. Available at: http://www.vatican.va/romacuria/congrega tions/offaithdocuments/rc_con_cfaith.doc_19870222_respectofhumanlife_en.html; Schoen, Johanna. Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005; Smith, Janet E. Why Humanae Vitae Was Right. Foreword by John Cardinal O’Connor. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993; Tone, Andrea. Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.

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C CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Advocates of the death penalty assert that the state has the right to take the life of offenders whose crimes are very serious, and that executions deter future crimes, whereas opponents of the death penalty argue that offenders have a basic right to life, executions are “cruel and unusual punishment” and racially biased, and that alternative means of confinement are more justified. Debates on capital punishment cross political and religious lines and have generated significant legal disagreement. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The earliest ancient historical codifications of laws, including the ancient Babylonian “Code of Hammurabi” (2000 b.c.), the ancient Hittite Code (1300 b.c.), Draconian Greek Code (650 b.c.), and the Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets (450 b.c.), all contained provisions for the death penalty. Methods of execution included harsh techniques (that inflicted extraordinary pain and suffering for a variety of crimes), and continued during the Middle Ages and early modern periods. Early modern European practices, particularly those codified in British law, influenced the practices of the newly established American colonies. The first execution occurred in 1608, and colonies consistently applied the death sentence (even if laws pertaining to its use varied among colonies) on religious, political, and legal grounds. Colonies continued use of such penalties even as abolitionist movements began in America, spurred by Enlightenment thinkers, early criminal theorists such as Cesare Beccaria, and religious groups such as the Quakers. Such influences effectuated shifts in perspectives with respect to 77

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GEORGE RYAN’S DILEMMA George Ryan was part of the Illinois legislature that voted to reinstate its death penalty in 1977. He believed that the death penalty was consistent with the objectives of the state to preserve order, punish the wicked, and protect the innocent. Yet, years later when he became governor, he had the direct responsibility of enforcing this penalty. In his first 11 months in office, four men were freed from death row after being cleared by the courts. One case involved Anthony Porter, who had spent 15 years on death row, before Northwestern University journalism students discovered evidence that exonerated him. Additional cases emerged, and Governor Ryan eventually confronted the fact that, since the reinstitution of its death penalty, Illinois had executed 12 inmates and freed 13 wrongly accused prisoners on death row. He therefore reckoned the decision about the death penalty as tantamount to “flipping a coin” that failed to ensure that an innocent person would not be put to death. On January 11, 2003, Governor Ryan therefore commuted the sentences of 167 death row inmates, and placed a total moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois. He established a commission that studied the possible factors underlying the potential miscarriages of justice. Among its findings, the commission pointed to insufficient state funds for DNA laboratories and databases that might minimize erroneous convictions. The commission also noted challenges to fairness in the form of systemic racism. The moratorium continues today, and many argue that it should be extended on a federal level.

the death penalty (e.g., diminished scope of applicable death sentence crimes, reexamination of mandatory death sentences, and, by the mid-nineteenth century, total abolishment by some states such as Rhode Island and Wisconsin). In the early twentieth century, interest in the death penalty was galvanized because of economic conditions (the Great Depression), political uncertainties (World War I), and the emergence of criminology. In the 1950s and 1960s, the popularity of the death penalty waned, but debates in subsequent decades focused on the legal, social, ethical, and theological dimensions. THE CURRENT SITUATION: THE NUMBERS AND THEORIES Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, over one thousand persons have been executed. The September 11, 2001, attacks, and the subsequent war on terror, have reignited the debate regarding the right to take a life. Some hold that the death penalty should be reserved for the exceptional cases (e.g., Osama bin Laden or Timothy McVeigh); some hold that the death penalty must be undertaken with a consistent and firm hand to protect public safety; and others hold that the death penalty is never justified, and must therefore be abolished. President George W. Bush, the former governor of Texas who oversaw over one hundred executions during his governorship, maintains the second position; that justice and security can be accommodated through the death penalty. States disagree as to the efficacy of this position. Currently, states

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such as Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Vermont do not have death penalty provisions within their state laws; states such as New Jersey and New York have such provisions but have not executed anyone since 1976 (though there were over one thousand executions in New York between 1608 and 1976). Thirty-eight states have some form of death penalty law. The majority of executions occur in the South, with Texas (with by far the highest number), Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida, and North Carolina among the states with the most aggregate executions. In terms of the international response to the death penalty, many countries in the Westernized, “developed” world (e.g., Western Europe) rescinded death penalty sentences decades or centuries ago. According to Amnesty International, 129 countries have abolished the death penalty, and 68 countries retain it with a variety of methods and frequency. However, it is estimated that of the over thousand known state executions in 2005, 94 percent occurred in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States (the United States had 60 executions in 2005). Moving from the numbers to the theory behind the death penalty, strategies of punishment typically involve four types: deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. Supporters of the death penalty tend to focus on the former two types: the death penalty deters future crimes and constitutes just (retributive) punishment proportionate with the offense. Focusing on the safety of society, they argue that the decline of violent crimes during the last decade in the United States is attributable, in part, to the deterrent effects of the death penalty. Others caution that these declines reflect longer prison terms (incapacitation) and other methods that are more humane and less expensive (often the appeal process in death sentence cases generates enormous expenses for the state) means of punishment. The justification of the death penalty on the grounds of retributive justice (that a punishment must be deserved according to principles of proportionality, uniformity, and equality) has been advocated by philosophers Immanuel Kant (1724–1824) and G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831). Kant famously stated that if a society were to decide to disband, it would first need to execute its murderers to satisfy justice for both the society and the offender. Contemporary thinkers, such as philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) and Sister Helen Prejean (2005), argue that the death penalty compromises justice because it precludes the possibility of rehabilitation, and therefore disavows the justice that is owed to offenders. In sum, theories of punishment attempt to integrate forms of justice concerned with the rights of victims, the state, and the wider community, and offenders, but they understand these forms of justice differently. These different emphases help explain some of the divergent philosophical views vis-à-vis the legitimacy of the death penalty. These philosophical questions give rise to questions pertaining to the legal legitimacy. LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS: IS THE DEATH PENALTY CONSTITUTIONAL? Over the last 35 years, there have been a number of significant court cases pertaining to the death penalty. Questions over the constitutionality of the

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death penalty were scrutinized in Furman v. Georgia (1972). The Supreme Court ruled that use of the death penalty in recent cases amounted to arbitrary impositions that violated Eighth Amendment (1791) protections against cruel and unusual punishment, and Fourteenth Amendment (1868) guarantees of the right to due process. In the wake of the decision, a national moratorium was placed on the death penalty, and states worked to re-write their existing death penalty laws. The moratorium ended when, in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the Court affirmed that proper implementation of death sentences require objective criteria compatible with constitutional provisions. Such criteria (enhanced by new mechanisms such as an automatic appeals process, and the bifurcation of trials into the guilt and the punitive phases) could ensure fairness for offenders, retribution for victims, and safety for the public, but others on the Court countered that such criteria failed on ethical grounds. In the dissenting opinions, Justice Brennan highlighted moral intolerance as the fundamental criterion—“moral concepts require us to hold that the law has progressed to the point where we should declare the punishment of death, like punishments on the rack, the screw and the wheel, is no longer morally tolerable in our civilized society”—and Justice Marshall addressed the problem of public ignorance— “The American people, if they were fully informed as to the purposes of the death penalty, would in my view reject it as morally unacceptable—(Gregg v. Georgia 1976; original emphasis). Later Court decisions would pertain to the unique circumstances surrounding executions, including the offender’s mental status, age, and crimes committed. For example, in Roper v. Simons (2005), the Court overturned its 1989 ruling in Stanford v. Kentucky, and held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid the execution of offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed. Despite a long tradition of legal theorists who argue that law and morality should be separated (e.g., legal positivists such as H.L.A. Hart and Richard Posner), the Court appealed to an ethical framework. In writing the opinion of the Court, Justice Kennedy underscored the necessity of interrelating them: “The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against ‘cruel and unusual punishments’ must be interpreted according to its text, by considering history, tradition, and precedent, and with due regard for its purpose and function in the constitutional design. To implement this framework this Court has established the propriety and affirmed the necessity of referring to ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society’ to determine which punishments are so disproportionate as to be ‘cruel and unusual.’ ” Questions of the applicability of the evolving standards of decency to the execution of those over age 18, sharply divide public debate. Other legal debates focus on the means utilized in carrying out the sentence of death. Currently, 37 states authorize lethal injection, 10 allow electrocution, and five or less states sanction the gas chamber, hanging, or the firing squad (with lethal injection as the standard alternative). On October 5, 2001, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the use of the electric chair on the grounds that it constituted a cruel and unusual punishment. On February 20,

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2004, the Superior Court of New Jersey halted executions and ordered a review of executions by means of lethal injection. Some physicians have insisted that physician participation in lethal injections violates the letter and the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath, whereas others argue that such participation promotes the common good of society. THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS: DEBATING THE DEATH PENALTY Disagreement between Christian theologians and ethicists on the death penalty is based partially on divergent readings of Scripture. Exegetical differences emerge based on the methodological lenses undertaken; for example, some more conservative Christians adopt a literalist approach. Therefore, passages such as Exodus 21:12 (“Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death”) indicate God’s clear affirmation of the death penalty. Other Christians argue that a better reading of the Bible is one that discloses overarching themes—such as forgiveness, love of neighbor and enemy, and redemption—and these are not compatible with the death penalty. In addition to these methodological debates, an equally significant conversation concerns the nature and character of God as a God of justice or a God of mercy. These two notions are not antithetical, but emphasis on one aspect over the other can undergird support or rejection of the death penalty. Those who emphasize a God of justice, point to passages such as Exodus 21:23–25 (“If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, strip for stripe), which views the death penalty not as revenge, but as in accordance with the just laws given by God. Romans 13:1–7, embraced by theologians such as Martin Luther (1483–1546), further endorses the death penalty: the state is the servant of God who is “to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.” As Luther interprets this passage, the task of the state is to preserve order by restraining and punishing the wicked, and protecting the innocent. By contrast, those who privilege the God of mercy suggest that God’s love and forgiveness are exemplified in passages such as Genesis 4:15, where God commuted a death sentence (“And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him”), and the spirit of Matthew 5:38–48 (Jesus teaches turning the other cheek, forgiveness, and love of enemies). Careful comparison of these passages and many others raise difficult questions regarding God’s action in the world, and human reception of and response to it. In his Summa Theologiae, theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) stipulates that it is lawful to kill human beings as long as they are sinners (as it is never lawful to kill innocent persons), and the execution is carried out by the state. He construes execution in terms of excising a diseased hand from a body to preserve the health of the body. Put differently, he develops an argument from the common good, whereby the execution of murderers is justified on the grounds that it protects the basic values of the community. As entrusted with the care of the common good, persons of rank having public authority can perform these executions. Writing over 700 years later, Pope John Paul II seeks to

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THE PLACE FOR MERCY: CLEMENCY Is there a place for the suspension of a state’s right to execute its prisoners? If so, what are the criteria for granting this suspension in the form of pardons or clemency? According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1976, 229 death row inmates have been granted clemency (including Gov. Ryan’s commuting of all death sentences). Discoveries of new evidence, police corruption, coerced confessions, and other revelations invoking doubt about one’s guilt provide examples where clemency or re-trials are warranted and even demanded. More controversial examples can be found in executive prerogative or the voices of victims. In 1986, New Mexico Governor Tony Anaya commutated the death sentences of five death row inmates because he himself opposed the death penalty. Did such action promote justice (by sparing their lives and giving them life imprisonment), or did it impose arbitrariness on justice (by reversing the rule of law)? Another difficult case study can be found in the Matthew Sheppard trial. Sheppard was beaten to death primarily because of his sexual orientation, yet his parents did not seek the death penalty, and worked with prosecutors to secure life-imprisonment. Other families of victims have lobbied intensely for prosecutors to pursue the death penalty when their loved ones are killed. To what extent should families contribute to these criminal justice processes? Is there a place for both justice, in the form of retribution, and clemency, in the form of mercy? The answers to the questions lie at the heart of the death penalty debate.

protect the individual dignity of the offender, as well as to defend public order. In his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) (1995), he develops a consistent ethic of life that refutes anything opposed to life, particularly innocent life. Does capital punishment violate this ethic of life? The Pope develops the tradition by defending the death penalty, but only “in cases of extreme necessity—cases when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society” and, the Pope adds, such cases are “very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” In subsequent years, Pope John Paul II (reiterated elsewhere by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) appealed for a consensus to end the death penalty. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS Those who argue for abolishment of the death penalty in the United States frequently point to two factors pertaining to race and class. In terms of race, there are a disproportionate number of African Americans on death row (as they are in the general prison population as a whole). Moreover, additional studies reveal that the race of the victim can significantly influence the decision to pursue the death penalty, particularly in cases where a white person is killed in the South. Some argue that these statistics represent lingering racial prejudices, and systemic inequalities that perpetuate injustices, whereas others hold that the statistics reflect less racial biases than the unfortunate life-situations of many

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marginalized persons. In terms of class, the adequacy of legal representation can be the decisive factor between a death sentence, a negotiated settlement, or even innocence. Court-appointed attorneys and public defenders can offer suitable legal counsel, but they are commonly underpaid and inexperienced and may, in part, account for the disproportionate number of lower income individuals on death row. The expansion of legal clinics and pro bono work among experienced lawyers might help redress some of these challenges. The Death Penalty debate involves both philosophical differences (especially different ideas of the goals of punishment, prison, and the justice system), as well as religious differences (including conflicting interpretations of the Bible among Christians). See also Abortion; Jailhouse Conversions; Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence. Further Reading: Banner, Stuart. The Death Penalty: An American History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002; Bedau, Hugo Adam. Killing as Punishment: Reflections on the Death Penalty in America. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004; Brugger, E. Christian. Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003; Death Penalty Information Center. Available at: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org; Hodgkinson, Peter, and William A. Schabas, eds. Capital Punishment: Strategies for Abolition. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Marshall, Christopher D. Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2001; Megivern, James J. The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey. New York: Paulist Press, 1997; Owens, Erik C., John D. Carlson, and Eric P. Elshtain, eds. Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004; Prejean, Sister Helen. The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions. New York: Random House, 2005; Sarat, Austin. Mercy on Trial: What It Means to Stop an Execution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005; Schabas, William A. The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; Stassen, Glen H., ed. Capital Punishment: A Reader. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1998; Taylor, Mark Lewis. The Executed God: The Way of the Cross In Lockdown America. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death. Washington, D.C.: USCCB Publication, 2005.

Jonathan Rothchild CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM Assessing the advantages and disadvantages of capitalism and socialism requires careful consideration of the proper role of the market, the adequacy of workers’ wages, and anthropological dimensions of human freedom, responsibility, and solidarity. While some theologians view capitalism as consistent with God’s ordering of the world, others abrogate capitalism’s focus on individual self-interest. Other theologians refute socialism as a proper alternative because it disavows individual freedom. Others argue that social justice requires some kind of mediation between socialism and capitalism.

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ASSESSING THE MARKET: GOVERNED BY SELFINTEREST OR THE COMMON GOOD? A central disagreement in economic debates (and debates about capitalism and socialism, in particular) surrounds the legitimacy of the market. One debate pertains to the interpretation of Adam Smith (1723–1790). Often viewed as the father of modern capitalism, Smith explains in The Wealth of Nations, basic economic principles such as the division of labor, the laissez-faire mechanisms of the market (including the presence of the so-called invisible hand), and the three factors of production (land, labor, and capital), and their correspondence to three forms of monetary return (rent, wages, and profit) (Smith 1776). Rational choice theorists conceptualizing economic agents as characteristically rationally self-interested have seized upon Smith’s assumptions about human nature to affirm that self-interest sustains market transactions. As Smith famously writes, “It is not from the benevolence of butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We need ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages” (Smith 1776, Book I, Chapter 2). Yet, Smith had also written another text, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which receives less attention, but is equally important in describing the relationship between the market and the ethical motivations for participating in the market. He writes: “And hence it is, that to feel much for others, and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent, affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature” (Smith 1759, Part I, Section I, Chapter V). Which of these two texts of Smith, then, more adequately captures the aspects of human nature and moral motivations for market actions? Neoclassical economics, including figures such as Milton Friedman, promotes a vision of the market that privileges rational self-interest and freedom. Promarket theologians such as Michael Novak affirm freedom as the basis for capitalism. Novak envisions freedom as closely interconnected with creativity and responsibility, where “[t]he world as Adam faced it after the Garden of Eden left humankind in misery and hunger for millennia. Now that the secrets of sustained material progress have been decoded, the responsibility for reducing misery and hunger is no longer God’s but ours” (Novak 1982, 28). Novak and others view capitalism as the mechanism for preserving the political values of liberalism (e.g., equality and order) and the theological values afforded by a providential God. Theologian Sallie McFague argues that such a vision has deleterious ethical and theological consequences. She worries that libertarian and free-market dependence on the market renders God to be a radically transcendent God, which, as in the model of the Deists, severs the connections between God’s transcendence and immanence. Rather than viewing God’s creation as an abundance to be shared by everyone within a broad spectrum of values, neoclassical models view the world as one of material fulfillment: “Neo-classical economics has one value: the monetary fulfillment of individuals provided they compete successfully for the resources” (McFague 2001, 75; original emphasis). Liberation theologians critique capitalist social structures as oppressive because

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they instrumentalize the poor, and serve purposes counter to the kingdom of God. Some refer to liberation theologians as religious socialists, in part, because they appropriate Marxist tools such as class conflict in articulating their theological views. Other theologians such as Paul Tillich (1886–1965), participated in the Religious Socialist movement, which, according to Tillich, adopts a prophetic attitude that critiques all conditioned forms—including religious socialism itself—and embraces a theonomous (and not utopian) vision of the relationship between theology and culture. Tillich worries about capitalism’s emphasis on technical reason and the instrumentalization of persons as things (Tillich 1951). In general, socialism affirms that possessions must be viewed in terms of the collective, and in terms of need (not want). For example, Acts 2:44–45 states: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” Early Christian communities relied on such economic solidarity, and monastic models continued to view material goods in terms of the collective. In undertaking the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, individuals in religious orders could “use” but not “possess” particular material objects. Are these groups then inherently socialist? Must they reject all forms of capitalism? Is there a sense in which God refutes money? Sociologist Max Weber’s analysis of different Protestant groups indicates that theological understandings of God’s working in the world influence one’s labor in the world. More specifically, in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber argued that these groups conceptualized wealth as a sign of divine election; their gratitude toward God helped to stimulate economic production (Weber 1958). Theologian Kathryn Tanner takes another perspective about the relationship between grace and money; she argues that the two can be integrated more fully than in the present capitalistic system. Grounding notions of unconditional giving and noncompetitive economic relations on God’s grace, Tanner re-imagines the present market system to address the public and private aspects of economic exchanges (Tanner 2005). In socialism, the market is not the primary economic agent, but rather the state, which places restrictions on market mechanisms. Different forms of socialism have existed throughout history, including socialist forms of communism. Socialism affirms the dignity of the individual worker, seeks to empower the poor, and confronts exploitation and its resulting inequality. The task, according to Karl Marx, is to effectuate revolution and the transformation of class struggle. Theologians have critiqued Marxism and socialism on the grounds that it disavows the importance of God, the individual, freedom, and harmonious reconciliation. Others suggest that the original principles of socialism, for example, the idea of each according to his or her own needs, have been corrupted in and through the politicization of socialism by Lenin and Stalin. In Quadragesimo Anno (1931), Pope Pius XI castigates two beliefs of communism, notably its “twofold aim: merciless class warfare and the complete abolition of private ownership” (Pope Pius XI 1931, Section III, Part 2). Sixty years later, Pope John Paul II extends further the critique of socialism on

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anthropological grounds: “Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual, is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socioeconomic mechanism” (Pope John Paul II 1991, Section 1, Paragraph 13). If different theologians critique both capitalism and socialism, how can one arrive at a coherent solution? Some theologians have diagnosed the problem as one that requires both the insights of socialism and capitalism. In Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concern), Pope John Paul II (1987) critiques two trends within the world economy: underdevelopment and superdevelopment. The Pope argues that the former model (driven by the lack of meeting basic needs), and the latter model (driven by capitalistic pursuits of wants), are both insufficient. The Pope construes the problem in anthropological terms (being and having) regarding one’s orientation to basic goods: “there are some people—the few who possess much—who do really succeed in ‘being’ because, through a reversal of the hierarchy of values, they are hindered by the cult of ‘having;’ and there are others—the many who have little or nothing—who do not succeed in realizing their basic human vocation because they are deprived of essential goods” (Pope John Paul II 1987, Section IV, Paragraph 28). The Pope does not repudiate ‘having’ as such, but he argues that a proper ordering of goods and one’s relation to them—such that ‘being’ and ‘having’ attain some kind of balance—must underlie social justice. Social justice must attend to the basic material needs of the individual, but these needs must be viewed in terms of social participation, solidarity among all persons, and a value-laden common good.

CORPORATE CRASHES AND GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS The early 2000s witnessed remarkable economic growth, and significant increases in shareholder value and stock prices, but they also will be remembered for egregious corporate greed, manipulation, and failure. The examples of Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Global Crossing, McKesson-HBO Company, and Tenet Healthcare represent corporate giants whose stock plummeted as a result of market forces and mismanagement. Should the corporate executives be held accountable for the devastating losses, particularly in cases where they profited substantially as their own employees lost their retirement savings? Should the government impose strict regulations, or would such regulations alter and inhibit the normal functioning of the market? That is, should a more capitalistic approach let the market determine such actions; or, should a more socialistic approach let the government determine such actions? On July 25, 2002, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which expanded the procedures for corporate governance. Those in opposition to the act (and further regulation) argue the act has increased corporate spending by billions without solving the problem of corruption. Theologians such as Michael Novak worry that regulation vitiates the freedom, spirit, and integrity of the corporation. Others in support of the act, hold that increased corporate governance will work to ensure that market mechanisms cannot result in financial collapses.

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LABOR POLITICS: MINIMUM WAGE DEBATES An important practical case study is the minimum wage debate. A primary question pertains to the individual dimensions (does the wage function to protect workers or does it provide inadequate compensation?) and social dimensions (does the wage function to reduce the overall costs of goods and services or does it amount to an exploitation of workers?). In July 2007, Congress enacted laws that changed the federal minimum wage to $5.85 per hour, and stipulated that minimum would increase to $6.55 in July 2008, and to $7.25 in July 2009. Supporters heralded the legislation as a necessary provision to increased costs of living (e.g., rent, gasoline prices, and health insurance) that had been neglected during the previous decade (1997–2007) when the minimum wage remained static at $5.15. Opponents worried that the elevation of the wage (and subsequent increases) would produce deleterious economic consequences (ranging from price pressures on basic goods and services to widespread layoffs). They argue that it is the personal responsibility of the individual worker to acquire the necessary education and training to qualify for positions that earn higher wages. Various cities, such as San Francisco and Santa Fe, New Mexico, have created “living wages” in response to high costs of living. In some cases, such as Chicago, large corporations have threatened to move store locations if the city mandated higher wages. Theological voices have been active in the minimum wage debate. Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labor), addressed the issues of adequate wages, child labor laws, and safe working conditions. In the 1890s, priests began to support the labor unions and workers’ strikes. Protestants such as Henry Ward Beecher, Dwight Moody, and Mary Becker Eddy also lent significant support to the labor movement. Such support served as the foundation for emerging social reforms. Later popes posit that wage levels must reflect the requirements of the common good. In Quadragesimo Anno (1931), Pope Pius XI cautions: “To lower or raise wages unduly, with a view to private profit, and with no consideration for the common good, is contrary to social justice” (Pope Pius XI 1931, Section II, Part 4). Another prominent advocate of fair wages was John Ryan (1869–1945), a Catholic priest and an economist. Striving to integrate moral and economic principles, and a commitment to social doctrine to action and progressive reform; he served as the head of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Council. In his two main writings, A Living Wage (1906) and Distributive Justice (1916), he argued wages must be construed in terms of living wages. For example, in Distributive Justice, he rejects a purely need-driven economic system (which he identifies as a canon of Communism), but he insists that “it is valid and indispensable as a partial standard” for a living wage (Ryan 1996, 112). Ryan develops an account of a living wage based upon three fundamental principles of creation: God’s creation of sustenance for all and the equal dignity of all persons in their claims upon creation; the right to access to the earth is conditioned upon the expenditure of useful labor; and those in control of the opportunities to access the earth’s creation must permit reasonable access to persons willing to work.

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Building upon these theological principles, Ryan upholds the necessity of a decent livelihood (where all persons possess the basic materials and goods, including food, shelter, clothing, and family, that enable a life of flourishing and the pursuit of self-perfection) and the ethical value of labor. The latter concept challenges capitalism’s assumptions that wages should be measured purely by market value. By contrast, Ryan contends that wages should be measured according to their ethical value, grounded in an extrinsic ethical principle: “such an extrinsic principle is found in the proposition that the personal dignity of the laborer entitles him to a wage adequate to a decent livelihood; therefore, the ethical value of labor is always equivalent to at least a living wage, and the employer is morally bound to give this much remuneration” (Ryan 1996, 119). Ryan proposes a practical mechanism for implementing these theories and achieving this living wage. Appropriating the family allowance system from the models of France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany (and thus extending further his commitment to the mediation of socialism and capitalism). Among its provisions, the family allowance system mandates addition wages for workers with children: “At the birth of each child, the wage of the father is increased and the total amount of extra compensation is determined by the number of children who are below the fixed maximum age” (Ryan 1996, 123). See also Bible and Poverty. Further Reading: Bayer, Richard. Capitalism and Christianity: The Possibility of Christian Personalism. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1999; Childs, James M. Greed: Economics and Ethics in Conflict. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000; De Vries, Barend A. Champions of the Poor: The Economic Consequences of Judeo-Christian Values. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998; Holland, Joe. Modern Catholic Social Teaching: The Popes Confront the Industrial Age, 1740–1958. New York: Paulist Press, 2003; Long, D. Stephen. Divine Economy: Theology and the Market. London: Routledge, 2000; Massero, Thomas, S. J. Living Justice: Catholic Social Teaching in Action. Lanham, MD: Sheed and Ward, 2000; McFague, Sallie. Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001; Novak, Michael. The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982; Pope John Paul II. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. 1987. Available at: http://www.vati can.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_30121987_sol licitudo_rei_socialis_en.html; Pope John Paul II. Centesimus Anno. 1991. Available at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_ enc_01051991_centesimus_anno_en.html; Ryan, John A. Economic Justice: Selection from Distributive Justice and A Living Wage,ed. Harlan Beckley. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996; Ryan, John A. The Church and Socialism, and Other Essays. Washington, DC: The University Press, 1919; Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. London: Penguin Books, 1986[1776]; Smith, Adam. Theory of the Moral Sentiments. Amherst, NY: Promotheus Books, 2000[1759]; Tanner, Kathyrn. Economy of Grace. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005; Tawney, R. H. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. With a New Introduction by Adam Seligman. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998[1926]; Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology, vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Economic Justice for All. 1986. Available at: www.osjspm.org/economic_justice_for_all.aspx; Weber,

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Jonathan Rothchild

CHRISTIAN ZIONISM Christian Zionism shares many goals with Jewish Zionism. Historically they have both worked steadfastly for the establishment of an independent Jewish state, and been ferocious defenders of Israel. However, Christian Zionism, as opposed to Jewish Zionism, has been motivated by the prophetic expectations of dispensationalism, which anticipated the return of the Jews to Israel as part of the end time drama. To this end, Christian Zionists associate the creation, defense, and expansion of Israel’s territory as a necessary precursor to Christ’s return. The Israeli government has exploited this belief for its own political advancement in the United States, even though the dispensationalist scenario ultimately envisions the mass murder of Jews on an enormous scale. Critics of Christian Zionism question the morality of working for an end that envisions the death of Jews that dwarfs the Holocaust, as well as the tendency of Christian Zionists to blindly support the Israeli government. Critics also question Christian Zionists’ abandonment of Palestinian Christians in the occupied territories, and the possibility that their inflexibility toward a negotiated settlement with Palestinians may ultimately lead to a less secure Israel because of future demographic conditions. INTRODUCTION In 2008 John McCain, Republican nominee for president, announced that he was rejecting the support of Pastor John Hagee. Hagee had said in a sermon that “God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. . . . God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel” (Stein 2008). The inference that Hitler was an agent of God’s will, and that the Holocaust was a part of a divine plan, shocked Americans. McCain quickly distanced himself saying, “I just think that the statement is crazy and unacceptable” (Reston and Silverstein 2008). Yet oddly, days later, Hagee received support from an unusual source. Several prominent Jews defended Hagee’s statement. Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg said Mr. Hagee’s “words were twisted and used to attack him for being anti-Semitic.” Scheinberg defended Hagee, saying he had “interpreted a biblical verse in a way not very different from several legitimate Jewish authorities. Viewing Hitler as acting completely outside of God’s plan is to suggest that God was powerless to stop the Holocaust, a position quite unacceptable to any religious Jew or Christian” (Duin 2008). Such a strong defense might seem mysterious to the uninitiated, for both Jewish Zionists and Christian Zionists the connections are clear: Christian Zionism’s steadfast support for Israel is grounded in the logic of

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dispensationalism, and the relationship between Jewish Zionism and Christian Zionism. By understanding the connections within these seemingly disparate groups, Hagee’s words, and his unexpected defender’s comments, are quite ordinary. HISTORY OF ZIONISM An understanding of Jewish Zionism is required to understand Christian Zionism. It is important to recognize that Zionism differs from Christian Zionism. Zionism is a movement that came out of Europe in the nineteenth century. Its most famous founder was Theodore Herzl. Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1886. Herzl rejected the assimilationist aspect of European Judaism, which sought to integrate into European life. Herzl was profoundly influenced by the Dreyfus Affair in which a Jewish officer in France was tried and convicted for spying, even though the charges proved to be baseless. The Dreyfus Affair set off pogroms throughout Europe, and the promise of safety through assimilation of Jews into mainstream European life disappeared. In the wake of the Dreyfus affair, Herzl rejected the notion that Jews could assimilate in Gentile countries, or that small groups of settlers should migrate to Palestine and set up communities. Both these approaches were ultimately failed experiments from Herzl’s perspective. The only approach left, argued Herzl, was to establish a new Jewish homeland. Herzl was optimistic about the possibilities for success. The nations of Europe did not want the Jews anyway, he reasoned, so they would only be too happy to ship them off to somewhere else. The question, of course, was where? Zionism fastened on the ancestral homeland of Palestine as their desired place of residence. The fact that previous European groups that had settled in Palestine had not found a warm welcome from the resident Jews, and that the Ottoman empire that currently controlled the territory was adamantly opposed to Jewish expansion in the area, did not deter most Zionists. Herzl was more realistic seeing that the Turks were intransigent regarding Palestine. He suggested in the 1903 Zionist Congress that it consider Uganda, which was part of the British Empire, and which Britain had signaled it might be willing to make a Jewish state. The resulting uproar among the attendees quickly had Herzl retreating from the suggestion and returning to a position of Palestine as the only acceptable Jewish state. Herzl was a tireless advocate for his cause, moving from capital to capital making his case. He ultimately died an early death at age 44. Timothy P. Weber has noted the various obstacles within the Jewish community that Zionism faced: Socialists objected to the way Zionism drained off Jewish money and energy from their causes. Ultra-orthodox Jews preferred to wait for God to reestablish Israel through the coming of the Messiah rather than engage in human schemes for doing so. Assimilated Jews refused to forsake their hard-earned status in European society for what they considered a sentimental dream. . . . Clearly, not all Jews welcomed or accepted Zionism’s dream of a Jewish state. (Weber 2005, 99)

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Thus, while Zionism had its advocates, among many Jews it was a minority position alternately considered fantastic or dangerous. It is perhaps also notable that for Herzl this was not a religiously oriented endeavor. In fact, as noted above, some of his most ardent critics were from the Jewish religious community. But for Herzl, the argument was not about religion, but about the preservation of the Jewish people. Even in his discussion of Palestine, he commends Palestine as an appropriate homeland, not because of religious reasons, but rather because of the positive impact this would have on getting other Jews to join the movement. In fact he specifically rejects all “theocratic” impulses, and affirms religious freedom (belief and disbelief) for all. In the end, his argument centers on a place free from anti-Semitism, rather than on the Abrahamic promise. Things looked more positive for Zionism after the British took control of Palestine from the Turks following World War I. The British had promised to pursue the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Yet after the war, Jewish immigration to Palestine was soon restricted following Arab revolts in the area. Eventually, Britain changed its position again and increased its immigration limits. During the Second World War, Jewish immigration picked up again, but was still restricted. Arab riots and revolts during this period continued to cause problems, and Britain struggled to find some way to deal with the situation, eventually earning the enmity of British Zionists, and resulting in an assassination of a British Lord by the Zionist underground. This act was quickly condemned by the Zionist leadership, and perpetrators and collaborators were turned over to the British. However, the aftermath of World War II, and the horrendous atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust was the final event that catapulted Zionism to the realization of a Jewish state in Palestine. While Zionists contend that eventually, even without the Holocaust, a Jewish homeland would have been established, even they concede that the collective horror the Holocaust engendered shifted world opinion in their favor. And thus, in November 1947, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 181 in which a Jewish homeland was created in Palestine. The resolution was a high-minded document that opted to create two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab, and put Jerusalem under U.N. jurisdiction. It was shortly after this, in May 1948, Israel declared its existence as an independent state. The path of Zionism had now hit its most notable success. Of course the path would not be simple; Israel as a state would endure several wars for its existence that in the end would increase its territorial holdings. With the significant increase in land taken in the 1967 Six Day War, a new form of Zionism came to prominence: Religious Zionism. Religious Zionism undoubtedly had played a part in the Zionist longings of many advocates, even if spokespeople like Herzl avoided it. But after the 1967 war, Israel controlled all of Jerusalem, Sinai, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The result of this is that Israel now held the land known in biblical times as Galilee, Judea and Samaria. In May of 1967, Rabbi Z. Y. Kook, shortly before the Six Day War, proclaimed the state of Israel as “the very fulfillment of the messianic ideal, precisely as it was envisioned by the Prophets” (Aran, 268). Israel’s acquisition of the lands of the Bible was therefore justified religiously. The orthodox objection in the beginning

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days of the Zionism that the reestablishment of the land was the duty of the Messiah and could not be usurped by earthly institutions was eliminated, as the state was now ordained to fulfill precisely those messianic duties. Kook then began the first attempts at establishing settlements in the occupied territories, but was not content with the acquisitions of the Six Day War, but instead demanded the “true whole Land of Israel” be obtained. However in 1973, things turned again. After territorial losses in the Yom Kippur War, religious Zionists saw a challenge to their faith. They understood it as a time of God’s testing, and presented themselves as the faithful who would withstand the temptation. They proclaimed an end to the messianic status of the secular state, and proclaimed themselves as the rightful heirs of the Zionist movement. It was then, in 1974, that Gush Emunim (The Block of the Faithful in Israel) was established. It began as a protest movement, but soon became a political force of its own, focused on keeping the land and establishing new settlements in the occupied territories. THE RELATIONSHIP OF EVANGELICALISM TO ZIONISM A cursory understanding of the history of Jewish Zionism is important as a backdrop to Christian Zionism as the two will ultimately join forces in common cause. Christian Zionism, likewise, is committed to the territorial preservation and expansion of the state of Israel. Like Jewish Zionism, it focuses on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and like religious Jewish Zionism it believes that such a Jewish state is the fulfillment of the biblical promise. Yet the history of Christian Zionism is much different, as are some of its base motivations. The history of Christian Zionism begins formally with the teachings of John Nelson Darby. Darby developed Dispensationalism, which argued the Bible divided history into ages or “dispensations.” The first five ages reflected the Hebrew Bible until Christ. The Sixth was the age of the Church, and the Seventh the Millennial Reign of Christ at the end of time. There was a gap between the sixth and seventh dispensations, however, as the Jews failed to recognize Jesus as their messiah. This began what was called “The Great Parenthesis,” a period of time between the sixth and seventh dispensations that would end with the rapture, and the seven-year tribulation culminating in the battle of Armageddon and the return of Christ. The key to dispensationalism’s relationship to Christian Zionism is its rejection of “replacement theology.” Replacement theology held that the Church had become the new Israel, the new chosen people, and that the Jews were thereby no longer relevant for the history of salvation. The prophecies and promises that were given to Judaism were thus transferred to the Church. Dispensationalism denounced such a position. It was, in fact, Judaism’s refusal to accept Jesus as Messiah that opened the great parenthesis, and it would be the Jewish return to the land of Israel, which would signal the impending closure of the great parenthesis. Thus, dispensationalism had a large stake in Zionism from its very inception. The return of Jews to Palestine, and the reconstitution of the state of Israel, was an essential part of the dispensationalist chronology. In 1891, American

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dispensationalist William E. Blackstone called for the restoration of Palestine to the Jews in light of the persecution of Jews by the Czar. He circulated a petition signed by prominent people including senators, congressmen, mayors, and even the chief justice of the Supreme Court. While the Harrison administration disregarded the request, and some Jewish Americans actively opposed it, the petition showed the strength dispensationalism and its Christian Zionist agenda was gaining in the states. History also encouraged Christian Zionists. When Britain took Jerusalem from the Turks and promoted the Balfour Declaration, dispensationalists cheered, as well as Jewish Zionists. Though the actual founding of the state of Israel was further off than dispensationalists expected, dispensationalists were confident that such establishment was only a matter of time. The dispensationalist agenda has several components beyond the creation of a Jewish nation. Dispenationalists were also keen to convert Jews to Christianity. Part of the dispensationalist chronology coupled the Jewish return to Palestine with mass conversions of the Jews. Christian missions were therefore established early on in Palestine after the British took control of the area. This desire to convert the Jews also played in to how dispensationalists viewed the Holocaust. While dispensationalists were initially ambivalent toward Hitler in the early 1930s, when they perceived his attacks not against Jews per se, but against Communists who were also incidentally Jewish, by the late 1930s dispensationalists were clear about Hitler’s anti-Semitic and murderous end. Yet they also understood such persecutions as part of God’s plan, and the pattern God had used in the Old Testament to chasten his people. As with the Babylonians and the Assyrians before them, God was using Hitler to punish the Jews for their lack of faith, though this time it was their lack of faith in Jesus that had provoked God’s wrath. Dispensationalists believed that “the spreading crisis had two unintended consequences: It had made Jews more open than ever to the claims of Christ, and it had increased their longing for a Jewish homeland in Palestine” (Weber 2005, 148). Thus, when Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, it was a cataclysmic triumph for dispensationalists, the vindication of everything they had believed. Though at that time the entirety of the biblical lands had not been acquired, the very establishment of a key point of the dispensationalist chronology represented a tremendous moment of confirmation for the dispensationalists, and a reinforcement of its Christian Zionism. Thus, dispensationalists confidently predicted that it was only a matter of time until Israel expanded its holdings. Such confidence proved merited as the Six Day War increased Israel’s territory to biblical proportions. Though dispensationalists still remained unsatisfied, they expected Israel to encompass the land from the Nile to the Euphrates River, they saw God’s hand clearly at work in both the defense and expansion of the nation of Israel. CURRENT STATE OF CHRISTIAN ZIONISM Since the heyday of Christian Zionism after the Six Day War things have been mixed for Christian Zionism. The 1973 Yom Kippur War ended with

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Israel losing some of the territory captured in 1967. Likewise, the Camp David Accords returned Sinai to Egypt, and removed Israeli settlements from the area. Christian Zionists were disconcerted by both. Hal Lindsey, prominent dispensationalist prophecy writer, predicted that the Camp David Accords would not last. His prophetic ability in this regard was found wanting. From the other end, Israel soon recognized the potential ally in fundamentalists. The Israeli tourism board arranged free trips for Evangelical pastors to the Holy Lands, and taught the clerics how they could conduct tours for their parishioners. Israeli politicians courted major evangelical preachers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Israel understood that evangelicals could be motivated allies for them in the United States, allies who were compelled by an ideology that advocated the strengthening of Israel and allowed for no compromise with its neighbors. Political groups like the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel, Christians for Israel and the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem were established by Christian Zionists to create public pressure in support of Israel. The marriage between Christian Zionism and Israel has been an odd one. Christian Zionists who have historically held that conversion of the Jews was necessary, have often had to give up such notions in order to work with the Israeli government. In fact, several of these organizations explicitly disavow any attempt to missionize in Israel. In contradiction with the position of previous Christian Zionist groups, modern groups have seen fit to leave the conversion of the Jewish people in Israel “to God.” On the other hand, there is a certain amount of cold calculation on the part of Israel as it seeks to exploit its connections with Evangelicals. While it is not necessary that Christian Zionists are dispensationalist (christianzionist.org explicitly rejects the notion that their position is based on “end-times prophecy”), certainly a great majority of Christians interested in biblical prophecy are Christian Zionists precisely because of the role of Israel in the final drama. Still, Israeli leadership seems to discount the predictions of doom and destruction that dispensationalists see in the future for Israel. More recently, things have been far more complicated for Christian Zionists. The moves of the Olmert government, particularly the dismantling of the Amona settlement in the West Bank, have proved difficult for Christian Zionists to support. Additionally, the “Middle East Road Map” propounded in the first term of the Bush administration was seen as giving up far too much. The Road Map called for the removal of even more settlements in the West Bank, as well as the return of land to the Palestinians as part of the two-state solution. Such positions have been denounced by Christian Zionists like Gary Bauer. CRITICISM OF CHRISTIAN ZIONISM While Christian Zionism has a stable list of advocates and organizations in the United States that continue to support its issues and lobby both churches and congress on its behalf, it has not been without critics. Many critics feel that

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the problem with Christian Zionism is that it is far too uncritical of the Israeli government. There is a confusion, claim its critics, that support of Israel equals support for any Israeli government action. As the Israeli government moves towards a negotiated settlement of the contested territories, which will likely include ceding some of those territories, this equivalency between “Israel” and the policies of the Israeli government is breaking down for Christian Zionists. Though when it comes to human rights abuses of Israel in the occupied territories, Christian Zionists most often still support Israel without question. More centrally, however, critics of Christian Zionism argue that the movement is unethical, insofar as its support of Israel is based on dispensationalist prophetic expectations. Gary DeMar and Gary North (both Evangelicals, but not dispensationalists) have argued that it is ultimately morally outrageous that Evangelicals should support Israel, because they see it as hastening the return of Christ when part of that end times scenario is an even greater holocaust of Jews than ever seen before (Demar 2001; North 2000). The dispensationalist chronology promises that Jews in Israel will be massacred by the millions by the Antichrist. That Christian Zionists who believe that this is the ultimate result of their actions continue to work to ensure its eventual occurrence, strikes these critics as demonically Machiavellian. Other critics have pointed out that Christian Zionism abandons those Christians that live in the Occupied Territories. By steadfastly supporting the expansionist policies of Israel, and supporting Israeli oppressive actions in the Palestinian areas, those Palestinian Christians that suffer under such policies are summarily forgotten. While Christians in the Palestinian territories are a minority (and estimates indicate their numbers are declining), they are rarely mentioned in Christian Zionist literature and speeches. Critics charge that Christian Zionists have abandoned their Christian brothers and sisters in the occupied territories because it is not politically (or prophetically) expedient. Finally, its is possible that Christian Zionism’s advocacy for continual Israeli expansion and resistance to a two-state solution might, in the end, have the opposite effect than the Zionists expect by making Israel less secure. The reason Rabin, Sharon, and Olmert have refused to give up the notion of an independent Palestinian state is because they understand the “demographic time bomb” that awaits them if they do not. As of 2006 the combined population of Israel included the occupied territories was roughly 10.5 million people. In terms of demographic proportions 50.3 percent of that population was Jewish and 49.7 percent was Arab. Currently, Palestinian birthrates far exceed Jewish birthrates. At current levels, Arab peoples in Israel and the occupied territories will outnumber Jews in the near future (some estimates put this as early as 2010, others at 2020). This leaves a united Israel two unpalatable choices; they could enfranchise their Arab citizens and then live as a minority in their own country. Or they could proceed to minority rule of a majority population. Neither of these choices is in keeping with the Zionist ideals or democratic traditions of Israel. The Christian Zionist unyielding perspective, then, could lead to an even less stable Israel, as it has to confront the demographic realities that await it.

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See also Genocide; Just War; Right-Wing Extremism. Further Reading: Aran, Gideon. “Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Block of the Faithful (Gosh Emunim). In Fundamentalism Observed, ed. Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991; Bennet, James. “The World: Crossing Jordan; The Exit That Isn’t on Bush’s ‘Road Map.’ ” New York Times, May 18, 2003; Boyer, Paul. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Belknap Press, 1994; Christian-Zionism.org. “Joint Response to ‘The Jerusalem Declaration of Christian Zionism.’ ” Available at: http://www.christian-zionism.org/analy sis_articles_body.asp?Title=Joint+Response+to+%22The+Jerusalem+Declaration+of+ Christian+Zionism%22; DeMar, Gary. End Times Fiction A Biblical Consideration Of The Left Behind Theology. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001; Duin, Julia. “Jews defend Hagee’s words.” The Washington Times, May 24, 2008; Durham, Martin. “Evangelical Protestantism and foreign policy in the United States after September 11.” Patterns of Prejudice 38, no. 2 (June 2004): 145–158. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct =true&db=aph&AN=13133232&site=ehost-live; “A History of Zionism and the Creation of Israel—the Holocaust, the Conflict and the claims of anti-Zionists.” Available at: http://www.zionismontheweb.org/zionism_history.htm; Inbari, Motti. “Fundamentalism in Crisism—The Response of the Gush Emunim Rabbinical Authorities to the Theological Dilemmas Raised by Israel’s Disengagement Plan.” Journal of Church and State 49, no. 4 (Autumn 2007): 697–717. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login. aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=29385380&site=ehost-live; Kershner, Isabel. “Palestinian Christians Look Back on a Year of Troubles.” The New York Times, March 11, 2007. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/world/middleeast/11christians. html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=palestinian+christians&st=nyt&oref=slogin; Leaming, Jeremy. “Middle East Offensive.” Church and State 59, no. 2 (February 2006): 13–14. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=20246431&site=eho st-live; Lindsey, Hal. The Late Great Planet Earth. 22nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972; Middle East Documents Balfour Declaration.” Available at: http://www.mideastweb.org/mebalfour.htm; “Middle East Math.” New York Times, September 12, 2003. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06EFD9103BF 931A2575AC0A9659C8B63&scp=17&sq=palestinian+demographics&st=nyt; North, Gary. 2000. “Gary North: Unnanounced Reason for Evangelical Support of Israel.” July 19, 2000. Available at: http://www.tks.org/GaryNorth.htm; “Population Statistics/ Demographics of Israel-Palestine.” Israeli-Palestinian ProCon.org. Available at: http:// www.israelipalestinianprocon.org/populationpalestine.html#sources6; Reston, Maeve and Stuart Silverstein. “John McCain repudiates pastors’ support.” The Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2008. Available at: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-namccain23–2008may23,0,5141859.story; Rossing, Barbara R. The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in The Book of Revelation. New ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2005; Stein, Sam. “McCain Backer Hagee Said Hitler Was Fulfilling God’s Will (AUDIO)— Politics on The Huffington Post.” Huffington Post, May 21, 2008. Available at: http://www. huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/21/mccain-backer-hagee-said_n_102892.html; “UN General Assembly Resolution 181: Palestine Partition Plan of 1947.” Available at: http://www. mideastweb.org/181.htm; Wagner, Donald. “The Evangelical-Jewish Alliance.” Available at: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2717 (accessed January 2008); Weber, Timothy P. 2005. On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005.

Randall Reed

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CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE When it comes to preserving public order, religion has a good reputation. Political theorists from Niccolo Machiavelli to Karl Marx have noted how religion encourages people to obey the law and submit to authorities. Political leaders have, at various times and places, actually recruited religious groups as immigrants, hoping their habits of industry, thrift, and obedience would spread among the citizenry. But religion has also been the inspiration for some of history’s most dramatic acts of disobedience, where people motivated by their devotion to God have chosen not to comply with the law. Some political leaders have even found themselves being ejected from their positions of power as a result of religiously inspired civil disobedience. People disobey the law for a variety of motives, most of which are outside the focus of this article. Criminal disobedience involves what legal philosophers call mens rea or evil intent (literally, evil mind). Criminal disobedience is thus motivated by a desire to gain something unfairly for oneself, or malice toward someone else. One might also violate a law ignorantly. This is a violation, and might bring punishment on the wrongdoer, since ignorance is no excuse for violating the law, but it isn’t strictly accurate to say the person deliberately disobeyed the law because they weren’t aware of what the law commanded. A third reason for disobeying the law is because the actor is trying to overthrow a regime through violence. This kind of revolutionary disobedience as part of a strategy of warfare is better described as rebellion or civil war. The focus here is on civil disobedience: deliberate refusal to obey the law because the law is seen as commanding something that violates the conscience, or because the regime that enacted the law is considered to be illegitimate. Since one of the purposes of civil disobedience is to highlight the injustice of a law or a regime, generally those who civilly disobey will not attempt to elude arrest, or resist it, and will submit to any punishments meted out by the legal system. This allows the entire impact of the law to be demonstrated as clearly as possible, and steers the confrontation away from violence or civil war. While some who have used violence have sought to describe their actions as civil disobedience, normally the term applies only to nonviolent activity, distinguishing it from terrorism. Civil disobedience is commonly linked with the notion of active nonviolence. RELIGION AND OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW Secular legal philosophers struggle with whether there is an ethical obligation to obey the law. If there is such a duty, on what might it be based? Social contract theory, one of the dominant schools of thought among political ethicists, bases the duty on a mutual obligation undertaken by citizens to support the rule of law in order to avoid anarchy. Utilitarians note the benefits of social agreements and how they contribute to order, but will on occasion find that the harm done by obeying a law outweighs the modest marginal damage done to society by a single instance of disobedience. Kantians might suggest we should obey the law

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in all cases because to disobey the law in one instance invites everyone else to do the same, which would lead to anarchy. On the surface, religion looks a lot like philosophy or ethics, a matter of propositions about truth and duty, and right and wrong. The major religions all have strong propositions describing obedience to law as being the right thing to do, regardless of whether one is going to get caught. The classic example from Christianity comes from the book of Romans in the Bible: Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good; but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. (Romans 13: 1–5) The apostle Paul, the author of Romans, builds his argument on the most fundamental teaching in most religions: God is the Creator and ruler of the earth. Out of love for us, God ordained government to preserve order, and offer the stable environment we need to be able to provide for our futures and our families. Therefore, Paul urges us not to submit so the rulers can do their jobs for our benefit. This part of Paul’s exhortation parallels a social contract approach to law—we obey to support the law’s ability to preserve order, because our neighbors (and the authorities) are counting on us not to act as outlaws. But Paul also suggests that God uses the governing authorities to steer us toward proper behavior. Paul is writing as a Christian, but also as a Jew. His point that government is instituted by God echoes the history of Israel in the Old Testament, where God twice explicitly designed and established government for Israel, first in the Judges model, and then as a monarchy. In the Old Testament, God also used pagan kings and empires as tools to carry out divine punishments against Israel, in essence restoring order when Israel had allowed it to decay. In Islam, the duty to obey the law also draws on the unique history of the faith, in which its founder is also a victorious political leader. From the outset, then, obedience to the civil authority of the Prophet and his successor caliphs is tied to obeying them as religious authorities in a more explicit way than it has been for most of the history of other faiths. In addition, Islam has a special emphasis on the world-wide spiritual community of Moslems, the umma, which is both religious and (at least ideally) political. So breaking the peace of the umma by breaking the law is an affront not only to the physical and economic welfare of the community, but to the ideal spiritual community through which God draws people to the truth.

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The duty to submit to the governing authorities is, therefore, profound. It is not a light duty, but one that applies daily and requires conscientious attention, not only for our own sakes, but because the lives and fortunes of our neighbors depend on it. However, religious faith is more than propositions about what is true and what we ought to do. The devoutly religious person not only believes propositions, she also submits to God, and thus enters a relationship with a person who is sovereign over her. She gives up part, or all of her own autonomy, her own independence and freedom to choose for herself. Islam especially stresses this aspect of faith. The word Islam itself means submission. The convert becomes a Moslem by uttering the shehada, which expresses his commitment to submitting to God. Other faiths also require submission to the will of God, making it a central feature of the devout life. In practice (and often theology), submission to God includes submission to human authorities within the structure of the religion who have the authority to speak for God or instruct about divine truth. Having immersed themselves in the discipline of submitting to another person (God), and often to other humans who are seen as God’s deputies, the devoutly religious person has practiced setting aside his personal will to do the will of someone else. This familiarity with principled submission is helpful to the political leader seeking submission to the state and its laws. When the habit of principled submission is added to the proposition that one ought to obey the law, and when the political leader claims or is given the endorsement of God as a legitimate authority, the predictable result is that most of the adherents of the faith will see the obligation to obey the law as a religious duty. Obeying the law becomes one of the spiritual disciplines the devout person exercises as part of his daily life. RELIGION AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE The believer’s duty to obey the law has buried within it, however, the possibility of civil disobedience. The ultimate duty of a believer is to obey God. If a situation arises in which the commands of the law conflict with the commands of God, the believer may conclude that her duty to the law is not as great as her duty to God. The three major monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam— all have stories of this kind of civil disobedience prominent in their traditions. For example, Jews celebrate the liberation of the nation of Israel from its slavery in Egypt, including refusing to turn back from their journey of exile when the Pharaoh’s army reaches them at the shores of the Red Sea. They also recall the stories of Daniel, and of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refused to worship the Babylonian king; and the revival of the kingdom of Israel by the Maccabees, a rebellion that was started when the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, outlawed Jewish religious practices, and some Jews, including the Maccabee family, refused to comply. The early Christians refused to obey orders not to spread their faith, often leading to their imprisonment or martyrdom. Islam as

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a distinct faith emerges out of a similar refusal by Mohammed to refrain from preaching monotheism in polytheistic Mecca. When the believer finds himself torn between a general duty to obey the law, and the deeper duty to obey God, there are several ways she might resolve the tension. One approach is to view the world as alienated from God, with different rules for the world than for one’s relationship to God. This two-kingdoms approach would limit the full authority of God’s ethical commandments to the believer’s private life, or perhaps to relationships with other believers in the context of the religious community. In public life, the believer might set aside some of the demands of his faith, and adhere instead to the secular standards of his community (including the law). The two-kingdoms believer might justify this by considering God’s commands as ideals to be aspired to, but the world’s rules as part of the practical side of life demanding compromises to get along. Or she might trace the commands of the law back to God’s sovereignty and conclude that it was God’s will, in this case, to fall below the normal divine standard in order to help the government accomplish its role as guarantor of civil order. Under the two-kingdoms approach, the believer has to balance the demands of two different ethical standards: the pragmatic secular standard embodied in the law, and the ideal religious standard embodied in the faith. Another approach is to obey what is seen as the command of God, even though this involves disobeying the human law. Here the believer sees God’s commands as authoritative over all aspects of life, including her public life in the secular world. If there seem to be two kingdoms in life, one religious and one secular, it is only because the secular is in rebellion against the authority of God. To give the secular law priority over God’s commandments is to join the rebellion. Sometimes the authority of the human law is discounted because of some flaw in the lawmaker. The signers of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, most of who were either Christians or Deists, described rebellion against the King of England as their divine duty, stemming from what they saw as the king’s abuses of the colonists’ rights. The Declaration of Independence argues that the American colonies were under no obligation to obey the king’s law because it had become so badly flawed and oppressive that it no longer served its function as a protector of order and justice in the community. While the American Revolution is not considered a case of civil disobedience, for reasons discussed below, it does illustrate one approach to the decision to disobey the law. In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist Christian pastor, went to jail in Birmingham, Alabama for holding illegal demonstrations for civil rights. When criticized by local pastors for this, King wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” defending the decision to violate the law. He argued that the law had less authority over African Americans, since the political system that produced the law systematically excluded them from participating, even from voting. Since the system in Alabama, and elsewhere in the United States, worked deliberately to deprive African Americans of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution, it was illegitimate as to them, and thus not deserving of the fullest respect (King 1964).

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Mohandas Gandhi, a Hindu, could make similar claims about the British law in India during the first decades of the twentieth century. Gandhi considered Britain’s colonial rule in India to be inherently illegitimate as the subjugation of one nation by another. However, Gandhi’s rationale for civil disobedience went beyond the injustice of colonial rule. Gandhi had a Hindu understanding of life as a process of perfection. In political conflict, Gandhi stressed the goal of moving ever closer to Truth in how we structure societies and nations. Civil disobedience against the British law was, for Gandhi, a vehicle for drawing the British and the Indians into a mutual dialogue that would allow both nations to emerge having moved closer to the Truth. This would include justice, self-determination, and proper relationships between the two nations. RELIGIOUS APPROACHES TO CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Among those who choose to disobey the law in order to obey God, there are variations in how disobedience is carried out. Gandhi wanted to conduct India’s campaign for independence in a way that would allow both nations to learn Truth, so the British would not be replaced by a home-grown Indian oppressive regime. This required tactics of civil disobedience that would not only preserve the possibility of dialog with one’s opponents, but might actually bring it about. Gandhi thus ruled out violence against the British on two grounds. First, it would make it harder, or even impossible, for the British to engage in genuine dialog with the independence movement. Unless both sides were willing to listen to, and learn from, each other, the Indian independence movement would not bring about any better understanding of Truth or much improvement in the lives of Indians or British. Second, if the Indians used violence to rid themselves of the British, the experience would change the Indians, making them spiritually more prone to violence and less able to move toward Truth in their political conflicts. In Gandhi’s view, Indian culture was itself plagued by injustices related to caste and poverty. If India’s struggle with the British were violent, it would leave an independent India more susceptible to military rule and dictatorship, more isolated from the British and other potentially helpful allies, and less capable of the kind of robust, democratic political process it would need to overcome its problems. Gandhi’s nonviolence was more than the rejection of lethal force against the British. Because he saw it as a truth-seeking process, he wanted Indian nonviolence to be a tool for sharing truth. The term he coined to describe the process, satyagraha, translates as truth force. Thus, Gandhi aspired to a tactical policy of openness rather than deception, since deception would obscure the truth. He also submitted to the punishments of the British law, despite its illegitimacy in India, as a way of both highlighting the injustice of British rule, and keeping the channels of dialog open with the British. Martin Luther King, Jr. was influenced by Gandhi. But King drew on his Christian faith to recast the goal of civil disobedience. Truth was still an objective, but King stressed building the right kind of relationships between former oppressors

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and those they had oppressed. King saw nonviolent civil disobedience as a tool for building what he called the “beloved community.” King, therefore, also embraced a tactical policy of openness. He also urged his followers to accept suffering without inflicting it, in order to lay the groundwork for reconciliation later. Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Muslim, was one of Gandhi’s closest allies in the Indian independence movement. Khan came to similar conclusions about how a good Muslim should conduct himself when he encounters unjust laws or regimes. He told his followers “I am going to give you such a weapon that the police and the army will not be able to stand against it. It is the weapon of the Prophet, but you are not aware of it. That weapon is patience and righteousness. No power on earth can stand against it” (Easwaran 1985, 15). Khan has inspired other examples of Islamic nonviolence, including the first intifada conducted by Palestinians against Israeli occupation in the late 1980s, and the efforts of the small Muslim Peacemaker Teams organization in Iraq. Jewish tradition from biblical times emphasizes willingness to accept punishment rather than obey laws requiring Jews to worship other gods, or to refrain from essential Jewish religious practices, such as circumcision and observing the Sabbath. Others have taken a primarily pragmatic approach to their religious duty to disobey the law, seeing it as a powerful tool for political ends. For example, the American Christian academic Walter Wink urges an interpretation of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount that transforms disobedience into a clever tactical ploy to embarrass oppressors (Wink 2008). For example, he sees Jesus’s command to “go the extra mile” as a trick, to get a Roman soldier in trouble for making a civilian carry his pack two miles instead of the one mile allowed by Roman law. This approach can easily take the disobedient one away from truth-seeking and community-building, toward trickery and manipulation, which might be in tension with the standard notions of civil disobedience. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Christian pastor who resisted the rise of the Nazis leading up to and during World War II, rejected both pragmatism and the kind of idealistic visions Gandhi, Kahn, and King embraced (Bonhoeffer 1995). He emphasized God’s sovereignty over everything human, including governments, concluding that nothing should be allowed to interfere with the believer’s direct obedience to God. Bonhoeffer agreed that government was God’s tool to maintain public order, and that public order benefited the spread of the Christian gospel, so that the believer’s basic duty was to obey the law. However, in those exceptional cases where God makes it clear to the believer that His will is in conflict with the law, the believer must set aside every other rule of behavior and do what God commands. According to Bonhoeffer (1995), nothing humans create should be allowed to be a barrier to God’s will. For Bonhoeffer, God’s will overrode his prior pacifist convictions that forbade killing, and would presumably override even Gandhi’s preconceived goals of Truth-seeking, or King’s goal of building the beloved community. Every human attempt to summarize God’s will, must give way to God’s will. In his own case, Bonhoeffer’s sense of God’s sovereignty carried him beyond civil disobedience into rebellion, including joining a plot to kill Hitler.

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Bonhoeffer’s insistence upon radical obedience to God’s commands is a possible logical end for all religious ethics that start with the premise of a sovereign God. Most believers, however, temper their absolute duty to obey God with a sense of fallibility, recognizing that they do not perfectly understand God, and sometimes mistake God’s will. There have been enough cases of people committing terrible atrocities in the name of God that most believers are cautious about their own leadings. Thus, it is common for believers to subject possible leadings to a testing process. This might involve seeking confirmation of a leading from a group of fellow believers, such as the Quaker Committee for Clearness. Or the believer might consult a spiritual mentor, as a Moslem might do by seeking a fatwa (a ruling from a recognized spiritual authority). Another way of dealing with the possibility of being mistaken about God’s leading, is to submit to the legal consequences of disobeying a law. Gandhi and King did this regularly, and urged their followers to do the same. Indeed, their insistence upon being open about their plans to disobey the law, and not to resist arrest, was in part because they wanted to submit to the law’s consequences. Even Bonhoeffer acknowledged the necessity of submitting to the judgment of one’s community, not only because he was fallible, but also because he did not have the right to determine for others what God was leading them to do (Bonhoeffer 1995). Bonhoeffer did not always act openly, though. He conducted his plot against Hitler in secret and planted false evidence as an attempt to deceive the Nazis about what he was doing. This may have been motivated by his desire to shield his family from persecution, and his co-conspirators from the death penalty that eventually took his own life. This necessity for secrecy and deceit would presumably have been enough to convince a Gandhi or a King not to join Bonhoeffer’s plot to kill Hitler. Perhaps it would make sense to use that kind of covert behavior as a marker of the boundary between civil disobedience and rebellion. CONCLUSION Religious believers who normally feel a divine duty to obey the law, also may feel led to disobey it on grounds of religious principle or conscience. A history of civil disobedience to the law can be found in many religious traditions, justified on a variety of grounds, but generally stemming from a commitment to obey God as the ultimate sovereign over individuals and nation-states. See also Just War; Sanctuary Movement. Further Reading: Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Ethics. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., Touchstone Edition, 1995; Easwaran, Eknath. A Man to Match His Mountains: Badshah Khan, Soldier of Islam. Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing House, 1985; Erikson, Erik H. Gandhi’s Truth. W. W. Norton, 1993; Golinkin, David. “The Jewish Attitude Towards Non-Violent Protest and Civil Disobedience.” Available at: http://www.judaism.about.com/library/3_ask rabbi_sijs/bl_47_protest.htm (accessed April 15, 2008); Juergensmeyer, Mark. Gandhi’s Way: A Handbook of Conflict Resolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,

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Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in America 2002; King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In Why We Can’t Wait. Signet Classic, 1964: 64–84; Nimer, Mohammed Abu. “Nonviolence in the Islamic Context.” Fellowship of Reconciliation (September/October 2004); Suber, Peter. “Civil Disobedience.” In Philosophy of Law: An Encyclopedia, ed. Christopher Gray. New York: Garland Pub. Co, 1999: 110–113; Thoreau, Henry David. On Civil Disobedience. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998; Wink, Walter. “Beyond Just War and Pacifism: Jesus’ Nonviolent Way.” Available at: http://www.cres.org/star/_wink.htm (accessed April 16, 2008).

Ron Mock CLERGY SEX ABUSE SCANDAL IN AMERICA Beginning in the mid-1980s, a series of court cases began to reveal the extent of sexual abuse committed by clergy in various religious contexts. While the popular press has tended to associate the clergy abuse scandals as a “Catholic” issue, in fact, the problem is widespread in many religious contexts, including non-Christian religions as well. Although the focus here is on the crisis in the American Catholic Church, in 1990, a survey conducted by the Center for Ethics and Social Policy at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, discovered that 10 percent of clergy from across many Protestant Christian denominations that were surveyed said that they had been “sexually active” with an adult parishioner. It is believed that sexual abuse among rabbis approximates to that found in the Protestant clergy. According to one study, 73 percent of women rabbis report instances of sexual harassment. Sadly, an attempt at damage control has kept things quiet. Fear of lawsuits and bad publicity have dictated an atmosphere of hushed voices, and outrage against those who dare to break ranks by speaking out. In the 1990s, information started to become public about sexual abuse of children in Hare Krishna–movement schools of the 1970s and 1980s. As universal as the problem of religious leaders and personnel sexually abusing the faithful is, in America, the problem became most widely known (perhaps unfairly) when it was connected to the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, about four percent of the Catholic clergy that served between 1950 and 2002 sexually molested minors. Statistically, that is about average for the American population in general. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FACES A CRISIS On October 18, 1984, a grand jury in Louisiana returned a 34-count criminal indictment against Gilbert Gauthe (GO-tay), a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Lafayette. The charges included 11 counts of aggravated crimes against nature, 11 counts of committing sexually immoral acts with minors, 11 counts of taking pornographic photographs of juveniles, and a single count of aggravated rape, sodomizing a child under the age of 12. In an arrangement with prosecutors, Gauthe pled guilty to multiple counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and possession of child pornography, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The family of one of the victims

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sued the Diocese of Lafayette and was awarded $1.25 million. It was the first time in history that details of a Catholic priest’s sexual abuse of children was brought to the public’s attention, and it marked the beginning of what became the most horrifying and damaging scandal ever to hit the Catholic Church in America. The year following Gauthe’s conviction, his attorney, Raymond Mouton, along with Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer on the staff of the Vatican’s representative to the United States, and Fr. Michael Peterson, president of St. Luke’s Institute, a resident treatment facility for troubled clergy, prepared a 100page report titled The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy: Meeting the Problem in a Comprehensive and Responsible Manner. The report was presented to the Committee on Research and Pastoral Practices of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/U.S. Catholic Conference (NCCB/USCC). The committee was headed by the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law. Every diocesan bishop in the United States received a copy of the report. After studying the document, the NCCB/USCC committee concluded that the issues raised by the report, and the report’s recommendations, had been adequately addressed by the bishops’ conference, and no further action on the report was taken. The task of responding to allegations of sexual abuse by clergy was therefore left up to the individual dioceses. THE BISHOPS’ RESPONSE For the next 15 years the NCCB/USCC (in 2001 the conference was renamed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or USCCB) continued to study the problem. In 1993 the conference formed the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse to make recommendations to the dioceses. These recommendations included: Dealing Effectively with Priests Who Sexually Abuse Minors and Others The committee sought to assist with diocesan policies, evaluate treatment centers, provide education through topical articles by competent authors, and act as a clearinghouse in related matters. Assisting Victims/Survivors The committee provided articles focused on victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse, along with a special section in the report on diocesan policies, and meets with representatives of various national organizations and with individual victims/survivors. It also developed a 42-page article entitled Responding to Victims-Survivors. Addressing Morale of Bishops and Priests The committee provided focal points to deal with criticism, and presented regular reports to Bishops to help deal effectively with allegations

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of clergy sexual misconduct. It also urged the Committees for Bishops’ Life and Ministry and Priestly Life and Ministry, the National Federation of Priests’ Councils, and the National Organization for Continuing Education of Roman Catholic Clergy to address this concern. Screening Candidates for Ministry Working with the Committee on Priestly Formation and the National Catholic Educational Association, the committee surveyed seminaries on psychological screening and formation of candidates for ordination, focusing on issues of sexuality. Twenty-nine of 36 diocesan seminaries and 24 out of 42 college seminaries responded. They reported varying levels of psychological screening and formation of candidates. The committee proposed specific goals for consideration by the conference. Assisting Bishops in Assessing Possible Reassignment The issue of reassigning offending clergy to non-parish ministry remained unresolved due to canon laws protecting the rights of clergy. (USCCB Office of Media Relations report on the bishops’ efforts to combat clergy sexual abuse against minors, see www.usccb.org/comm/ kit5.shtml). In 1997, a jury awarded 11 plaintiffs $119.6 million in a record judgment against the Diocese of Dallas, Texas. Later that same year, the diocese settled another sexual abuse lawsuit, agreeing to pay five victims $5 million. The following year, the diocese agreed to pay $23.4 million to eight former altar boys, and the family of a ninth, who say they were sexually victimized by a priest, Rudolph Kos, who was subsequently removed from the priesthood by the Vatican and is serving a life sentence in prison. Still, the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal in the United States remained a sleeping giant. THE SCANDAL BREAKS Then, on January 6, 2002, the Boston Globe launched a series of articles on the case of John Geoghan (GAY-jen), a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston who had been accused of molesting 130 children, convicted of fondling a 10-year-old boy, and sent to prison. (While in prison, Geoghan was murdered by another inmate.) The Globe investigation revealed a widespread pattern of sexual abuse by priests that was covered up by archdiocesan officials. The ensuing public uproar resulted in the resignation of Boston’s archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law, the following December. It became evident that despite years of programs, reports, and directives from the USCCB, the archdiocese had done little to respond to complaints of

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clergy sexual abuse. On the contrary, archdiocesan documents made public, and testimony by victims and their families, showed an unwillingness by archdiocesan officials to address the issue of clergy sexual abuse of minors. The report further revealed a pattern of intimidation of victims and their families, and of protection of offending priests. The Pulitzer Prize–winning series sparked a national crisis of epic proportions. In April 2002, Pope John Paul II requested a meeting of all U.S. Cardinals and USCCB officers with Vatican officials in Rome to discuss the situation. In his address to the meeting, the Pope said: The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society; it is also an appalling sin in the eyes of God. To the victims and their families, wherever they may be, I express my profound sense of solidarity and concern. The meeting concluded with a directive from the Vatican that the American bishops prepare a set of national standards and policies for dealing with the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and other church personnel in the United States. THE DALLAS MEETING The following June, The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was adopted by the USCCB at their General Meeting in Dallas, Texas, by a vote of 239–13. The Office of Child and Youth Protection is organized to implement the Charter and a National Review Board (NRB) was formed to monitor the function of the office. At its next General Meeting in November, the USCCB adopted the text of the Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons. At its promulgation the following March, the Essential Norms became particular law, binding on all dioceses in the United States. At the same time, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York was commissioned to embark on a descriptive study of the nature and scope of the problem of sexual abuse of minors by clergy within the Catholic Church in the United States. All diocesan bishops were directed to cooperate fully with the study. THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM In February 2004, the National Review Board (NRB) released A Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States. The NRB report was combined with the findings of the John Jay College report entitled The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States. The John Jay study found that between 1950 and 2002, 10,667 individuals made allegations of sexual abuse against 4,392 priests, roughly four percent of the 109,694 priests serving during those

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52 years. During that time, approximately 3,300 allegations were not investigated because the accused clergymen were dead, and another 1,000 or so claims proved to be unsubstantiated. The report estimates that the total cost to the church for payment to victims, for their treatment and the treatment of priests, and legal expenses for defending lawsuits, exceeded $533 million. The study also found that more abuse occurred in the 1970s than any other decade, peaking in 1980, and that approximately one-third of all cases were reported in 2002–2003, and two-thirds have been reported since 1993. Prior to 1993, only one-third of cases were known to the church officials. The ages of the victims vary widely: 27.3 percent were between ages 15 and 17; 50.9 percent were between the ages 11 and 14; 16 percent were between ages 8 and 10; and 5.8 percent were under age 7. Of the victims, 81 percent were male and 19 percent female. It was found that 149 priests caused 27 percent of allegations. More than half of the accused priests had only one victim, while 3.5 percent of the priests were accused by more than 10 victims. The following are some highlights of the National Review Board report. • There were inadequate screening procedures by dioceses and seminaries to weed out candidates unfit for the priesthood. • There was inadequate seminary formation in the area of celibacy and sexuality. • There is need of further study concerning the sexual orientation of priests, since 81 percent of the abuse was same-sex in nature. • There is need of further study concerning celibacy, since the instances of sexual abuse reveal a malformation of human sexuality. • There are special issues of spiritual life for bishops and priests, since both the acts of abuse by priests and the failure of bishops to put an end to it were “grievously sinful.” Additionally, the report found that for many bishops, their responses to allegations of abuse “were characterized by moral laxity, excessive leniency, insensitivity, secrecy and neglect.” Among issues it cited regarding the bishops were: • A failure to understand the nature and scope of the abuse and the harm it caused. • A failure to respond adequately to victims, both pastorally and legally. • Making unwarranted presumptions in favor of the priest when assessing allegations. • A culture of clericalism that sought to protect the accused priest. • Aspects of church law that made it difficult to assess criminal penalties even when it was clear the priest had violated the law. • A culture of leniency that failed to recognize the horror of the abuse and the need to condemn it. • An emphasis on secrecy and avoidance of scandal “at all costs.”

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• Failure to report actions that were civil crimes to civil authorities. • Overreliance on corrective therapy, depending on psychologists and psychiatrists to “cure” offenders and make them fit to return to ministry. • Overreliance on attorneys, treating allegations as primarily legal problems rather than problems of pastoral and moral concern. The report acknowledged that some bishops were aware of the serious nature of the problem early on, and spent years trying to convince authorities to change church law so abusers could be taken out of ministry and dealt with more effectively. The study also said that bishops were often ill-served by the therapists and lawyers they depended on for guidance. The report drew particular attention to the bishops that protected abusers, and was very critical of those bishops that failed to act on behalf of victims. Such bishops, the report states, were guilty of neglect and insensitivity toward victims. They not only allowed the abuse to continue, they also spread the abuse and multiplied the number of victims by reassigning molesters to new and unsuspecting parishes. DEVELOPING SAFE ENVIRONMENTS With the publication of The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, 194 out of 195 dioceses and archdioceses in the United States enacted Safe Environment programs designed to prevent further sexual abuse of children. All clergy, religious, and lay church workers, school teachers, and volunteers must submit to fingerprinting and background checks by the FBI and the Department of Justice. Safe Environment classes and workshops are made mandatory for all clergy and lay diocesan, parish, and school personnel. All diocesan and parish personnel must undergo instruction in Mandated Reporting, the legal responsibility of reporting to police any suspicion of sexual abuse of children. Pastoral settings must provide for adequate supervision of adults with children. No adult, clergy or lay, can be left alone or out of sight of another responsible adult while meeting with children. Children must be taught the dangers of sexual abuse by adults, and how to recognize inappropriate behavior by adults. All adults, and especially parents, need to learn how to listen to their children, and recognize the signs that a child is being sexually abused. DEVELOPMENTS AFTER 2002 In 2003 the Archdiocese of Boston paid $85 million to 552 people who claimed sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. In 2004, the Diocese of Orange in California settled 90 abuse claims for $100 million. In November of 2004, the USCCB established a data collection procedure, whereby dioceses make annual reports regarding allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests and deacons, and the costs associated with the abuse. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University was given responsibility for compiling and reporting the data.

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According to the CARA reports, there were 898 new allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy in 2004, 695 new allegations in 2005, and 635 new allegations against 394 priests or deacons in 2006, in 193 of the 195 dioceses in the United States. (Two dioceses refused to participate in the survey.) About 70 percent of the reported incidents of sexual abuse occurred between 1960 and 1984. About 70 percent of the accused offenders were either deceased, had already been removed from ministry, or had left the priesthood altogether. About 60 percent of the priests or deacons named in 2006 had already been accused in previous cases. About 55 percent of the allegations were reported by the victim, according to CARA, and about 80 percent of the victims were males. In 2006, dioceses in the United States paid out more than $220 million in settlements to victims. In addition, another $180 million was spent for therapy, support, and legal fees. That compares to a $466.9 million total in 2005. Dioceses also spent over $25 million implementing the prevention and protection programs initiated by the Charter. On July 16, 2007, a judge approved a $660 million settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and more than 500 alleged victims of clergy abuse. The deal came after more than five years of negotiations, and is by far the largest payout by any diocese since the clergy abuse scandal began. The archdiocese also paid $60 million the previous year to settle 45 cases that weren’t covered by sexual abuse insurance. Before that, the archdiocese, its insurers and various Roman Catholic orders had paid more than $114 million to settle 86 claims. In the following years, six Catholic dioceses declare bankruptcy due to the enormous financial burdens of the settlements. They are: Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Davenport, Iowa; San Diego, California; and Fairbanks, Alaska. IS THIS LARGELY A “CATHOLIC PROBLEM”? The crisis gave rise to considerable controversies and questions. For example, many asked whether priests were “more likely to be pedophiles than non-clergy.” The term pedophile has been used to describe priests accused of sexually abusing children. The American Psychiatric Association defines a pedophile as a person who has intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children. A prepubescent child is generally considered to be under age 13. But in legal terms, the age of a prepubescent child can be hard to determine. The onset of pubescence, or the development of the secondary sexual characteristics that distinguish gender—that is, facial hair and the deepening of voice in males, breasts and the widening of hips in females—varies among individuals. Because of this, courts generally set the age below which an accuser may be considered the victim of a pedophile at 11 years. Statistics show that only 20 percent of clergy abusers can be accurately described as pedophiles, while the majority has been accused of abusing victims that are younger adolescents.

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Why Do Priests Sexually Abuse Minors? In 1972, and again in 1977, studies by the NCCB/USCC found that more than half of all Catholic priests in the United States were underdeveloped emotionally, and that eight percent were psychosexually maladjusted. It has been suggested by some researchers that this is due in part to the past practice of recruiting boys into training for the priesthood at an age when they have not yet begun their psychosexual development. At these predeveloping and developing ages, boys perceive the discipline of celibacy simply in terms of avoiding all thoughts, words, and deeds of a sexual nature. Lacking the opportunities for social and emotional development in these areas, boys can grow into adulthood without the psychological tools needed to function normally in society. Their development can be frozen or fixated at a very early age, so that while they may be chronologically adults, they might still be children emotionally. Therefore, since they lack the ability to control sexual urges when they normally arise, those urges may be directed toward individuals that correspond to the levels of their development. In other words, they may direct their sexual urges toward children and adolescents. Why Were the Victims Mostly Boys? It has been suggested by some, most notably Vatican officials, that the problem is largely due to homosexuals in the priesthood. While that may be true, two factors must be considered. The first is that pedophiles, adults who are sexually attracted to prepubescent children, are not necessarily gender specific in their orientation. In other words, pedophiles are not attracted to males or females, but rather to children that are not yet sexually differentiated. Second, in the Catholic culture of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, priests generally had unrestricted access to boys and adolescent males. Girls were not permitted to be altar servers, and in most cases boys and girls were segregated in Catholic school classrooms, and in many parish activities. Catholic parents generally perceived the attentions of priests toward their sons as a good thing. On the other hand, priests who sought the company of girls were regarded with suspicion. Additionally, priests were expected to encourage vocations to the priesthood, and their close association with boys in the parish was considered normal. This allowed much greater freedom for predator priests to target males. Why Wasn’t the Abuse Reported by Church Officials? Since the Council of Trent some 400 years ago, the discipline of priestly celibacy had been rigorously enforced. Additionally, bishops were bound by church law to maintain strict secrecy when it came to violations of celibacy. All records of misbehavior by clergy were kept in confidential files, and officials were obliged not to reveal anything that might cause scandal. Any sexual misbehavior by priests was considered a violation of celibacy. When credible allegations of sexual abuse did arise, offending priests were ordered to cease the behavior. In many instances, the offending priest was

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transferred to another parish where the sexual abuse continued. When it was determined that a priest had an ongoing problem, he was often sent to a treatment facility where he underwent therapy to resolve the problem. After a period of time, it was determined that the offending priest was no longer a threat to children, and he was returned to parish ministry. At the time, church law would have made it extremely difficult for a bishop to remove a priest from active ministry. Why Did Bishops Allow the Abuse to Continue? In some cases, bishops were simply negligent. It has been suggested by some researchers that many bishops lacked the expertise to properly evaluate the suitability of their priests to work safely with children. These bishops relied on the advice and counsel of experts, that in many cases was unreliable. Additionally, it has been suggested that the culture of bishops effectively distanced them from any awareness of the damage sexual abuse was causing children. Insulated from family life and the mainstream of society, they were “tone deaf ” to the problem, and lacked the sensitivity to adequately understand the problem. They perceived their first responsibility to be the protection of their own, and the welfare of the children became a secondary consideration. Therefore, they failed in their responsibility to care for their people. Why Didn’t Parents Force the Issue? In the Catholic culture of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, when most of the abuse occurred, respect and reverence for clergy was placed very high on the social scale. It was inconceivable to parents that priests would do such things to their children. The parents, when informed of the abuse, often reacted with denial. Plus, the credibility of children was often questioned. The word of the priest held sway over the stories reported by the children. Compounding the problem, the children lacked the experience and vocabulary to adequately describe what was happening to them. When a child is sexually victimized by a superior adult, the child believes the adult is right, and it is the child that has misbehaved. During testimony that came out in the investigations, many adults who were sexually abused as children, reported that they had tried to inform parents, but were rebuffed. Why Did it Take so Long for the Victims to Come Forward? When a child is sexually abused, he must deal with the horror in the only ways available. Without adult allies, children will often repress the memory of abuse in the same way a person will not remember a terrible car accident. The memory of childhood sexual abuse may remain submerged for years until something like a newspaper article or television report will awaken the memory. Adults who have lived for decades with sexual and relational difficulties, may suddenly become aware of the events that led to their dysfunction. When that happens, they may still lack the courage to come forward. The experience of shame is a very

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powerful motivator. It is only with a great deal of effort that individuals can break through the barrier of guilt and report their experiences. Are Children Safe in Church? With the implementation of Safe Environment programs in the dioceses, the Catholic Church may now be the safest place for a child to be! Statistics indicate that most sexual abuse of children occurs in the home by family members, trusted family friends, and neighbors. If anything, the sexual abuse scandal has provided the society with a new awareness of the threat of sexual predators. America will no longer be deaf or blind to the plight of its children. CHURCH SCANDALS: WHO IS PUNISHED FOR CHURCH SCANDALS? Few would debate that guilty clergy and religious leaders should face legal penalties for their behavior, in the same manner that any other citizen should. Furthermore, punitive financial damages (often into the millions of dollars) are a common form of legal recourse in the United States in legal actions against large institutions. However, in the case of a church, are there circumstances that make this a complex issue of justice? There have been church members, both clergy and laity, who have openly wondered whether large-scale financial suits are the most effective, or even fair and just, manner to deal with the issues. In fact, it has been argued that many entirely innocent people are punished by punitive financial awards against a church institution that must then sell property (often quickly), lay-off staff, and/or lower salaries, because of the abuses of a minority of church staff and officials. Often the most vulnerable properties, offices, and personnel, are those dealing with minority or marginal communities within the church—and it is arguable that this is much more common in the cases of church institutions losing a large financial court case, than a major industrial or commercial company facing a major financial payment. Who, in fact, is paying the price for these settlements of abuse scandals? See also Jailhouse Conversions; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Bausch, William J. Brave New Church: From Turmoil to Trust. New London, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 2001; Berry, Jason. Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children. New York: Doubleday Press, 1992; Cozzens, Donald B. The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest’s Crisis of Soul. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000; Doyle, Thomas P., A. W. Richard Sipe, and Patrick Wall. Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse. Santa Monica, CA: Bonus Books, 2006; Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002. Available at: http:// www.usccb.org/bishops/norms.shtml; Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe newspaper. Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church. Boston: Little Brown, 2002; Jenkins, Phillip. Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The Nature and Scope of

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Cloning the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002. Available at: http://www. usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/; Lytton, Timothy D. “Clergy Sexual Abuse Litigation: The Policymaking Role of Tort Law.” Connecticut Law Review 39, no. 3 (February 2007): 809–895; Office of Child and Youth Protection. Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2005. http://www. usccb.org/ocyp/charter.shtml.

Paul Boudreau CLONING Cloning, or the deliberate replication of the genetic makeup of another single individual (asexual reproduction) through somatic cell nuclear transfer, has raised significant questions over the last decade. Some view cloning as providing seemingly limitless resources for future scientific and medical research, and others affirm cloning as a solution to contemporary problems (such as infertility). Others condemn cloning as morally problematic, given that it involves the destruction of embryos, obviates the dignity of the individual, and crosses moral boundaries. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND ETHICAL QUESTIONS Different experiments at cloning have existed for decades, though many of their forms and rates of success are unknown. A widely publicized example of animal cloning occurred in 1995 with sheep (and, most famously, in 1997, and the cloning of a sheep named Dolly by Scottish scientists Jan Vilmut and K.H.S. Campbell). Debates emerged about the legitimacy of such a cloning, particularly given that hundreds of embryos were created and destroyed in creating only one viable living organism. Moreover, in other cases where the cloning of mammals was attempted, there were extraordinarily high mortality rates in utero, and shortly after birth. Attempts at human cloning have been secretive, and fraught with unsubstantiated rumors and intense scrutiny. Many professional organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the President’s Council on Bioethics, have condemned cloning-to-producechildren. In 2003, the House of Representatives voted to pass the Human Cloning Prohibition Act. Others maintain that cloning may not involve horrifying images of clones, but rather it involves a sophisticated way to conduct medical research. One of the pressing ethical questions concerns the means and ends of cloning. By what means could cloning occur? This clearly involves considerations of scientific technology (what are we able to do?), but it is requires society to take seriously ethical concerns about basic values (what should we do?). Considerations of the moral status of the embryo are paramount when evaluating the means used in cloning, particularly cloning for research where embryos are typically destroyed. Do we view such destruction as a necessary step for advancing scientific knowledge, or as immoral, in that embryos are created for the

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STEM-CELL RESEARCH AND CLONING Stem-cell research and cloning are not equivalent, but many forms of stem-cell research use cloning or raise similar ethical questions. Stem-cell research has generated polemical debates, pitting those in favor of its potential research benefits, versus those opposed to its destruction of embryos and manipulation of human cells. Persuaded more by the latter perspective, President George W. Bush mandated that only a few preexisting embryonic stem-cell lines could be used for federally funded research; only adult stem-cell lines could receive such funding. Debates emerged: could adult stem cells provide the same level of research? Is the notion of not destroying embryos preferable to the notion of responding less expeditiously, or even less effectively, to those who are currently suffering? In response to Bush’s restriction, California voters passed Proposition 71 in November 2004, which promoted a bond measure to devote $3 billion to human embryonic stem-cell experiments. Private, capitalistic organizations are continuing to explore the possibilities of both adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. The problems and prospects of such research must continually be evaluated in terms of its ethical dimensions.

purpose of destruction? Concerns about ends include related questions about the ultimate purposes of cloning (what are trying to achieve?). The challenge is to evaluate both the goods achieved (how might cloning contribute to those in need, such as providing research findings to help those suffering with diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or diabetes?) and the harms inflicted (what happens to embryos when they are cloned?) in and through cloning. THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CLONING Scriptural Themes Theologians point to the relevance of the creation accounts in the Hebrew Scriptures. The first creation account (Genesis 1:1–2:4a) ascribes to humanity the imago dei, or being created in the image and likeness of God. Would cloned humans possess the imago dei? Or, would they only reflect the image and likeness of humanity? Furthermore, Genesis 1:28 reveals God’s mandate to “Be fruitful and multiply,” affirming the goodness of creation and of procreation. Would cloning accord with God’s mandate? Many theologians argued against such a claim, because cloning usurps God’s divinely ordained natural process of reproduction with humans’ own technologically-driven form of creation. Others view the second creation account (Genesis 2:4b-2:24) as instructive in terms of its depiction of human anthropology. Humans are constituted by material and spirit, for Genesis 2:7 states: “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” Cloning, it is claimed, only can replicate the material; it therefore fails to achieve integrity with respect to the meaning of being a human. Moreover, based on the perspective that the embryo is, or is not a person, there

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are debates about the applicability of Scriptural verses prohibiting killing (e.g., “Thou shall not murder,” Exodus 20:13, or “Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death,” Exodus 21:12) to cloning questions. Theologians frequently point to another passage in the Hebrew Scriptures, Psalms 139:13–16, to refute cloning as incompatible with the wonder of God’s own work of creation: “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, where none of them as yet existed.” Other thinkers contend that infertility—one of the possible reasons why persons would embrace the use of cloning—is also a matter taken care of by God. God promised a child to Abraham and Sarah, and provided a son in Isaac (Genesis 21:1–2), and God provided a son, Joseph, to the barren Rachel (Genesis 30:22–24). Current Theological Positions Numerous Protestant theologians have objected to cloning on the grounds that it usurps the absolute sovereignty of God (i.e., theologians in the Reformed tradition who follow thinkers such as John Calvin [1509–1564]). They claim that cloning compromises the dignity of the person, and misuses human free will and responsibility. Others, such as Ronald Cole-Turner, argue that the moral status of the embryo should not be the determining factor in embryonic research. He submits that a human status emerges “somewhere between conception and birth development” (Cole-Turner 2001, 90; original emphasis). He refers to the process of “individuation” as important for evaluating the status of the embryo, and not just conception itself (which agrees with several Catholic theologians, but also which differs from the positions of the Catholic Church and Orthodox Christianity that hold life begins at the moment of conception). In terms of broader questions about the use of embryos (and thus pertinent to the cloning debates), theologian Gene Outka considers the hundreds of thousands of embryos created by In Vitro Fertilization that are stored frozen in vats. He argues that research on these excess embryos is permissible and morally tolerable: “It remains difficult for me to see what treating [these excess embryos] as ends summons us to do, how flushing them respects them more, or is less evil, than employing them for research” (Outka 2002, 59). Other voices in the debate include the United Methodist Church (which, in September, 2001, issued Urgent Action Alert: Urge Senators to Support Complete Ban on Human Cloning), the Orthodox Church (which also, through the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, issued a statement in October, 2001), the Southern Baptist Convention (which resolved to ban public funding of human embryonic research in June 1999). These views stand in contrast to the July 2001 declaration from the United Church of Christ, which called for support of federally funded embryonic stem cell research, and to a joint statement by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the Rabbinical Council of

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America, which also supported embryonic research. Both documents affirm the centrality of healing and caring for the sick in the Judeo-Christian tradition as grounds for such research. The latter document does not believe that embryos in vitro possess the full status of personhood, though it does distinguish between cloning for therapeutic purposes (which it endorses), and cloning for reproductive purposes (which it opposes). In 1997, the Pontificia Academia Pro Vita helped to clarify the Catholic Church’s position on cloning by issuing Reflection on Cloning. Engaging the biological, theological, and ethical dimensions of cloning, the group contends that “[cloning] represents a radical manipulation of the constitutive relationality and complimentarity which is at the origin of human procreation in both its biological and strictly personal aspects” (Pontificia Academia Pro Vita 1997, Section 3). Cloning changes the meaning and function of human reproduction, and, like In Vitro Fertilization it encourages the commodification of production of embryos. The text also identifies concerns regarding the exploitation of women, as well as the invention of artificial wombs that would usurp human participation and fabricate human beings (Pontificia Academia Pro Vita 1997, Section 3). Cloning reduces humans to their biology (and thereby does violence to their dignity), and confuses parentage, thereby rupturing parent-child bonds. Most fundamentally, cloning disrespects and obviates the moral status of the embryo. The text also develops a broader point—which resonated with the thought of Pope John Paul II—about the dangers of scientific inquiry: “The ‘human cloning’ project represents the terrible aberration to which value-free science is driven and is a sign of the profound malaise of our civilization, which looks to science, technology, and the ‘quality of life’ as surrogates for the meaning of life and its salvation” (Pontificia Academia Pro Vita 1997, Section 3). The text also holds that the possibility of human cloning also violates two fundamental principles on which all human rights are based: the principle of equality among human beings, and the principle of non-discrimination (Pontificia Academia Pro Vita 1997, Section 4). POLICY DEBATES: ASSESSING THE ETHICAL GROUNDS OF TWO TYPES OF CLONING In July 2002, the President’s Council on Bioethics issued a report titled Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry. The council, constituted by scientists, philosophers, theologians, physicians, legal theorists, and public policy experts, reviews in a comprehensive manner the arguments for and against cloning. The text focuses on two types of cloning; cloning-to-produce-children, or the production of a cloned embryo with the goal of producing a child who will be genetically identical to a currently existing or previously existing individual, and cloning-for-biomedical-research, or production of a cloned human embryo formed for the purpose of using it in research and gaining scientific knowledge of development and diseases. In terms of the first type of cloning, the council considers the potential goods achieved. These goods include: enabling infertile couples to have genetically related children; permitting couples at risk of conceiving a child with a genetic disease to avoid having an afflicted child; allowing

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the bearing of a child who could become an ideal transplant donor for a particular patient; enabling a parent to keep a living connection with a dead or dying child or spouse; and allowing society to replicate individuals of great talent or beauty. Yet, as the council holds, these potential goods are clearly outweighed by significant harms. These harms include: problems of identity and individuality for the original person who is cloned; concerns regarding manufacturing, whereby cloned babies are designed, and not treated as gifts and thus subject to commercialization; the prospects of a new eugenics and the private pursuit of genetically engineered enhancement; troubled family relations (where, for example, fathers could become “twin brothers” to their “sons”); and social effects such as control and the changed perceptions of children. In adjudicating these harms and goods, the council unanimously concludes that cloning-to-producechildren should not be allowed (President’s Council on Bioethics 2002). The council remains divided on cloning for biomedical research. The different perspectives consist of two moral cases in support of such cloning, and one perspective against such cloning. The first position, identified as position number one, argues that the moral status of the embryo has intermediate moral status, that is, in its earliest stages of development, it is not equivalent to a person but it has developing and intermediate moral worth. Advocates of this position do not view the embryo as “creation for destruction,” but rather for use in the service of life and medicine. This focus on the good achieved over the resulting harm, reflects a teleologically driven emphasis on the end and the good. They affirm that embryos should not be used after the blastocyst stage of development (the first 14 days of development), but they do not object to their use prior to and during such development. The other position that supports cloning for biomedical research is identified as position number two. This position ascribes no special moral status to the early stage cloned embryo. It perceives the embryo as any other cell (and thus should be treated no differently). It encourages cloning for biomedical research as long as it adheres to the moral standards that accompany any biomedical research. The remaining members of the council articulate a moral case against cloning for biomedical research. They refute the other positions’ interpretations of the moral status of the embryo and its use. They argue that position number one fails to safeguard the embryo because special respect has little, or no operative meaning if cloned embryos may be created in bulk and used routinely with impunity. They contend that position number two fails to appreciate the unique status of the embryo, because it denies the continuous history of individuals from embryos to infants, and misunderstands potentiality. Based on this understanding of the moral status of the embryo, those against cloning for biomedical research hold that the creation of human life expressively and exclusively for the purpose of its destruction for research, crosses a very significant moral boundary. In focusing on moral boundaries, duties, and what is right (versus what is good), these thinkers uphold a deontological position. They insist that crossing moral boundaries would coarsen our moral sensibilities (and lessen our respect for life), open us to moral hazards, and place the government in the precarious position of endorsing the destruction of life. Those supporting this position acknowledge the pain and suffering of those with debilitating diseases, but they submit that we

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must honor moral limits, and refuse to secure the good of some humans by sacrificing the lives of others (President’s Council on Bioethics 2002). The council then offers public policy recommendations: a majority recommendation (ten members) and a minority recommendation (seven members). The former advocates for a permanent ban on cloning to produce children, and a four-year moratorium on biomedical research. They call for further democratic deliberation to seek moral consensus on cloning for biomedical research (though some assert that deliberation can be used to convince the public that cloning for biomedical research should not be used, whereas some assert that deliberation can used to persuade the public that cloning for biomedical research should be used). The minor recommendation also includes a permanent ban on cloning to produce children. However, in contrast to the majority recommendation, it approves cloning for biomedical research, and permits it to proceed without substantial delay. It promotes regulatory protections (to avoid abuses and misuses of cloned embryos), and it encourages the federal government to initiate a review of present and protected practices of human embryo research (President’s Council on Bioethics 2002). See also Abortion; Birth Control and Family Planning. Further Reading: Burley, Justine, ed. The Genetic Revolution and Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999; Cahill, Lisa Sowle. Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, and Change. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2005; Cole-Turner, Ronald, ed. Beyond Cloning: Religion and the Remaking of Humanity. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2001; Hansen, Mark J., ed. Claiming Power over Life: Religion and Biotechnology Policy. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2001; Klotzko, Judith, ed. 2001. The Cloning Sourcebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; Nussbaum, Martha, and Cass Sunstein, eds. Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies About Human Cloning. New York: Norton, 1998; O’Donovan, Oliver. Begotten or Made? Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984; Outka, Gene. “The Ethics of Stem Cell Research.” 2002. Available at: http://www.bioethics.gov/background/outka paper.html; Pontificia Academia Pro Vita. “Reflections on Cloning.” 1997. Available at: http://www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_30091997_ clon_en.html; President’s Council on Bioethics. 2002. Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry. 2002. Available at: http://www.bioeth ics.gov/reports/ cloningreport/index.html; Ramsey, Paul. Fabricated Man: The Ethics of Genetic Control. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970; Shannon, Thomas, and James J. Walter. The New Genetic Medicine: Theological and Ethical Reflections. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003; Walter, James. J., and Thomas Shannon. Contemporary Issues in Bioethics: A Catholic Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2005; Waters, Brent, and Ronald Cole-Turner, eds. God and the Embryo: Religious Voices on Stem Cells and Cloning. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2003.

Jonathan Rothchild COSMOLOGY Cosmology is the study of the structure and history of the universe as a whole. Traditional cultures all over the world have preserved cosmological ideas for

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thousands of years, often in the form of religious stories. In the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries, modern scientific cosmology has combined theories and observations from astronomy, physics, and other sciences, to produce the big bang theory. BIG BANG COSMOLOGY In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that other galaxies are moving away from us. Hubble’s observations confirmed earlier theoretical work by Georges Memaitre, who, on the basis of Einstein’s theory of relativity, proposed that the universe was expanding and that in the distant past it began with an explosion from a primeval atom. Some scientists, prominently Fred Hoyle, disagreed with Mamaitre’s theory and favored a steady-state view of the universe, in which new matter is constantly created. It was Hoyle who first used the phrase big bang, in criticism of the expanding universe theory. George Bamow favored Mamaitre’s view, and on the basis of the expanding universe view, predicted the existence of universal background radiation. The discovery of cosmic background radiation in 1965 pushed scientific consensus toward the big bang theory. Many observations and refinements of the theory have solidified its acceptance in recent decades. Current big bang theory holds that our physical universe began about 13.7 billion years ago. At one time, all the matter in the universe was packed into a space no bigger than the period at the end of this sentence. Many scientists believe that all the matter and energy of the universe came from an initial singularity, an infinitely small and infinitely dense point. More cautious theorists point out that in the very first moment of the big bang (in the first 10–43 seconds), heat and pressure would cause the fundamental forces of the universe (electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, and gravity) to combine into one force, making conclusions about this period extremely speculative. Such thinkers say that to be careful, we ought to say the big bang theory covers the history of the universe from the present back to the first second, but not into the Planck epoch (the first 10–43 seconds). Big bang cosmology is an active research program in contemporary science. Thus, scientists are continually refining the theory and finding new ways to test its implications. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that the general outline of the theory—that the physical universe is expanding and that it had a beginning— is almost universally accepted by physicists and astronomers. Big bang cosmology has fed religious controversy in two areas, related to two of the classic arguments for theism: the first cause argument, and the design argument. BIG BANG COSMOLOGY AND THE FIRST CAUSE ARGUMENT Thomas Aquinas offered five arguments purporting to prove the existence of God. Here is a simplified outline of the first way; the first-cause argument. 1. There is something in motion. 2. Everything that is in motion is moved by something else.

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3. Infinite regress is impossible. 4. Therefore, there must be a first mover. And, Aquinas says, the first mover is what we call God. Aquinas’s arguments are all classified as a posteriori arguments, because they start with some empirical observation. In the first way, the empirical observation is the very general claim that something moves. Aquinas thought no one would deny this proposition, and perhaps he was right. Historically speaking, critics of the argument usually question the third premise. Why should we think that infinite regress is impossible? If object one is moved by object two, and object two is moved by object three, and so on, why could there not be an infinite series of objects, each moved by a prior object? Philosophers who took this line of thought sometimes proposed that the universe came into existence on its own, but often they suggested that the universe has always existed. Bertrand Russell’s oft-reprinted speech, Why I Am Not a Christian expresses these traditional criticisms (Russell 1957). If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as god, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Indian’s view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise: and when they said, “How about the tortoise?” the Indian said, “Suppose we change the subject.” The argument really is no better that that. There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose the world had a beginning at all. Some may find it ironic that Russell first delivered this speech in 1927, and that it was published in 1929, the very period in which Hubble observed the red shift of light from other galaxies. Some philosophers have argued that, quite apart from big bang cosmology, there are good reasons to reject the notion of infinite regress. This turns out to be a surprisingly complex and difficult question, connected to philosophical issues in mathematical theory regarding infinity. There are strong arguments that an actual infinite could not exist in the real universe. If an infinitely old universe is conceived as an infinite series of units of time (say, an infinite number of seconds), then the arguments against a real actual infinite apply equally well to an always-existing universe. Whether or not such philosophical arguments in favor of premise three are sound, the big bang theory seems to support premise three, at least in regard to the physical universe. The theory seems to indicate that we do have good reasons to think the world has not always existed, and that it had a beginning. Some scientists proposed an oscillating universe model, in which the expansion of the universe stops, and the matter of the universe collapses into a singularity from which it explodes in another big bang. This idea allows for an infinite series of big bangs, returning us (at least in regards to the first cause argument) to an eternal physical universe. But the estimated mass of the observed universe is far less that what would be needed to reverse the expansion of the universe. All

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observations to date seem to indicate that the universe is not closed but open: it will expand forever, and all centers of energy (such as stars) will eventually expend themselves, leading to heat equilibrium very near absolute zero. It should be pointed out that even if big bang cosmology gives scientific reasons in support of premise three, the first cause argument only concludes that the universe must have some cause that was/is itself not caused by anything else in the universe. Aquinas says that the cause of the universe is God, and he understands “God” to mean the deity of classic theism (the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). But “God” understood in this way, is conceptually much richer than the first cause of the universe. Aquinas’s claim goes far beyond the conclusion of the first cause argument, though it is consonant with it. BIG BANG COSMOLOGY AND THE DESIGN ARGUMENT Aquinas’s fifth way to prove the existence of God is the argument from design. The argument can be summarized this way. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Things in nature act toward good ends. Things act toward good ends only by means of design. Presence of design indicates the existence of a designer. Therefore things in nature have a designer.

And the designer of the natural world, says Aquinas, is God. In the fifth way, the empirical observation is both more specific, and controversial than the first way. What does it mean for things in nature to act toward good ends? In the centuries since Aquinas, various supporters of the design argument have suggested thousands of specific examples of alleged order, or design in the universe. Thus, there are many variations of the design argument, depending on which features of the observed universe are said to act toward good ends. Design arguments also vary as to whether they are presented as analogical arguments, or arguments to best explanation. In the nineteenth century, William Paley greatly popularized analogical design arguments using biological examples. Just as the evidence of design in a watch supports our conclusion that some watchmaker designed the watch, Paley argued that instances of design in living organisms supported the conclusion that some (vastly superior) world-maker designed living creatures. Then, in 1859, Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, which offered a very different explanation of apparent design in biological structures. The main ideas here are: (1) Random variation or genetic drift can produce changes in the genetic code of creatures; (2) Natural selection eliminates “bad experiments” in genetic structure, as unfavorable traits prevent creatures from passing on the genes for those traits; and (3) Genetic changes that produce traits favorable to reproduction are passed on to succeeding generations. As a result, over long periods of time, evolution produces many examples of apparent design, none of which require an intelligent designer. To many thinkers, the theory of evolution dealt a deathblow to the design argument. It certainly made Paley’s analogical-biological versions of the argument suspect. One might speculate that some religious people bitterly

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oppose the theory of evolution, partly because it undermines their favorite arguments for the existence of God. However, Darwinism is mostly irrelevant to other versions of the design argument. Many contemporary versions of the design argument explicitly assume the truth of natural selection as an adequate explanation of the apparent design of biological organisms. (Note the move to “adequate explanation” talk. Recent design arguments are mostly arguments to the best explanation, rather than analogical arguments.) Recent design arguments are often called fine-tuning arguments. They point to fundamental properties of the observed universe: things like the gravitational constant, the strong force, the weak force, the speed of light, and several other cosmic constants. All of these values were established for our universe soon after the big bang. All of them could easily have been quite different from what they are (that is, there is nothing in big bang theory that requires them to be what they are). However, if any one of them had been even slightly different from what it is, our universe could not have supported life. Fine-tuning arguments point to many specific “coincidences” among the values of the cosmic constants. For instance, the strong nuclear force binds together elementary particles, such as quarks in neutrons and protons. If the strong force had been 1 percent stronger than it is, the process of stellar nucleosythesis would not have produced carbon (it would have been burned into oxygen); on the other hand, if the strong force had been 1 percent weaker, the universe would have no elements more complex than hydrogen. Apparently, our universe got it “just right.” It must be emphasized that fine-tuning arguments enlist scores—or even hundreds—of such improbable facts. This produces a cumulative case argument, which claims that the simultaneous occurrence of all these life-enabling facts is best explained by a cosmic designer. A rough and ready way to imagine the argument is to think that the big bang could have produced a nearly infinite number of different universes, and in virtually all of them life would have been impossible. Our universe is one of an extremely tiny percentage that could support life. Is there some way to explain this piece of cosmic good luck? THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE As one would expect, not all philosophers or scientists have been persuaded by fine-tuning arguments for the existence of God. Nevertheless, the extreme improbability of a life-supporting universe emerging from the big bang has led thinkers to propose the “anthropic principle” as an explanation of this occurrence. John Barrow and Frank Tipler (1986) suggested the following as a definition of what they called the weak anthropic principle (WAP): WAP: The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable, but they take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life can evolve and by the requirement that the Universe be old enough for it to have already done so.

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Another way of expressing the WAP is this: any universe that has observers in it, must also have cosmological features that allow those observers to exist and observe. Given that our universe has in it carbon-based living beings as observers (human beings), it follows that our universe must have cosmological features that permit the evolution of such living beings. Pretty clearly, the weak anthropic principle does not give a satisfactory explanation of fine-tuning facts, unless it is combined with some auxiliary hypotheses. It is trivially true that human beings could not exist unless the universe permitted them to exist. But this does not explain why the universe is the way it is. Presumably, the fact that the universe exists the way it does is the cause of the evolution of observers; the existence of the observers does not cause the universe to exist the way it does. The point can be made by way of an analogy. Suppose some political prisoner, “Alice,” is led out to be executed by firing squad. Alice watches a dozen riflemen take aim at her; she hears the order given for the men to fire, and then she hears all of the riflemen cursing their weapons. All of the rifles failed to operate properly, at the same time! Now, suppose Alice told herself, “Obviously, if the rifles had worked, I would be dead. The fact that I am not dead requires that the rifles failed. So there is nothing to explain here.” This is not an adequate explanation. The misfiring of the weapons caused (or causally contributed to) her being alive; Alice’s living did not cause the weapons’ malfunction. Nor will Alice simply attribute her survival to chance. If Alice is reasonable, she will suspect that some better explanation of her survival could be found—perhaps some political ally unknown to her has rigged the rifles, or maybe her non-execution was staged by the government in order to frighten her, and so on. The point of the analogy is that some situations are so improbable that we do not regard chance as an adequate explanation; we seek some better explanation. Cosmologists who propose fine-tuning arguments point out that the improbability of a life-supporting universe is far greater than in “Alice’s” story. However, the WAP does provide a satisfactory explanation of the existence of human observers if it is supplemented by the many universes or world ensemble theory. Some theorists have proposed that the big bang produced not just one universe, but every possible universe. None of the universes causally interact with each other; each is isolated and “independent.” Clearly, if all the universes that could be caused by the big bang actually exist, some of them will be universes in which life could evolve. Then, according to WAP, human observers will only exist within some universe that supports the existence of such observers. Unfortunately, since the world ensemble theory requires that all the universes be causally independent, it would be impossible to gather empirical evidence from within one universe about any of the others. Thus, the world ensemble theory moves beyond the boundaries of empirical science. Defenders of the world ensemble theory point out that this is precisely what religious explanations (such as the idea of a creator God) do. It should be emphasized that scientific cosmology may undergo significant theoretical changes in the future as astronomers, physicists, and mathematicians

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respond to new observations. The implications of future discoveries and changes in cosmological theory may be unpredictable. See also Aliens; Science Fiction. Further Reading: Barrow, John and Frank Tipler. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986; Bostrom, Nick. Anthropic Bias: Observation: Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2002; Craig, William Lane. Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995; Davis, Stephen T. God, Reason and Theistic Proofs. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997; Guth, Alan. The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins. New York: Persues Books, 1997; Jastrow, Robert. God and the Astronomers. New York: Warner Books, 1978; Leslie, John. Universes. London: Routledge, 1989; Russell, Bertrand. “Why I Am Not a Christian.” In Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1957; Southgate, Christopher, ed. God, Humanity and the Cosmos: A Textbook in Science and Religion. Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1999.

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D “DEEP ECOLOGY” AND RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM Coined by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in 1972, the term “deep ecology” designates both a philosophical and social/political movement intended to address the global environmental crisis. On a philosophical level, heavily influenced by Native American and other aboriginal spiritual traditions, deep ecology maintains the fundamental equality and right to flourish of all elements of the earth and living world. Deep ecology’s emphasis on the inherent value of the earth and all living things is grounded in the concept of the fundamental unity of human beings with the whole cosmos to which they belong. Much of the debate and discussion inspired by deep ecology, centers around the question of how to balance human need with the necessity to preserve and care for the environment on which human (and all other) life depends. DEEP ECOLOGY’S DEEP ROOTS Deep ecology advocates a move away from an anthropocentric (that is, a human-centered) perspective to an ecocentric (that is, a physical world-centered) worldview, that recognizes as primary the continued flourishing of the entire living and natural world (Sessions 1995, 156–158; Seed et al. 1988, 35–39). This ecocentric perspective at the core of deep ecology has ancient roots in the cosmological and religious systems of indigenous or primal hunter-gatherer cultures, which regard all aspects of the cosmos as sacred, interrelated, and alive. Given that hunter-gatherer life-ways have characterized cultures spanning the majority of human history, associated holistic and ecocentric worldviews rank as

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the most ancient of human religious and philosophical systems (Sessions 1995, 158). Indigenous holistic and ecocentric worldviews have inspired the writings and work of many deep ecologists, including Pulitzer prize–winning poet Gary Snyder, whose poetry collection Turtle Island grew out of his close work with Native Americans; and rainforest activist John Seed, who draws extensively on the wisdom of indigenous peoples in his work to save the rainforest and heal people’s relationship to the earth and living world (Snyder 1995, 457–462; Seed et al. 1988, 9–11). In its contemporary form, however, the deep ecology movement arose in the 1960s alongside the ecological movement, inspired by the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. Early deep ecologists found inspiration and direction in the nature writings of Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, Aldo Leopold’s land ethic presented in his Sand County Almanac, and the Buddhist perspective of Alan Watts. Gary Snyder, in his synthesis of Native American and Zen Buddhist philosophies, has become a prominent international spokesman for deep ecology. In the academic sphere, Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess began developing some of the principles of deep ecology as early as 1968, building on the philosophical ideas of Spinoza and Gandhi (Sessions 1995, 157, 232–234). Particularly significant in helping to crystallize the ecocentric perspective was UCLA historian Lynn White’s seminal 1967 article The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis. White argued that Christianity, characterized by a dangerous anthropocentrism, has de-sacralized the natural world, and encouraged its mindless exploitation as nothing more than a resource to be utilized for purely selfish human ends. Instead of science, technology, or Marxism (which he regarded as a Christian heresy), White advocated—as a possible solution—a return to the nature mysticism of Saint Francis of Assisi (White 1967, x, 158). DEFINING PRINCIPLES OF DEEP ECOLOGY As defined by philosophers Bill Devall and George Sessions, deep ecology is rooted in two fundamental principles. The first principle is self-realization, which affirms that each individual (human or otherwise) is part of a larger whole, or Self, which encompasses ultimately the planet earth and the entire cosmos. Expressed in the Native American (Lakota) prayer Mitakuye Oyasin (“I am related to all that is”), the concept of self-realization is embraced in some form by diverse religious traditions worldwide (Badiner 1990, xv; Brown 2001, 89). Many indigenous traditions understand human beings’ relationship to the living and natural world in kinship or familial terms: Animals and trees, but also rocks and rivers, are brothers, sisters, and ancestors belonging to one allencompassing, all-inclusive, and interdependent family. As a powerful modern expression of the self-realization concept, many deep ecologists have embraced James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis, which views the entire planet earth as a living being (Lovelock 1982, 9; Abram 1990, 75). The second fundamental principle of deep ecology, as outlined by Devall and Sessions, is biocentric equality, which upholds that all elements of the biosphere have an equal right to live and flourish. In maintaining the principle of biocentric

“Deep Ecology” and Radical Environmentalism

equality, deep ecologists do not deny the apparent inequality of the natural world evident in the biological realities of predation or natural selection. Yet, deep ecology is concerned primarily with challenging the deeply ingrained anthropocentric notion that human beings have an absolute right to reign supreme over the environment and living things, without regard for the welfare of the whole. Deep ecology’s insistence on biocentric equality derives from the recognition that all entities in the cosmos live interrelated with, and interdependent upon one another. The principle of biocentric equality follows logically from that of selfrealization, insofar as harming one element of the biosphere harms the whole. Ultimately, deep ecology thus embraces a vision of the cosmos where human beings live in harmony and balance with all entities in the interconnected web of life. In practical terms, this means that humans, as an interdependent part of a much greater Self, should live in ways that encourage the survival of all other species (and the environment) upon which they depend. In addition to articulating basic principles such as self-realization and biocentric equality, deep ecologists have also sought to distinguish deep ecology from what they see as the more shallow ecology characteristic of environmental policies in the industrialized world. In 1973, Arne Naess critiques what he terms a shallow ecological movement that, though attempting to fight pollution and conserve resources, is primarily concerned with maintaining the health and high living standard of developed countries (Naess 1995, 151). In a 1986 article, he develops the shallow-deep contrast further, contrasting approaches of the two different movements to key issues such as pollution and resource depletion. With respect to pollution, the shallow ecological approach entails the creation of laws that, while seeking to limit pollution, often simply relocate it by exporting high-pollution industry to developing countries. In contrast, the deep ecological approach analyzes pollution in terms of its overall systemic impact on the entire biosphere, looking at health effects on all species, and seeking economic and political alternatives to the unjust practice of pollution exportation. With respect to resource depletion, deep ecology rejects the shallow ecological treatment of animals, trees, and the earth merely as resources for human use, insisting that the earth and living world are valuable in and of themselves, independent of their utility to human beings (Naess 1995, 71–72). Working together with George Sessions, Arne Naess formulated an eightpoint deep ecology platform; a foundational statement embodying both the activist and philosophical commitments of the deep ecology movement (Naess 1995, 68): 1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent worth). These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes. 2. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves. 3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.

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4. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantially smaller human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires a smaller human population. 5. Present human interference with the non-human world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening. 6. Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present. 7. The ideological change will be mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between bigness and greatness. 8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes. Naess notes that points one to five directly challenge dominant models of economic growth and development in industrialized countries. At the same time, he admits that reducing population growth and wealthy countries’ “interference with the non-human world” will take hundreds of years (Naess 1995, 69). As a way of promoting the deep ecology movement in developing countries, Naess recommends direct grassroots action, which can circumvent government interference. CRITIQUES OF DEEP ECOLOGY One of the most widely discussed critiques of deep ecology is that it is misanthropic: In its critique of anthropocentrism and commitment to biocentric equality, critics have argued that deep ecology advocates the survival and flourishing of nonhuman species at the expense of human beings (Sessions 1995, xiii, 267; Fox 1995, 280). For example, in a remark he subsequently retracted, former Vice President Al Gore charged Arne Naess’s deep ecology with treating people as “an alien presence on the earth” (Sessions 1995, xiii). After giving a speech on overfishing in the Barent Sea, in which Naess advocated viewing the Sea as a “whole complex ecosystem” where even microscopic flagellates have intrinsic value, a fishing industry representative is said to have quipped: “Naess is of course more concerned about flagellates than about people” (Naess 1995, 406). Deep ecologists respond that such critiques arise from a basic misunderstanding or misrepresentation of deep ecological principles. Al Gore’s remark was inspired by a statement from Dave Foreman, a leader of the radical Earth First! environmental group, about “not giving aid to Ethiopians and allowing them to starve,” a remark for which Foreman subsequently apologized (Sessions 1995, xxvi). Although Earth First! has adopted the deep ecology platform, Sessions points out that such clearly misanthropic statements are fundamentally antithetical to deep ecology’s ecocentrism (Sessions 1995, xiii). Admitting that deep ecology’s radical egalitarian stance has often been misunderstood, Naess emphasizes that such egalitarianism does not imply that humans are not extraordinary, or that they have no obligations to their own

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species (Naess 1995, 76). Deep ecology endeavors to promote “an egalitarian attitude on the part of humans toward all entities in the ecosphere—including humans” (Fox 1995, 280). In developing this point further, Naess explains that deep ecology’s ecocentric perspective seeks to promote awareness of human interdependence and interconnectedness within the earth’s ecosystem, not to devalue human beings. In response to the charge that he cared more about flagellates than people, Naess explains: “My point was that the present tragic situation for fishermen could have been avoided if policy makers had shown a little more respect for all life, not less respect for people” (Naess 1995, 406). At the same time, balancing human need with the necessity of preserving the ecosphere is, in practical terms, often very difficult. In addressing such difficult human and environmental issues, some of the most thoughtful challenges to deep ecology have come from scholars and environmentalists in the developing world. Indian environmental scholar Ramachandra Guha, for example, critiques deep ecology on several points, two of which will be taken up here. First, while Guha praises, in a general sense, deep ecology’s challenge to human “arrogance and ecological hubris,” he rejects the further conclusion “that intervention in nature should be guided primarily by the need to preserve biotic integrity rather than by the needs of humans” (Guha 2003, 555). Encouraging a philosophical shift from an anthropocentric to a biocentric perspective, Guha argues, fails utterly to address the two primary causes of environmental destruction: (1) overconsumption by wealthy nations and Third World elites; and (2) militarization with its threat of nuclear annihilation (Guha 2003, 555). The complex economic, political, and individual lifestyle factors that support militarization and overconsumption cannot be traced back merely to deeply ingrained anthropocentrism (Guha 2003, 556). In essence, then, Guha insists that protecting and preserving the environment necessarily entails addressing the root causes of overconsumption and militarization. Guha’s second critique of deep ecology is that the setting aside of wildlife preserves and wilderness areas, a practice supported by Western deep ecologists, has been thoroughly detrimental in the developing world. As a prominent example, Guha cites Project Tiger in his native India; an effort spearheaded by Indian conservationists in cooperation with international agencies such as the World Wildlife Fund. Project Tiger, by displacing poor rural villagers to preserve endangered tigers, “resulted in a direct transfer of resources from the poor to the rich” (Guha 2003, 556). Guha sees such wilderness preservation efforts, and associated claims by Western biologists that only they are competent to decide how tropical areas are to be used, as a blatant expression of Western neocolonial imperialism (Guha 2003, 556–557). Deep ecologists have responded to Guha’s, and similar critiques, at various levels. First, deep ecologists disagree in some respects with Guha over how human beings ought to relate to, and live within the natural world. While deep ecology, drawing from the teachings of indigenous and many Eastern religious traditions, promotes a paradigm of cooperative interrelationship with the natural world, Guha sees Eastern religious traditions supporting a model in which humans

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throughout history in the East have engaged in a “finely tuned but nonetheless conscious and dynamic manipulation of nature” (Guha 2003, 557). From a deep ecological perspective, however, viewing the natural world as something to be manipulated or controlled constitutes in itself a form of imperialism. In an observation with which Guha might well agree, Thomas Birch condemns America’s “incarceration” of natural areas into wilderness reservations as another example of the “white imperium” attempting to subdue and control an “adversarial other.” Citing Luther Standing Bear, Birch upholds deep ecology’s vision of a human relationship with the earth that is not adversarial, “but participatory, cooperative, and complementary” (Birch 1995, 348). Second, from the ecocentric standpoint of deep ecology, the claim that human needs must take precedence over biodiversity, illustrates just how deeply-ingrained anthropocentrism is in human thinking about the environment (Sessions 1995, xvi). Third, deep ecologists have pointed out that addressing the widespread social injustice associated with, and perpetuated by, such things as overconsumption and militarization, does not by itself necessarily result in a harmonious or sustainable relationship with the natural world (Fox 1995, 276). Focusing merely on human problems, unacceptably relegates the nonhuman world to its traditional secondary position as the “background against which the significant action—human action—takes place” (Fox 1995, 277). In a detailed response to Guha, Naess defends wilderness preservation efforts, clarifying that such a strategy is not intended for export to colonize the developing world, but is one of the essential tools in limiting environmental destruction caused by industrial overconsumption in the West (Naess 1995, 401). Despite such differences in perspective, however, deep ecologists appear in many other ways to stand in essential agreement with Guha’s analysis. Naess, speaking for many environmentalists, asserts that human beings must set as a universal goal the avoidance of “all kinds of consumerism,” and questions whether wealthy nations, given their own environmental record, “deserve any credibility when preaching ecological responsibility to the poor countries” (Naess 1995, 399, 401). Deep ecologists would have very little argument with Guha’s call for overconsuming, expansionist Western nations to adopt an “ethic of renunciation and self-limitation” (Guha 2003, 558). In addition, deep ecologists and environmentalists, in general, are well aware of (and are seeking to address) the ongoing environmental (not to mention human) devastation caused by the military industrial complex (Sessions 1995, xvi-xvii). Naess, Gary Snyder, and many other deep ecologists work with, and support, indigenous autonomous efforts worldwide to preserve and find ways to live sustainably in relation to the environment (Naess 1995, 404–405). In this spirit of cooperation and mutual concern, Naess presents deep ecologists with a question to guide future inquiry and action: “How can the increasing global interest in protecting all Life on Earth be used to further the cause of genuine economic progress and social justice in the Third World?” (Naess 1995, 406). Returning to the core principles of self-realization and biocentric equality, deep ecology thus upholds a vision in which humans take care of themselves by learning to care for Mother Earth.

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See also Gospel of Prosperity; Vegetarianism as Religious Witness. Further Reading: Abram, D. “The Perceptual Implications of Gaia.” In Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology, ed. A.H. Badiner. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1990: 75–92; Badiner, A. H., ed. Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1990; Birch, T. “The Incarceration of Wildness: Wilderness Areas as Prisons.” In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995; Bodian, S. “Simple in Means, Rich in Ends: An Interview with Arne Naess.” In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995: 26–36; Brown, J.E. Teaching Spirits: Understanding Native American Religious Traditions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; Devall, B., and G. Sessions. “Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered.” Excerpted in Contemporary Moral Problems, ed. J.E. White. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2003: 545–552; Fox, W. “The Deep EcologyEcofeminism Debate and its Parallels.” In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995: 269–289; Guha, R. “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique.” In Contemporary Moral Problems, ed. J.E. White. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2003: 553–559; Lovelock, J.E. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982; Naess, A. “The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects.” In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995: 64–84; Naess, A. “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movements.” In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995: 151–155; Naess, A. “Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World.” In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995: 225–239; Naess, A. “The Third World, Wilderness, and Deep Ecology.” In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995: 397–407; Seed, J., J. Macy, P. Fleming, and A. Naess. Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings. Montpelier, VT: Capital City Press, 1988; Sessions, G. “Ecocentrism and the Anthropocentric Detour.” In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995: 156–183; Sessions, G., ed. Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala, 1995; Snyder, G. “The Rediscovery of Turtle Island.” In Deep Ecology for The 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism, ed. G. Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995: 454–462; White, L. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155 (1967): 1203–1207.

Stephen Potthof

DIVORCE Divorce is the legal termination of marriage, ending nearly half of all marriages, and affecting the lives of many children growing up in modern society.

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DIVORCE DEMOGRAPHICS Since 1980 the rate of divorce has been moderately declining to a rate of 17.7 divorces for every 1,000 married couples in 2005. The best estimate is that approximately four out of every 10 current marriages will end in divorce, with the likelihood of divorce being lowest among those who have been married the longest. The average length of marriages that end in divorce is seven years; the rate of divorce is highest for marriages of two to three years’ duration. While the decline in the divorce rate since 1980 is encouraging, it should also be noted that part of the decline can be explained by more persons choosing to cohabit rather than marry. Although a high percentage of cohabiting couples separate, the break-up does not impact the divorce rate. The delayed age at first marriage (25 for females and 26 for males) also contributes to the declining divorce rate. Although hard to document, we believe that the positive marriage movement that emphasizes the importance of premarital counseling and marital enrichment, also accounts for the declining rate of divorce. While there is no sure way of predicting whether a marriage will succeed, correlations have been found with a number of demographic factors such as age, ethnicity, income, occupation, social class, and level of education. A 2001 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, shows that 20 percent of first-marriage divorces now occur within five years. Those who marry young, especially in their teens, are much more likely to divorce than are those who marry in their 20s. A number of interrelated factors may also be at work here. Those who marry young are typically from a lower socioeconomic class (which increases the probability of financial difficulties); they marry after a very short engagement, and perhaps because of a pregnancy. Given their stage of individual development, most teenagers are socially and psychologically unprepared for a relationship as demanding as marriage. Inadequacies in role performance, unfaithfulness, disagreement, and lack of companionship have been found to contribute to divorce among the younger aged couples. Next to teenage marital instability, it is those who marry after age 30 who are surprisingly most unstable. Among the most common complaints of this group, are lack of agreement, and the tendency of a spouse to be domineering and/or critical. The underlying dynamic here is that perhaps those who marry late in life have become so set in their ways that they have a hard time adjusting to the expectations and demands that occur in sharing their lives with a spouse.

DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT Except for Russia, the United States has the highest divorce rate among developed countries. The annual divorce rate steadily rose from a low of one divorce for every 1,000 married couples in 1860, to a high of 22.5 divorces for every 1,000 married couples in 1979. The most dramatic rise in the divorce rate occurred between 1965 and 1979. It was especially pronounced among persons under age 45. Since 1980 there have been approximately 1,200,000 divorces each year; slightly less than half the number of marriages.

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Those who marry in their mid-20s tend to have the most stable marriages. The divorce rate is low among men with little education, increases among those who have had some high-school training, and declines among men who have a college degree. In terms of ethnic differences, the divorce rate is highest among blacks, moderate among whites, and lowest among other ethnic groups, particularly those of Far Eastern origin. In terms of religion, divorce rates are lowest among Jews, moderate among Catholics, and highest among Protestants. Finally, heterogeneous marriages are more likely to end in divorce than are homogeneous marriages. In summary, divorce is more likely when there is a sizable age gap or differences in religion, social class, or ethnic origin. CAUSES There is no single cause of divorce. The causes are multiple, complex, and interrelated. Some have to do with the idiosyncrasies of the individuals; others involve social and cultural factors, such as the demographics we have just examined. Other things being equal, the lower the quality of the marriage, the greater the likelihood of divorce. Therefore, absence of any of the requisites for a strong marriage (e.g., commitment, family support, communication, and adaptability) could contribute to marital failure. Gottman (1994) claims to be able to predict divorce, simply by observing how couples deal with marital conflict. Couples who learn conflict skills will be more likely to work out their differences and stay married. The most frequent motives given for divorce center on relational issues, behavior problems, and problems about work and the division of labor, eliciting the suggestion that “we are moving into an era in which the ‘normalization of fragility’ will become central to people’s intimate relationships” (Hughes 2005, 69). A number of factors at the socio-cultural level may contribute to a culture of divorce and a divorce-prone society. Based on his research on divorce in the Netherlands, DeGraff and Kalmijn (2006) observe three important trends in modern societies—the normaliazation of divorce, the psychologization of relationships, and the emancipation of women. Other factors contributing toward a culture of divorce include a decline in viewing marriage as an unconditional commitment, a decline in the social stigma of divorce, the liberalization of divorce laws, the increased opportunity for emotional and physical intimacy that occurs in the work place leading to infidelity, and changing gender roles making wives less dependent economically on their husbands (Hughes, 2005; Yodanis, 2005). The Institute for American Values believes that the accumulated effect of divorce has eroded the foundation of American society. They believe the impact of the no-fault divorce policy has made it far too easy to divorce, leading to a culture that is comfortable with divorce. The modern/postmodern preoccupation of individualism and self-fulfillment, in contrast to covenant commitment and making sacrifices for the good of the relationship, leads to serious tension on marriage today. Also, unrealistic expectations, lack of egalitarian practices, loss of a community base to support family life, and the emergence of materialism,

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are dominant themes that take a toll on marriage. As can be seen, there are a multitude of reasons, some direct and some indirect, some conscious and some unconscious, some personal and some societal, for why people divorce. THE PROCESS The divorce process is often a highly conflictive time that has an inevitable negative impact upon children. Any antagonistic or abusive pathology that has previously existed in the marriage is likely to escalate during, and immediately after divorce proceedings, increasing the harm done to children. Seigler (2005, 61) found that divorce and custody proceedings are often accompanied by “a destructive spectrum of adversarial, antagonistic, and abusive behavior between cohabiting adults.” From a legal standpoint, divorce is enacted on a specific date, yet the ending of a marriage typically stretches over several years. As both a public and private process, divorce is most often a painful and crisis-producing event. It involves the death of a relationship and, as with most deaths, grieving, pain, and crisis are common by-products. It has been suggested that the divorce process typically goes through the following four-stage sequence. The first stage is that period before physical separation. Characterized as the erosion of love, it goes through stages of denial, anger, disillusionment, detachment, and bargaining attempts. The second stage is the point of actual separation, which again entails emotional responses like depression, anger, ambivalence, guilt, and regret. The third stage is the period between the separation and the legal process. Again, a time of mourning due to the finality occurs, along with major readjustments, such as economic and co-parenting arrangements, reorientation of lifestyle, and refocus on identity and emotional functioning for the divorcee. The fourth and final stage of personal recovery includes a restructuring and re-stabilization of lives, opening up new possibilities and goals. Spouses may go into a “second adolescence” phase, in which they are involved in the dating scene again. The deeply felt emotions that people experience throughout the four stages of a divorce make this an especially difficult time for all family members. While the marriage has come to an end, the two ex-spouses are very much alive, and must figure out their relationship with each other, their children, extended families and friends. Generally, the man is most negatively impacted in the social psychological realm, and the woman in the economic. THE EFFECT ON CHILDREN Once spouses have children, the divorce outlook becomes a more serious concern. All things being equal, children need and deserve to grow up in a family with two parents who love them and who love each other. The crucial question is, “What is in the best interest of children?” The long-term impact of divorce on children has been debated for the past 40 years. Some researchers are more optimistic than others about the adaptability

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and resilience of children, while others emphasize the negative effect divorce has on them. Up to the late 1970s, there was some attempt to downplay the negative effects of divorce on children. This attitude was based on research suggesting that children may be better off in a happy one-parent home than in an unhappy twoparent home. It was surmised that a more stable environment, and a less disruptive one occurred once the neglectful or abusive father or mother were removed through divorce. There is overwhelming evidence that children from divorced homes fare worse than children from intact homes. However, the reason for this can be debated. One of the more complete pictures on the subject of how divorce impacts children is a report on a randomly selected sample of 1,500 young adults from divorced and intact homes. Elizabeth Marquardt reported these findings in her book, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (2005). She found that the children of divorce were four times more likely than those from intact families to agree with the statement, “My father has done things I find hard to forgive.” Although the difference was less dramatic, children of divorced, more than those from intact homes also agree that their mother “has done things that they find hard to forgive.” A well-documented longitudinal study by leading divorce researcher, Mavis Hetherington, reported in the book For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (2002), that the changes in everyday life that follow divorce do have an initial negative impact on the children. The greatly altered behavior of their parents during and soon after divorce is a particularly difficult time. Since it takes most parents two or more years to recuperate from divorce, it is a time of adjustment, when both parents struggle with their self-esteem needs. Some spouses were prone to sexual acting-out, vengeful deeds against the former spouse, emotional outbursts, or periods of depression, and fearful concerns about their future and their finances. This period of transition takes a toll on the children, because parents are often not available to help them make emotional adjustments. LONGTERM DIVORCE ADJUSTMENT Hetherington’s longitudinal project spanning three decades lead her to the conclusion that divorce should not be viewed as a momentary event, but “as a lifelong process that has a continuing influence throughout the stages of divorce, single parenthood, remarriage, and stepfamily life” (Hetherington and Kelly 2002, cover page). According to the groundbreaking longitudinal research dating back to 1971, family and child psychologist, Judith Wallerstein (2005), was surprised to find that the tumult of parental breakup continued throughout adolescence and even into adulthood. Wallerstein (2005, 401) believes that “stressful parent-child relationships in the post divorce family together with the enduring effects of the troubled marriage and breakup lead to the acute anxieties about life and commitment that many children of divorce bring to relationships in their adult years.”

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A long-term effect of divorce seems to be that there is a greater risk for divorce among those adult children whose parents were divorced (Segrin, Taylor, and Altman 2005, 361). Another study reports that mothers from divorced homes had lower income levels, and lower levels of education compared with their intact counterparts (Nair and Murray 2005, 245). In light of the long term effects of divorce, it is well to heed the advice given by Connie Ahrons in her book We’re still family (2004) that “good divorces” allow adults and children to continue to live more or less harmoniously as a family. She notes the divorce reorganizes a family, but does not have to destroy it. The majority of children of divorce feel that their parents’ decision to divorce was the right one, and most did not wish their parents had remained married. In their book What About the Kids?, Wallerstein and Blakeslee (2003) encourage parents to observe how their children are doing, and to seek professional guidance for them if they see struggles with education, emotions, or behavior. Since multiple changes of roles occur after divorce, parents and grandparents are encouraged to work on their new roles in the children’s lives. A CHRISTIAN APPROACH TO DIVORCE Divorce, while not condoned in Scripture, has become common in today’s world. For this reason, it is vital to offer a Christian response. Within a Christian perspective, marriage and family relationships are to be based on a mutual covenant. When two people marry, God intends for the relationship to be a two-way unconditional commitment. It is God’s desire that covenant commitment lead to a relationship in which grace abounds. This then means that both spouses will undoubtedly fail each other, and forgiveness is an ongoing part of every marriage. Within this atmosphere of grace, spouses are challenged to strive for reciprocal engagement and empowerment through a mutual interdependence. Bringing their unique talents and gifts to the union, they use their resources to build each other up and strengthen their union. Out of this reciprocal empowerment, spouses come to know and be known in deeper ways that lead to secure, intimate bonding. God desires permanence in marriage, and married Christians must do all that they can to uphold their marriage. This ideal for Christian marriage is an honorable aspiration that can be achieved through God’s grace and intentional actions through the power of the Holy Spirit. However, we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge that there are no perfect people who completely live up to this ideal. All marriages are composed of two imperfect people, who will undoubtedly fail each other to one degree or another. All couples will struggle with their differences. While many learn to successfully deal with marital conflict and find the healing needed through therapy and community support, others are unable to overcome the obstacles of violence, disrespect, abuse, bitterness, addictions, cold detachment, and neglect. Brokenness is heaped upon brokenness, and anger, hurt, and bitterness begin to take on a life of their own. These marriages tend to spin in the direction of conditionality and demand, judgmental criticism and non-acceptance stances,

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possessive power and coercive power struggle, and emotional distancing maneuvers, until eventually the marriage is severed. While marital dissolution is surely a spiritual problem, we must resist the temptation to spiritualize in a simplistic way. Human beings are complex creatures, and there is a web of complicated social, psychological, and spiritual factors in the dissolution of any marriage. The marital struggle begins to eat away at the person, as well as destroy the relationship. Sadly to say, divorce becomes a radical choice. In their own eyes—and in the eyes of the Christian community, spouses confess they have failed. The question now becomes how we, as a family of faith, relate to those who walk through that valley of the death of a marriage? To begin with, we acknowledge that we live in a broken world in which we all fail in many aspects of our lives. Failure seems to be acknowledged in many areas of life, with the exception of marriage. Unfortunately, we reserve a particular stigma for divorce, and those most in need of support feel judged and unacceptable to the church community. The redemptive side of failure is not applied as readily as it ought to be. Jesus must serve as our model when it comes to our response to failed marriage. Jesus did not condemn the woman at the well for her unsuccessful marriages, but offered redemption and a new beginning (John 4). To be legalistic, rather than offer grace, forgiveness, and compassion is unacceptable. Ray Anderson and Dennis Guernsey (1985, 101) note that Jesus presented the basis of marriage from the perspective of the command of God: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matthew 19:6). They conclude: In saying this, Jesus removed both marriage and divorce from the status of being under a law, and reminded his listeners that all people are accountable to God in thought, word, and deed, and not least of all in the “one flesh” relation of marriage. Viewed from this perspective, it is clear that there can be no “rules” by which marriage can be dissolved, any more than there are marriages which can be sanctified before God by observing certain legalities. Wherever Jesus talks about divorce (Matt. 5:31–32; 19:3–9; Mark 10:2–12; Luke 16:18), the clear thrust is that marriage is of the Lord and is not to be broken. Christ calls couples to fidelity in marriage as a lifelong commitment; he does not have in view, however, a marriage of legalism that only entails commitment to the institution and not to the relationship. Marriage is merely a human structure and we must never focus more on preserving a structure than caring about the individuals themselves. The Christian message of forgiveness and restoration must be generously offered to divorced persons and their children. These members of our church body need us more than ever during this painful experience. We must be accepting and lovingly welcome them into our midst as God’s family. We must never deny them hope for wholeness and restoration. As Garland, Richmond, and Garland (1986) state:

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If it is the case that marriage was made for the blessing of humankind, and not humankind for marriage, it would seem that one who has failed in marriage might have another opportunity to remarry. Any moral superiority that the nondivorced person might feel toward the divorced who remarry is undermined by Jesus’ claim that everyone who lusts after another is guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:28). Every spouse has broken commitments to the partner, and every relationship experiences alienation from unresolved differences. (p. 171) Further Reading: Ahrons, C. We’re Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say about Their Parent’s Divorce. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2004; Anderson, R., and D. Guernsey. On Being Family: Essays on a Social Theology of the Family. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985; DeGraff, P. and M. Kalmijn. “Divorce Motives in a Period of Rising Divorce: Evidence from a Dutch Life-history Survey.” Journal of Family Issues 27 (2006): 483–505; Garland, D., S. Richmond, and D. E. Garland. Beyond Companionship: Christians in Marriage. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986; Gottman, J. What Predicts Divorce? The Relationship Between Marital Processes and Marital Outcomes. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1994; Hetherington, E. M., and J. Kelly. For Better or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002; Hughes, K. 2005. “The Adult Children of Divorce: Pure Relationships and Family Values?” Journal of Sociology 41 (2005): 69–86; Marquardt, E. Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. New York: Crown, 2005; Nair, H. and A. Murray. 2005. “Predictors of Attachment Security in Preschool Children from Intact and Divorced Families.” Journal of Genetic Psychology 16 (2005): 245–263; Popenoe, D. and B. Whitehead. The State of Our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America, 2003. New Brunswick, NJ: National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, 2003; Popenoe, D. and B. Whitehead. The State of our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America, 2004. New Brunswick, NJ: National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, 2004; Popenoe, D. and B. Whitehead. The State of Our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America, 2005. New Brunswick, NJ: National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, 2005; Segrin, C., M. Taylor, and J. Altman. “Social Cognitive Mediators and Relational Outcomes; Associated with Parental Divorce.” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 22 (2005): 361–377; Seigler, A. “Home is Where the Hurt Is: Developmental Consequences of Domestic Conflict and Violence on Children and Adolescents.” In A Handbook of Divorce and Custody: Forensic, Development, and Clinical Perspectives, eds. L. Gunsberg and P. Hymowitz. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press, 2005: 61-80; Wallerstein, J. “Growing Up in the Divorced Family.” Clinical Social Work Journal 33 (2005): 301–418; Wallerstein, J. S., and S. Blakeslee. What about the kids: Raising your children before, during, and after divorce. NY: Hyprion, 2003; Yodanis, C. “Divorce Culture and Marital Gender Equality: A Cross-national Study.” Gender and Society 19 (2005): 644–659.

Jack Balswick and Judith K. Balswick

E EUTHANASIA AND PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE In general, one can choose death by euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Broadly understood, euthanasia means “good death,” however current usage depicts a specific kind of dying, which is usually accomplished by the act of someone other than the one who dies. Physician-assisted suicide is a particular form of suicide, or dying, where a physician, who possesses relevant knowledge and skills, assists the one who wishes to die. Various religious perspectives offer ways to deal with the challenges presented by death and dying, pain and suffering, freedom and responsibility in health care, and the value of human life. All of these are present at the intersection of euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and religion. Typically, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide occur in the context of health care when patients face death and dying. Death and dying are fundamental to (and inevitable in) the human condition. Historically, death and dying happened as a consequence of incurable disease, unforeseen accident, war, or murderous action. With euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, however, one can take control over the circumstances, the mode, and the health state at the time of death. This represents a technological transformation of the dying process: a transformation that many argue brings about individual and social goods (philosopher Daniel Callahan refers to this kind of phenomenon as “technological brinkmanship.” See Callahan [2000], 40–41). As the Hippocratic Oath indicates, the ethical, legal, and theological issues of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are not necessarily new. Dating back several centuries, the Oath prohibits a Hippocratic physician from prescribing poisons and other materials for his patient (See Edelstein 1967; Rietjens et al.

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2006; Ramsey 1974; Campbell 1994). Interestingly, this is not lost in a Christian version of the Hippocratic Oath: “Neither will I give poison to anybody though asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan” (“The Hippocratic Oath Insofar as a Christian May Swear It” 1998, 108). Nevertheless, the advances in medicine have brought new energy to this topic. Because many diseases remain incurable, the best that health care providers can do is manage one’s painful symptoms as his or her illness marches on a path, often with intense suffering, before it ends in death. Many patients who have metastatic and terminal cancer experience this tragedy. For many commentators, this represents an intolerable reality. Instead, they wish to take matters into their own hands and seek voluntary euthanasia or physician-assistance in their suicide. From the perspective of various religions, these two practices—euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide—raise several ethical, legal, and theological issues. However, before discussing these issues, the author will review the traditional distinctions of the term euthanasia. Then the author will identify and describe the major ethical, legal, and theological issues in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Finally, the author will conclude with an overview of public policy considerations regarding both of these practices. TRADITIONAL DISTINCTIONS OF EUTHANASIA Here, we understand euthanasia to be the voluntary and intentional ending of a person’s life. Many ethicists have made three critical distinctions in the debates over euthanasia. First, there is a distinction between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. Voluntary euthanasia happens either by or at the request of the recipient of the act. Involuntary euthanasia occurs without the consent of the individual, either because the patient is incompetent, because the patient’s wishes are not known, or because it is a policy to end the life of a person with certain traits (e.g., Nazi euthanasia policies). Most discussions of euthanasia reject any consideration of involuntary euthanasia, particularly in this last sense. Second, there is a distinction between active and passive euthanasia. Active euthanasia occurs when someone performs an action that results in the death of the patient. Thus, one understands active euthanasia positively as the commission of a death-inducing action. Passive euthanasia occurs when someone does not perform an action, which results in the death of the patient. Thus, one understands passive euthanasia negatively as the omission of a life-preserving action. An example of active euthanasia is a doctor’s injecting a lethal dose of drugs into a patient to bring about the death of the patient. An example of passive euthanasia is a doctor’s intent to kill a patient by refusing to administer antibiotics to a patient suffering from a treatable form of pneumonia. (There may be other morally justifiable reasons and circumstances why the physician would not provide antibiotics to a patient without intending the patient’s death per se, but for the sake of this example, we will consider the pneumonia to be the patient’s only diagnosis.)

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Third, there is a distinction between direct and indirect euthanasia. Here, one’s intention plays a key role in establishing whether the action is direct or indirect. In addition, the Principle of Double Effect is applicable, which enables one to determine the nature of the agent’s intent and whether the action is morally permissible or not. (In short, ethicists use the Principle of Double Effect to determine whether an act that produces both good and bad effects is morally permissible.) In direct euthanasia, an agent intends the death of the patient as the sole end. In indirect euthanasia, an agent does not intend the death of the patient either as the end sought or as a means to a further end. However, many prefer not to use the term indirect euthanasia because this may confuse foregoing or withdrawing treatment with the intentional killing of a patient. Historically, many confuse the last two distinctions: an active euthanasia act was direct, a passive euthanasia act was indirect. However, this is misleading because (1) there are two sets of criteria that distinguish these two terms (i.e., observation in the former, and the Principle of Double Effect in the latter) and (2) one distinction is descriptive of the action (i.e., commission versus omission), the other distinction is evaluative of the action (i.e., direct euthanasia is not morally permissible whereas an indirect euthanasia might be). Therefore, some ethicists suggest that these distinctions remain separate and avoided. Additional reasons exist for avoiding these terms and they include the following: First, using the generic term euthanasia to speak of both direct killing and withdrawing therapy is confusing methodologically and psychologically. Second, many ethicists debate whether there is in fact a moral difference between active and passive euthanasia. Limiting the term euthanasia to the intentional killing of an individual at least circumvents that debate. Third, some ethicists think it is better to identify the moral legitimacy of foregoing or withdrawing a therapy as a separate issue. In this instance, one is focusing on benefit to the patient, which precludes considerations of killing the patient. Many bioethicists frequently discuss the ethics of voluntary euthanasia in connection with the ethics of physician-assisted suicide. In fact, many see physician-assisted suicide as a form of voluntary euthanasia. However, there are key differences. First, suicide is a self-induced interruption of the life process and typically occurs in a nonmedical context; that is, many individuals who commit suicide in general are not suffering from a life threatening disease. Second, while voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide may share motivations (e.g., mercy, compassion, and respect of autonomy), the ways in which one performs them differ significantly. In voluntary euthanasia, a physician or another person commits the act. In physician-assisted suicide, a physician cooperates but does not commit the act. Instead, the physician helps the patient commit the act. Third, many debate the distinction between voluntary euthanasia and palliative care. This does not occur in the context of physician-assisted suicide. Therefore, there are important issues to untangle in considering voluntary euthanasia in the continuum of care in modern hospitals. There is less of a need to disentangle issues between physician-assisted suicide and other forms of medical care. Indeed, one study compared the clinical practices of terminal sedation (which is, according to the study, a palliative care protocol that induces a coma to relieve

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pain) and euthanasia in the Netherlands (Rietjens et al. 2006). These researchers found that both practices frequently involve patients who suffer from cancer. On the one hand, clinicians tended to use terminal sedation to address severe physical and psychological suffering in dying patients; on the other hand, clinicians tended to engage in euthanasia to protect patients’ dignity during their last phase of life. In addition, clinicians employing terminal sedation tended to order benzodiazepines and morphine; clinicians participating in euthanasia tended to order barbiturates. Furthermore, the time interval between the administration of the drug and the patients’ deaths ranged from 1 to 24 hours up to 3 to 7 days for terminally sedated patients and tended to be less than 1 hour for euthanized patients. ETHICAL ISSUES Several ethical issues involved in the debates over euthanasia and physicianassisted suicide remain controversial despite the lengthy debates over them. These issues relate to the various legal and theological issues, too. Here is a survey of some major ethical issues: human dignity, patient autonomy, prevention of harm, protection of the marginalized, and protection of professional integrity in health care. First, among the most well known ethical issues in the debates over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is human dignity. Despite its pervasive use, the term suffers from ambiguity. At least two fundamental ways exist in which human dignity functions in ethical debates: as an expression (1) of intrinsic worthiness or (2) of attributed worthiness. In the first sense, one may understand human dignity as an expression of intrinsic or inherent worthiness. This may directly relate to certain religious beliefs; in the Judeo-Christian traditions, the belief that God created humankind in His image and likeness translates to an inviolable intrinsic worth. In contrast, one may understand human dignity as an attributed worth. On the one hand, one may suffer indignity as a result of the conditions or properties of one’s life: for example, many would consider it undignified to live with a very poor quality of life as in complete dependence on machines to live and bed-ridden. On the other hand, one may suffer indignity as the consequence of others’ actions: for example, ignoring the incontinence of a bed-bound patient or neglecting senile elderly patients because of some repugnance to old age. As a form of intrinsic worth, one may argue against euthanasia and physicianassisted suicide because such actions violate human dignity: intentionally killing a patient can never be an expression of respect for human dignity. As a form of attributed worth, one may argue for euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide because such actions may prevent such indignities. This is why some proponents suggest that euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is a form of “death with dignity.” However, in a now famous article, “The indignity of ‘death with dignity,’ ” the late theologian Paul Ramsey refuted this claim (Ramsey 1974). Second, patient, or personal, autonomy relates to human dignity; here, autonomy is an exercise of self-rule whereby one controls the circumstances, the

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mode, and his or her health status at the time of his or her death. The fear of losing control over one’s life is a powerful motivator for euthanasia or physicianassisted suicide. Individuals who seek physician-assisted suicide often do not want to live long enough to experience that loss of control and independence. For them, living in such circumstances could be a nightmare. When proponents of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide seek a “right to die,” their concept of patient autonomy supports this right. In these ways, one uses patient autonomy in support of voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. However, this may confuse different notions of freedom. Indeed, the loss of control may seem like a loss of freedom; but, in general, this is only one kind of freedom lost: the freedom of choice. Alternatively, if one thinks of freedom as freedom of being—or freedom to be fully human— then a choice of death may be the ultimate imprisonment. That is, if human beings are fundamentally relational (a belief prevalent among the world’s major religions), then a choice to end all of one’s relationships in choosing death would be an act that denies a basic aspect of what it means to be human. Notwithstanding this alternative, if individuals experience suffering and indignity (i.e., the loss of control or the corresponding fear) as they approach death during a terminal illness, this may be more of a critique of society’s inability to address the needs of the dying (Cahill 2005). In this sense, society may be effectively abandoning patients by not giving them the support and environment they need to flourish even in the last moments of physical life. Such circumstances make euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide logical choices. Third, the prevention of harm is another ethical issue one finds in the debates over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. There are two aspects to this issue. On the one hand, proponents call for legalizing euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (or both) as a way to regulate the practices. The intent behind this is to prevent harms to patients that are a direct consequence of the acts of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide themselves. For example, without proper training or sufficient regulations, a patient may obtain and use an inadequate dose of lethal drugs. This may cause harm because such a dose might not induce death and could leave the patient in an undesirable state (e.g., a coma). On the other hand, proponents argue for euthanasia and physicianassisted suicide as a means of preventing harms related to the illness the patient has or the treatments that the patient would need to endure (e.g., chemotherapy). In this sense, the patient prevents the harms by bypassing both the experience of the disease process and the risks or burdens of the treatments for the disease. Of course, some opponents to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide find this line of reasoning difficult to accept. For them, it seems illogical to prevent harm by causing the end of the patient’s life. For some, the options of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are seen as failures of the health care system to deal adequately with the pain and symptoms of terminal illness and the dying process. Many claim that with appropriate and accessible palliative care (pain and symptom management) and hospice care, the need or desire for euthanasia

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and physician-assisted suicide would diminish. However, this may not be as true as some hope: as discussed above, a principal concern is the loss of control, not the experience of pain per se. Fourth, the protection of marginalized groups from a socially instituted policy of euthanasia constitutes another ethical issue. Here, the principal concern is to protect those who do not exercise autonomy in choosing euthanasia and who, in fact, may resist it. Therefore, this ethical issue results when involuntary euthanasia becomes a social practice supported by political power. This particular issue lives in the shadows of the Holocaust and Nazi euthanasia policies. Despite this tragic episode in human history, contemporary debates persist. For example, some proponents claim that involuntary euthanasia may be justifiable for the severely handicapped. This issue also incorporates elements of a slippery slope argument. In this case, opponents claim that legalizing voluntary euthanasia and physicianassisted suicide jeopardizes the disabled and other marginalized groups because such decisions reflect a belief that certain lives are not worth living. Opponents are concerned that the disabled community represents certain kinds of life that those who would support euthanasia would not want to live. Thus, even if legalized euthanasia was restricted to voluntary forms and physicianassisted suicide, such practices are only a short step away from involuntary euthanasia of the severely disabled and then (with one more short step) from the moderately or even slightly disabled. For these opponents, it would be quite possible to slip and tumble down the slope to widespread involuntary euthanasia. To take this perspective further, if involuntary euthanasia of the severely handicapped never became a reality, there remains a concern that a culture that supports voluntary euthanasia would undermine programs and relationships that promote the livelihood and well-being of persons who are physically and mentally challenged. Thus, there may be decreasing support for social assistance programs and increasing pressure to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide. Finally, the practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide may undermine the professional integrity of medicine (and other health care professions like nursing). On the one hand, health care professionals do not want to abandon their patients at the end-of-life. On the other hand, health care professionals—as helping and healing professionals providing care—do not want to confuse their role or contribute in any way to an erosion of their professional ethos as healers. One concern is that this erosion may have a social consequence of confusing the role of healer and the role of executioner. In these circumstances, the trust in the physician-patient relationship is at risk: if physicians can no longer deal with death and dying appropriately and abandon their patients, patients will not trust doctors to be with them as they face their most difficult health crisis. Similarly, if a doctor supports euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, a patient may be confronted with a doctor who may see euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide as the “easy way out” and may not trust his or her professional judgment about what is in his or her best interests.

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LEGAL ISSUES IN THE UNITED STATES In 1991 and 1992, citizens in Washington and California, respectively, voted on two referenda; these referenda sought to sanction legally both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, or physician-assisted dying. In both cases, voters defeated these referenda by very narrow margins—about 54 percent to 46 percent in both cases. However, in 1994, the citizens of Oregon were asked to vote on Measure 16, which asked, “Shall law allow terminally ill adult Oregon patients voluntary informed choice to obtain physician’s prescription for drugs to end life?” (Quoted in Campbell 1994, 9). In this case, the measure passed, which ultimately led to the Oregon Death with Dignity Act (DDA) (See “The Oregon Death with Dignity Act,” in Beauchamp et al. 2008, 404–6). The critical difference between this Oregon statute and those proposed in Washington and California is its restriction to physician-assisted suicide. When Oregonian voters approved this measure in November of 1994, by a very narrow margin, Oregon at the time became “the only place in the world where doctors may legally help patients end their lives” (Egan 1994, A1). However, that was not the end of the story. The day before the measure was to become law, its enactment was “blocked by a court challenge.” In August 1995, a federal judge ruled the measure unconstitutional because “with state-sanctioned and physician-assisted death at issue, some ‘good results’ cannot outweigh other lives lost due to unconstitutional errors and abuses” (“Judge Strikes Down Oregon’s Suicide Law” A15). In March 1996, the legal situation changed radically for the nine western states in the jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, including Oregon. In an 8 to 3 ruling, this court struck down a Washington State statute that made assisting in a suicide a felony. While this ruling held only for the states in the Ninth Circuit, a very critical precedent was set. The grounds for the ruling were privacy and autonomy. Judge Stephen Reinhardt, writing for the majority, said: “Like the decision of whether or not to have an abortion, the decision how and when to die is one of ‘the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime,’ a choice ‘central to personal dignity and autonomy’ ” (Lewin 1996, A14). The ruling also argued that not only doctors should be protected from prosecution “but others like pharmacists and family members ‘whose services are essential to help the terminally ill patient obtain and take’ medication to hasten death” (Lewin 1996, A14). Thus, the window opened for a round of appeals and argumentation. Later, a unanimous ruling of the three-judge Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York reinforced this ruling in April 1996. This court stated, “that doctors in New York State could legally help terminally ill patients commit suicide in certain circumstances” (Bruni 1996, A1). As the ruling was appealed, a critical country-wide debate began. Additionally, Michigan passed a law explicitly prohibiting physician-assisted suicide; this was in response to the activities of Jack Kevorkian, whose activities include physician-assisted suicide. However, this law has passed out of existence because of specific time limits. Furthermore, Kevorkian was brought to trial for acts committed while this law was in effect but was found not guilty based on

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the jury’s decision that his intent was to relieve pain not to cause death. Notwithstanding this, another murder charge was brought against Kevorkian in 1999. In this case, he was convicted and sentenced to prison. Finally, three United States Supreme Court cases have become landmark cases in the legal and ethical debates over physician-assisted suicide. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court adjudicated on two related cases (Beauchamp et al. 2008). First, the main question before the Court in Vacco v. Quill was whether New York’s prohibition on assisting suicide violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that it did not. Second, the main question before the Court in Washington v. Glucksberg was whether the “liberty” (i.e., the right to refuse wanted life-saving medical treatment) specifically protected by the Due Process Clause includes a right to commit suicide, which includes a right to assistance in suicide. The court held that the “right” to assistance in suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. In the 2006 case of Gonzalez v. Oregon, the main question before the Court was whether the Controlled Substances Act allows the U.S. Attorney General to prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide, notwithstanding a state law prohibiting it (Beauchamp et al. 2008, 413–18). The Court of Appeals held that the Interpretive Rule exercised by the Attorney General to restrict use of certain drugs was invalid; the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals was correct: its decision was affirmed. In summary, these cases have three implications. One, these cases demonstrate that it is not unconstitutional for states to ban assisted suicide while at the same time protect patients’ rights to refuse life-sustaining treatment. Two, one cannot claim that physician-assisted suicide is a fundamental liberty interest protected in the same way as the right to refuse treatment. Finally, the Executive branch at the federal level cannot use the Controlled Substances Act to restrict physician-assisted suicide at the state level (which basically protected the practice of physician-assisted suicide in Oregon). CHOOSING DEATH AND RELIGION: THEOLOGICAL ISSUES Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide evoke several theological issues that affect moral reflection. One can organize these issues under four themes: the problem of death, the problem of suffering, the problem of sovereignty, and the sanctity of life. All of these themes and issues, however, are very complex; unfortunately, their presentation here will necessarily be cursory and reflect a rudimentary outline of their depth. To begin, the problem of death manifests itself in a variety of ways. For one, Kenneth Kramer identifies three different kinds of death: physical, psychological, and spiritual (Kramer 1988). In the debates over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, all of these, in one way or another, contribute to how one understands the consequences of intentionally choosing death. For example, does causing physical death by physician-assisted suicide entail causing the patient’s spiritual death as well? Additionally, the ways in which one understands the mortality

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and immortality of human consciousness is reflected in the problem of death. For example, one may see death as a transitional phase between this life and an “other life,” which may be an afterlife, a resurrected life, a reincarnated life, and so on. Moreover, the disvalue of death itself, which is reflected in Ramsey’s comments on the “indignity” of dying and the immorality of unjustly causing death (i.e., murder), is relevant to the discussions of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Finally, the choice for death in euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide occurs between two socially constructed extreme perspectives of human life: absolute protection of physical life and complete callousness in ending physical life. Here, the notion that there is ultimate value in (physical) life itself is the foundation for an extreme position of vitalism: for example, protecting human physical life at all costs and regardless of its conditions. Religious beliefs of transitory phases of this life and death, which is usually built on some belief of communion or experience with an ultimate reality (e.g., St. Thomas’ description of the Beatific Vision), suggest that vitalism may not be an appropriate response to the inevitable demise of the physical life of human beings. Indeed, if a religion sees that the fullness of human life is reached in the next life, then clinging to this physical life would be to deny (or, at least, obstruct) that fulfillment. Vitalism might work against an appropriate, timely, and ultimately good end to human physical existence. Nevertheless, the opposite end of the spectrum would be to hasten the death of an individual. This is represented by the choice for death in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Thus, opponents to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide may run the risk of vitalism and become a death-denying culture whereas proponents to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide may run the risk of becoming a death-embracing culture. Next, the problem of suffering emerges from the intersection of religion and the social issues of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in two specific ways: in the causes of suffering and the meanings of suffering. Since individuals and institutions that seek euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide often do so in response to either real or threatened suffering, an understanding of suffering itself is central to how one evaluates euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide as responses to it. First, there are different ways one can understand the causes of suffering. Theologically, this relates to the problem of evil in the world. On the one hand, one may find it difficult to reconcile a belief in an all-loving, allpowerful God and the reality that He “allows” innocent people to suffer (e.g., as the result of a natural disaster or serious illness). On the other hand, one may acknowledge that some (or all) suffering in the world relates somehow—directly or indirectly—to humankind’s free will. The way one understands the causes of suffering shapes how he or she views suffering as a motivation for (or against) euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Second, there are varieties of meanings one can have of suffering. One religiously based view sees suffering as a form of penance for one’s transgressions or sins against himself, his neighbors, and/or God. Thus, the experience of suffering can have a salvific, or cathartic, connotation as one approaches what he or she may perceive to be ultimate judgment in death. This is a problematic view for a variety of reasons. For example, people who are dying are usually not free to choose which pain or suffering they

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experience, which may undermine its authenticity as a religious prescription for sins already committed. Furthermore, viewing end-of-life suffering as catharsis may not be commensurate with the religion’s conception of a forgiving God. Another religiously based view of suffering sees such suffering, or just the experience of physical or psychological pain, as an opportunity for grace to become manifest. Christians see this view in Jesus’ healing and teaching ministry. In the Gospel of John, for example, when they encounter a blind man, Jesus’ disciples ask him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus’ response suggests this notion of an ‘opportunity for grace’: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed to him” (John 9:1–3, New Revised Standard Version). In summary, the problem of suffering is an integral one to the moral problems and social issues posed by euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Indeed, what suffering does is to call upon everyone to respond to and relate appropriately to those who are experiencing pain and suffering as their lives transition out of this one. Thus, in light of the long tradition of social justice in the Jewish and Christian traditions, access to adequate and appropriate palliative care and hospice is a principal component to the debates over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Following the problems of death and of suffering, another major theological theme involved in debates over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide is the problem of sovereignty. This theme asks how humans should exercise their responsibility (that is, their moral agency) when confronted with the problems of death and suffering. To answer this question, religious thinkers have described various models. On the one hand, humans may lay claim to total control and presume ownership and dominion over everything including when life and death occur. Thus by adopting this perspective, proponents of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide see those interventions as appropriate to human moral agency. Opponents to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide would claim that those interventions are beyond the scope of human sovereignty, and the beginning and ending of life properly remain in the domain of divine sovereignty. Here, the critique of “playing God” becomes evident. While playing God can mean different things, including a positive conception (e.g., “play God as God would play”), it generally means a negative evaluation of one who is or is attempting to usurp the rights (and therefore sovereignty) of the divine (Shannon 2005; see also, Verhey 1998). On the other hand, humans may neglect their responsibility and deny any control they really have thereby putting it all “in the hands of God.” In its extreme form, this can deny any human moral agency (and therefore human sovereignty over what is proper for humans). The problem here is that this may result in inadequate end-of-life care including therapy, palliation, and hospice. In this case, the critique of irresponsibility, or improper moral discernment, becomes obvious. The last theological issue is the sanctity of life. The sanctity of life intimately relates to Judeo-Christian notions of human dignity based on the idea that God creates human beings in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). The idea that human life possesses “sanctity” suggests that it is special and requires extra moral sensitivities when it is endangered or nearing its existential boundaries

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(i.e., at the beginning of life following conception and at the ending of life in the dying process). However, this concept is often contrasted with a concern for a person’s quality of life. So, proponents of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide may seek such interventions to end their lives because if they do not they may be forced to live a kind of life (at a quality level) unacceptable to them. Many ethicists have debated the logic of both a sanctity-of-life position, which may ignore the miserable conditions that a dying person may experience, and a quality-of-life position, which may ignore the inherent worth of human life regardless of its condition. Indeed, one author argues that these two perspectives are complimentary and not irreconcilable. Any religiously justified position in the debates of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide will need to account for both the sanctity of life and the quality of life perspectives. PUBLIC POLICY CONSIDERATIONS In the end, there are many public policy considerations in the debates over euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. However, there are four major considerations. The first consideration is, of course, the legalization and institutionalization of euthanasia and/or physician-assisted suicide. Here, institutionalization means the systematic integration of those interventions as organizational policy and professional practices. The legal issues in the U.S. mentioned above will continue to shape the possibility of legalization (or criminalization) of these practices. The second consideration is the fair availability and access to alternatives at the endof-life; that is, public policy on euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide ought to consider adequate home health services, palliative care, and hospice as legitimate options to euthanasia and/or physician assisted suicide. A third consideration includes adequate and necessary protections for marginalized individuals, especially the disabled, elderly and sick in society. If any public policy is to legitimize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, robust protections for these marginalized groups will be necessary. Finally, a fourth consideration is the protections for the health care professions, which ought to seek a separation between the roles of helping and healing and the roles of death-causing or -assisting. This will include sensitivity to the potential for conflicts of interest, reimbursement schedules, and the authenticity of both patient and provider judgments that choosing death is freely chosen. Many of the safeguards in Oregon’s statute recognize these and other procedural issues involved in implementing a policy of physician-assisted suicide. See also Faith-Based Health Care, Religious Morality, and Institutional Policies; Health Care Reform. Further Reading: Beauchamp, Tom L., LeRoy Walters, Jeffrey P. Kahn, and Anna C. Mastroianni. Contemporary Issues in Bioethics, 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008; Bruni, Frank. “Federal Ruling Allows Doctors to Prescribe Drugs to End Life.” New York Times. April 3, 1996, A1; Burt, Robert A. “Death Made Too Easy.” New York Times. November 16, 1994, A19; Cahill, Lisa Sowle. Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, and Change. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005; Callahan, Daniel. The Troubled Dream of Life: In Search of a Peaceful Death. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000; Callahan, Daniel. What Kind of Life? The Limits

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Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide of Medical Progress. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1995; Campbell, Courtney S. “The Oregon Trail to Death: Measure 16,” Commonweal 121, no. 14 (August 1994); Deliens, L., F. Mortier, J. Bilsen, M. Cosyns, R. Stichele, J. Vanoverloop, and K. Ingels. “End-of-Life Decisions in Medical Practice in Flanders, Belgium: A Nationwide Survey.” The Lancet 356, no. 9244 (2000): 1806–1811; DuBose, Edwin R. Physician Assisted Suicide: Religious and Public Policy Perspectives. Chicago, IL: Park Ridge Center, 1999; Edelstein, Ludwig, “The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation and Interpretation.” In Ancient Medicine, eds. Oswei Temkin and C. Lillian Temkin. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967; Egan, Timothy. “Suicide Law Placing Oregon on Several Uncharted Paths.” New York Times. November 25, 1994. A1; Foley, Kathleen, and Herbert Hendin, Eds. The Case Against Assisted Suicide: For the Right to End-of-Life Care. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002; Gevers, Sjef. “Physician Assisted Suicide: New Developments in the Netherlands.” Bioethics. July 1995. 9 (3): 309–312; Gorsuch, Neil M. The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006; Haverkate, Ilinka, Bregje D. Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Agnes van der Heide, Piet J. Kostense, Gerrit van der Wal, and Paul J. van der Maas. “Refused and granted requests for euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands: interview study with structured questionnaire.” British Medical Journal. October 7, 2000. 321:865–866; “The Hippocratic Oath Insofar as a Christian May Swear It,” in On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, 2nd ed., eds. Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998; Hurst, Samia A., and Alex Mauron. “Assisted suicide and euthanasia in Switzerland: allowing a role for non-physicians.” British Medical Journal. February 1, 2003. 326:271– 273; Jochemsen, Henk. “Euthanasia in Holland: An Ethical Critique of the New Law.” Journal of Medical Ethics. December 1994. 20 (4):212–217; “Judge Strikes Down Oregon’s Suicide Law.” New York Times. August 4, 1995. A15; Keown, John, Ed. Euthanasia Examined: Ethical, Clinical, and Legal Perspectives. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Kramer, Kenneth. The Sacred Art of Dying: How World Religions Understand Death. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1988; Lewin, Tamar. “Ruling Sharpens Debate on ‘Right to Die’.” New York Times. March 8, 1996. A14; McLean, Sheila. The Case for Physician Assisted Suicide. London, UK: Pandora, 1997; Mitchell, John B. Understanding Assisted Suicide: Nine Issues to Consider. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007; Oregon Department of Human Services. “Eighth Annual Report on Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.” http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/docs/year8.pdf. Published March 9, 2006. Accessed February 19, 2008; Quill, Timothy. Death and Dignity: Making Choices and Taking Charge. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, 1993; Quill, Timothy. “Death and Dignity: A Case of Individualized Decision Making.” New England Journal of Medicine. March 7, 1991. 324:691–694; Ramsey, Paul. “The Indignity of ‘Death with Dignity,’” Hastings Center Studies 2, no. 2 (May 1974): 47–62; Rietjens, Judith A.C., Johannes J.M. van Delden, Agnes van der Heide, Astrid M. Vrakking, Bregje D. Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Paul J. van der Maas, and Gerrit van der Wal. “Terminal Sedation and Euthanasia: A Comparison of Clinical Practices.” Archives of Internal Medicine 166(2006): 749–753; Scherer, Jennifer M. Euthanasia and the Right to Die: A Comparative View. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999; Schotsmans, Paul, and Tom Meulenbergs, Eds. Euthanasia and Palliative Care in the Low Countries. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters Publishers, 2005; Shannon, Thomas. “Playing God or Playing Human?,” in Contemporary Issues in Bioethics: A Catholic Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005; Simons, Marlise. “Dutch Parliament Approves Law Permitting Euthanasia.” New York Times. February 10, 1995. A10; Singer, Peter. “The Legislation of Voluntary Euthanasia in the Northern Territory.” Bioethics. 1995.

Evangelical Christianity in America | 9 (5): 419–424; Verhey, Allen. “‘Playing God’ and Invoking a Perspective.” In On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics, 2nd ed., eds. Stephen E. Lammers and Allen Verhey Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998; Walter, James J., and Thomas A. Shannon. Contemporary Issues in Bioethics: A Catholic Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlfield, 2005; Walter, James J., and Thomas A. Shannon, eds. Quality of Life: The New Medical Dilemma. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1990; Yount, Lisa. Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. New York: Facts On File, 2000.

Nicholas J. Kockler EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA Evangelical Christians make up 23 percent of the American population— approximately 69.5 million people in 2007. The words evangelical and evangelicalism come from the New Testament expression for good news or gospel. A related English word is evangelism, which describes a variety of activities that are aimed at converting non-Christians. In that sense, evangelical Christianity is distinguished by its efforts to spread the Christian faith. The term evangelical has evolved in meaning over time. The word first appeared in the sixteenth century to describe Catholic thinkers who challenged the Church to replace its beliefs and practices with more biblical ones. After that, the word referred to Protestants who rejected the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and held to the Bible alone as their authority. In seventeenthcentury Germany, the word distinguished Christians who followed Martin Luther’s teachings (Lutherans) from those who embraced John Calvin’s theology (Reformed or Calvinist Christians). Today in Europe, the term evangelical is a synonym of Protestant. The meaning of the term also evolved in North America. From the sixteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries, evangelical referred to all Protestants. After the Civil War, the term all but disappeared, and Protestants were either fundamentalists or modernists. The word reappeared in the 1950s. Scholars sometimes use the prefix neo (neo-evangelical) to highlight the difference between the term’s newer and older uses. The term neo-evangelical refers to a certain type of Protestant. Like fundamentalists, they believe that the Bible is historically accurate and theologically authoritative. However, they also accept the findings of secular disciplines like science. Today in the United States evangelical has expanded to include fundamentalists (the religious right), neo-evangelicals (or moderate evangelicals), Pentecostals (including charismatics), the evangelical left, and a substantial portion of the so-called emerging-church movement. EVANGELICALISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE It is virtually impossible to grasp the complexities of contemporary evangelicalism without considering its diverse past. In a word, American evangelicalism has had several “beginnings.” Each of these points of origin has contributed to the shape of present-day evangelicalism.

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The Rise of Puritanism and the Great Awakening Most Christians in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America were Puritans. They migrated from England in search of religious freedom. A series of revivals, known as the Great Awakening, swept the colonies between 1730 and 1745. Puritan pastor Jonathan Edwards is one of the best-known figures of that time. He accounted for this “surprising work of God” in theological terms. He stressed that God was the initiator of these religious experiences, and that human beings were passive recipients. Edwards taught that while people had to submit to God’s saving influence, they had no power to accept or reject these divine blessings. In other words, the revivals of the Great Awakening stressed God’s sovereignty and minimized human free will. The Revolutionary War put an end to the revivals of the Great Awakening. The Rise of Second-Wave Revivalism Within less than two decades after the Revolution, revivals of a different sort began to appear. Historians refer to these revivals as second-wave revivalism, or the Second Great Awakening. Unlike the Great Awakening, nineteenth-century revivals stressed the role of human free will. While the Great Awakening occurred mainly in Puritan circles, second-wave revivals started with Methodists, who first arrived on the American scene in 1766. They made frequent use of open-air meetings, and stressed the need for people to choose to follow Jesus Christ. By 1830, Methodists had grown to more than half a million in number. Baptists used the same revivalist methods. They increased tenfold during the three decades after the Revolution. Evangelistic tent meetings were commonplace in the first half of the nineteenth century. Many churches adapted the format of revivals for their regular worship services, abandoning the liturgical format that Christians had followed for centuries. Preaching in these new worship services packed the same evangelistic fire as the revivals themselves. The singing before the sermon prepared people’s hearts for what the pastor would say. Eventually, this became the standard worship format for many Protestant churches in North America, continuing well into the twentieth century. Nineteenth-century evangelicalism was a product of its age. It drew from, and contributed to the nation’s growing sense of individual freedom and democratic fervor. Its theologians produced writings that harmonized with the philosophy and science of the day. Revivals filled existing churches with new believers. Thousands of new churches were established. Voluntary societies and socialreform movements worked to create a “Christian America.” Evangelicals established city missions to provide food, shelter, and clothing for the poor. They launched efforts to visit the sick and imprisoned. They comforted the dying and supported unwed mothers. They worked to improve working conditions for industrial laborers. They provided humane treatment for the mentally ill and enacted prison reform. Many advocated for the abolition of slavery, which accentuated the tensions between the North and South, and contributed to the onset of the Civil War in 1861.

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The Rise of Fundamentalists and Modernists After the Civil War, American evangelicalism entered a new chapter. Seventy years earlier it had come to its own in the newly ordered nation. Buoyed by the optimism of democratic freedom and the enthusiasm of second-wave revivalism, it witnessed unprecedented growth. Along with most other Americans before the war, evangelicals believed the future would only get brighter. The predominant theology of future events was “postmillennialism,” which held that Christ would eventually come at the end of an extended period of unbroken progress. Almost all evangelicals believed they were living in that golden era— until the Civil War. Casualties of the war extended well beyond the 60,000 that died. The nation reeled under the pain of its own making. Hopes of a glorious future collided on the hard reality of suffering and uncertainty. Evangelicals had to reorient themselves in a world that had betrayed their beliefs. After the Civil War, evangelicals split into two opposing groups: fundamentalists and modernists. Several factors contributed to this split. One was the teaching of English clergyman, John Nelson Darby. Darby divided the past, present, and future into different stages or “dispensations.” In each of these dispensations, the rules and regulations unique to that era guided God’s relationship with human beings. The present dispensation, according to Darby and his followers, would end only after a period of suffering and depravity. Circumstances would get worse rather than better before Christ’s return. Before the Civil War, most Protestants believed they could bring about Jesus’s return by making the world a better place. After the war, they had little reason to hold onto this hope. Darby’s teaching, which we call dispensationalism, provided some with the help they needed to make sense of the war and its aftermath. Ironically, dispensationalism attracted few followers in its country of origin. However, circumstances in postwar America were different from those in England. It took only two decades after the war for dispensationalism to become the preferred teaching of “end times” for American fundamentalists. Modernist Christians, on the other hand, took sharp exception to dispensationalism. Another factor that led to the division of American Christianity after the war was the teaching of evolution. English naturalist, Charles Darwin, introduced it. Darwin’s teaching offered an alternative to the bleak outlook of the dispensationalists. In contrast to fundamentalists, Christian modernists were unwilling to resign themselves to a future that would only get worse. For them, evolution offered the familiar hope of a brighter future, while accounting for that hope in scientific rather than theological terms. A third factor that contributed to the split of American Christianity was German rationalism. Throughout the nineteenth century, a steady stream of pastors and teachers poured from Germany into North America. Many were Germanborn immigrants. Others were Americans who had received advanced theological education in Germany’s research universities. In either case, they brought teachings that had circulated in Europe for nearly a century, but were largely unknown to North America. German rationalists had a lot in common with Darwin’s evolutionists. However, they were inspired more by philosophers than

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scientists. Their main goal was to reinterpret Christian Scripture in the light of modern rationality. They denied the Bible’s accounts of miracles. They also rejected the seven-day creation story in Genesis. The teachings of these rationalists attracted many of the same American Protestants that preferred evolution. In essence, it gave credence to Darwin’s theory. It also gave modernists a reasonable alternative to what they now considered a misleading view of Scripture, which before the war had led them to believe (wrongly) that their good deeds would bring about Christ’s return. American Protestantism remained divided between fundamentalists and modernists throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The Rise of Pentecostalism While tensions were mounting in the early 1900s between fundamentalists and modernists, another Christian movement was being born: Pentecostalism. During this time, a series of separate revivals broke out in places as diverse as Kansas, North Carolina, Texas, California, and Tennessee. One of the most remarkable of these revivals was the Azuza Street Revival in Los Angeles. William Seymour, an African American pastor, led Revivalistic meetings there from 1906 to 1909. He rejected existing racial barriers in favor of “unity in Christ.” He also believed that women were entitled to serve in any level of church leadership to which the Holy Spirit called them. The most distinctive characteristic of this movement is the experience of “speaking in tongues” (i.e., speaking in a foreign or heavenly language that one had not learned beforehand). Seymour and other Pentecostal leaders believed that speaking in tongues was the outward evidence that one had received the Holy Spirit. The Rise of “New Evangelicalism” By the mid-1950s, a growing number of fundamentalists began to talk about the need for a new evangelicalism. While many eventually made the transition from fundamentalism to new evangelicalism, it did not occur overnight. It was, in many ways, a gradual and painful process. Evangelist Billy Graham was one of the strongest proponents of moderate evangelicalism. Graham was convinced that his ministry would have the greatest impact if he distanced himself from the sectarianism and anti-intellectualism of the fundamentalists. He sought to embrace a conservative theological position while adopting a liberal approach to social problems. He also favored a view of biblical inspiration that harmonized more readily with science. Today moderate evangelicals outnumber fundamentalists by a considerable margin. The Rise of the Evangelical Left During the 1980s and 90s, there emerged another evangelical beginning. As more and more fundamentalist and moderate evangelicals openly committed themselves to social and political conservatism, there occurred

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a countermovement of sorts. Many of these Christians were convinced that American evangelicalism was leaning so far to the ideological “right” that it was failing to address the more fundamental concerns to which Jesus directed the church. This countermovement is often referred to as the evangelical left. Members of this movement are theologically evangelical. They embrace the doctrines of the Incarnation, the atonement, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They also consider the Bible to be the primary authority of religious truth. However, they are unique in that most of them embrace liberal politics. They are inclined to be pacifists and are often opposed to capital punishment. The Rise of the Emerging Church Movement By the end of the twentieth century, an influential minority of evangelical Christians began to believe that the world had entered a new epoch—namely, the postmodern age. This new era, they said, brought with it a vastly different set of social norms and philosophical assumptions regarding the nature of truth. The postmodern age, or emerging culture as it is sometimes called, requires Christians to rethink how best to frame and express their beliefs, their worship of God, and their relationship to the wider world. Members of the emerging church movement generally agree that the world has entered a new epoch of its history. However, they are more politically and theologically diverse than evangelical moderates or the evangelical left. They prefer conversations to evangelism, relationships over institutional church structures, and authenticity over formality. DIVERSITY OF PRESENTDAY EVANGELICALISM This brief historical overview shows that present-day American evangelicalism is the product of at least seven distinct “beginnings.” Its first point of origin derives from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Puritanism. Flagship schools like the Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, continue to preserve and promote evangelicalism’s Reformed tradition. Its second beginning came with second-wave revivalism in the early nineteenth century. The influence of this phase persists in a variety of forms. It is embodied in the widely accepted belief that people are free to choose whether they want to become Christians. It appears in the nonliturgical worship services carried on by the majority of Protestants in North America. It continues in the revivalist ministries of people like Billy Graham and Luis Palau. It is also evident in the social consciousness of moderate evangelicals, the evangelical left, and the emerging church movement. The rise of fundamentalism in the decades after the Civil War, was evangelicalism’s third beginning. Today, even though fundamentalist evangelicals are in the minority, they are still a potent force within American culture. The influences of Pentecostalism, evangelicalism’s fourth beginning, are evident in every quarter of Christianity, including the Roman Catholic and

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Orthodox Churches. It is the fastest growing branch of Christianity in developing nations. Many analysts believe that by the year 2020, Pentecostalism will overtake the Roman Catholic Church as the largest Christian denomination in Latin America. Evangelicalism’s fifth beginning came with the rise of moderate evangelicalism in the 1950s. Some of the better-known moderates include Billy Graham, Carl Henry, Millard Erickson, and Rick Warren. Evangelicalism’s sixth beginning came with the rise of the evangelical left. Not since the nineteenth century has the social consciousness of American evangelicalism been more alive than in the present-day evangelical left. Some of the nation’s most influential Christians are members of this branch of evangelicalism. Former president Jimmy Carter has led the way in a variety of humanitarian efforts. Ron Sider, founded Evangelicals for Social Action to explore biblically based solutions to social and economic issues. Jim Wallis is founder of the Washington, D.C.–based evangelical community Sojourners as well as founder and editor Sojourners Magazine. He has authored several books, and hundreds of articles calling for social change, that is inspired by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Other well-known evangelicals of this stripe include Tony Campolo, Philip Yancey, Jesse Jackson, and Katherine Kroeger. The emerging church movement, evangelicalism’s seventh and most recent beginning, is best represented in the writings of Brian McLaren, the movement’s most influential leader. Inspired by the humanitarianism of the evangelical left, McLaren is seeking to offer a reconstruction of Christian life and thought amid the deconstructionist attitudes of many who are associated with the movement. On one occasion, McLaren addressed an audience of emerging-church leaders that had gleefully rejected the behavioral constraints of “traditional Christianity.” He said, “Our world doesn’t need Christians who drink more, smoke more, or swear more. It needs Christians who live like Jesus lives and who care for the things that Jesus cares about” (from notes taken at “Revolution,” an Off the Map conference, Seattle, Washingtin, November 4, 2006). MISPERCEPTIONS OF EVANGELICALISM Despite the diversity of American evangelicalism, many in the United States are under the impression that evangelical refers only to the religious right. They think that all evangelicals are opposed to abortion, gay rights, and the ordination of women. The majority of evangelicals, however, are either moderate evangelicals, members of the evangelical left, or part of the emerging church movement. These Christians typically do not locate the center of their spirituality around such issues. Nor do they wish to be stereotyped as social or political conservatives. They reject the harsh rhetoric of fundamentalist evangelicals. They believe that the greatest evils to overcome include the AIDS crisis, and world hunger. Nevertheless, fundamentalist evangelicals are often more outspoken than other evangelicals. Some of the best-known evangelical organizations are fortresses of the religious right. The Traditional Values Coalition is one example. It claims to be the largest Christian grassroots church lobby in America, representing 43,000

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churches nationwide. It says its plan is “to take back the courts from the ACLU and the anti-God Left” (Traditional Values Coalition 2007). This organization encourages supporters to write to their civil leaders. It opposes issues like stemcell research, abortion, and gay marriage. It also promotes political candidates that are socially conservative. Another fundamentalist organization is Focus on the Family. Millions of Americans listen to its daily radio broadcasts. The organization’s nonprofit status keeps it from supporting partisan politics, but its representatives are free to speak off the record. Not only does it offer advice on how to rear children, it also recommends which candidates to vote for, and when to lobby for specific social issues. The organization, on several occasions, has collaborated with key churches to run voter-registration campaigns, distribute voter guides, and encourage people to get out and cast their votes. The National Association of Evangelicals is one of the most influential representatives of American evangelicalism. An analysis of its activities between 2001 and 2006 shows that it was focused as much on politics as religion. Analysts credit the NAE with rallying conservative Christians behind President George W. Bush’s 2000 election and 2004 reelection. Former NAE president, Ted Haggard, conducted weekly conference calls with White House officials and evangelical leaders. He started these conferences in 2001, and continued them until scandal forced his resignation in November 2006. With 30 million members, the NAE has the reputation of being the standard-bearer of evangelical beliefs and values. These groups have played a major role in leading Americans to think that most evangelicals belong to the religious right. CONCLUSION Popular misperceptions aside, American evangelicalism is a rich tapestry of Christian religious traditions that strengthens America’s social fabric and enhances the existence of countless individuals. Fundamentalist evangelicals remind us that truth matters, and should not be taken lightly. Modernist evangelicals remind us that all truth is God’s truth. The evangelical left reminds us to live out Christian truth by loving our neighbors as ourselves. Emerging-church evangelicals remind us that even if truth does not change, our expressions and experiences of it do. See also Religious Conversion; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Campolo, Tony, Letters to a Young Evangelical: The Art of Mentoring. New York: BasicBooks, 2006; Marsden, George. Evangelicalism and Modern America. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1984; McGrath, Alister. Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995; Noll, Mark A. The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003; Noll, Mark A., David Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk. Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, The British Isles, and Beyond, 1700–1990. Religion in America Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Sweet, Leonard I. The Evangelical Tradition in America. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997; Traditional Values Coalition.

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Charles Conniry, Jr. EVANGELICAL MEN’S MOVEMENTS In 1991 the Berlin Wall fell, and the cold war was officially over. Many things changed with that event, but it is perhaps not just a coincidence that at the same moment the men’s movement came into being. The election of Bill Clinton in 1992, a man who would make famous the phrase “I feel your pain” and whose approach commentators label as “feminized,” added to the confusion rather than eliminated it. The strong silent John Wayne man that was the model of manhood throughout so much of the cold war evaporated, set upon by changing norms for women, sex, and economics. It is not surprising then, that in this time of uncertainty the question of what it meant to be a “man” became a hot topic. Robert Bly and the secular men’s movement prodded men to dig deep, to understand the hurt their fathers had inflicted upon them, and to reconnect with their feelings emerging as new men (Bly 2004). Evangelicals were not left behind in this movement, but the traditionalist foundations ran deep. The Promise Keepers emerged as the alternative to the men’s movement, but it was plagued by conflict itself. It strained between the traditionalist model that had been the staple of evangelical/fundamentalist gender relations, and the call of new modes of gender relations from both the secular men’s movement and the women’s movements. The leaders and visionaries associated with the Promise Keepers actually had conflicting visions of manhood that participants sought to synthesize. In the end, the fall of the Promise Keepers in both attendance and finances may ultimately have been the result of these conflicting messages as the struggle to be a “Christian man” remains ongoing. MEN’S MOVEMENTS For most of the New Testament it is the category of woman that is a problem. Paul in 1 Corinthians in particularly seems to have an issue with women stepping outside of their cultural roles and taking on the positions of teacher and prophets. The author of Revelation, John of Patmos, rails against the “false teacher” Jezebel, and the pastoral epistles seem quick to want to put the genie back in the bottle, and women back in their subservient place. This continued in the early Christian period. Studies of the early church fathers have shown that women, particularly those outside the control of the traditional patriarchal family structure—widows and virgins—took on roles that made those church fathers extremely uncomfortable. Gnostic literature seems to indicate in certain branches of Christianity, women (particularly Mary Magdalene) who were seen as leaders of the Christian movement. In the New Testament period, then, the problem of gender was continually a problem about womanhood—what they could and could not do and be. Being a man, on the other hand, was not nearly

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as problematic for the early church. Paul talks about men’s submission to God, their responsibilities to their wives, but even here the problem really seems to be the role of women, not the role of men. In the late twentieth century, however, the category of man suddenly became problematized. In light of the feminist movement, women no longer were content to have as partners, men who assumed a dominant relational position. The psychological revolution beginning at the end of nineteenth century, and through the twentieth century, found that being a man was not as easy as was previously thought. Men’s needs and desires were examined and clinically categorized, and what had been seen as basic urges, suddenly was seen as the result of highly complicated processes that involved one’s mother and father, culture and social expectations. Even the category of sex was suddenly up in the air, as the Gay Liberation movement problematized the issue of men’s sexuality, and called into question the normativity of heterosexuality. By the later part of the twentieth century, being a man had become confusing; expectations were no longer clear. The “Father Knows Best” model of the 1950s had fallen by the wayside, but in its place no other model had been established. Rather than a new consensus emerging, the question of masculinity became the ancillary byproduct of other movements with other central concerns. The problem of masculinity was particularly prevalent in the evangelical communities. While the conservative Christian communities held stubbornly to the more patriarchal models of Victorian times, moderate evangelical men were clearly unsatisfied by the dominant father/dictator model of the past, and the ambiguity of the present. Into the vacuum stepped the men’s movements. The first steps in the burgeoning American Men’s Movement came from outside the Christian church with the publication of Robert Bly’s Iron John (2004) and Sam Keen’s Fire in the Belly (1992). A series of “men’s books” followed, men’s studies programs were initiated, and the men’s movement found its niche. IRON JOHN Robert Bly’s Iron John (2004) uses the Grimm’s fairytale, “Iron John.” The story of Iron John is one where a boy frees a wild-man and then goes off with him. He is eventually sent back to civilization where he rises from worker in the castle to a heroic knight who eventually marries the king’s daughter. Bly tries to explicate the crisis of the modern man through a reading of this story for modern life. Bly takes each element from the story and expands them with references to myths from other cultures, poetry, and the insights of psychology. The book is written as a meditation on manhood that sees the problem of today’s man as a loss of significant rites of passage that signal arrival as an adult male. Men no longer have a moment when they break from the mother and enter the world of men. Instead, the hard work of becoming a man is ignored, and the easier path is trod, which ultimately fails to clearly differentiate manhood from boyhood. The story of Iron John exemplifies the way men are hurt by the father through abuse or neglect. Bly advocates the route to becoming a man through spending a season with the inner wild man (Bly 2004).

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Bly is careful to state repeatedly that he is not calling for a return of patriarchalism. This is particularly true when he begins his discussion of the “Warrior,” an area that seems rife with danger. A history of the rape and abuse of women that accompanied the act of war certainly cannot be far from the surface in any such discussion. But Bly tries to explain that his notion of the warrior is not to redeem some testosterone soaked pillager from the past, but rather to endorse a notion of men who are committed “to self-sacrifice and service to the king, to intellectual combat, to clean fighting in marriage” (Bly 2004, 169). Older men have failed younger men by not mentoring them into the ways of the warrior. Fathers have wounded their sons instead, and mothers cannot help them. The story of Iron John functions as an allegory for the process of becoming a man, of reclaiming the notion of being “a man” and breaking free from the wounds of the father and the world of the mother. The movement that arose from Bly’s book, and others like it, became a media phenomenon. Men’s gatherings became quite popular. Men would gather on weekends in forested camps where they would engage in ancient male rituals like sweatlodges or drumming. They would dance and howl and grasp at the “wildman” within. But also they would talk about their feelings, their confusions about what it means to be a man, and most importantly they would talk about their fathers. Dealing with the complex of emotions surrounding the father seemed to be at the heart of the emotional payoff of these gatherings. Men shared stories of hurts, abuses, and various experiences of neglect suffered at the hands of their father. Bly’s notion of the father creating the wound that the son must forever carry, was actualized and shared at these gatherings. THE EVANGELICAL MEN’S MOVEMENT HISTORY For the evangelical movement, men have always been a scarce commodity. In the nineteenth century, religion was seen as part of the domestic world dominated by women. Men were outside the church, more invested in harvesting crops than souls. But clearly, even in the throes of the separate spheres, men experienced a certain isolation from each other. With the increasing industrialization and urbanization of the work force at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, a new emphasis on gatherings of men emerged. It is in this period that we see the founding of the Boy Scouts of America, who conveyed manhood as a rugged self-reliance, wilderness savvy and patriotic obligation. At this same time, their fathers were founding new fraternal orders, lodges, men’s clubs and young men’s fraternities as well. It began a period of male association that coupled masculine privilege with business advancement. On the religious front, in the beginning of the twentieth century, there arose a new vision of the evangelical man called Muscular Christianity. Popularized by traveling evangelist Billy Sunday, himself a former professional baseball player, this new vision of Christianity was directed at men. It was a form of evangelicalism that dispensed with a weak and feminized Jesus,

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and instead envisioned the savior as a man’s man. Sunday proclaimed Jesus a scrapper and analogies with sports and body-building peppered the language of this movement. THE PROMISE KEEPERS The Evangelical Men’s Movement in many ways is the heir of this muscular Christianity. It has been dominated by the Promise Keepers organization. The Promise Keepers were founded by Bill McCartney, a football coach at the University of Colorado. On a drive to a Christian Athletes dinner with Dave Wardell, the two men envisioned a stadium full of men bonded together through revival and discipleship. Their goal was to fill the University of Colorado’s Folsom Field with 50,000 men. Starting with a core group of 72 men, the Promise Keepers fasted and prayed for this new movement. Their first gathering was far short of their goal, yet still impressive, as 4000 men showed up. A scant two years later, McCartney actually accomplished his goal and filled the stadium with men dedicated to the cause of Christian manhood. The Promise Keepers quickly grew as an organization. An examination of the Promise Keepers attendance statistics shows a steady increase from 1990. The Promise Keepers claim that their conferences had an attendance of over 4000 the first year, 22,000 the next year, 50,000 the year after that, and by 1994, Promise Keeper conferences claimed 278,000 attendees. Those numbers continued exponential increases until 1996, when the Promise Keepers calculated a combined conference attendance of 1.1 million men. In 1997, the Promise Keepers descended on Washington with their Stand in the Gap march; inspired by, if not in answer to Minister Farrakhan’s Million Man March in 1995. The Promise Keepers claimed a million men in attendance, and spent the day with speakers leading them in prayer, song, and speeches extolling the virtues of, and exhorting the men to, Christian manhood. The Stand in the Gap march, however, represented the zenith of the Promise Keeper movement. Their attendance numbers began a precipitous decline after that. 1996 had already presaged a decline in the movement. Attendance was down some 400,000+ from 1995. The Stand in the Gap March seemed to indicate renewed interest, but in 1998 attendance continued to decline, even though conferences were no longer charging admission. Attendance seemed to plateau between 100,000 and 120,000 in the early part of the twenty-first century, but by 2007, attendance had dropped to 50,000 according to the official Promise Keeper estimates. The fall in attendance likewise had significant impact on the Promise Keepers’ budget. The budget for the Promise Keeper organization had largely come from attendance fees at conferences. With the elimination of such fees in 1998 as part of the Break Down the Walls campaign, which sought to include men from less affluent socio-economic demographics, the organization entered a financial crisis. The organization laid off staff and threatened to become an all-volunteer effort. It was saved from this fate by an infusion of donations, but continues as a significantly downsized version of its former self.

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The ideology of the Promise Keepers has generated a great deal of controversy as well. The main tenets of the Promise Keepers are represented in the Seven Promises that its membership commits to following. They are: 1. A Promise Keeper is committed to honoring Jesus Christ through worship, prayer, and obedience to God’s Word in the power of the Holy Spirit. 2. A Promise Keeper is committed to pursuing vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises. 3. A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity. 4. A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values. 5. A Promise Keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honoring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources. 6. A Promise Keeper is committed to reaching beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity. 7. A Promise Keeper is committed to influencing his world, being obedient to the Great Commandment (see Mark 12:30–31) and the Great Commission (see Matthew 28:19–20). These seven promises highlight a few important issues that are hallmarks of the Promise Keepers. The groups’ focus is on building relationships with other men, much like the more secular version of the men’s movement. These promises also take an usual step of specifically committing to breaking down racial barriers. And, interestingly, these promises highlight a commitment to sexual purity, and building strong marriages and families, seeming to indicate the founders feel this is an area of weakness in the Christian Church. Moreover, Promise Keepers are required to commit to their local church in terms of both time and money. The commitment to a local church ties in with a second aspect of the Promise Keeper approach, which was to sign on churches as well as individuals. The Promise Keepers’ organization attended to the clergy early on, often providing scholarships so that pastors could attend conferences, and the Promise Keepers created several conferences specifically for the clergy. As a result, churches often became the avenue by which the Promise Keepers were able to reach their audience. The Promise Keepers developed a special category of member called Ambassadors, specifically to liaison between the Promise Keeper movement and churches in their area. However, the Promise Keepers are not without their critics. It is the fourth promise to build “strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values,” that suggests to some critics that the Promise Keepers seek to reaffirm traditional patriarchal values in the end. George Lundskow’s study, “Are Promises Enough?” sought to explore this question. Without doubt, Lundskow concludes, the men in the Promise Keeper movement see the traditional nuclear family, with the mother at home, and the father at work, as the ideal (Lundskow

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2000). On the other hand, economic necessity often requires the woman to work outside the home and many see this as a viable choice. In particular, Lundskow notes “I did not encounter the ‘barefoot and pregnant’ attitude that some writers seemingly imply” (Lundskow 2000, 62). Though Lundskow does note that men in the Promise Keeper movement tend to see women as more emotional and intuitive, while men are seen as more material and logical. Such a world view then, implicitly sanctifies a more patriarchal vision. On the other hand, the patriarch is more sensitive because of the Promise Keeper message. Using the concept of “Servant-Leader,” Lundskow notes that these men feel free to cry, to view their wives as friends and partners, and are willing to admit when they are wrong and acknowledge when their wives are right. The wives that Lundskow interviews seem genuinely pleased with the effect the Promise Keepers has had on their mates, and the level to which their relationship with their husbands has improved (Lundskow 2000). While the Promise Keeper vision does not abandon the more traditionalist notions of gender roles popular in fundamentalist/evangelical circles, it seeks to emphasize more engagement and humility within the marriage relationship. However, if we turn to political issues related to gender, the vision becomes much narrower. Lundskow notes that abortion is clearly understood as murder, and no discussion of choice is really engaged, though one individual in the study acknowledged that in the case of rape, the issue is perhaps less black and white. On the issue of homosexuality, on the other hand, little ambiguity is apparent. While Lundskow notes that none of the men he interviewed thought it was appropriate to persecute gays or discriminate in employment, the overall opinion was that homosexuality was considered clearly as sin, and should be condemned as such. Though certainly the men Lundskow interviewed were willing to admit that everyone sins, and that judging should be left to God (Lundskow 2000). John Bartowski has done a more recent study of the literature of the Promise Keepers and the evangelical men’s movement in general (Bartowski 2004). It should be noted, that while certainly the Promise Keepers are the most visible representatives of the evangelical men’s movement, they do not speak with one voice. In reality, there has been an explosion of literature oriented towards being a godly man sold in Christian bookstores across the country. The majority of the authors have appeared at Promise Keeper conferences, and thus, while not officially promoting Promise Keeper doctrine, they bear the Promise Keeper imprimatur by being a part of these meetings. Bartowski’s survey identified four different models of “manhood” propounded by this literature: The Rational Patriarch, The Expressive Egalitarian, The Tender Warrior, and The Multicultural Man (Bartowski 2004). The Rational Patriarch is often the stereotype of the Promise Keepers that Lundskow is fighting against. This is a reaffirmation of traditional masculinity that focuses on a clear essentialist division between women and men, which, and in the end, validates the patriarchal social order. Here, as seen above, women are seen as intuitive but also as detail oriented. This makes them naturally more adept at caregiving for children. On the other hand, men are logical and aggressive, prone to taking initiative, and more focused on a long-range vision. This

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makes the man the natural leader of the household, and The Rational Patriarch model of masculinity is engaged in demanding that men not shrink from their responsibility as such. It may be lonely at the top, but men are clearly suited to be on top, and have a duty to take up their calling unfailingly. While certainly Lundskow’s study showed hints of the Rational Patriarch, it is the Expressive Egalitarian that seems more prominent in his interviews (Lundskow 2000). Here, the emphasis is less on essentialized differences than human qualities that all people share, and particularly the emotional work of being a human being. For this model, the emphasis is on being in touch with one’s feelings, and sharing those with both male friends and female partners. The result is a greater amount of relational egalitarianism, where husbands and wives are more partners than in the top down approach of the Rational Patriarch. The focus of decision-making among couples is mutually acceptable solutions and not the implementation of male prerogative. Though Bartowski notes that his Expressive Egalitarian author is often unable to completely escape the sexual essentialism that is found in the Rational Patriarch, and occasionally engages in contradiction as he attempts to employ both notions simultaneously (Bartowski 2004). The Tender Warrior is a model that has a greater debt to the secular men’s movement and Iron John than the others. Here we see what Bartowski calls the Poetics of Promise-Keeping. The hallmark of this model is less its rationalist discourse, and more its mythopoetic metaphors for what comprises manhood. The Tender Warrior is armed with defensive battle attire and offensive weapons. Symbolic imagery permeates the discussion, often obscuring the finer points of how this move to manhood is practically to be accomplished. In marriage, the Tender Warrior carves out a middle ground between the Rational Patriarch and the Expressive Egalitarian, which employs the servant-leader notion Lundskow picked up on before. But nevertheless, it is the Warrior who goes out to battle and defends home and hearth, and thus maintains the status of headship in the family. But the very nature of the poetic language employed resists categorization as overtly patriarchal, for this model is characterized by “balancing reason with emotion and strength with tenderness, these tender tacking movements highlight the semi-porous boundary between ‘the masculine’ and ‘the feminine’ ”(Bartowski 2004, 61). The Tender Warrior eschews neither in himself. The Multicultural Man is perhaps the most unexpected turn that the evangelical men’s movement, and specifically the Promise Keepers, have taken. The focus of the seventh promise above is grounded in the racial division that underlies our society. The Promise Keepers are quite straightforward, name racism as a “sin,” and one that requires redemption beyond merely divine forgiveness but including “racial reconciliation.” To be sure, this is not a return to the social gospel of the 1960s, but maintains the characteristic evangelical emphasis on the individual. Thus, it is racial reconciliation that is accomplished “one relationship at a time” (Bartowski 2004, 63). The Promise Keepers themselves tried to mediate this with the removal of conference fees that would seek to allow others from different racial and social backgrounds to join the gatherings with their Breaking Down the Gates campaign. In the end, this move, while

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threatening the fiscal solvency of the Promise Keepers, failed to significantly change the make up of the attendees. Perhaps the failure to recognize and address larger institutional racial problems failed to draw the desired audience. It is interesting to revisit Lundskow’s study in light of the different visions elucidated by Bartowski. One hears in Lundskow’s interlocutors a combination, and sometimes a confusion of all four models. They seek to be both Tender Warriors and Rational Patriarchs, they seek to express their feelings to their wives, while at the same time reclaiming an activist role in the family that occasionally resembles Father Knows Best. Such a conglomeration of often conflicting models represents the practical outcome of the confusion that inhabits the Promise Keeper movement, as its members try to hold to both the past, and to somehow to find their way into the future. See also Apocalypticism and Nuclear War; Vegetarianism as Religious Witness. Further Reading: Anonymous. Promise Keepers. http://www.promisekeepers.org/; Bartkowski, John P. The Promise Keepers: Servants, Soldiers, and Godly Men. Rutgers University Press, February, 2004; Bly, Robert. Iron John: A Book About Men. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2004; Chrasta, Michael. “The Religious Roots of the Promise Keepers.” In The Promise Keepers: Essays in Masculinity and Christianity, ed. Dane Claussen. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company Inc. Publishers, 2000: 20–28; Gallagher, Sally K., and Sabrina L. Wood. “Godly manhood going Wild?: transformations in conservative Protestant masculinity.” Sociology of Religion 66, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 135–60; Keen, Sam. Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man. New York: Bantam, 1992; Lundskow, George N. “Are Promises Enough? Promise Keepers Attitudes and Character in Intensive Interviews.” In Promise Keepers: Essays in Masculinity and Christianity, ed. Dane Claussen. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company Inc. Publishers, 2000: 56–75; Trip, Gabriel. “Call of the Wildmen.” New York Times Magazine, October 14, 1990; Williams, Rhys H. “Introduction: Promise Keepers: A Comment on Religion and Social Movements.” Sociology of Religion (March 22, 2000). http://find.galegroup.com/ itx/in fomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&pro dId=AONE&docId=A61908751&source=gale&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName =boon41269&version=1.0.

Randall Reed EVANGELICALS AND ENVIRONMENTALISM Evangelicals have typically been seen as the most conservative group when it comes to the environment. They have generally been portrayed as antiintellectual, and suspicious of all ecological movements. Certainly, some of this is borne out by the evidence, and some have suggested it stems from the dispensationalist perspective in evangelicalism that expects the imminent return of Jesus, and the quick-following destruction of the world. Such a position seemed to reach its height during the Reagan era. Today, however, the looming environmental crisis predicted by a large majority of the scientific community has had ramifications even in the evangelical world. Evangelicals have taken a new, more eco-friendly stance toward the environment, and have even been put on record as urging government and their membership

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to do their part in slowing global warming and taking care of the earth. This new evangelical environmentalism is sometimes called creation care and is growing in the United States today. THE ROLE OF DISPENSATIONALISM IN EVANGELICALISM To understand the relationship of evangelicalism and environmentalism, one must first understand the history of evangelicalism. A product of the second great awakening, evangelicalism caught fire at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Starting on the East Coast and traveling west, evangelicalism started as a revival movement, that some have argued challenged a movement toward secularism. Baptists and Methodists were particularly subject to the winds of evangelical change, though evangelical movements occurred in a large number of other denominations as well. Evangelicalism was particularly fomented by a number of itinerant preachers, who traveled throughout the country spreading a new message. The crux of evangelicalism was, then as now, conversion. Evangelicals stressed a need for repentance mediated through a conversion experience. This was not simply an intellectual affirmation, but a psychological transformation that made the believer a new person. Evangelicalism thus offered the believer a transformative moment that wiped away the past and resulted in a new creation. It was predicated upon the notion that the world was sinful, the domain of Satan. Christ’s coming was a historical moment of divine intervention, which allowed the Christian an opportunity to vacate their sinful state and be re-created into a new person. This led then to a suspicion of the world both natural and human. The world was fallen. Sin had seeped into its very core. And it took nothing less than a divine initiative powerfully enacted in the life of the believer to change that. Given that background, it is perhaps not difficult to understand the appeal of dispensationalism. Founded by Charles Nelson Darby in the mid-nineteenth century in Scotland, dispensationalism offered an understanding of the end of the world. Dispensationalism held that the world could be divided up into a series of ages. The first five ages ended with the life of Christ. From there, two more ages occurred and then the great parenthesis, a period outside the dispensations, which would end with the final age when Christ would return and establish his kingdom. The old fallen world would then pass away, and be replaced by a new heaven, and a new earth. The final age would be inaugurated by seven years of tribulation when God’s wrath would be visited upon the earth raining devastation. The earth would be ravaged by war, pestilence, plague, ecological disaster, death, famine and tyranny. Ultimately, this would end when Jesus returned as triumphant conqueror, wiping out the armies of the world with the sword of his mouth and bringing with him the army of saints. What was particularly appealing about dispensationalism, is that regardless how horrible the events of those last years of tribulation seemed, the believer could rest easy in the confidence that they would be exempt from such terrors.

Evangelicals and Environmentalism

This is because dispensationalism offered the key doctrine of the secret rapture of the church. Based on 1 Thessalonians 4, the dispensationalists believed that before the tribulation began, Christ would return and take the church with him to heaven. This then would be the final act for the church that would inaugurate the tribulation and the return of Christ some seven years later. The doctrine of fallenness that evangelicalism espoused, and the vision of the end propagated by dispensationalism, which included ecological catastrophe, linked together to create an evangelical understanding of the world as disposable in principle. The world is doomed, it is destined for environmental disaster that is predicted in scripture and is part of the inscrutable will of God. The question really becomes when will all this happen? While Darby himself eschewed date setting, he was convinced the time was near. But in 1948, when Israel became a nation, dispensationalists suddenly recognized the divine countdown had started. Hal Lindsey, in his dispensationalist best seller The Late Great Planet Earth, made this connection very clear. Speaking of Matthew 24, which ends with the parable of the fig tree (a symbol for Israel) the Gospel Jesus declares, “Truly I say to you, this generation shall not pass away until all these things have come to pass.” Lindsey goes on to clarify, What generation? Obviously, in context, the generation that would see the signs—chief among them the rebirth of Israel. A generation in the Bible is something like forty years. If this is a correct deduction, then within forty years or so of 1948, all these things could take place. Many scholars who have studied Bible prophecy all their lives believe that this is so. (Lindsey 1998, 43) While the exact date is still subject to dispute (1988 passed uneventfully from a cosmic perspective), there is no doubt that with the establishment of Israel, dispensationalists were convinced that the time was short. The climax of history was upon us. What are the ecological ramifications of dispensationalism? If the end of history is truly upon us, what concern should the dispensationalist have about such environmental issues such as global warming, the destruction of species, increasing pollution, and the devastation of the rain forests? For the logic of dispensationalism, these are but signs of the end times. The dispensationalist will nod knowingly at such reports, and contend that things are going to get a lot worse once the tribulation has begun. But if the world is increasingly falling into ecological crisis, this means the return of Jesus is at hand. The important thing, as history makes its way through the divine plan towards the tribulation, is to make sure that people are saved, not owls. With the rapture coming ever closer, and the fate of the world is set in prophetic stone, the only real difference to be made is to issue the call to salvation. It should not come as a surprise then, if dispensationalists like Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsey, and John Hagee should reject global warming as the fanciful act of left wing organization determined to impose a one-world government. Dispensationalists understand the events of the world as all fitting into a divine

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time frame headed towards Armageddon. As Jan Markell, director of Olive Tree Ministries wrote: The pains on the earth stem from the Fall in the Garden. God is not waiting for us to solve the problem of global warming. We are waiting for Him to solve the problem of the global curse with His return. In the meantime, let’s be the best stewards of the earth that we can be. Sure, many of us look for a “new heavens and a new earth” because this one WILL be destroyed and the elements will melt with “fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:10–12); thus, the job of a true evangelical should be evangelism, not putting time, effort, and money into an initiative [solving global warming] that is being funded in part by proabortion, pro–same-sex marriage, globalist foundations. The dispensationalist mindset focuses not on solving ecological problems, but on bringing people to salvation. If this is the last generation, be it 40 years, 70 years, or until the last person born in 1948 dies, then time is too short to focus on long-range environmental problems. Thus, the dispensationalist opts out of any discussion of solutions for ecological crises, instead focusing on the current redemption of the lost, and the ultimate return of Jesus Christ. ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE REAGAN ERA Ronald Reagan’s election as president was arguably one of the most important moments in the environmental movements’ history. Reagan, whose record as governor of California was relatively pro-environment, made a quick about-face upon entering the White House. Reagan was quick to cut spending in federal environmental agencies, weaken environmental regulations and enforcement, and appointed two people who would become the focal point of the ecological community’s fury: James Watt and Anne Gorsuch. Under Ronald Reagan’s appointees a new direction was taken on environmentalism. During the 1970s, and particularly during the Carter administration, environmentalism had some successes. Carter’s energy policy stressed conservation, and his interior department added millions of square miles to the national park system. However, when Reagan appointed James Watt, all that changed. Watt refused to increase public lands until forced by congress. Instead, he presided over the greatest sale of public lands in the twentieth century. Watt was aggressive about finding new forms of energy without too much concern about environmental consequences. While keeping national parks off-limits, Watt sought to open up public lands to greater mineral and oil exploration and development. He argued that “being a good steward requires the use of resources as well as the preservation of resources.” It was that issue of use where Watt believed the United States had not been good stewards and sought to correct the overemphasis on preservation. Watt cut the budget of the interior department, and particularly de-emphasized research and investigations that were not commercially beneficial. He likewise sought to open up Alaska and the off-shore continental shelf for oil exploration and drilling. Watt was extremely parsimonious about adding

Evangelicals and Environmentalism

species to the endangered species list, and held the record for the fewest additions until the administration of George W. Bush. Ultimately, Watt was vilified by environmentalists, and eventually met defeat at the hands of the Republican Senate, which passed legislation overturning some of Watts’s provisions. Likewise, several of his decisions were challenged in court, and likewise, some were overturned. Eventually, Watt resigned after commenting about his staff, “I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent.” The role of religion, however, is never far away when discussing James Watt. Watt has often been cited as testifying that, “When the last tree is felled Christ will come back.” There is no record of such testimony. But such an apocryphal story has continued to have life, being repeated by such sources as the Washington Post and Bill Moyers, as a testimony to Watts’s conservative religious perspective, and how it may have colored his approach to land management. Watt certainly did evoke Christ’s return during testimony, but argued that regardless of the time of that return, one needed to engage in good stewardship of the earth. It is of course the debate over what constitutes stewardship that separated Watt from environmentalists. Nonetheless, the longevity of this quote testifies to the kind of connection between dispensationalism and its political ramification that first reared its head during the Reagan administration. CREATION ENVIRONMENTALISM Yet the actual comment by Watt, which stressed stewardship of the earth, is a precursor of a more self-consciously environmentalist movement among evangelical Christians. In 1989, the name of James Watt was raised again, only this was in a roundtable talk on the churches and environmentalism. At that conference, James M. Cubie related the story of Watt’s confirmation in which Paul Tsongas, a senator with a passion for environmentalism, struggled how to vote. In the end he commented that Watts was genuinely religious. Does a true man of God allow the rape of God’s earth and God’s creatures? Can a man of God look upon desecrated land and see God’s will? Can the destruction of animals and naturalness even be arguably part of God’s plan for us? I think not. Tsongas voted to confirm Watt. Yet the logic of Tsongas’s questions should not be missed. Tsongas here presumes that a religious perspective, even an evangelical one (Tsongas himself was Greek Orthodox), leads to an environmentalist concern. Tsongas is not alone in this perspective, since in the 1990s and into the first decade of the twenty-first century the connection between evangelicals and environmentalism is becoming more and more common. In 1995, Evangelicals for Social Action and the Evangelical Environmental Network (E.E.N.) produced the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation. The Declaration focused on the need to care for God’s creation, and to take action in one’s daily life “to resist the allure of wastefulness and overconsumption by making personal lifestyle choices that express humility, forbearance, self restraint and frugality.” Interestingly, there is particular attention to poverty. The declaration states, “We recognize that poverty forces people to degrade creation in order to survive; therefore

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we support the development of just, free economies which empower the poor and create abundance without diminishing creation’s bounty.” Attached to the declaration is a list of signatories, who include professors from many important evangelical colleges like Wheaton, Oral Roberts University, and Fuller Seminary, as well as several well-known evangelical ministries like World Vision, the InterVarsity Fellowship, and The Salvation Army. Yet also striking are the names that are missing from the list. There are no signatories from Biola College, Master’s College, Liberty University, or Bob Jones University. Clearly, the appeal of the declaration was to more centrist-leaning Evangelical groups and colleges. In 2002, the Evangelical Environmental Network came into the public eye with their What Would Jesus Drive (WWJD) educational campaign. The WWJD campaign sought to draw a connection between evangelicals and environmental responsibility in a way that had previously been the purview of more liberal religious organizations. The campaign generated a lot of attention. The EEN claims that over 1,400 print stories circulated, as well as television and radio stories covered on programs as diverse as NPR’s Talk of the Nation, to the Oliver North Show, from Good Morning America to 60 Minutes. The campaign illustrated a new greener evangelical constituency, one that embraced problems such as global warming and the health effects of pollution as real, and as the responsibility of Christians to solve. On the heels of this campaign in 2004, the Sandy Cove Covenant and Invitation was established by a group of evangelicals meeting in Sandy Cove, Maryland. The conference was sponsored by Christianity Today and The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). The document produced by the conferences consisted of a series of “covenants” (agreements by the participants) to make creation care an important part of the Evangelical discourse. The Sandy Cove Covenant mostly demanded that attention be paid to environmental topics, and that solid research about environmental issues should be uncovered and disseminated. The document ended with an “invitation” to engage on these issues, and specifically set forth the goal of producing a position document on climate change within a year. The signatories on this document still excluded some of the more well known evangelical names, but did include the leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals and Christianity Today, which by themselves increased the visibility of the work (NAE 2004b). The group was good to their word and six months later, in fall of 2004 the NAE circulated the document For the Health of The Nations: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility. This wide-ranging document dealt with a host of issues from poverty to abortion, human rights to religious freedom. It is only on page 11 of the 12-page document that the issue of environmentalism is addressed in the section We labor to protect God’s creation. A total of four paragraphs follow, that hardly constitute an ecological manifesto. Essentially, this part of the document can be summed up in the last sentence from the first paragraph, “Our uses of the Earth must be designed to conserve and renew the Earth rather than deplete and destroy it” (NAE 2004a). Still, the section does call for government action in two places. First it calls for government to “protect” the populace from the effects of pollution of air

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and water. Here, intriguingly, there is reference to the complexity of natural systems and unexpected side effects, which may be an oblique reference to global warming. Second, in the most programmatic statement in the section it concludes, “We urge government to encourage fuel efficiency, reduce pollution, encourage sustainable use of natural resources, and provide for the proper care of wildlife and their natural habitats” (NAE 2004a). It was at this point the fireworks began in the evangelical community. James Dobson, influential head of Focus on the Family, a conservative evangelical group, denounced the document. As did Chuck Colson founder of the Prison Fellowship Ministries, Robert Robertson, president of Oral Roberts University, and Donald E. Wildmon head of American Family Association. These individuals (and others as well) accused the NAE of attempting to inject itself into the global warming debate and calling the whole issue “not scientifically established.” They were joined by Senator James Inhofe, a vociferous global warming denier on Capitol Hill, who likewise pressured the NAE to abandon the document. In the end, regardless of the ever mounting scientific data establishing global warming, the NAE backed down and issued a statement: “We are not considering a position on global warming. We are not advocating for specific legislation or government mandates” (NAE, 2004b). The position paper on civic responsibility remains on the NAE website, but not in the Policy Resolutions section. The debate about the environment, and particularly global warming, is not over, however. George W. Bush, himself a famous skeptic of global warming, included a reference to global warming in his 2007 state of the union address. With the Democratic take over of congress in 2006, skepticism about the issue has taken a back seat, and both parties are now taking the issue seriously. The green evangelicals are now being courted by the Democrats, and may abandon the Republican party if it does not seriously address this issue. Additionally, particularly among young evangelicals, there is an increasing view that this is one of the most important moral issues of our time. We may see a political fracturing of this group in the near future as a result. At the very least, environmentalism has entered the evangelical mainstream. See also Apocalypticism and Nuclear War; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Aitken, Jonathan. “A Change in the Climate.” American Spectator 39, no. 4 (2006): 50–52; Brandt, Don. God’s Stewards: The Role of Christians in Creation Care. Federal Way, WA: World Vision, 2002; The Evangelical Climate Initiative. “The Evangelical Climate Initiative: A History.” 2006. Available at: http://www.npr.org/ documents/2006/feb/evangelical/history.pdf; Evangelical Environmental Network. “Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation.” 2006. Available at: http://www. creationcare.org/resources/declaration.php; Evangelical Environmental Network. “Creation Care.” Evangelical Environmental Network, 1998. Available at: http://www. omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=5854; Lindsey, Hal. The Late, Great Planet Earth, 25th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zonderran, 1998; Markell, Jan. www.olive treeviews.org; National Association of Evangelicals. “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.” 2004a. Available at: http://www.nae.net/ images/civic_responsibility2.pdf (accessed January 30, 2008); National Association

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Randall Reed EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATIONISM IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS Evolution has been a hot-button issue since it came on the intellectual scene toward the end of the nineteenth century. Christians have rebelled against the mechanistic notions of evolution, and developed several alternatives that they have claimed also have scientific merit. These theories, called Creationism, have different forms: Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism and, more recently, Intelligent Design. When courts ruled that teaching evolution in public schools could not be outlawed by the states without violating the separation of church and state, creationists moved to have their perspective included in science curriculums. The courts, however, have rejected such demands, and consistently ruled that creationism, whether Young Earth, Old Earth, or Intelligent Design, is ultimately religion not science, and has no place in the classroom. Undeterred, creationists continue their campaign to include their critique of evolution into the public schools. INTRODUCTION The scene is famous. Three-time presidential candidate and fundamentalist, Matthew Harrison Brady (Williams Jennings Bryant) is seated in the witness chair being cross-examined by Henry Drummond (Clarence Darrow). Questioned about the discrepancy between a 6,000-year-old earth and rock dated millions of years old, Bryant proclaims “I care more about the Rock of Ages than the age of rocks!” The play (and the movies) Inherit the Wind made this moment classic. Yet, while those productions argued that enmity between science and religion could bear only despair and death, the battle continues undeterred. And the battleground has not moved since John Thomas Scopes was arrested for teaching Evolution in a Tennessee classroom. The question of the validity of Evolution, and the degree to which alternative approaches should be taught in science classes, is still as important at the beginning of this century as it was at the beginning of the last. HISTORY It can be argued that the beginning of the evolution versus creation debate is found in the arguments for the existence of God, specifically the argument from design. The argument from design stipulates that the very existence of the world

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requires an intelligence. Often called the Watchmaker Argument, it reasons that when I see a watch I can infer that there is a watchmaker. By the same token, when I see the world (an infinitely more complex and glorious creation) I must likewise infer a world maker. This argument, first propounded by Plato and Aristotle, and then given Christian form by Thomas Aquinas, has been one of the staples of the arguments for the existence of God for centuries. There were challenges to this argument. The philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that, at best, the argument from design proposed that there was an architect to the world, but it fell far short of being able to prove that that architect was God. The Enlightenment philosopher David Hume went farther arguing several things. First, Hume attacks the basic assumption of the argument: the validity of the analogy. The argument from design postulates since in the human world we see artifacts of human design and recognize there is a designer, then observing the natural world we must also infer a designer. Yet the analogy fails, claims Hume, because artifacts from the human world and the natural world are not at all the same. We know watches have watch makers because we have seen people make watches. Yet we have never seen anyone make a world, so how do we know worlds require world makers? Second, Hume argues that the conclusion that a singular all powerful designer is called for, is likewise unmerited. There is no reason why there must be only one designer; certainly there could be an entire committee of designers much as there are many builders to construct a house. And what can we possibly say about such a designer? There is nothing, claims Hume, that would lead to any of the general propositions about God, namely that God is good, all-knowing, all-powerful, loves humanity or wishes our salvation. All we know is that there is a being(s) that can make a world. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, is not a philosophical challenge to the argument from design, but it challenges it, likewise, at its most presuppositional level; the question of whether there is, in fact, a design that requires a designer. The postulate that is the starting point for all arguments of the design, is that the world works together in the same way as all the parts of a watch work perfectly together. Yet what Darwin’s work showed, was that the world is not a unified whole, rather it is a mass of disunity: a vast number of independent systems that do not have some overarching design, but rather are related only locally, and may arise, develop, and decline depending on their reactions and adaptations to the local ecosystem (Darwin 2003). Evolution came on the scene in the nineteenth century through the work of Charles Darwin and his tome The Origin of Species (Darwin 2003). Evolutionary theory first suggested that changes in species occurred because of natural selection. Organisms better adapted towards survival tended to live to procreate, and thus passed along the trait that enhanced their survivability. Organisms less able to survive were often unable to pass along their traits. Since Darwin, science has learned a lot more about how this process works. The discovery of genes created a revolution in evolutionary science. Today, when scientists discuss evolution, they increasingly are talking about genetic changes. Evolutionary theory sees several different ways of change being introduced in a species. Along with natural selection, there is mutation, migration, and

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genetic drift. Mutation is the process where random genetic mutations occur and are passed along to offspring. Mutations can be beneficial, neutral or negative. Migration has to do with organisms of one group migrating and reproducing with another group. Thus, animals from one area (say dogs) that have a particular genetic trait may migrate to another area and reproduce with dogs of another area, thus introducing that genetic trait into that group. Genetic drift refers to the random chance that more members of a group might survive with one particular genetic trait than others (often because of random calamities), and thus their offspring are more numerous, and perpetuate their genetic trait more prevalently among the species as a whole. Often one hears the criticism of evolution that highly complex organisms like human beings cannot have come about “by random chance.” This is a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. Random chance plays a part in evolution; certainly, mutations and genetic drift all come about randomly. But natural selection is not random. It is the mechanism in which organisms that are better suited to their environment live to reproduce, and thereby propagate their genetic make up. This is sometimes referred to as survival of the fittest. But we must be careful even here. What constitutes fitness is not always strength or speed, but may be something much more mundane like color. A pink slug may be twice as fast as a regular brown slug, but the slower brown slug has a much better chance of survival sliding along the dirt than its speedy but more colorful counterpart, since the pink slug is more likely to attract the attention of a passing predator. Thus, changes may be random, but those that are propagated are not random; they aid in the survival of the species. CREATIONISM Creationists can be divided into two distinct camps: Young Earth Creationists (YECs) and Old Earth Creationists (OECs). Young Earth Creationists hold that the Bible should be taken literally, and that Genesis gives a scientifically accurate representation of the creation process. Old Earth Creationists suggest that Genesis is accurate, but not literal, and therefore the age of the earth is closer to the current scientific estimate of roughly four billion years. Thus, for Young Earth Creationists, the earth is roughly six thousand years old. Bishop James Ussher, a sixteenth-century Irish Cleric, put the date of creation on Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C.E. While not all YECs accept this exact dating, they all put the age of the Earth as somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years. They understand the Genesis story as an accurate account of God’s actions that created the earth. Creation took place in seven 24-hour days. Adam and Eve were the first humans, and God created Adam first, and then Eve from a part of him. One might wonder, however, how YEC deals with the fossils that seem to indicate the earth’s age as millions of years older. The answer, unsurprisingly, is found in the Bible. It is the notion of Catastrophism that is used by YEC. Catastrophism suggests that Noah’s flood created a global phenomenon that created the fossil column. Additionally, YEC produces a variety of reasons from

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the current size of the sun, to the rate of geomagnetic decay that points to the YEC position. For instance, YEC points out that the sun is currently shrinking at roughly 5 feet per hour. If the earth were billions of years old, then life could not have developed on earth. Evolutionists have responded that the suppositions of the assertion are: (1) based on false data (there are no replicated studies that show the sun is shrinking); and (2) false assumptions (a shrinking sun today need not necessarily indicate a shrinking sun in the past). Evolutionists contend all YEC contentions suffer from one or both of these problems. Old Earth Creationism, on the other hand, suggests that to limit the seven days of creation to 24 hours each is an unnecessarily literal reading of the text. Particularly the three days before God creates the sun (God creates the sun and the moon on the fourth day), should not be understood as literal days (though some OEC advocates suggest that all the “days” in Genesis chapter 1 should not be considered literal). Old Earth Creationists then suggest that a “day” in Genesis is a compressed view of a very long period of time that may extend for hundreds of millions, or even billions of years. Old Earth Creationism is not necessarily antithetical to evolution. Some of its practitioners opt for theistic evolution where evolution is the mechanism whereby God enacts creation. More often, however, OEC uses the term progressive creation. The notion here is that the fossil record is not the result of evolutionary processes, but rather of a process of creation that continued through the first 4 billion years of the earth or so. God created the universe starting with the big bang, and then created the Earth and then its plants and animals. Through the millions of years it is God’s creation that is seen. The fossil column is the record of God’s action, as God is actively creating new plants and animals and eventually creates humans. At that point, once humanity has been created and invested with souls, God rests and the creation period ends. Old Earth Creationists thus, are very interested in aligning the Bible with Science. They do not, like YEC, dispute the findings of science; they only suggest the processes have been misidentified. In fact, OEC disputes the claims of YEC by saying YEC’s conclusions are based on selective data, or a misunderstanding of the facts. Nor does OEC necessarily dispute microevolution (changes within a species to adapt to their environment); they accept that we see examples of natural selection to this day. It is rather the issue of macroevolution, the emergence of different species, where they see not natural processes, but supernatural action. The Intelligent Design (ID) movement, which now seems to dominate most of the headlines, is the latest version of the Creationist movement. Intelligent Design often holds to an Old Earth dating (though officially it takes no position on the age of the earth), and like OEC it is ultimately a critical appraisal of evolution, motivated by what it sees as the flaws in Darwinism. The most important concept for Intelligent Design is “irreducible complexity” and was first formulated by Michael Behe (Behe 2006). The notion here is that there are phenomena in nature that are so complex that it is impossible to suppose that they evolved in stages. Like a mousetrap that consists of several components. If one part of a mousetrap is absent in its inner workings, then the trap does not function. The example that Intelligent Design proponents like

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Michael Behe use is the flagellum bacteria. This is a bacterium that has a kind of propeller on its back that gives it propulsion. The mechanism is made up of several components, all of which are necessary for the system to work. Behe argues that evolution proposes that each component would evolve separately, but since they are all simultaneously required to make the mechanism work, clearly this cannot be the case (Behe 2006). Other examples, like blood clotting, where a series of processes happen sequentially in order to create the effect, likewise seem to negate the notion of evolution being the mechanism that creates such a process. Instead, what is required for such complicated processes, is the existence of something beyond natural selection—an intelligent designer, who in fact intentionally created such things. While the theory itself does not postulate the identity of the designer, most proponents of Intelligent Design ascribe that identity to the God of the Bible. Intelligent Design has been criticized as being creationism in sheep’s clothing. Evolutionists have argued that ID proponents make an unmerited leap from complexity to design. Certainly, there are complex processes that have evolved over time, yet ID presupposes a strict sequential understanding of evolution. Thing A evolves, then thing B, then thing C. Yet, argue evolutionary scientists, evolution does not stop. Thing A may continue to evolve after B and C emerges, and thus a system may get progressively more complex over time. Additionally, things may also drop away during the course of evolution so that something that has been used in one way at one time in conjunction with another element may come to have a different use at a different time, and that previous conjunctive element may have disappeared altogether. Thus, to return to the mouse trap. A rudimentary mouse trap may be made using only one or two components, but as the process continues other pieces may be added, others subtracted, until the multi-part mouse trap that we are familiar with today emerges. EVOLUTION, CREATIONISM, INTELLIGENT DESIGN, AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS In the early part of the twentieth century, traditional Christians felt under attack. The results of the new discipline of Biblical Criticism developed in Germany and England, were calling into question basic assumptions many Christians had about who wrote the Bible and what it meant. The psychological work of the Freudian school suggested that belief in God may arise not from the realization of the divine, but from deep psychological needs. Many Christian churches were turning their attention not to traditional questions of salvation, but to issues of helping humanity through the new, and far less doctrinaire, social gospel. Social mores and gender roles were being challenged by young urbanites. It was a time of religious and cultural upheaval. A significant part of this, and one many conservative Christians latched on to, was the question of evolution and the work of Charles Darwin (Darwin 2006). Evolution was the step too far for many of these Christians. The notion that the fossil record contradicted the narrative of the Bible, and that humanity had not been created in the image of God, but had instead evolved from apes, was

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the place where fundamentalist Christians felt the battle must be engaged. Several states rose up in rebellion against these “modernist” ideas, and banned the teaching of (human) evolution in public schools. Teachers who violated these laws were arrested and put on trial. The most famous of these trials is the Scopes Trial, which was popularized by the play, and subsequent movie(s) Inherit the Wind. John Thomas Scopes was arrested and tried for teaching evolution. The trial attracted national attention, involving three time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryant for the prosecution and the famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow. Darrow tried to make the trial about the scientific validity of evolution, but the judge ruled those arguments immaterial. The trial eventually led to the unusual circumstance of Darrow cross-examining Bryant on the stand. In the end, Scopes was convicted and fined $100. The case was appealed and overturned on a technicality. Still, the Tennessee Supreme court upheld the spirit of the law and the law was on the books until 1967. As important as the Scopes Trial seemed, it was of little legal significance. The first important legal case on evolution heard by the Supreme Court was Epperson v. Arkansas (Anonymous 1968) in which the court unanimously ruled that laws that outlawed evolution to protect religious opinions were unconstitutional. A state was not allowed to create a curriculum that excluded a scientific theory solely for the reason of defending a religious view. The Public School system must stay neutral in regards to religion. The outlawing of evolution violated that neutrality by advocating for, or defending religion. It was with this decision that the teaching of evolution became unequivocally legal in the United States. Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) significantly changed the playing field. Whereas before the decision, in some states, creationism was the default, and evolution seen as the secular interloper, with Epperson v. Arkansas evolution became the status quo for science classes. Creationism supporters now searched for a way to reverse this. The strategy was then to advocate for “creation science,” which was presented as an equal theory to evolution, and could thus be taught in science classes in addition to, or in lieu of evolution. Such was the case with a law passed in Louisiana called the Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and EvolutionScience in Public School Instruction Act or more commonly the Creationism Act. Essentially, the Act stipulated that when evolution was taught, creationism had to be taught as well. A coalition of parents, educators, and theologians sued, and the case ultimately came before the Supreme Court. The court decided against the state of Louisiana, and struck down the law as unconstitutional in Edwards v. Aguilar. Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, argued that the Creationism Act was designed to do two things. Either it made sure that there was a creationist response to each evolutionary contention, or it made teaching origins too onerous, and thus made the teacher disinclined to teach either. Additionally, Brennan stated that the very act of teaching creationism violated the establishment clause (separation of church and state) because “the term ‘creation science,’ . . . embodies the religious belief that a supernatural creator was responsible for the creation of humankind.” Creation-Science then was seen as religion, not science.

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Other cases have come before various state courts attempting to either verify the science of creationism, or to get evolution removed from the curriculum on the grounds that it constitutes the religion of Secular Humanism. In Wright v. Houston Independent School District (1978) the plaintiff argued the school was promoting the “religion of secularism” by teaching evolution. However, the F if th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the school district was not promoting evolution, and thereby secularism as a religious belief, and therefore did not violate the first amendment. On the other hand, in California, the Sacramento Superior Court ruled that discussions of evolution do not violate a student’s exercise of religion, even if their religion has a contrary opinion. And in 1982 McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, the court held that a “balanced treatment” statute was likewise unconstitutional. In 1999, the Kansas School Board tried a different approach. Rather than require an alternative to evolution be taught in addition or instead, the Board removed evolution from its science curriculum. The inclusion of evolution was then left to individual district school boards, but evolution was not tested on the state science tests, and thus, teachers had less motivation to teach it. The move resulted in Kansas being criticized across the country by science teachers and professionals. Eventually, several members of the school board who had voted for the change were defeated in the next election, and replaced with candidates who promised to restore evolution to the state science curriculum. Shortly after the election, evolution returned to the curriculum. More recently, however, Kitzmiller v. The Dover Board of Education put the constitutionality of the less overtly religious “Intelligent Design” on trial. The Dover Board of Education mandated that 9th grade science classes read a statement that pointed to “gaps” in evolution, and suggested alternatives such as Intelligent Design. A group of parents contacted the ACLU and sued the Board. The trial hinged on whether Intelligent Design was actually a scientific theory, or just creationism in disguise. The court ultimately ruled against the board saying, “the board’s ID policy violates the establishment clause. In making this determination we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded it is not, and moreover ID can not uncouple itself from its creationist and thus religious antecedents.” Intelligent Design, like Creation Science before it, had been ruled by the court as religion, not science, and thus had no place in the public school. Though Dover constituted a victory for the supporters of evolution in the schools, the battle is far from over. In Texas, the state Science Curriculum Director Chris Comer was forced to resign after forwarding a notice of an anticreationism book talk in Austin to a listserve of science teachers with the message “FYI.” Increasingly, legislatures and state curriculum committees are mandating the teaching of the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory without specifically proposing alternatives. Academic Freedom bills are also being considered by several state legislatures to “protect” teachers who teach scientific criticisms of evolution. Ben Stein’s new movie Expelled has suggested that individual science teachers who are critical of evolution have been fired or demoted. Critics of Stein, on the other hand, charge that these accusations are not borne

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out by the facts, and that no teacher who asks legitimate scientific questions of evolution has been punished. But these critics distinguish this sort of open inquiry from teaching creationism, which the courts have ruled unconstitutional, and for which some teachers have been disciplined. Thus, the battle between creationists and evolutionists persists, and will endure for many years to come. Evolution continues to provoke the outrage of some individuals because it opens the question of the meaning of life. There are some who argue if humans are the product of natural process rather than divine act then there is no basis for morality or law or faith. But such a critique has now moved from the realm of scientific evidence and analysis into the area of culture. As such, evolution has become one of the primary battlefields of the culture wars, and with neither side contemplating surrender, it will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Further Reading: Anonymous. Evolution Court Cases. Available at: http://www.tungate.com/ evolution_court_cases.htm; Anonymous. “TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/ Evolution Controversy.” Available at: http://www.talkorigins.org/; Anonymous. “Understanding Evolution.” Available at: http://www.evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home. php; Anonymous. Epperson v. Arkansas. FindLaw, 1968. Available at: http://www.case law.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=393&invol=97; Apple, Michael W. “Evolution Versus Creationism in Education.” Educational Policy 22, no. 2 (March 2008): 327–335; Behe, Michael J. Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. 2nd ed. New York: Free Press, 2006; Beil, Laura. “Opponents of Evolution Adopting a New Strategy.” The New York Times, June 4, 2008; Binder, Amy. “Gathering Intelligence on Intelligent Design: Where Did It Come From, Where Is It Going, and How Should Progressives Manage It?” American Journal of Education 113, no. 4 (2007): 549–576; Branch, Glenn. “Understanding Creationism after Kitzmiller.” Bioscience 57, no. 3 (March 2007): 278–284; Buckley, David. “Creationism, Darwinism and ID.” Institute of Biology, May 2008; Darwin, Charles. The Origin Of Species. New York: Signet Classics, 2003; De Young, Donald. Thousands not Billions: Challenging the Icon of Evolution, Questioning the Age of the Earth. Green Forest: Master Books, 2005; Fountain, John W. “Kansas Puts Evolution Back Into Public Schools.” New York Times, February 15, 2001; Henderson, James R. “Teaching Evolution To Creationists.” Sociological Viewpoints 23 (Fall 2007): 73–84; Humburg, Burt, and Ed Brayton. “The Dover Decision.” Skeptic 12, no. 2 (2006): 44–50; Moore, Greg. “Reasons To Believe Does Old-Earth Creationism Contradict Genesis 1?” Reasons to Believe. Available at: http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/ other_papers/greg_moore_does_old_earth_creationism_contradict_genesis_1.shtml; Moore, Randy, Murray Jensen, and Jay Hatch. “Twenty Questions: What Have the Courts Said about the Teaching of Evolution and Creationism in Public Schools?” Bioscience 53, no. 8 (2003): 766; Ross, Hugh. Creation As Science: A Testable Model Approach to End the Creation/evolution Wars. 1st ed. Colorado Springs: Navpress Publishing Group, 2006; Ruse, Michael. “Flawed Intelligence, Flawed Design.” In Virginia Quarterly Review, 82 (Spring 2006): 54–77; Shermer, Michael. Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design. Reprint. Holt Paperbacks, 2007; Slack, Gordy. The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover. New York: JosseyBass, 2008; The Associated Press. “Evolution Debate Led to Ouster, Official Says.” The New York Times, November 30, 2007.

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F FAITH-BASED HEALTH CARE, RELIGIOUS MORALITY, AND INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES Faith-based health care organizations obtain their distinctive identities in light of their religious morality. Sponsorship connects religious traditions with their activities in the world, including health care. Sponsorship also ensures the distinctive character of these ministries by enabling institutional policies to reflect the religious morality of the tradition. Here we will introduce the nature of faith-based health care and the effects of religious morality on the policies of these institutions. Thus, the main question will be this: What are the major social issues in providing faith-based health care? To answer this question, this entry will also address the following: What is the relationship between religious traditions, health care ministry, and organizational identity? Healing continues to be a prominent feature of experience throughout the world’s religions (Sullivan and Sered 2005). Generally, the goals of health care align with the goals of religious life. As Sullivan and Sered point out, “healing” can mean a variety of things: returning to some state of ritual order, increasing the fullness of life, eliminating disorder and evil, redeeming someone from a state of condemnation, saving someone from guilt and sin, liberating a person or people from a certain existence, or extinguishing existence itself. Thus, providing health care can have a dual meaning: on the one hand, it reflects a physical or mental healing of the persons who receive it; and on the other hand, it reflects a deeper restoration of fullness or completeness of persons on a spiritual level.

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In these ways, religion and health care are intimately connected. Additionally, health care relates to religion through specific moral duties or callings (e.g., divine commands or requests) for charity as well as through an evangelical outreach (Kauffmann 1999) (e.g., mission work). As described below, this last element creates particular issues when health care ministries provide care to communities and individuals who share different moral outlooks than the religious identity of the hospital. However, there are more specific ways religion shapes health care. The view of morality of a particular religious tradition will shape three areas: individual choice, professional practice, and organizational identity. To begin, the norms of a particular religious tradition will shape, though not determine, the choices of individual patients. (Individual choices remain matters of personal conscience, though official teaching bodies or offices may put forth norms or principles by which individuals should make their decisions.) One example of this is in the use of birth control. According to the official teaching body of the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic spouses should refrain from using artificial contraception (e.g., condoms and oral contraceptives) as a means of controlling procreation (Hamel and O’Rourke 2002; for a comparison of Jewish and Catholic approaches to bioethics, see Mackler 2003). In contrast, the Jewish tradition allows methods of contraception and sterilization, although such norms tend to apply to female methods of birth control more than male methods (Dorff 2002). Next, although one can argue that physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals have their own morality, health care professionals often shape their practices with some influence of both health-related and religious moralities. In a surprising study, a significant proportion of physicians said that their religions affected the way they practice medicine (McCullough 2005). A principal example of this is an urologist who refuses to perform a vasectomy (a surgical method for male sterilization) for a patient who requests it on religious grounds: for the urologist, a vasectomy is a morally inappropriate form of birth control. (Note, however, that the urologist does not prevent his patient from obtaining the vasectomy; the urologist merely refuses to perform the surgery himself.) Finally, the morality of a religious tradition will shape the identity of a health care organization in specific ways by influencing institutional policies, procedures, and culture. For example, Catholic hospitals have specific guidelines to follow—the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (USCCB 2001)—which state that these hospitals should have concern for the poor and vulnerable (e.g., charity care) as well as should abide by Church teaching in bioethics (e.g., they cannot provide certain services like surgical procedures aimed at sterilization or other forms of birth control). The influence of religion on a health care organization’s identity will be the focus of this entry. To explore this topic, the author will first discuss the basis for religious sponsorship in health care. Next, he will describe the impact of religious morality on organizational identity by discussing the example of Catholic health care. Finally, he will conclude by summarizing two major social issues under this topic.

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WHY RELIGIONS SPONSOR HEALTH CARE It is misleading to describe all faith-based health care organizations as “owned” by their particular religious traditions. While this may be true in some sense for some traditions, a more accurate and preferred term used to describe the relationship between a religion and a health care organization is sponsorship. Indeed, some leaders in Jewish health care resist the idea that the Jewish community owns its hospitals (Chottiner 2003). One reason for this is that there is no centralized ‘corporate’ hierarchy in Judaism as there is in, for example, Roman Catholicism. While independent Jewish agencies may own and operate hospitals, the Jewish tradition does not. Sponsorship more closely relates to management than ownership, although the terms are not mutually exclusive. One Christian author defines sponsorship in the following way: sponsorship is simply the devising of ways to guarantee or ensure that the healing and educating mission of Christ continues within the church through particular ministries, in light of rapidly changing circumstances in both society and the church. (Arbuckle 2006, emphasis in original) More specifically for Catholic ministries, Arbuckle states, “Sponsorship is the canonical stewardship of a ministry that is carried on in the name of the church” (Arbuckle 2006, emphasis in original). Put simply, sponsorship describes the relationship between a religious tradition and its distinct activities in society, which includes providing health care in hospitals. One can refer to these distinct activities as ministries (e.g., education, health care, etc.). Thus, on governance boards (e.g., a board of trustees), members of the sponsoring tradition often comprise the controlling majority; this ensures that the policies, procedures, and practices reflect the sponsoring traditions’ identity and therefore their moral norms (Curran 1997, 96). There are other specific legal implications of sponsorship, which are beyond the scope of this entry. For example, health care organizations are incorporated as distinct legal entities, yet sponsoring organizations retain specific powers (e.g., appointing board members) to preserve the organization’s identity. Why do religions sponsor health care ministries? By way of introduction to this area, the author will describe the approach of two traditions: Judaism and Roman Catholicism. However, several other traditions sponsor health care in the United States including, but not limited to, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, and Seventh-Day Adventism (see Numbers and Amundsen 1986). To begin, one can understand Jewish sponsorship of health care in terms of the responsibilities of individuals, health care providers, and communities to provide such care. That is, the ethical basis for sponsorship in Judaism stems from how that tradition understands duties to provide health care. Nevertheless, other aspects of American history and culture may have also contributed to the rise in Jewish-sponsored hospitals. For example, some Jewish hospitals were established to care for members of the local Jewish community (e.g., immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe). Other hospitals were established to offer places for Jewish physicians to train and practice when other hospitals

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would not accept them due to the unfortunate reality of anti-Semitism early in the twentieth century (Chottiner 2003, 1). Notwithstanding these historical factors, one finds the ethical motives for Jewish-sponsored health care in the Hebrew Bible as well as in the scholarly commentary by prominent rabbis. As Elliot Dorff and Aaron Mackler state, “According to Jewish law, we have the clear duty to try to heal, and this duty devolves upon both the physician and the society” (Dorff and Mackler 2000, 481). Indeed, several sources in both biblical passages as well as rabbinical texts describe the basis for this duty. Dorff and Mackler continue, [The Rabbis] found that authorization and that imperative in various biblical verses, including Exodus 21:19-20, according to which an assailant must ensure that his victim is “thoroughly healed,” and Deuteronomy 22:2 (“And you shall restore lost property to him”). The Talmud understands the Exodus verse as giving “permission for the physician to cure.” On the basis of an extra letter in the Hebrew text of the Deuteronomy passage, the Talmud declares that the verse includes the obligation to restore another person’s body as well as his property, and hence, there is an obligation to come to the aid of someone in a life-threatening situation. On the basis of Leviticus 19:16 (“Nor shall you stand idly by the blood of your fellow”), the Talmud expands the obligation to provide medical aid to encompass expenditure of financial resources for this purpose. (Dorff and Mackler 2000, 481) Thus, one sees the scriptural basis for Jewish-sponsored health care. In addition, the Jewish tradition suggests an important theological reason to sponsor health care: Jews are to model themselves after God and imitate Him. So, as God visits and heals the sick, so too should the Jewish people (Dorff and Mackler 2000, 482). Moreover, if individuals experience particular health needs, physicians and communities ought to respond to that need and provide necessary services. Insofar as there is an authentic health need, the duty to provide care exists (Dorff and Mackler 2000, 482–83, 491). (Dorff and Mackler do state that the Jewish tradition recognizes that providers have a claim to fair compensation for their services. Not all health care need be charity.) In summary, the Jewish tradition sponsors health care out of a concern for justice in the needs of the sick; scriptural and legal texts identify a duty to provide care that falls upon individuals, providers, and communities. Next, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) aptly describe Catholic-sponsored health care as being animated by the healing ministry of Jesus. In the general introduction to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs), the bishops write, The Church has always sought to embody our Savior’s concern for the sick. The gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry draw special attention to his acts of healing: he cleansed a man with leprosy (Mt 8:1-4; Mk 1:40-42); he gave sight to two people who were blind (Mt 20:29-34; Mk 10:46-52); he enabled one who was mute to speak (Lk 11:14); he cured a woman

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who was hemorrhaging (Mt 9:20-22; Mk 5:25-34); and he brought a young girl back to life (Mt 9:18, 23-25; Mk 5:35-42). Indeed, the Gospels are replete with examples of how the Lord cured every kind of ailment and disease (Mt 9:35). In the account of Matthew, Jesus’ mission fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Mt 8:17; cf. Is 53:4). Jesus’ healing mission went further than caring only for physical affliction. He touched people at the deepest level of their existence; he sought their physical, mental, and spiritual healing (Jn 6:35, 11:25-27). He “came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (Jn 10:10). The mystery of Christ casts light on every facet of Catholic health care: to see Christian love as the animating principle of health care; to see healing and compassion as a continuation of Christ’s mission; to see suffering as a participation in the redemptive power of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection; and to see death, transformed by the resurrection, as an opportunity for a final act of communion with Christ. (USCCB 2001) Despite some criticisms that a Catholic presence in health care is no longer needed, Dennis Brodeur offers a rationale for Catholic health care to remain a distinctive player in American health care (Brodeur 1999). Brodeur outlines three reasons. One, healing is a primary aspect to Jesus’ ministries as revealed in the Gospels. The authors of the Gospels reflect healing both in Jesus’ own actions as well as in the parables he teaches. Two, the Catholic Church sees importance in engaging the modern world, which the Vatican II document, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), reflects (Brodeur 1999, 7). The ecclesiastical (church-related) reason Brodeur mentions stems from the Church’s commitment to promoting justice and seeking the common good (Brodeur 1999, 8–9). Society’s institutions ought to be structured so that each individual can reach proper human fulfillment in the context of community. Since health relates to one’s abilities to participate and reach this fulfillment, the Church sees the importance to having a presence in health care. Three, the link between faith and justice calls for institutions to respect the dignity of each human person, which includes providing an appropriate and adequate level of health care. Additional social justice principles give Catholic health care a distinctive, but not necessarily unique, approach to providing health care. An example is the special concern Catholic health care organizations give to the poor and vulnerable. THE EFFECT OF RELIGIOUS IDENTITY ON HEALTH CARE: THE CATHOLIC EXAMPLE Having described some bases for faith-based health care, it is now important to consider the ways that religious sponsorship affects how these organizations provide health care. The author will focus on Catholic health care for two

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major reasons: (1) it constitutes 16 percent of all hospital beds in the United States(Catholic Health Association 2008) and is the largest nonprofit provider of health care under single sponsorship; and (2) it has a large and well-documented literature on organizational identity in light of its moral teachings. While various offices in the Catholic Church worldwide provide guidance on moral matters, including those for health care, the United States Catholic bishops publish a document that contains ethical and religious directives for Catholic health services in the United States. The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) is not a comprehensive catalog of Church teaching, and it does not provide the extended theological and philosophical arguments in support of the Church’s moral teachings. Rather, it is a concise document health care organizations, providers, and patients use to decide on particular treatment decisions as well as to formulate institutional policies and procedures. In other words, Catholic hospitals and other health-related organizations turn to the ERDs as they grapple with the complex moral problems they face. The ERDs give Catholic health care institutions direction on what services to provide, what services not to provide, and how to provide those services. So, on the one hand, Catholic health care services include a variety of community outreach programs and charity care. Examples include parish nursing, tattoo removal programs for former gang members, charity care and clinics, and patient education seminars on diabetes and other health conditions. On the other hand, some services are prohibited. These include euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, elected (direct) abortions, direct sterilizations such as vasectomies, IVF, artificial insemination, and artificial forms of contraception. For the purposes of this entry, the author will explore the topic of birth control to describe how Catholic identity shapes the distinctive character of Catholic health care. Birth control remains a controversial aspect of the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexual ethics; this controversy is no stranger to health care providers. While many Catholics and non-Catholics accept various forms of birth control—contraception and sterilization—the official teaching of the Catholic Church condemns any direct act that results in contraception (e.g., the use of a condom or the use of oral contraceptives) or sterilization (e.g., tubal ligations, which are surgical procedures that prevent eggs from traveling from the woman’s ovaries to her uterus during ovulation). These norms are based on a sacramental view of sexual intercourse. According to this view, a couple may never fundamentally separate the unitive and procreative aspects of sex: every act of sexual intercourse should remain open to both the love expressed and the possibility of procreation in the context of marriage. Thus, the ERDs prohibit Catholic hospitals from providing contraceptive devices or sterilizing procedures (USCCB 2008; Directives 52 [contraception] and 53 [direct sterilization]). This norm also prohibits the use of certain assisted reproductive technologies like IVF (Directive 41). Moreover, out of respect for the dignity of the human person and the belief that human life begins at conception, Catholic hospitals cannot provide direct abortions (Directive 45). Taken by themselves, these Directives are consistent with the Church’s moral teachings on sexual ethics. However, they may also raise problems for victims

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of sexual assault who seek help and compassion at Catholic hospitals. Thus, the U.S. bishops developed Directive 36 to suggest ways that Catholic health care providers can respond to the needs of these victims. Directive 36 states, Compassionate and understanding care should be given to a person who is the victim of sexual assault. Health care providers should cooperate with law enforcement officials and offer the person psychological and spiritual support as well as accurate medical information. A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum. (USCCB 2008) In the context of rape and other forms of sexual assault that may result in pregnancy, Catholic teaching permits the use of contraceptives, but it still prohibits elective, or procured, abortions. One reason why the Church permits contraceptives in cases of rape is that the marital covenant is void: the sexual act does not represent mutual love but is rather an act of violence. However, the use of oral contraceptives following rape does pose some problems. One major issue is that some drugs may prevent conception and prevent implantation depending on the time the woman takes the drug. Another issue is that conception may have already occurred in the time between the assault and the use of the contraceptive pill; tests to determine pregnancy may not provide certainty. Thus, Catholic health care providers may not know whether prescribing such medication prevents conception or induces abortion. In such cases, these providers (and patients) are unsure whether they are abiding by Church teaching by using such drugs. Another complicating factor here is how one thinks about pregnancy. On the one hand, the Catholic Church holds that human life ought to be respected from the moment of conception, which is associated with the completion of fertilization. On the other hand, a medical perspective holds that pregnancy does not begin until several days after fertilization when the embryo implants into the uterine wall. Therefore, from the perspective of the Catholic Church, any drug or device that prevents implantation causes abortion. Yet, from a medical perspective, any drug or device that prevents implantation is contraceptive. In summary, Catholic hospitals do not offer methods of artificial contraception or direct sterilization to patients in general. This is the result of the Church’s moral stance on human sexuality. If patients want those services, they must go to a different kind health care organization. However, Catholic hospitals are able to provide some treatments and contraceptive interventions to victims of sexual assault. Yet, Catholic hospitals do not offer abortion—surgical or chemical—to victims of sexual assault. Victims who wish to obtain such abortions must also look to a different hospital.

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CONCLUSION Faith-based health care organizations obtain their distinctive identities in light of their religious morality. Sponsorship connects religious traditions with their activities in the world, including health care. Sponsorship also ensures the distinctive character of these ministries by enabling institutional policies to reflect the religious morality of the tradition. However, when religious moralities encounter different moralities of members of the community, several issues emerge. However, two related issues stand out: the issue of religious and cultural diversity, and the range of services provided and community standards. First, the pluralistic nature of contemporary American society calls attention to different ways people think about the good life and therefore to the differences in various moralities—religious, professional, or otherwise. Thus, when faith-based health care attempts to retain a distinctive identity through specific policies and procedures, these may come into conflict with the decisions or preferences of patients such hospitals serve. Indeed, the historical evangelical motives of health care can no longer support prostheletyzing to patients. In contemporary society, there must be adequate respect for religious and cultural diversity. One should note, however, that respect for such diversity is a two-way street: providers as well as patients need to respect this diversity. One finds this respect in the bioethical tradition of informed consent. Second, the range of services provided by a faith-based health care organization may be in conflict with the community’s standards or needs. Furthermore, such scope of services may also be in conflict with the medical community’s standards. Access to abortion in rural areas is one example (e.g., if the only hospital is a Catholic one, access to abortion will be severely restricted, which may be unlawful). Another example is the area of growing controversy over the administration of medically-assisted nutrition and hydration (MANH) (e.g., feeding tubes) for patients in a permanent state of unconsciousness. Recent statements made by current Catholic Church leaders suggest that this is mandatory regardless of a patient’s medical condition; others claim that this is a departure from more traditional Church teachings (see Hamel and Walter 2007). More to the point, the religious obligation to provide MANH may be in direct conflict with legal requirements to honor a patient’s refusal of medical treatment as well as the medical standard of care for certain conditions. To be sure, the changing demographics of American society, the growing complexity of health care, and the evolving nature of religion will continue to evoke major issues at the intersection of faith-based health care and society. See also Abortion; Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide; Health Reform Movements; Neuroethics. Further Reading: Arbuckle, Gerald A. “Sponsorship’s Biblical Roots and Tensions.” Health Progress. September–October 2006. 87 (5): http://www.chausa.org/Pub/MainNav/News/ HP/Archive/2006/09SeptOct/Articles/Features/HP0609a.htm. Accessed February 6, 2008; Brodeur, Dennis. “Catholic Health Care: Rationale for Ministry.” Christian Bioethics. 1999. 5 (1): 5–25; Catholic Health Association. “Catholic Health Care in the United States—January 2008.” http://www.chausa.org/NR/rdonlyres/68B7C0E5-F9AA-4106B182-7DF0FC30A1CA/0/FACTSHEET.pdf. Accessed September 2, 2008; Chottiner,

Female Subordination in Christian Thought | 191 Lee. “Jewish hospitals getting scarce in 21st century.” The Jewish Chronicle. December 25, 2003. 43 (32): 1; Curran, Charles E. “The Catholic Identity of Catholic Institutions.” Theological Studies. March 1997. 58 (1): 90-108; Dorff, Elliot N. The Jewish Tradition: Religious Beliefs and Healthcare Decisions. Park Ridge, IL: The Park Ridge Center, 2002; Dorff, Elliot N., and Aaron L. Mackler, “Responsibilities for the Provision of Health Care,” in Life and Death Responsibilities in Jewish Biomedical Ethics, ed. Aaron L. Mackler. New York: The Louis Finkelstein Institute and The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2000; Hamel, Ronald P., and James J. Walter. Artificial Nutrition and Hydration and the Permanently Unconscious Patient: The Catholic Debate. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2007; Hamel, Ronald P., and Kevin O’Rourke. The Roman Catholic Tradition: Religious Beliefs and Healthcare Decisions. Park Ridge, IL: The Park Ridge Center, 2002; Kauffman, Christopher J. “Catholic Health Care in the United States: American Pluralism and Religious Meanings.” Christian Bioethics 5, no. 1 (1999): 44–65; Mackler, Aaron L. Introduction to Jewish and Catholic Bioethics: A Comparative Analysis. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003; Mackler, Aaron L., ed. Life and Death Responsibilities in Jewish Biomedical Ethics. New York: The Louis Finkelstein Institute and The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2000; McCullough, Kevin W. “For Many Doctors, Beliefs Influence Their Practices; More Than Three-fourths Believe in God and More Than Half Believe in an Afterlife, a Survey Finds. Results Surprise the Study’s Author.” Los Angeles Times. Home Edition. July 4, 2005. F7; Numbers, Ronald L., and Darrel W. Amundsen, eds. Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986; Sullivan, Lawrence E., and Susan Sered. “Healing and Medicine: An Overview.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 6, 2nd ed., ed. Lindsay Jones. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, 2005; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 4th ed. Washington, DC: USCCB, 2001. http://www. usccb.org/bishops/directives.shtml. Accessed September 2, 2008.

Nicholas J. Kockler

FEMALE SUBORDINATION IN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT Contemporary discussions of female subordination in Christian thought typically center on the ordination of women. However, a broader range of issues pertain to these conversations, such as debates about the status and roles of women. These debates include disagreements about the importance of natural sexual differences versus the significance of gender constructions, as well as women as procreative agents versus women as public religious leaders.

WOMEN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Jesus’s Treatment of Women In carrying out his ministry of teaching and preaching, Jesus includes women. He challenges patriarchal assumptions about women. For example, in Luke 7:36–50, Jesus welcomes a woman who was a sinner and allows her “to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and to dry them with her hair” (Luke 7:38). The Pharisees object to such an intimate encounter, but Jesus encourages the intimate encounter because it

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comports with his inclusion vision of the Kingdom of God. Luke 8:2–3 (Matthew 27:55–56; Mark 15:40–41; Mark 23:49) mentions Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Suzanna as those who accompany Jesus. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph are present during the death of Jesus; moreover, Mary Magdalene and Mary are the first ones present at the tomb to witness the resurrection of Jesus (Luke 28:1–10). In Luke 28:5, an angel addresses the women and praises them for their fidelity to Jesus: “But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.’” When Jesus appears to the women, “they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him” (Luke 28:9). Many scholars debate the formal religious leadership of women. Jesus selects (Matthew 10:1–4) and commissions twelve men to be his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18–20). However, he rebukes them for their disbelief after his resurrection (Mark 16:14), in contrast to the women who had worshipped him. Did Jesus intentionally select his twelve based on their maleness? Was Jesus upholding a hierarchical perspective—based on his own maleness and the image of God the Father—that avows only men can administer the Word of God and build the Christian church? Scholars such as Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza disagree: “Jesus and his movement followed the Jewish vision of the basileia, of God’s society and world that are free of domination and do not exclude anyone. This ‘envisioned’ world is already present in the inclusive table-community, in the healing and liberating practices, as well as in the domination-free kinship-community of the Jesus movement, which found many followers among the poor, the despised, the ill and dispossessed, the outcast, and women” (Fiorenza 1994, 96–97). Pope John Paul II concurs that Jesus promotes the dignity of women: “It is universally admitted—even by people with a critical attitude towards the Christian message—that in the eyes of his contemporaries Christ became a promotor of women’s true dignity and of the vocation corresponding to this dignity.” (Pope John Paul II 1988, paragraph 12; original emphasis). However, the Pope affirms that the maleness of Jesus is particularly constitutive of who Jesus is, and God’s relationship to the world: “The Bridegroom—the Son consubstantial with the Father as God—became the son of Mary; he became the “son of man”, true man, a male. The symbol of the Bridegroom is masculine. This masculine symbol represents the human aspect of the divine love which God has for Israel, for the Church, and for all people” (Pope John Paul II 1988, paragraph 25; original emphasis). Women in the Pauline Epistles The treatment of women in Paul’s letter has also received substantial scholarly treatment. Women mentioned include Lydia, the worshipper of God who was converted and baptized (“The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul”, Acts 16:14), the tentmaker Priscilla, with whom Paul “worked

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together” (Acts 18:3), Euodia and Syntyche, who “have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel” (Philippians 4:3), and Prisca and Aquila, “who work with me in Christ Jesus, and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles” (Romans 16:3–4). Romans 16:5, additionally mentions the “church in their house” of Prisca and Aquila; it was common in the early Christian context for women to establish small house churches that helped to facilitate the growth of the Christian church. Paul describes women who possess leadership positions within the church. Paul commends the Church in Rome to Phoebe “a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well” (Romans 16:1–2). Deacons function as precursors to priests, but they still represent a part of Church hierarchy (see 1 Timothy 2:8–13 for the qualifications of deacons, including 2:11, which states, “Women likewise must be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things”). Despite these numerous references to women working with Paul, or participating in the institutional life of the church, there are Pauline images of women that convey submission and subordination. Does Paul restrict the roles of women only to those of mothering and tending to the home? The pericope of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 provides an illustration. For example, in 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul writes: “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.” Paul bases his claim, in part, on a fundamental anthropological difference between men and women: “For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7–10). Other passages indicating submissiveness for women include 1 Corinthians 14:34 (“women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says”), Ephesians 5:22–24 (“Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands”), and 1 Timothy 2: 9–15 (“Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent,” 1 Timothy 2:11–12). WOMEN IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION The role of women in the history of Christian life and thought is extensive. Perpetua, Felicitas, and Thecla are important early Christian martyrs, and several central medieval mystics and reformers were women, including Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, and Teresa of Avila. These women exemplify profound commitments to God, and therefore provide inspiring models of Christian faith, but the institutional church and theological perspectives do restrict their formal leadership roles within the Church. There

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is historical precedence (in addition to Scripture accounts) concerning women deacons. Canon 19 of the Council of Nicaea (325) and Canon 15 of the Council of Chalcedon (451) address women deaconesses. The latter canon states: “It is resolved that deaconesses are not to be ordained before they are forty years old, and this with careful scrutiny” (Clark 1983, 176). Do such documents lend credibility to current movements promoting women’s ordination? In 2002, the International Theological Commission of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concluded that women deacons mentioned in the ancient tradition of the Church were not equivalent to present day deacons; moreover, the sacrament of order clearly distinguishes between the ministerial roles of priests and deacons (Zagano 2007, 357–358). Another crucial aspect of the debate about Christian subordination of women concerns theological perspectives on women. Early theologians such as John Chrysostom (349-c.407 and Bishop of Constantinople from 398–404) and Jerome (347–420) extol the virtues of virginity as the only means for young girls and women to become spiritual equals with men. In interpreting the creation accounts, Ambrose of Milan (338–397) argues that woman was responsible for the fall, and that God intends different roles for men and women: “Just as a man is thought to be more skillful at public duties, so a woman is thought more skillful in domestic services” (Clark 1983, 33). Chrysostom obviates the notion that women are created in the image of God (imago dei); “The woman, however, is ‘the glory of man,’ since she is subjected to him” (Clark 1983, 36). Augustine (354–430) similarly insists that the male alone possess the image of God normatively; theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether submits that “woman’s subjugation is both the reflection of her inferior nature and the punishment for her responsibility for sin” (Ruether 1993, 95). Tertullian (c. 155–230) similarly affirms a secondary status to women. In his treatise On the Priesthood, Tertullian writes: “But when there is a need for someone to be set over the church and to be entrusted with the care of so many souls, let the whole female sex step aside from the greatness of the matter” (Clark 1983, 173–174). During the medieval period, debates about women deaconesses and ordination disappeared, as women’s religious roles within Christianity centered around women as nuns. In terms of wider social perceptions, women were perceived to be good homemakers and mothers. Theologians, ranging from Rosemary Radford Ruether, to Mary Daly, to Serene Jones, to Delores Williams, to Lisa Sowle Cahill, have argued that these procreative roles have been “determined” for women in ways that preclude true equality with men in society. This inequality, according to these thinkers, has been exacerbated by theological voices and institutional structures that uphold patriarchy. CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDINGS OF WOMEN: NATURAL SEXUAL DIFFERENCES A recent document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith titled Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World discusses the roles of men and women

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within the family, society, and the church. The text upholds the significance of natural sexual differences (rooted in biological differences), and repudiates the significance of cultural constructions of gender roles; it holds that attention to the former leads to collaboration between men and women, whereas considerations of the latter neglects sexual differences and leads to conflict between men and women. The Church believes that the biblical vision of the person, encapsulated in the two creation accounts in Genesis (Genesis 1:1–2:4a and Genesis 2:4b-25), provides insight into these natural sexual differences. In the first account, individuals are created equally as male and female by God as the imago dei (image of God). In the second account, Adam and Eve are sexually different, but they are relational and united in one flesh. It is only original sin that distorts and damages their complimentarity and relationality. The text summarizes the biblical vision of the person and its implications for relationality: “Their equal dignity as persons is realized as physical, psychological, and ontological complimentarity, giving rise to a harmonious relationship of ‘uni-duality’, which only sin and ‘the structures of sin’ inscribed in culture render potentially conflictual” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2004, paragraph 8). The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) extrapolates further specific traits unique to women, particularly women’s “capacity for the other.” This capacity for the other “is linked to women’s physical capacity to give life” but “this does not mean that women should be considered from the sole perspective of physical procreation” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2004, paragraph 13). Structured by natural sexual differences, a woman’s personality is mature, responsive and responsible, and hopeful. It also, according to the text, means that women have irreplaceable roles within the family. Following the guide of Pope John Paul II, the CDF upholds the primary role of women as mothers, but who may also work: “women who freely desire will be able to devote the totality of their time to the work of the household without being stigmatized by society or penalized financially, while those who wish also to engage in other work may be able to do so with an appropriate work-schedule, and not have to choose between relinquishing their family life or enduring continual stress, with negative consequences for one’s own equilibrium and the harmony of the family” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2004, paragraph 13). The Pope envisions harmony for women in terms of work and family, but women must always prioritize the family in striving for this family. Critics of the Pope believe that his vision of harmony attenuates women’s autonomy and equality. Having established these notions of being a woman and their social implications, the CDF turns to the importance of feminine values in the life of the Church. The CDF affirms the central figure of Mary, from whom “the Church always learns the intimacy of Christ” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2004, paragraph 15). Mary provides the exemplary model for all women in the Church, who “contribut[e] in a unique way to showing the true face of the Church, spouse of Christ and mother of believers” ( Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2004, paragraph 16). Based on these understandings, the CDF concludes the following vis-à-vis the ordination of women: “In this perspective one understands how the reservation of priestly ordination solely to men does

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CURRENT CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVES ON ORDINATION The Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention, follow the Catholic Church and repudiate the ordination of women as priests. The provinces of the Anglican Church remain divided as to the legitimacy of women’s ordination, but the majority of them advocate for such ordination. Mainline American Protestant churches such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Methodist Church, ordain women. These Protestant practices derive, in part, from a claim that everyone stands equally (as sinners and as justified) before God within the priesthood of believers. These churches also endorse the election of women bishops, though there are considerable tensions within several denominations regarding such elections. In 2006 Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected as the head of the United States Episcopal Church, precipitating disagreement and splintering among the Church.

not hamper in any way women’s access to the heart of the Christian life. Women are called to be unique examples and witnesses for all Christians of how the Bride is to respond in love to the love of the Bridegroom” ( Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 2004, paragraph 16). Critics of the Pope worry that the Christian message of love for all has not been fulfilled at the institutional level of the Church. CONTEMPORARY DEBATES ON WOMEN’S ORDINATION In 1994, Pope John Paul II wrote the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that reserves priestly ordination to men alone. In reiterating Catholic tradition, the pope quotes one of his earlier writings: “In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of time” (Pope John Paul II 1994, paragraph 2). Pope John Paul II affirms that the absence of ordination for women does not diminish respect for women’s dignity and cannot be construed as discrimination. He defends equality for women, but he argues that Scripture (Luke 22:32, when Jesus says to Peter: “but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”), and tradition (“preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents”, Pope John Paul II 1994, paragraph 4), have definitely answered the question of women’s ordination once and for all. Opposing perspectives, such as those of Phyllis Zagano, argue that Scripture and tradition (e.g., the ecumenical councils of Nicea [325 a.d.] and Chalcedon [451 a.d.]) provide support for women as ordained diaconate. Zagano submits that the Church must retrieve these discarded voices and uphold women’s ordination (Zagano 2007).

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See also Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal; Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy. Further Reading: Bianchi, Eugene C., and Rosemary Radford Ruether, eds. A Democratic Catholic Church: The Reconstruction of Roman Catholicism. New York: Crossroad, 1992; Byrne, Livinia. Women at the Altar: The Ordination of Women in the Roman Catholic Church. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1994; Clark, Elizabeth, ed. Women in the Early Church. Message of the Fathers of the Church. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1983; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect). “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World.” 2004. Available at: http://www.vatican. va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040731_ collaboration_en.html; Curran, Charles E., and Margaret A. Farley, eds. Feminist Ethics and the Catholic Moral Tradition. New York: Paulist Press, 1996; Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler. “The Bible, The Global Context, and the Discipleship of Equals.” In Reconstructing Christian Theology, eds. Rebecca Chopp and Mark Lewis Taylor. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994; Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler. Discipleship of Equals: A Feminist Ekklesialogy of Liberation. New York: Crossroad, 1993; Jones, Serene. Feminist Theory and Christian Theology: Cartographies of Grace. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000; Parsons, Susan Frank. The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; Pope John Paul II. “Mulieris Dignitatem.” 1988. Available at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/ hf_jp-ii_apl_15081988_mulieris-dignitatem_en.html; Pope John Paul II. “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.” 1994. Available at: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/ apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html; Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993; Zagano, Phyllis. “The Question of Governance and Ministry for Women.” Theological Studies 68, no. 2 (2007): 348–367.

Jonathan Rothchild

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G GAMBLING AND THE RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE The vast majority of Americans have gambled at least once. One can place bets on dog and horse races in 43 states, buy lottery tickets in 40 states, gamble for charity in 47 states, and play at commercial casinos in 11 states. By 2007, all but two states (Hawaii and Utah) allowed some form of gambling. Gambling as a government-sponsored activity has exploded in the late twentieth century, and will clearly only increase in the twenty-first century. Is gambling a moral and social problem? What are the social costs of problem gambling, and do they outweigh the social and economic benefits of increased state-sponsored gaming? Finally, how does the rise of Native American gambling in the late twentieth century as a new income source for a traditionally deprived and impoverished minority population, impact on the moral arguments for and against gambling? While it may seem like it is a relatively recent social issue, the fact is that gambling has been a source of concern for many religious traditions for literally hundreds of years. WHAT IS GAMBLING? Definitions of gambling are elusive, but a helpful suggestion has been made by M. D. Griffiths, a scholar and historian of gambling in Western culture, as “an exchange of wealth determined by a future event, the outcome of which is unknown at the time of the wager” (Dickerson and O’Conner 2006, 7). Gambling is therefore a type of playing a game in which financial loss or gain for the players is part of—or even the main point of—the results of the game. Games can be played exclusively for the financial aspects, or financial aspects can be 199

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introduced to games that otherwise do not have gambling as their primary intention (e.g., betting on races or professional sports). The controversies surrounding gambling stem largely from the large sums of money that can become involved. Left to small sums, there are few objections to introducing financial loss or gain to otherwise innocent pastimes. When, however, significant gains or losses are made part of the activity, gambling can become a storm center of debate that has strong religious involvement. The significant moral and social issues surrounding the tremendous growth of the gaming industry in the United States (and worldwide—Australian gaming is, per capita, much greater than in the United States) include concerns about the social costs of so-called addicted or pathological gamblers, of organized crime, and even of the equitable distribution of gaming earnings. GAMBLING IN WESTERN HISTORY Games of chance, often accompanied with serious consequences in winning or losing, have been a part of human civilization for as long as we have written records. In Gerda Reith’s (1999) important study, she notes that gambling of one kind or another has been an aspect of human play from the dawn of civilization. In Ancient Greece, Plato believed that play, including games of chance, were among the more noble aspects of human activities, while his fellow Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, on the other hand, believed gaming to be wasted effort and time. While there has always been a minority view in Western culture that has seen gaming, and gambling, as largely an innocent pastime, there is a dominant second tradition that stands closer to that ancient view of Aristotle by considering gambling a negative human undertaking. Lotteries are perhaps the most widely attested form of large-scale gambling in Western history, and state-supported lotteries that are recorded in medieval Europe as early as the fifteenth century were intended to help raise funds to pay for military fortifications. A HISTORY OF GAMBLING AND CHRISTIAN MORAL JUDGMENT IN THE WEST It is hard to separate the history of gambling in human civilizations with the history of the very idea of chance. Through a good part of human history, there was no such belief in chance—it was believed that all events reflected the will of gods, spirits, or guiding deities. Various ancient religions routinely practiced a kind of casting of lots or dice-like devices in order to discover whether gods or spirits agreed with the course of actions determined by human beings (e.g., whether a battle should be started on a certain day or month). It would be difficult to find specific biblical injunctions against gambling, and within Judaism and Christianity, for example, there is a history of tense coexistence with gambling, particularly from the perspective of historical Judaism and the Roman Catholic Church. However, there is a tradition of a more intensively negative view in the Protestant Christian tradition, with similarities to

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Aristotle’s notion of waste, and later, its associations with other activities seen as sinful (e.g., drinking and other forms of excess and, even more recently, organized crime). GAMBLING AND JUDAISM Within Judaism, there is a definite moral ambivalence. Jews living in Europe before the foundation of the state of Israel, being largely from poorer sectors of the population, often participated in purchasing government-sponsored lottery tickets, but excessive risk of financial resources in gambling was strongly discouraged by rabbinic commentators. In the modern state of Israel there is a national lottery, and casino-style gambling is popular in the traditional resort town of Eilat in the far south. However, excessive gambling is frowned upon in the Talmud, a central historic source of Jewish thought, and only moderately tolerated during the celebrations of Purim, which is a more historically recent, and religiously minor, Jewish celebration that is associated with the Book of Esther. GAMBLING AND ISLAM There are Islamic religious traditions that question gambling in much stronger terms than either Catholic Christianity or Judaism. In reacting to plans to build a casino in Manchester, England, in 2007, for example, one prominent British Muslim leader, Sheikh Hassan Ali Barakat (Imam of the Greenwich Islamic Centre in London) protested stating, “We see it as a cause of argument between husbands and wives, parents and children. Even the cause of suicides.” He cited the Quran: “Believers, do not unjustly devour each others’ wealth” (Al-Nisaa 4: 29). Even more direct, however, are those Islamic laws that are read by many Islamic scholars to prohibit any kind of financial transactions in which any one or more of the parties involved in the transaction gains wealth and deprives others of their wealth, without morally deserving it or rightfully earning it. The most commonly cited passage of the Quran that is read to strongly condemn gambling is 5:90–91: O ye who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination of Satan’s handwork: avoid such (abomination), that ye may prosper. Satan’s plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of God, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain? GAMBLING IN CHRISTIANITY In the medieval period of Europe, the Roman Catholic Church viewed gambling as unproductive and believed that it tended to encourage disorderly conduct, but while the Catholic Church definitely had a dim view of gambling activities, it never actually forbade such gaming. In the Protestant Reformation,

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however, religious attitudes toward gambling hardened considerably—as gambling was seen to be associated with idleness, greed, blasphemy, and superstition. Games of chance were seen to be irreligious attempts to “force God’s hand,” but even more seriously, they were seen by Protestant Reformers to encourage an attitude among lower classes that wealth could come suddenly and without effort rather than from proper hard work and responsible decisions. FROM SIN TO FOOLISHNESS: CHANGING WESTERN ATTITUDES As strictly religious attitudes lost influence on European societies during the Enlightenment (eighteenth century), religious condemnations began to be replaced with ideas that gambling was an irrational and wasteful pastime. Such an attitude toward the foolishness, rather than the immorality, of gambling can be heard in a little poem cited by Henry Fielding, in 1732: A Lottery is a Taxation, Upon all the Fools in Creation; And heaven be praised, It is easily raised, Credulity’s always in Fashion: For, Folly’s a Fund, Will never lose Ground, While Fools are so rife in the nation (cited in Dickerson and O’Conner 2006, 2) THE MEDICALIZATION OF GAMBLING: PROBLEM AND PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING It is in the twentieth century that the notions of either sinful gambling, or irrational gambling began to be replaced with a medicalization of gambling as an illness that required intervention and therapy. Clearly, such attitudes were based on those cases where serious amounts of money were lost by those hardly able to handle such losses, rather than on the minor or moderate amounts lost by casual gamers who fly to Las Vegas or Atlantic City in the United States for a few days vacation. A good part of the ancient and medieval opposition to gambling was based precisely on this notion that gambling was engaging in a kind of secular or antireligious consulting of higher powers. It is only when the very notion of random chance begins to be a widely held idea that gambling moves from being considered an irreligious activity to one that is considered irrational because of the randomness of such gaming, and as an understanding of random actions and chance increased, so the awareness of risk in games of chance became a growing feature of the arguments of those who opposed this activity. Finally, Reith points out that as market economies developed in the West, attitudes toward gambling and risk-taking games changed from a religious view, to

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views of its risky character or as a calculated opposition to high risk. One should engage in money-making activities that minimize risk, not only in business, but also in leisure-time activities. As money-making became quite literally a way of life for a growing class of merchants, the minimizing of risk also became a way of life—extending to leisure as well as work. Some have argued that the gambling debate has been largely overruled by the very success of the industry, and the dependence on that industry in many local economies around the United States. The debate continues to focus, however, on the issue of “problem gamblers.” PROBLEM GAMBLING AND “PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLERS” The Australian Institute for Gambling Research has defined problem gambling as “the situation where a person’s gambling activity gives rise to harm to the individual player, and/or his or her family, and may extend into the community” (Dickerson and O’Conner 2006, 11). Studies conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago examined social and economic changes attributed to casino proximity—a casino within 50 miles of a community, in 100 samples, and the federal government issued a major report by the National Gaming Impact Study Commission in 1999. While the conclusions suggested that between one to two percent of gamblers (approximately three million people) can be classified as pathological gamblers and another three to four percent are termed problem gamblers (about three to eight million people), it is clear that the vast majority of gamblers engage in gambling without measurably negative social or economic impact on themselves or families. The NORC study concluded that the total societal costs of problem gambling were $4 billion each year, but noted that this is a fraction of the social costs incurred by society in relation to drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, heart disease, and smoking. Pathological gambling, on the other hand, has a recently defined set of diagnostic criteria according to the American Psychiatry Association. Among the more common criteria with which to diagnose pathological gaming, includes assessing whether a person: (1) is preoccupied with gambling (constantly thinking about past games and getting money for future betting); (2) needs to gamble with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve desired excitement; (3) has repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling; (4) is restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop gambling; (5) after losing money gambling, often returns another day to get even (“chasing” one’s losses); (6) lies to family members, therapists, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with gambling; (7) has jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, job, or educational career opportunity because of gambling; and (8) relies on others to provide money to relieve a desperate financial situation caused by gambling. Furthermore, the NORC study concluded that the presence of a casino in or near a community did not significantly increase crime, and even, in some cases, noted small decreases.

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On the other hand, however, opponents of gambling have strong arguments by pointing out that, although the percentage of gamblers who are problem gamblers is low, it is precisely these problem gamblers who are among the most profitable “clients” of gambling establishments, and therefore they are the least likely institutions to argue for limitations on, or assistance for helping, problem gamblers who may wish to end their destructive behaviors. NATIVE AMERICAN GAMING One particularly interesting factor in the consideration of gambling as a social and moral issue is the rise of Native American gambling as a major industry on Indian land. Indian gaming is defined as gaming (including, but not limited to, casinos) conducted by a federally recognized tribal government, and taking place on a federally established reservation or trust property. And, although this represents critically needed funds for often impoverished peoples, this amount accounted for less than a fourth of the gambling industry revenues nationwide in the same year. A study written in 2005, states that 30 states are home to more than 350 tribal gaming establishments, operated by over 200 tribes that decided to pursue gaming as a strategy for economic development. Only about one-third of the approximately 560 tribes in the United States recognized by the federal government conduct casino-style gaming on their reservations. In some cases, tribes are located in states that do not allow any form of gambling (notably Utah), but in other cases, the tribes have resisted gambling as a source of income—the most famous case being the Navajo, undoubtedly noteworthy because of their large population among Indian nations in the United States. Nearly half of all tribal gaming enterprises earn less than $10 million in annual revenue, and one-quarter earn less than $3 million each year. On the other end of the spectrum, only about 40 tribal casinos (or about one in ten) take in two-thirds of all Indian gaming revenues. Before the rise of Indian gaming, the options available to many Indian tribes were quite limited. Often located on land considered useless to other Americans, Indians have traditionally suffered some of the highest unemployment in the United States, and have historically attracted the least economic investment. While not distributed evenly among all Native Americans in the United States, it is impossible to deny that Indian gaming has initiated dramatic changes for the better for Native American tribal groups throughout the country. According to the 1990 census, while 13 percent of the total U.S. population fell below poverty level, nearly one-third of Native Americans lived in poverty, with unemployment rates reaching as high as 50 to 80 percent in some extreme cases on Indian lands. But as a direct result of gaming, total Native unemployment is down, educational opportunities have increased, and economic development in other areas of local investment is occurring. Furthermore, there appears to be relative consensus across available research that Indian gaming generates direct, indirect, and induced economic benefits for state and local communities.

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From a Native perspective, they are independent nations by treaty rights, and therefore there is already a high level of compromise with state governments, who have significantly benefited from profit-sharing arrangements. In Native terms, reservation lands are to be seen in the same way as the federal government recognizes a foreign country, and there ought to be no more resentment, interference, or taxation imposed on them—any more than the United States would expect to impose taxes or rules, for example, on Canada or Mexico, if either country should build a casino near the American border. From many federal and state governmental perspectives, however, there is a limit to tribal sovereignty, and thus, modern arrangements worked out between tribal and state governments on revenue sharing already represent a significant compromise between the two historically different perspectives on the meaning of tribal sovereignty. There are a number of issues that have been raised, particularly by Native gaming, that have further complicated this special aspect of the overall issue of gambling. First, the success of many Indian gaming establishments has lent new urgency to those Indian groups seeking federal recognition. However, even though many of these groups have struggled for federal recognition for decades, there is a new pressure on the federal government to impose limits on such recognition because of the widely held belief that gambling opportunities are what is “really behind” groups seeking federal recognition. There are well over 250 Native groups seeking tribal recognition in the United States. Second, tribal groups have sought to expand their land claims and work in partnership with outside gambling industry investors to increase their development. Why the Native developers are blamed for this, as opposed to the nonNative investors and industries, who are investing in their projects, however, is often hard to determine, other than viewing it from the perspective of long-term prejudices and racism. Third, Native economic development has resulted in new political clout. Once again, however, heavy investment in the political process by “interested parties” that include defense contractors, agricultural interests, and oil and automotive companies do not often raise the same concerns—and one can argue that Native Americans are simply exercising their economic power as others have done for a long time. SUMMARY While there are no clear or direct religious teachings for or against gambling in religious traditions such as indigenous, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the increasing levels of personal risk, and the increasingly serious financial implications of professional gambling institutions, continue to make it a controversial activity from the perspective of many major religious traditions. In recent years, the “medicalization” of gambling has changed the terms of debate from an older religious-based argument about risk or challenging the spirits or even testing God, to a debate about addictive and destructive behaviors that perhaps ought to be monitored in portions of the population in the same way

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that other medical or health risks are monitored as part of the responsibility of civil society. See also Genocide; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Barker, Thomas, and Marjie Britz. Jokers Wild: Legalized Gambling in the Twenty-first Century. Westport and London: Praeger, 2000; Castellani, Brian. Pathological Gambling: The Making of a Medical Problem. New York: State University of New York Press, 2000; Collins, Peter. Gambling and the Public Interest. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003; Dickerson, Mark, and John O’Conner. Gambling as an Addictive Behaviour: Impaired Control, Harm Minimisation, Treatment and Prevention. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Light, Steven Andrew, and Kathryn R.L. Rand. Indian Gaming and Tribal Sovereignty. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2005; Mullis, Angela, and David Kamper, eds. Indian Gaming: Who Wins? UCLA Indian Studies Center: Los Angeles, 2000; The National Gambling Impact Study Commission. Available at: http:// govinfo.library.unt.edu/ngisc; Pasquaretta, Paul. Gambling and Survival in Native North America. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 2003; Reith, Gerda. The Age of Chance: Gambling in Western Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher GENETIC RESEARCH The U.S. Department of Energy began its Human Genome Initiative in fiscal year 1987, and the National Institutes of Health began its project in 1988. The official starting date of the combined Human Genome Project, however, was October 1, 1990, and James Watson was appointed its first director. The stated objective of this 15-year project was to map and sequence the entire human genome, but the project was able to be completed early in April 2003. The genome comprises all the genetic material in our 46 chromosomes, which we now know contain the human’s full complement of between 20,000 and 26,000 genes. Scientists could develop four different methods of altering our genes from the results produced in the Human Genome Initiative. First, there is somatic (body) cell therapy in which a genetic defect in a body cell of a patient could be corrected by splicing out the defect and by splicing in a healthy gene. Second, there is germ-line gene therapy in which a genetic defect in the reproductive cells—egg or sperm cells— of a patient could be corrected so that the patient’s future offspring would be free of the defect. Next is enhancement genetic engineering. In this form of genetic manipulation a particular gene could be inserted to improve a specific trait, for example, either by adding a growth hormone to increase the height of a patient (think of a basketball player) or by genetically enhancing a worker’s resistance to industrial toxins. Finally, there is eugenic genetic engineering in which genes would be inserted into the egg or sperm to design the entire human subject. The first two types of genetic manipulation are therapeutic in nature because their intent is to correct some genetic defect. The other two types are not therapies but are concerned with improving or enhancing either various aspects of the patient or with changing the whole patient, including even his or her genetic progeny.

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Any moral judgment about the genetic manipulation of the human genome is always shaped within a context. This context for many religious people, for example, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, is a complex set of religious beliefs and views of humanity (anthropology) that inform one’s moral thinking and judgment about genetic research on human subjects. Religious beliefs do not by themselves decide moral issues, but they do shape and inform the ways in which religious people think morally about them. Depending on one’s religious ideas, then, religious scientists may decide that many of the four types of genetic manipulation mentioned above might be judged as morally justified. On the other hand, if one works from a different set of religious and moral presuppositions, then one might well morally prohibit most, if not all, genetic manipulation the human genome. RELIGIOUS PRESUPPOSITIONS There are two basic religious presuppositions that form the context for one’s moral position on human genetic manipulation. The first presupposition is concerned with interpretations of: (1) who God is, (2) divine providence, and (3) how God acts in the world and in history. The second general presupposition is concerned with eschatology, that is, with one’s view of the final times or God’s kingdom. Thus, the first presupposition deals with the general relation between how God acts in the world and how humans act. The second deals both with whether the future is already determined and with who has responsibility for how the future will turn out. In other words, does God bring about the future of humanity alone, or do humans also have a role to play alongside God in determining the future? Views of God and of Divine Agency Two different views on the first religious presupposition are particularly important for judging the morality of genetic manipulation. In one perspective God is viewed as the one who has created the material universe and humanity and the one who has placed universal, fixed laws into the very fabric of creation. As sovereign ruler over the created order, God directs the future through divine providence. As Lord of life and death, God possesses certain rights over creation, which in some cases have not been delegated to humans and their authority. When humans take it upon themselves to take over God’s rights, for example, those rights to determine the future and to change the universal laws that govern biological nature, they act in a sinful manner. If one adopted the positions held in this perspective, then one would probably judge the scientist’s attempts to change the genetic structure of the human species, especially any attempt to engineer the entire human person, as human arrogance. This conclusion is confirmed in a TIME/CNN poll on people’s reaction to genetic research. Not only were many respondents ambivalent about this type of research on our genes, but a substantial majority of the respondents (58%) thought that altering human genes in any way was against the will of God (Time, January 17, 1994, p. 48).

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In the second and different perspective, God is interpreted as the one who creates both physical nature and humanity but who does not place universal, fixed laws into the fabric of creation. God’s actions in creation and in history are to continue to influence the world process, which itself is open to new possibilities and even spontaneity. Divine providence is understood as God responding creatively in new ways to the continually changing needs of history. Though there is some stable order in the universe, creation is not finished, and history is not yet determined. Consequently, God continues to act to influence the final outcomes of both creation and history and to respond to what humans are doing. Contrary to the first view that understands God as acting in a physical “place” in nature, in this view God’s action is understood as primarily persuasion, that is, persuading humans in the depths of their freedom to act responsibly. If one thinks that God has left most of material nature unfinished and believes that the future is not yet determined, then one would be more inclined morally to justify attempts at genetic manipulation, including possibly limited nontherapeutic attempts at genetic enhancement and eugenic engineering. Views of the Final Times or Eschatology Harvey Cox, a Protestant theologian, has identified three strains of eschatology that traditionally have been used in Judeo-Christian theologies: the apocalyptic, the teleological, and the prophetic. All three can be found both in ancient religious traditions and in modern secularized forms. Each strain has a different understanding of the final times and how God will inaugurate that future. Consequently, each view will understand quite differently the relation of humanity’s historical future to the final times, and each will formulate what our moral responsibilities are for making sure human history turns out right. The apocalyptic eschatology, which Cox traces to the influence of ancient near-eastern dualism, always judges the present as somehow unsatisfactory. In both its religious and secularized forms, this view of the final times negatively evaluates this world and its history, and it foresees imminent catastrophe. The religious form of this eschatology always draws a sharp distinction between God’s future in the kingdom and the conditions of our human history, and thus it generally argues for a great discontinuity between this world and the next. On the other hand, the teleological (or “goal oriented”) eschatology, which was derived principally from the Greeks but was adopted by Christians, views the future of the final times as the unwinding of a purpose inherent in the universe itself, the development of the world toward a fixed end. All creation, then, is moving toward some final end, for example, beatific vision or union with God, and thus there is some continuity between present human history and God’s future. In its contemporary secularized form, this strain understands the world and humanity as evolving. Because humans cannot believe that the cosmos and all that is within it can possibly be devoid of all meaning and purpose, they project onto the cosmos their own purposes. Of course, humans inevitably assign themselves a crucial place in the very goal of the universe.

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Finally, the prophetic strain of eschatology, which is characteristically Hebrew in nature, views the future as the open area of human hope and responsibility. In the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament), the prophets did not, in the main, foretell the future; rather, they recalled Yahweh’s promise as a way of calling the Israelites into moral action in the present – and that moral action may then change what will happen in the future (such as avoiding judgment!). In its biblical form, then, the future is not known in advance, but it is radically open and lies in the hands of humans who must take up responsibility for it. In its modern secularized form, the prophetic eschatology places great hope in human responsibility for the future, and it views the future with its many possibilities. One of the most notable theologians of the twentieth century who adopted the apocalyptic eschatology and then applied it to issues in genetic research was the late Paul Ramsey, a Protestant theologian who taught at Princeton University. He regularly emphasized the discontinuity between this world and the next, and thus he always urged us to remain faithful to God’s future as that is represented in the divine covenant between humanity and God. Ramsey did not believe that we have any moral obligation to safeguard the future of humanity through genetic research. It is this apocalyptic view, which sees human history coming to an abrupt end through divine activity, that shapes and informs Ramsey’s interpretation of both our general moral responsibilities for the future and his specific moral prohibitions against genetic research. If one adopted either a teleological or a prophetic eschatology, however, then one would be more inclined morally to accept certain genetic interventions into the human subject. Both strains emphasize human responsibility for the future, although each does this differently. Both understand that the future is open. Consequently, these views of the final times or eschatologies, in either their religious or secularized forms, could lead one to justify morally some types of genetic manipulation, for example, somatic (body) cell therapy. However, because the prophetic eschatology in particular places the strongest emphasis on human responsibility for the future, it is possible that this strain would be very cautious about approving any form of genetic enhancement or germ-line eugenic engineering of the human subject due to the unforeseen harmful consequences associated with such genetic manipulation. VIEWS OF THE HUMAN: ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS There are many important anthropological presuppositions or views of the human that shape the background to one’s moral position on genetic manipulation, but only one will be discussed here. There is a religious set of anthropological issues that are concerned both with how we view ourselves as created in the image of God (imago dei) and with our interpretations of the fall of humanity. Though there is not space here to address other issues, it is important to realize that one’s evaluation of modern technology, one’s understanding of the nature and role of medicine, and one’s views of human sexuality and parenthood also affect a moral assessment of genetic engineering of ourselves and of our progeny.

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Religious Views of the Image of God and of the Fall (Human Sinfulness) All the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) believe that humans are created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27). However, there are two different interpretations of how religious people understand the image of God, which in turn shape moral judgments on genetic manipulation. The first interpretation defines humanity as a steward over creation. Our role is to protect and to conserve what the divine has created. Stewardship is exercised by respecting the limits that were placed by God in the orders of both biological (genetic) nature and society. This view is consistent with the understanding of God, discussed earlier, as the creator who has placed universal, fixed laws into the very fabric of creation. If we are only stewards over both creation and our own genetic heritage, then our responsibilities do not include the alteration of what the divine has created. Our principal moral duties are to remain faithful to God’s original creative will and to respect the laws that are both inherent in creation and function as limits to human intervention. The second interpretation of the image of God defines humans as cocreators with God in the continual unfolding of creation. As “created cocreators” we are both utterly dependent on God for our very existence and at the same time responsible for helping to create the course of human history. Though we are certainly not God’s equals in the act of creating, we do play a significant role in bringing creation and history to their completion. This view is consistent with an understanding of God who has begun the act of creation but who has not yet brought it to a final end. Both creation and history are open-ended, and their fulfillment partially requires the responsible exercise of human freedom. There are obviously limits to how far humanity can genetically manipulate itself, so we are not free to alter our genes anyway that we would like. Many religious people believe that humans have fallen from God’s original creation, and now sin has entered the world. However, there have been different interpretations of the depth of human sinfulness. One view, which was adopted by many of the early Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century and continues in the thought of some contemporary theologians, is that all aspects of the human are deeply fallen into sinfulness. This interpretation has led some to distrust that humanity will ever use modern technology for moral ends. Consequently, those who hold this view regularly seek to limit science’s extension of human control over our genes and the genes of our children. At the opposite end of the spectrum on this view of human sinfulness proponents almost entirely forget about the fall of humanity. They see only the possibilities open to human ingenuity and rational control, and thus they regularly support efforts to manipulate the human genome. By downplaying the effects of the fall on humanity, these proponents extol human freedom and control over physical nature and the future. Many of those who hold this view would support morally most, if not all, of the four types of genetic manipulation discussed earlier. An alternate view to these two extremes, which is historically consistent with Catholic thought, could be described as a moderately optimistic assessment of

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the human condition. Though fallen, humanity remains essentially good and capable of knowing and doing the moral good with the grace of God. Proponents of this interpretation are not as quick to prohibit or to limit all forms of genetic alteration of the human species as those who subscribe to the first view of the fall. However, unlike the excessively optimistic view in the second interpretation, these proponents recognize that the human capacities to reason and to will the moral good continue to be affected by sin. Consequently, they are cautious about putting too much trust in humanity’s ability to use modern technology for moral ends. In the end, though, they are willing morally to endorse some limited forms of genetic manipulation, for example, somatic (body) cell therapy, but they tend to prohibit all types of genetic engineering or enhancement of the human person. They believe that all such attempts to engineer the person genetically will probably result in disastrous consequences for the human race due either to human error or to human arrogance and self-deception. See also Health Reform Movements; Neuroethics; Universal Health Care and Religious Ethical Issue. Further Reading: Anderson, W. French. “Genetics and Human Malleability,” Hastings Center Report 20 (1990): 21–24; Barbour, Ian G. Issues in Science and Religion. New York: Harper & Row, 1966; Cole-Turner, Ronald, ed., Design and Destiny: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Human Germline Modification. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008; Cox, Harvey. “Evolutionary Progress and Christian Promise,” in Concilium Vol. 26: The Evolving World and Theology, ed. Johannes B. Metz, 34–47. New York: Paulist Press, 1967; Ramsey, Paul. Fabricated Man: The Ethics of Genetic Control. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970; Shannon, Thomas A. What Are They Saying About Genetic Engineering? New York: Paulist Press, 1985; Walter, James J. “Presuppositions to Moral Judgments on Human Genetic Manipulation,” Chicago Studies 33 (November 1994): 228–39.

James J. Walter GENOCIDE The relationship between religion and genocide has been an unfortunate and tragic one. In the twentieth century, the recurrences of genocide have been staggering and confounding, and the world community finds itself futilely uttering never again. Religion has contributed to hate, and has exacerbated ethnic and political tensions; preconditions for the occurrence of genocide. Yet, others point to critical resources within religion that function as bulwarks against genocide, because they promote peace through reconciliation and dignity. GENOCIDE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The twentieth century has witnessed some of the worst human atrocities in the form of genocide. Tragic examples include: the slaughtering of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey between 1915–1918; the seven million deaths that resulted from Stalin’s programmatic forced famine during 1932– 1933; the Nazi Holocaust and the murdering of more than six million Jews,

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Gypsies, and others; the reign of Pol Pot in Cambodia and his mass killing of approximately two million persons; the rapid extermination of 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994; and the 200,000 deaths as the result of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzogovina between 1992–1995. All of these examples of genocide reflect ethnic and religious conflicts and the dehumanizing effects of interlinking cultural and religious identities with political interests. In some cases, there are specific clashes between different religious groups, whereas in others there are power struggles created by the intrusion and then departure of colonial powers. Religion plays a definitive role in several of these genocide cases. The Nazis appealed to folk religion (“blood and soil”), appropriated Christian ideas about the reign of the kingdom of God, and convinced some Christian theologians of their truth; others resisted—notably Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Karl Barth—the Nazis precisely on theological and ethical grounds. In the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia “it was religion, wed to ethnicity [in the cases of Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Muslims], that clearly distinguished each ‘ethnic’ group from the others.” Thus, it has been suggested that combatants relied on religion to provide “primordial” and “ageold” justifications for people intent on war. Among the remarkable and disturbing aspects of genocide in the twentieth century, an ever futile chant “never again” continues to be ineffectual. For example, in the wake of the Holocaust genocide, the world community banded together to establish safeguards within international law. On December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (and over one hundred nations have since ratified it). Among its provisions, the convention seeks to prevent “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Prohibited acts include murder, causing serious bodily harm, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; punishments

GENOCIDE IN DARFUR The genocide in Darfur, which began in 2003, has resulted in the deaths of over 400,000 persons and the displacement of over 2,500,000 others. Further demonstrating the interconnections between religion, politics, and ethnic identity, the genocide has specific religious dimensions: the Janjaweed (or devils on horseback) are Muslim fighters who have utilized a variety of methods (including mass murder, rape, and displacement) to exterminate Darfurians who practice Christianity and animism. The Sudanese government has backed the Janjaweed militia, and the international community has increasingly called for sanctions on the Sudanese government. Reports indicate that the militia has blocked humanitarian intervention aid, but many criticize the United Nations and the United States for the absence of sustained and proactive involvement in the genocide. The extent to which the Muslim identity of the Janjaweed factors into the equation remains unclear, but numerous religious institutions, ranging from various Christian denominations, Jewish groups, and Muslim communities, have called for an end to the violence.

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for such acts are to be administered by state tribunals or international tribunals. Nevertheless, as noted above, the mass killings of persons continued to haunt the twentieth century. COMPETING RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES ON THE “CONQUEST” OF AMERICA Indeed, genocide is not relegated to the twentieth century; moreover, it is not a phenomenon limited to the world outside of the United States. Some contend that the discovery of the New World, the incipient founding of America, and the conquest of the indigenous persons, constitutes genocide of potentially unsurpassed proportions. Tzvetan Todorov, for example, argues that “the sixteenth century perpetuated the greatest genocide in human history.” Todorov’s claim raises significant debates vis-à-vis religion and genocide. The medieval Crusades, of course, had interwoven religious aspirations (e.g., the reclaiming of Jerusalem and the conversion of those practicing Islam and other religions) with coercive and violent means. Here, Christopher Columbus undertook what he thought was a benevolent religious objective. Does he re-present the Crusades, or does he initiate a comprehensive program of conversion? Clearly viewing Columbus’s actions as carrying out the former, Todorov writes: “a kind of Quixote a few centuries behind his times, Columbus aspires to set off on a crusade to liberate Jerusalem!” (Todorov 1992, 11). Columbus therefore seeks to spread Christianity and desires to win souls for God. In the process, Columbus transforms the New World by imparting the system of meaning of the Old World: “he seeks to rename places in terms of the rank they occupy in his discovery, to give them the right names; moreover, nomination is equivalent to taking possession” (Todorov 1992, 27). He implements a system whereby the Indians must become like the Spaniards—in the forms of their names, language, customs, values, and beliefs— in order to assimilate them and “propagate the Gospel” (Todorov 1992, 43). A counter-model to Columbus is Father Bartolomeo de las Casas, who argues for the humanity of indigenous Americans on reasoned natural law grounds and the biblical witness of justice. In contrast to Columbus’s construal of the Indians as a tabula rasa to be named, Las Casas recognizes the otherness of the Indians as distinctive from Western culture and as representative of the poor one in the Gospel, and ultimately, of Christ himself (Gutierrez 1993, 455–456). While Columbus seeks to transform the Indians (which may include coercive practices of slavery and possibly murder), Las Casas denounces violent means as a mechanism for good ends. A fortiori, he argues that such practices contradict the central teachings of Christianity: “Hence the purpose God intends, and for the attainment of which he suffered so much, may be frustrated by the evil and cruelty that our men wreak on them with inhuman barbarity. What will these people think of Christ, the true God of the Christians, when they see Christians venting their rage against [the Indians] with so many massacres?” (Las Casas 1992, 26–27). Massacres in the name of Christ, or winning souls for God through violent coercion, violate the integrity and goodness of God’s creation. Las Casas holds: “Again, if we believe that such a huge part of mankind is barbaric, it would follow that God’s design has for

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the most part been ineffective, with so many thousands of men deprived in the natural light that is common to all peoples. And so there would be a great reduction in the perfection of the entire universe—something that is unacceptable and unthinkable for any Christian” (Las Casas 1992, 36). Though he himself affirms that Christianity is universal truth, Las Casas concludes that “[w]here the Catholic faith has been preached in a Christian manner and as it ought to be, all men are bound by the natural law to accept it, yet no one is forced to accept the faith of Christ” (Las Casas 1992, 46). In sum, the figures of Columbus and Las Casas represent two different positions on the question of religion and genocide. RELIGION AND GENOCIDE: COMPLICITY OR RESISTANCE? Another dimension of the discussion regarding religion and genocide pertains to the broader questions of the relationship between religion and violence. R. Scott Appleby (2000) submits that the relationship between religion and violence can only be accurately characterized as ambivalent. He insists that construals of religion are reductive if they fail to appreciate this ambivalent relationship: “The either/or method of analyzing religion—built on the assumption that one must decide whether religion is essentially a creative and ‘civilizing’ force or a destructive and inhumane specter from a benighted past—is no less prevalent for being patently absurd” (Appleby 2000, 10). That is not to say, of course, that radically different positions do not emerge with respect toward violence. Appleby sketches two religious positions: “The religious peacemaker is committed primarily to the cessation of violence and the resolution of conflict: reconciliation or peaceful coexistence with the enemy is the ultimate goal. By contrast the extremist committed primarily to victory over the enemy, whether by gradual means or by the direct and frequent use of violence” (Appleby 2000, 13; original emphasis). Appleby examines both perspectives and their political and ethical implications for violence. He addresses fundamentalism as a source for religious extremism, where violence can be a sacred duty (that may include acts of genocide). Appleby also considers the extent to which stories of communal suffering—that function as religious myths—more subtly reinforce divisiveness in terms of cultural identity: “The conflict made us who we are. We are defined by our responses to the injustices delivered on us by the enemy. In the stories we tell about conflict, about our suffering and endurance, we give voice to our deepest sense of meaning and purpose as a people” (Appleby 2000, 173; original emphasis). Yet, he also holds that there are resources within religion that can foster reconciliation, forgiveness, and transformation. These resources are not limited to specifically religious ones; rather, they reflect different religions’ attempts to interconnect religious values and political and legal mechanisms: “The internal pluralism of Christianity, Islam, and other major religious traditions enables religious acts to select and develop theologies and moral precepts that accommodate universal human rights norms and enhance the building of local cultures of peace” (Appleby 2000, 276–277). Religion can thus contribute to a critical and constructive response to genocide.

Genocide | 215 INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT AND TRUTH COMMISSIONS The establishment of the International Criminal Court to punish crimes against humanity was viewed by many as a decisive international mechanism for combating genocide. At the Rome conference in 1998, the United States joined China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen as the only countries to vote against the Rome Statute instituting such a court. The United States did sign the statute, but President Bush informed the United Nations in May 2002 that the United States will never ratify the Statute, and therefore has no legal obligations. Despite these objections, the Statute entered force on July 1, 2002 (after the requisite 60 countries ratified it), and one hundred countries have now ratified it. Various religious groups, including the Catholic, Quaker, and Lutheran churches, have voiced support for the court. The permanent court has begun to launch criminal investigations against those individuals abusing human rights, including mass atrocities carried out in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Darfur, Sudan. The American objections—principally on the grounds of sovereignty—may be said to have failed to appreciate the importance of punishing crimes such as genocide that offend the conscience of the world community. Moreover, truth commissions—such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa—constitute effective ways to address the wounds of crimes against humanity. The Court and the commissions can work together to ensure that there can be a middle path between impunity (where offenders go unpunished) and vengeance (which fails to promote restoration, reconciliation, and healing). Truth commissions disclose the truth and begin dialogue crucial for mending relationships in postconflict situations. Many theologians, notably John de Gruchy, have supported truth commissions as consistent with theological notions of covenant.

THE RESPONSES TO GENOCIDE: EXCLUSION AND EMBRACE Reflecting on his firsthand experience in Croatia during the war in former Yugoslavia, Miroslav Volf discusses the dialectic of exclusion and embrace. One of the features of exclusion, which bifurcates the world into “us” and “them,” is an indifference to the sufferings of others (such as the victims of genocide). Volf states: “Especially within a large-scale setting, where the other lives at a distance, indifference can be more deadly than hate” (Volf 1996, 77). Such indifference explains, in part, why, for example, the United States failed to act during the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide. Indifference signals a failure to possess self-reflexive awareness in terms of one’s own participation in the suffering of others; it reflects a presumed innocence, and assigns guilt to others. Viewed theologically (that is, specifically from the Christian tradition), Volf argues that such indifference and presumed innocence are false and in need of transformation: In the name of the one truly innocent victim and what he stood for, the crucified Messiah of God, we should damask as inescapably sinful the world constructed around exclusive moral polarities—here, on our side, ‘the just,’ ‘the pure,’ ‘the innocent,’ ‘the true,’ ‘the good,’ and there, on the other side, ‘the unjust,’ ‘the corrupt,’ ‘the guilty,’ ‘the liars,’ ‘the evil,’—and

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then seek to transform the world in which justice and injustice, goodness and evil, innocence and guilt, purity and corruption, truth and deception crisscross and intersect. (Volf 1996, 85) This recognition of sin creates the conditions for the possibility of embrace and forgiveness. Forgiveness does not replace, but rather enthrones justice. The only way to embrace victim and offender, the one who perpetuates horrible acts of violence, because “[i]n the presence of God our rage over injustice may give way to forgiveness, which in turn will make the search for justice. If forgiveness does take place it will be but an echo of the forgiveness granted by the just and loving God” (Volf 1996, 125). Claims about the nature of the imago dei and the paschal mystery (the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ) can underpin Christian resistance against genocide. Responses to genocide have raised complicated questions about the possibilities for peace. Many view the Catholic Church as complicit in the Holocaust genocide, and in later genocides, for its inability to act quickly and decisively. Recently, Pope Benedict XVI has identified the importance of remembering the Holocaust and Rwanda genocides as crucial for fostering dialogue. Can dialogue confront both the realities of the past and the present challenges? Can this dialogue align with human rights discourse and international law in ways that secure peace and harmony? Moreover, as in the case of Rwanda, will the world community fail to act when it views those under the threat of genocide as politically expedient? Was it just when the United Nations withdrew its peacekeeping forces after they suffered casualties and death and thereby exposed defenseless Tutsis to the machetes of murdering Hutus? Was it just when European nations entered into Rwanda to retrieve only their own citizens? Is humanitarian intervention in the form of aid an adequate response to the suffering inflicted by genocide? These are complex questions, but, in order to circumvent the endless cycle of futilely proclaiming never again, individual countries, international institutions (principally the United States), and international mechanisms (such as the International Criminal Court) must interrogate their basic values and determine that genocide cannot coexist with these values. See also Apocalypticism and Nuclear War; Just War; Terrorism. Further Reading: Appleby, R. Scott. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation. Foreword by Theodore Hesburgh. New York: Rowan and Littlefield, 2000; Ellis, Marc. Unholy Alliance: Religion and Atrocity in Our Time. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997; Glover, Jonathan. Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001; Grenke, Arthur. God, Greed, and Genocide: The Holocaust Through the Centuries. Washington, D.C.: New Academia Publishing, Inc., 2005; Gutierrez, Gustavo. Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ. Translated by Robert Barr. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1993; Las Casas, Bartolomé. In Defense of the Indians. Translated and edited by Stafford Poole, C. M. Foreword by Martin Marty. Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1992; Ludemann, Gerd. The Unholy in Holy Scripture: The Dark Side of The Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997; Naimark, Norman. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002; Rittner, Carol, John K. Roth, and Wendy

Global Warming and Prosperity Theology | Whitworth, eds. Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Churches? St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2004; Roth, John K., ed. Genocide and Human Rights: A Philosophical Guide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005; Rubinstein, William D. Genocide: A History. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004; Sells, Michael A. The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Rwanda. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998; Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Translated from the French by Richard Howard. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992; Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996.

Jonathan Rothchild GLOBAL WARMING AND PROSPERITY THEOLOGY Over the past 40 years, Protestant evangelical Christianity has become an increasingly powerful force in American politics, influencing policies governing everything from abortion and the teaching of evolution, to relations with the Middle East, and responses to global climate change. Evangelical Protestant Christians played a dominant role in the rise to power of President George W. Bush in 2000, as well as his reelection in 2004, and have exerted considerable influence in shaping the Bush administration’s environmental policies and responses to global warming. From the beginning of the Bush presidency in 2000, evangelical Protestant and other conservative religious leaders have actively opposed and condemned the environmental movement and scientific warnings about global warming, supporting instead free enterprise and economic growth as the appropriate solution to environmental devastation. As a virtual consensus has emerged in the scientific community on the reality of global warming and its human causes, however, an increasing number of evangelical Protestants in the latter years of Bush’s second term have joined together in a green evangelical creation care movement, challenging the prosperity and dominion theology underlying the conservative environmental platform. THE CORNWALL ALLIANCE: A CURSED PLANET, PROSPERITY THEOLOGY, AND THE ETHIC OF DOMINION In the fall of 1999, a group of conservative religious leaders, economists, and scientists founded the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship (ICES), laying out their principles in the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, a document drafted in West Cornwall, Connecticut, in October of 1999, and published in the spring of 2000. Its signatories included many prominent leaders of the Religious Right: James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family; Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ; and Catholic Father Robert A. Sirico, who founded the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. Exemplifying and defining conservative Christian views on the environment and global warming, the Cornwall Declaration constitutes “the first

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major pronouncement on environmental issues by a coalition of conservative religious groups” (Berkowitz 2000). Expressing a strong faith in free enterprise, the Cornwall Declaration argues at the outset that “growing affluence, technological innovation, and the application of human and material capital are integral to environmental improvement” (Cornwall Declaration 2007, Concern #1). The writers bestow a biblical and theological justification to such an embrace of wealth, the free market, and economic growth: bearing the image of God, human beings are unique in their God-given ability to “enrich creation” and thereby address the problems of poverty and disease in the developing world (Cornwall Declaration 2007, Concern #1). E. Calvin Beisner, one of the main contributors to the Cornwall Declaration, asserts: “To slow economic development by reducing energy use is to condemn the world’s poor to more years of high morbidity and mortality than they otherwise would have to suffer” (Beisner 2005, 17). Beisner believes that aid for the world’s poor lies not in reduced energy consumption or conservation efforts, but in continuing economic growth that will improve overall infrastructure, health, and sanitation in impoverished nations. The faith expressed by the Cornwall Declaration in economic growth as a solution to poverty and environmental destruction, reflects, in part, the influence of Prosperity Theology. Also known as Health and Wealth, Name It and Claim It, Word of Faith, and, in its most recent form, Prosperity Lite, Prosperity Theology’s roots in the United States can be traced back at least to the Calvinist notion that wealth is a sign of God’s blessing. After the Civil War, the Gospel of Wealth, as exemplified by Baptist preacher Russell H. Conwell’s Acres of Diamonds sermon, fueled the expanding capitalism of the era, transforming “an older Calvinist belief in wealth as God’s blessing into the declaration that poverty was sinful and that it was the duty of every Christian to become rich” (Albanese 2007, 99). Contemporary exponents of Prosperity Theology include Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, numerous televangelists, and United Methodist pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, who delivered the benedictions at both inaugurations of George W. Bush. Osteen, and other prosperity theologians, choose John 10:10b as their cornerstone biblical verse, where Jesus proclaims: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Van Biema and Chu 2008, 6). Given Jesus’ admonition in the Sermon on the Mount to store up treasures in heaven rather than on earth (Matthew 6:19–20), and his warning regarding a rich man that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:24), it is not surprising that Prosperity Theology has found many critics in the evangelical world. Megachurch pastor Rick Warren, author of the bestseller The Purpose Driven Life, condemns prosperity theologians for setting up a false idol, insisting: “You don’t measure your self-worth by your net worth” (Van Biema and Chu 2008, 2). Evangelical theologian Ben Witherington has denounced Prosperity Theology as a “false gospel” and a “disease of our American culture” (Van Biema and Chu 2008, 6). Many critics accuse Prosperity Theology of selling out

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to the culture of American materialism in viewing God as merely “a celestial ATM” (Van Biema and Chu 2008, 8). Defending Prosperity Theology against the charge that it overlooks the plight of the poor in favor of material gain, Kirbyjon Caldwell, who directed the construction of a large affordable housing project, insists “you cannot give what you do not have . . . If I am going to help someone, I am going to have to have something with which to help” (Van Biema and Chu 2008, 8). Ironically, as Boston University religion professor Stephen Prothero notes, Prosperity Theology appeals particularly to the poor, to whom it offers hope and serves as a form of liberation (Van Biema and Chu 2008, 5). Moreover, as Prosperity scholar, Milmon Harrison, points out, it is not surprising that Prosperity Theology often seems to overlook poverty and other social ills, since its philosophical approach to assisting the poor “is encouraging people not to be one of them” (Van Biema and Chu 2008, 7). Perhaps the most striking challenge within evangelical circles to the Cornwall Declaration’s faith in Prosperity and the free market, comes out of the New Monastic movement, whose leaders include Shane Claiborne, founder of The Simple Way faith community in North Philadelphia, and Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners community in Washington D.C. (Van Biema and Chu 2008, 7). Adopting a simple, communal lifestyle in solidarity with the poor in inner city America, the New Monastics have given up material wealth to embrace what Claiborne, in his 2000 article, terms the “downward mobility of the gospel” (Claiborne 2000). Lamenting the materialism that has infected Christianity in America, Claiborne delivers a potent critique of capitalism and the system of charity it engenders: “Charity assures that the rich will feel good while the poor will remain with us. It is important that the poor remain with us, because our capitalist system hinges on it. Without someone on the bottom, there is no American dream and no hope for upward mobility” (Claiborne 2000). For Claiborne and other New Monastics, the solution to poverty lies not in material gain, but in the radical, self-sacrificial love proclaimed by Jesus that shatters the walls separating rich and poor. Besides embracing prosperity as an all-encompassing solution, the Cornwall Declaration espouses an ethic of dominion toward the natural world. Opposing those who would leave nature “untouched by human hands”, it dismisses such an approach as “romanticism” that “leads some to deify nature or oppose human dominion over creation” (Cornwall Declaration 2007, Concern #2). Giving no explicit consideration to the human overpopulation problem, the Cornwall Declaration insists that humans “are called to be fruitful . . . and to enhance the beauty and fruitfulness of the rest of the earth” (Cornwall Declaration 2007, Belief #7). Beneath the ethic of dominion, as interpreted by the Cornwall writers, lies the assertion that the earth and all living creatures were cursed by God as a result of the Fall of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1–19): “By disobeying God’s law, humankind brought on itself moral and physical corruption as well as divine condemnation in the form of a curse on the earth” (Cornwall Declaration 2007, Belief #5). This idea has been particularly developed by theologian E. Calvin Beisner. In his 2005 article, Beisner reveals the biblical basis for this view. Following the later

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theological tradition (reflected, for instance, in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2) of identifying the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan (though no such identification is made in the original story), Beisner concludes that God’s judgment on the “Satanic serpent” extends to “all the beasts of the field, birds of the air, and fish of the sea over which God had given Adam and Eve (sic) dominion in 1:28” (Beisner 2005, 14). To support his interpretation that God’s curse of the serpent extended to all animals, Beisner cites the Noah story conclusion (Genesis 9:1–3), in which God, reiterating Genesis 1:28–29, reestablishes human dominion over all living things (Beisner 2005, 14). As a result of God’s curse on the serpent, Beisner argues, all animals must live “under human dominion” (Beisner 2005, 14). In addition, he attributes God’s judgment as extending to the ground itself, which God curses (Genesis 3:17) because of Adam’s disobedience (Beisner 2005, 14). Other theologians have argued, however, that by itself, the story of the Fall and God’s resulting judgment does not explicitly state that God cursed all animals when he cursed the serpent. Indeed, God actually singles the serpent out among all other animals (Genesis 3:14): “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” Nor does God’s curse upon the ground imply a curse on the earth as a whole. In a passage attributing the origin of agriculture to God’s curse upon the ground, Adam, the first human, must till the soil (Hebrew adamah, equivalent to the English humus) from which God made him, and to which he must return upon his death (Genesis 3:17–19). Nowhere in Genesis does God ever curse the whole earth, which God recognizes as good (Genesis 1:9–10). Beisner appears to derive his interpretation of the earth and living creatures as cursed not primarily from the Genesis 3 account, but rather from a passage from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans in the New Testament. Arguing that the “New Testament ties the restoration of the Earth from the curse to human redemption through Christ Jesus,” Beisner quotes Romans 8:18–23, which includes the hope (Romans 8:21) “that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Beisner 2005, 16). Reflecting, in part, the apocalyptic worldview of Paul, who saw the world as enslaved to decay in an evil age soon to end with the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth (Galatians 1:4; I Corinthians 7:31; I Thessalonians 4:15–17), Beisner states: “We should expect increasing liberation of the Earth from God’s curse, a process that shows itself in increasing human life, health, and prosperity” (Beisner 2005, 16). The role of human beings in this ongoing process of liberation is to be “wise, holy and fruitful” stewards who “fill, subdue, and rule the Earth” by transforming it from “wilderness” to the “garden city” described in “Revelation 21 and 22 . . . as the New Jerusalem” (Beisner 2005, 14). But critics point out that Beisner’s “wise, holy and fruitful stewardship” is expressed most clearly in his outspoken opposition to any practical measures, such as those outlined in the Kyoto climate agreement to curb the CO2 emissions that contribute to global warming (Beisner 2005, 15). Echoing the Cornwall Declaration’s assertion that the earth is not best untouched by human hands (Cornwall

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Declaration 2007, Concern #2), Beisner argues that although CO2 emissions may cause some warming of the atmosphere, their overall effect is positive, since rising CO2 levels “fertilize the whole world” by enhancing plant growth and increasing agricultural yields (Beisner 2005, 15). The skepticism about global warming expressed by Beisner and his colleagues, until recently, was widely shared by the majority of religious and political conservatives in the United States. However, Beisner’s argument, promoted heavily by the American coal industry, that increasing CO2 levels will fertilize the whole earth and lead to higher crop yields, has been called into question by research published in 2005 indicating that grasses, which include the majority of world food crops, benefit far less from increased CO2 levels than do trees. More recently, questions have surfaced about the agenda and objectivity of the Cornwall Alliance. As reported by Bill Moyers in Is God Green?, a 2006 Public Television documentary on evangelicals and the environment, Beisner and his colleagues received funding from Exxon Mobil, one of many oil companies supporting the Global Climate Coalition, whose stated purpose was “to cast doubt on the theory of global warming” (Moyers 2006). Perhaps the most formidable challenge to the religious conservative platform on the environment and global climate change, however, comes from within the fold. In early 2006, a group of 86 evangelical leaders formed the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI) presented their environmental position in a statement titled Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action. The ECI statement affirms that global climate change is real, that it is being caused particularly by rising CO2 levels from the burning of fossil fuels, and that the consequences of global warming will be severe, especially for the world’s poor. In support of its claims, the ECI statement cites the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose scientific assessment on climate change was chaired from 1988 to 2002, the statement notes, by Sir John Houghton, an evangelical Christian. In addition to his evangelical background, Houghton is also an Oxford emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Physics. The divide in the evangelical community continued to widen as Beisner and his colleagues, now reconstituted as the Cornwall Alliance, rushed to publish a report titled A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming, criticizing the ECI’s statement at every turn. Arguing that global warming over the last 150 years is likely due to natural cycles, that the results of increasing CO2 levels will actually be positive (in the form of higher agricultural yields, etc.), and that the “idea of scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming is an illusion,” the report castigates the ECI signers for endorsing a policy which will condemn the world’s poor to short lives of misery spent in mud huts “amid swarms of diseased mosquitoes and tsetse flies,” drinking “contaminated water,” and eating “paltry, mold-infested food” (Beisner et al. 2006, 2–3; 8–10; 16–17). Instead of any attempts to curb CO2 emissions, Beisner and his colleagues continue to support free enterprise, technological, and economic development (based on the continued consumption of fossil fuels), as the only viable solution to global poverty.

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Following the 2006 publication of the Cornwall Alliance’s Call to Truth, Houghton published his own call to prudence titled Global Warming, Climate Change and Sustainability: Challenge to Scientists, Policy Makers and Christians. While not citing Beisner and his colleagues directly, Houghton challenges many of their primary arguments. First, he reiterates the latest findings of the IPCC that the global warming observed since 1750 is due overwhelmingly to human consumption of fossil fuels, and not to any natural cycles, emphasizing that “the rise in global temperature (and its rate of rise) during the 20th century is well outside the range of known natural variability” (Houghton 2007, 4). Second, he outlines some of the many predicted negative results of global warming (more extreme drought and flooding leading to massive displacement of human populations, acidification of ocean water, extinction of 15–40% of species) that will far outweigh any positive effects due to the “fertilising effect on some plants and crops” (Houghton 2007, 6). Third, he emphasizes that the conclusions of the IPCC, based on the work of “several thousand scientists” worldwide, have been endorsed by the scientific academies of all the major countries of the world (Houghton 2007, 7). He also laments the efforts of “strong vested interests” who have spent millions of dollars supporting campaigns to “deny the existence of any scientific evidence for rapid climate change due to human activities” (Houghton 2007, 7). The science, Houghton concludes, “cannot support such arguments” (Houghton 2007, 7). The growing divide in evangelical circles over environmental issues and global warming revolves most immediately around the complex question of how best to address global poverty. At another, deeper level, however, the debate stems from basic theological disagreements over what the proper Christian relationship should be to wealth and the created order. Like the New Monastics, Houghton questions the pursuit of wealth endorsed by Prosperity Theology and the Cornwall Alliance. Pointing out the “most condemning of world statistics” which show that the “flow of wealth in the world is from the poor to the rich,” Houghton endorses instead a new attitude of sharing and self-sacrifice on the part of wealthy nations, calling on the words of Jesus in Luke 12:48: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded” (Houghton 2007,15). In the same vein, the Evangelical Environmental Network’s (EEN’s) 1994 declaration On the Care of Creation affirms: “We recall Jesus’ words that our lives do not consist in the abundance of our possessions, and therefore we urge followers of Jesus to resist the allure of wastefulness and overconsumption by making personal lifestyle choices that express humility, forbearance, self-restraint, and frugality.” Signed by such evangelical luminaries as activist Jim Wallis, and Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, among many others, the EEN’s creation care declaration develops an understanding of stewardship that contrasts strikingly with the dominion theology of “forceful rule” that Beisner upholds (Moyers 2006). These green evangelicals, citing many of the same biblical passages as Beisner, find a God who “declares all creation ‘good’ ” (Genesis 1:31); promises care in a covenant with all creatures (Genesis 9:9–17); [and] delights in creatures which have no human apparent usefulness (Job 39–41).” The EEN signatories, citing Romans 8 and repenting the environmental devastation humans have caused, see not a cursed creation requiring deliverance by human effort, but a

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creation suffering from the consequences of human sin and in need of healing through Christ. As expressed by Houghton, human devastation of the environment is the result of the broken relationship with God described in Genesis 3, and the redemption of the creation promised in Romans 8:20–22 requires humans to serve creation as “responsible and just stewards” (Houghton 2007, 13). In contrast to Beisner’s unqualified endorsement of the Genesis mandate to be “fruitful and multiply,” Houghton echoes the EEN declaration, which recognizes the connection between environmental degradation and human overpopulation: “Our responsibility is not only to bear and nurture children, but to nurture their home on earth” (Houghton 2007). In view of the significant political power evangelicals hold in the United States, the healing of the earth and natural world must go hand-in-hand with the healing of the broken relationships both within and beyond evangelical circles. See also Apocalypticism and Nuclear War; Gospel of Prosperity. Further Reading: Albanese, C. America: Religions and Religion. 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007; Beisner, E. C., P. K. Driessen, R. McKitrick and R. W. Spencer. “A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming.” The Cornwall Alliance. 2006. Available at: http://www.cornwallalliance.org/ articles/read/call-to-truth/; Beisner, E. Calvin. “Biblical Principles for Environmental Stewardship.” In An Examination of the Scientific, Ethical and Theological Implications of Climate Policy, by Roy W.Spencer, Paul K. Driessen and E. Calvin Beisner. Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. 2005. Available at: http://www.interfaithstewardship.org; Berkowitz, Bill. “The Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship.” Z Mag, July 2000. Available at: http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/july00berkowitz.htm; Berkowitz, Bill. “The Evangelical Climate Initiative: A Small Crack in the Conservative Movement.” Media Transparency, February 22, 2006. Available at: http://www.mediatransparency. org/storyprinterfriendly.php?storyID=112; Claiborne, Shane. “Downward Mobility in an Upscale World.” The Other Side, November 1, 2000. Reprinted by author permission. January 27, 2008.Available at: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/ newmonastics/claiborne_downwardmobility.shtml; “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action.” Statement of the Evangelical Climate Initiative. Available at: http://www. christiansandclimate.org/statement (accessed June 6, 2007); “Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship.” Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. Available at: http://www.cornwallalliance.org/articles/read/the-cornwall-declarationon-environmental-stewardship (accessed June 6, 2007); Flannery, T. The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. New York: Grove Press, 2006; Houghton, John. “Global Warming, Climate Change and Sustainability: Challenge to Scientists, Policy Makers and Christians.” The John Ray Initiative, Briefing Paper 14, 2007.Available at: http://www.jri.org.uk/brief/index.htm; Moyers, Bill. Moyers on America: Is God Green? PBS, 2006. DVD; “On the Care of Creation: An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation.” Evangelical Environmental Network, 1993–2008. Available at: http://www.creationcare.org/resources/declaration.php (accessed June 20, 2007); Van Biema, David, and Jeff Chu. “Does God Want you to be Rich?” Time, September 10, 2006. Available at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ article/0,9171,1533448,00.html.

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GOSPEL OF PROSPERITY There has always been a side to American social history and the national self-image that celebrates ambition. Americans, on the whole, admire perseverance in developing and building family farms or family businesses. Americans also admire success. The desire to improve one’s life is usually seen as a positive personal drive that encourages hard work, and offers rewards for that hard work. But some would argue that what began in American history as a healthy drive for development that benefits many (and not just a few), has become, in more recent decades, a debate on the dangers that a healthy “ambition” can be replaced by a very negative “greed.” This becomes even more serious in the American context, when not only has this positive ambition become negative, selfish greed, but is defended on the basis of religious ideas. Can religion be understood to support greed? In the late twentieth century, and into the twenty-first century, an important movement began within largely American Christianity. Although a number of different versions are discernable, in general these ideas can be called the Gospel of Prosperity. This idea is the belief that God wants us to be rich and healthy. It is promoted by many conservative Christian evangelists, especially television evangelists. This kind of message appeals to people from various incomes. A Gospel of Prosperity especially confirms to the wealthy that their wealth is proof that God loves them, that it is okay to pursue wealth, and even to make it a top priority in one’s life. For the poor, it appeals because it may seem like a way out of poverty. Like Santa Claus, the Gospel of Prosperity is a comfort, however misplaced, for the poor. After all, even when poor children are good, Santa and his gifts may not come for them if the family simply cannot afford it. Likewise, if wealth does not come to poor believers, then God must not love them, or they do not love God enough. It is a downward spiral. Critics of the Gospel of Prosperity often contrast it against a more realistic and more positive message, which they call the Gospel of Abundance. The ideas around the Gospel of Abundance, urge us to share our many blessings. Abundance is ultimately based on the people being willing to share, on building community, and on God’s grace. Prosperity is based ultimately on the self, meand-Jesus, which is typical of conservative, corporate-driven theology. Many television evangelists have themselves become rich preaching the Gospel of Prosperity, because it is so appealing that it leads their followers to support them, to send money to their programs, and generally to keep the message coming. The Gospel of Prosperity feeds directly into the worst parts of the American Dream, with its focus on possessions as signs of success. It can lead to serious debt, and even bankruptcy. It disregards Care of Creation. THE PREACHERS The Gospel of Prosperity is part of the fastest growing segment of Christianity today—the Word-Faith Movement, also known as the Positive Confession

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or simply Faith movement. Its growth is at least partially due to the massive amounts of money the leaders are able to extract from the faithful. This influx of cash allows for huge buildings and extensive ministries, and more importantly, wide exposure on television, which translates into further numerical growth. Not only do many Word-Faith preachers broadcast their services and campaigns, but Word-Faith adherents, such as Paul and Jan Crouch, own the largest Christian-based television network in the world. The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), founded by the Crouches, with an estimated net worth of approximately $600 million dollars, is capable of televising all over the world. It is important that one does not confuse TBN with the Trinity Foundation, which produces The Wittenberg Door, an irreverent, insightful religious magazine highly critical of televangelists. The Trinity Foundation Inc. (www.Trini tyFI.org) exists primarily to feed and help the homeless. Because of the negative impact, especially on the poor, by the adherents of the Gospel of Prosperity, the Trinity Foundation investigates and exposes televangelists through their web site, videos and publications. The prosperity gospel is gaining adherents outside the United States, in Latin America (especially Mexico), Africa and Asia (especially Korea). Well-known personalities within the movement include Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Robert Tilton, Paul Yonggi Cho, Benny Hinn, Marilyn Hickey, Frederick K. C. Price, John Avanzini, Charles Capps, Jerry Savelle, Morris Cerullo and, of course, Paul and Jan Crouch. A newer star on the rise in the world of positive motivational Christianity is Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, whose motto is “Discover the Champion in You.” Osteen made the list of the Top 20 Influencers of the Pentecostal/charismatic community in the Jan/Feb 2003 issue of Ministries Today magazine, along with other notables, such as Tommy Tenney, C. Peter Wagner, and Joyce Meyer. Elwood “Woody” Rieke, a long-standing hunger activist, who is a retired Lutheran pastor (ELCA) living in LaCrescent, Minnesota, shares the following insights about how the Bible is being used to support a Gospel of Prosperity: I would call it cheap grace as Luther and Bonhoeffer did. You can always pick and choose the verses you may select from your Bible, you can make the Bible say what you want it to. Or, if a person only reads those portions of the Scriptures which make you feel comfortable or affirmed, you could easily come to believe in such a “Gospel of Prosperity.” When you read the Gospel accounts and certain parts of the Apostle Paul’s writings, you come to see a God in Jesus the Christ who has a preferential treatment for the poor and the marginalized. Our culture is caught up in a God of power and/or prosperity. It is not the God shown in II Cor. 12:8–9, “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made known in weakness.” If a person believes in such a “Gospel of Prosperity,” then the more you spend (whether you need it or not), you have sold your soul to “the company store.” Jesus says in Matthew 6:19–20, “Do not store up

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for yourselves treasures on Earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Someone has said, “People of privilege are those (to use a baseball analogy) who have been born on third base but they feel as if they have hit a triple.” Reverend Rieke also cites the work of another important modern theologian, Douglas John Hall, who has asked pointedly: “Is it Christianity that has taught us to love consumption and overabundance and waste? Is there some link between our trust in God and our astonishing prosperity, our being ‘First,’ our superpower-dom? Many avowed Christians think so, and they can count upon a whole hoary tradition of . . . ethics to back up their argument. But can we, who have at least some niggling consciousness of the victims that have been created by our abundance, continue to draw upon that argument? Can we, who have had to face the racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and other once-hidden realities of our ‘Christian’ culture, still avoid the crisis that ‘begins with the household of God’ (I Peter 4:17)?” (Hall 2003). Douglas John Hall contrasts a theology of glory with a theology of the cross. (These are the phrases first used by Luther and then by Bonhoeffer.) Hall argues that a theology of glory can really be equated with the modern term triumphalism. The theology of the cross is “first of all a statement about God, and what it says about God is not that God thinks humankind so wretched that it deserves death and hell, but that God thinks humankind and the whole creation so good, so beautiful, so precious in its intention and in potentiality, that its actualization, its fulfillment, in redemption is worth dying for” (Hall 2003). Many modern theologians have had their lives impacted by direct experiences in the developing world. Reverend Rieke speaks of his experience in Ethiopia: Our 12-person delegation had been divided up into three groups of four each and we were attending what was called a “youth conference” (actually people about 16–30 years old) out in the bush. When the moderator asked if there were any questions anyone wanted to ask of the four of us, a young man stood up and said, “How do you expect us to believe in this God you talk about when we have experienced so much death and disease and we have so little money on which to live?” (The average income of an Ethiopian is $100 per year. Two congregations in this area where the conference was being held had gone through the previous year having lost 272 people to malaria.) This question was directed to me. I responded, “Not for one minute do I say that I, a person coming from the United States, can really understand what you have gone through, but I do know I believe in a God who in the person of Jesus hung on a cross and before he died, he cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken (abandoned) me?’ If my God has so come down and identified with me and he has experienced this kind of abandonment, I believe that this God will never leave me

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nor forsake me.” I hope I spoke to this man’s heart but I can only trust what I said somehow got through to him. All of our consumption only continues to increase the tremendous divide that exists between the rich and the poor in our world. The poor feel it every day. The rich often are insensitive to the reality. AN ALTERNATIVE: LIVING MORE WITH LESS OR “VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY” The alternative to the Gospel of Prosperity is the movement of modern Christians who are attempting to reduce their consumption in the name of their religious commitments—they would refer to it as voluntary simplicity. They would argue that Christian “discipleship” means that they should seek to live in voluntary simplicity because they would argue that it is the way of Jesus. For American Christians who attempt to live more simply, they point out that for them it is a voluntary choice only because North Americans have a choice to live within their means and within the carrying-capacity of the Earth. However, two-thirds of the world’s people live simply involuntarily. They have no choice. Living simply goes far beyond frugality. It is not just about pinching pennies. Voluntary simplicity is a total lifestyle that puts Care of Creation above tribalism or nationalism, that seeks peace and justice, that is generous beyond tithing, and that would rather give money to worthwhile causes than to have it collected as taxes and spent on militarism. Voluntary simplicity works to build community and strong family bonds through volunteerism, not through status. Finally, voluntary simplicity is based on the life of Jesus. Three Levels of Simplicity Advocates of voluntary simplicity or living more with less argue that this lifestyle choice is about a life of integrity. It works on three levels. First, the personal—examine one’s own and one’s family purchasing and consuming decisions. This often includes eating organically, locally grown food, or using public transportation, or walking and biking, and by doing all we can to keep our water and air clean by using alternative energy, or using as little natural gas and conventionally produced electricity as possible. This can include using as little fresh water as possible; for example, collecting rain water and using it to water our yards, and even to flush our toilets! Second, is the interpersonal, sharing: charity—giving as much time and money to needy people and worthwhile causes and spending a whole lot less on ourselves, especially at Christmas. Over 3000 verses in the Bible deal with the poor. Is God showing us a priority? According to Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics (2005), this topic is second only to idolatry in the Bible. Idolatry is about putting other things before God— including our possessions, our stuff. Sharing also includes giving to the privileged needy; North Americans who do not realize, or will not accept the fact that a lifestyle of excess has a negative

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impact on people around the globe. While causing the most trouble, they can do the most good. So those who believe in voluntary simplicity work to influence the decisions of the privileged needy. Charity is meeting people’s short term, immediate needs. The third level is justice, working to change systems, primarily corporations and governments that are not working for the benefit of the Earth and its creatures—people, plants and animals. This can include many techniques—positive and negative letter writing, protests, stockholder actions, boycotts, and so on. All three levels are vital. Voluntary simplicity means one can work on all three levels at once. Believers do not have to be personally perfect before they speak up at a meeting. FIVE LIFE STANDARDS OF VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY The five life standards of voluntary simplicity are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Do justice Learn from the world community Cherish the natural order (Care for Creation) Nurture people (not things) Nonconform freely

Living More with Less is meant to bring a life of joy to its practitioners, not of deprivation. To get the burden of stuff off of their backs, to get free of the distractions of collecting, maintaining and securing stuff, is viewed as a relief, freeing believers to serve God and their worldwide neighbors. It is viewed as a true and viable alternative to the Gospel of Prosperity. CONCLUSION In modern American Christian debate, the economic and religious conflicts between Christian messages of Prosperity on the one hand, and the Simple Life on the other hand—interpret the Christian message radically differently. On the one side, prosperity messages appeal on the positive side to hope, but on the negative side, often ground that hope in consumerism and interpreting consumption as “God’s gifts.” It is a message all too easy to believe when one is raised in a prosperous economy and prosperous country. While personal ambition to improve may well drive industrious development and advancement, the negative side is that it can lead to over-consumption, greed, and distortion of the meaning of sharing. The message of simplicity, on the other hand, is a message that suggests that Christians need to remind themselves that they are citizens of the world—and the world does not share its resources equally at the present time. While it may be impossible for there to ever be total equality of economic development, this ought not to be used as an excuse not to seek a more equal distribution of economic benefits and opportunities and resources. The advocates of Simplicity argue that there may be a responsibility on the part of Christians in wealthier

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nations like America voluntarily to give up their over-consumption in hopes that other peoples in the world may be able to lift out of serious poverty, but also to live their own lives free of greed, status-seeking, and unhealthy consumption. See also Global Warming and Prosperity Theology. Further Reading: “Africans Warn ‘False Gospel of Prosperity’ May Displace Churches.” Available at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/124/54.0.html; Battjes, Christine. The Good Life Curriculum. Sioux City, IA: Alternatives for Simple Living, 2005; “The Anointed Dollar: Creflo Dollar’s Great Green Gospel of Prosperity.” Available at: http://www.homestead.com/dclwolf/dollah.html (accessed February 17, 2005); “Can You Take the Prosperity Gospel to the Bank?” Available at: http://www.tenth.org/qbox/ qb_020804.htm; “Faith and Values: The problem with this ‘Gospel of Prosperity’ is that it defines our faith in God by the possessions we have.” Available at: http://www. faithandvalues.com/channels/knees_excerpt.asp; Friesen, Delores. “Living More with Less Study/Action Guide.” Sioux City, IA: Alternatives for Simple Living, 1999; Hall, Douglas John. The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003; “Joyce Meyer’s Prosperity Gospel.” Available at: http://www.apol ogeticsindex.org/m26ad.html; http://www.MinistryWatch.org; Longacre, Doris Janzen. Living More with Less. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1980; “Prosperity and Healing: Emergence and Explanation.” Available at: http://www.biblestudymanuals.net/prosper ity.htm; Simple Living Struggles and Solutions. 2007. Available at: http://www.SimpleLiv ing.org/Volunteers/Activities/Simple Living 101. DVD and download; $imply Enough: Straight Talk from Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne on Simple, Just Living. DVD, 71+ min., plus study/action guide. Sergeant Bluff, IA: Alternatives for Simple Living, 2007; “The Martin Marty Center: Sightings: Two traditions of black ministry, liberation theology and prosperity gospel, have very different notions of Christ and therefore exert different influences.” Available at: http://www.marty-center.uchicago.edu/ sightings/archive_2004/1014.shtml. “The prosperity gospel—‘name it and claim it’ theology.” Available at: http://www.rickross.com/reference/tv_preachers/tv_preachers4. html; “The Prosperity Gospel. TBN’s Promise: Send Money and See Riches.” Available at: http://www.deceptioninthe church.com/theprosperitygospel2.html; “The Reproach of the Solemn Assembly.” Available at: http://www.hyperfaith.bun.com/wilkerson.htm; “Trinity Broadcasting Network: The Gospel of Prosperity.” Available at: http://www. apologeticsindex.org/t27aa.html; Wilkerson, David. “The Prosperity Gospel: Pastor’s Empire Built on Acts of Faith and Cash.” Available at: http://www.trinityfi.org/press/ latimes04.html.

Gerald Iversen GRAPHIC ARTS Recent international scandals involving graphic artists have raised awareness on the explosive ramifications of blasphemy in the arts. From time immemorial, artists have clashed with religious authorities seeking to regulate their expressions. The modern advent of the separation of religion and the state, and the accompanying freedom of expression, has not lessened those confrontations with religious communities. The power of religion and religious symbolism makes religion a popular subject for artistic use; but the sacredness of those beliefs, images and practices makes their depiction of intense interest to

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adherents. Thus, it is inevitable that the question of blasphemy will collide with the personal and legal limits of free expression. Contemporary graphic artists reach people instantly across the globe, making their work potentially explosive. Thus, the mass dissemination of graphic images through graphic arts and design has brought the question to the forefront, particularly in the face of high profile controversies that are no longer isolated, local events, but can become major international crises.

TIMELINE 1838—An avowed pantheist and political reformer, Abner Kneeland is convicted of blasphemy in Massachusetts. He serves 60 days in prison. 1921—George Grosz is fined for insulting the army in his portfolio, Gott mit uns (God with us). 1923—Grosz is fined for “offending public morals” in his collection, Ecce Homo. 1928—Grosz is fined and convicted for blasphemy in his series, Hintergrund (Background). He is later exonerated. 1989—A controversy over federal funding of the arts in the United States erupts over Andres Serrano’s photograph, Piss Christ, which depicts a crucifix in urine. 1994—Mike Diana is convicted of obscenity for his zine Boiled Angel, which explicitly depicts gory and taboo sexual and religious images. 2001—Gerhard Haderer publishes Das Leben des Jesus (The Life of Jesus). 2004—Haderer is convicted of blasphemy in Greece. His conviction is overturned later that year. Theo van Gogh is murdered for his film about violence against Muslim women, Submission. A public outcry occurs over refrigerator magnets called Jesus Dress Up, where a crucified Jesus magnet doll in “tighty-whities” can be dressed up in, among other things, a dress, hula skirt, and devil outfit. Originally created by graphic artist Normal Bob Smith, it became an Internet phenomenon that was eventually sold in the store, Urban Outfitters. After someone saw the doll in Urban Outfitters, a letter-writing campaign was started. The campaign succeeded in forcing Urban Outfitters to stop selling the magnets. 2005—Jyllands-Posten publishes Muhammeds ansigt (Muhammad’s face). Fashion designers Marithé and François Girbaud print an advertising poster parodying Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. The French Catholic Church sues the designers and succeeds in having the ad banned in France. It is also banned in Italy. 2006—Libya and Syria close their embassies in Denmark. Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria are set on fire in protests over the Danish cartoons. Over 139 people die. Jyllands-Posten wins their blasphemy suit.

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THE GRAPHIC ARTS The term, graphic arts, most specifically and technically refers to the visual arts of drawing and the many processes of printmaking. Drawing is the fine art of inscribing on a two-dimensional medium with any number of instruments, such as pencil, pen, chalk, pastels, or charcoal. Printmaking is a visual art that involves transferring an image onto a surface (like paper or fabric) from an original piece of art created on metal, stone, wood or other material. Examples of printmaking are engraving, etching, woodblocking, lithography, and silkscreening. Thus, the graphic arts depend on the production of lines and impressions, rather than on colors, in the creation of images. In contemporary usage, graphic arts has come to have a much broader meaning that encompasses a variety of arts, crafts, and design products in the printmaking industry and other industries that create visual images. As a result, graphic art has expanded into commercial and digital realms, and is often closely associated with graphic design. BLASPHEMY AND THE LAW The word blasphemy comes from Greek, meaning contemptuous speech or harmful speech. It has come to mean harmful speech specifically about something considered sacred: God, the divine, or religion. This extends to any kind of expression, such as depicting derisive images of Muhammad, as in the Danish cartoon controversy, or in portraying the life of Jesus in ways offensive to Christians, as in Gerhard Haderer’s The Life of Christ. Religious traditions themselves may have specific religious laws or pronouncements against blasphemy. In the Jewish book of Leviticus, the punishment for blaspheming the name of God is death (24:16). Moreover, the prescription against idols in Exodus (20:4) has often been interpreted in Judaism as a prohibition against representing the divine in any form. Indeed, some Christians throughout history have similarly understood this commandment. In the Christian books of Luke (12:10) and Mark (3:29), blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is deemed unforgivable. In Islam, any expression that belittles God, the Qur’an, the prophets, or the laws and practices of Islam, constitutes blasphemy. Although idolatry is strenuously targeted in the Qur’an, there is no direct condemnation of images as blasphemy. Nevertheless, in the Hadith (the sayings and stories about Muhammad), it is said that those who create images will be punished on the day of resurrection. Nations, even secular ones that maintain a separation of religion and the state, also sometimes have laws concerning blasphemy. Some countries have modified or repealed their blasphemy laws; however, many still possess them (though they are rarely enforced). Blasphemy laws are technically “on the books” in many countries, including Denmark, Germany, Greece, Iran, The Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Although the United States does not have any federal blasphemy laws, many states have historically had them, and some still do. The Massachusetts blasphemy law states:

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Whoever willfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior. (Chapter 272, Section 36) The last person to be jailed in the United States for blasphemy was Abner Kneeland, in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Kneeland (1838). However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1952 that the New York blasphemy statute was unconstitutional on the grounds that it limited freedom of speech (Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson). It is therefore unlikely that state blasphemy laws could be enforced today, due to the 14th Amendment (ratified in 1868), which (in part) bars states from making or enforcing laws that violate the basic constitutional rights of citizens. This includes the guaranteed freedom of speech outlined in the First Amendment. GEORGE GROSZ George Grosz (1893–1959), a painter and graphic artist, is best known for his satirical drawings of 1920s Berlin. Censored multiple times by the government, and even put on trial and convicted for blasphemy, Grosz is a perfect example of controversy in the graphic arts. In 1921, Grosz was accused of insulting the army and fined for his collection, Gott mit uns (God with Us), which satirized German military, religion, and society. He was again fined in 1923 for “offending public morals” because of his portfolio, entitled Ecce Homo. The prints were confiscated. Finally, in 1928, Grosz was arrested and put on trial for blasphemy. The series, called Hintergrund, was published from backgrounds Grosz had created for a satirical play. Targeting German society, government, church and war, several pieces were particularly controversial and led to Grosz’s arrest. One, called Christ in a Gas Mask, depicted Jesus crucified, wearing a gas mask and army boots, and holding a cross. The inscription stated: “Shut up and Obey.” Many of his prints and plates were destroyed, including Christ in a Gas Mask. Grosz was found guilty, but was later exonerated. Although Grosz was a favorite target of the government, he did not inspire great protest among the populace. Moreover, the political leanings of Grosz colored the government’s prosecution, illustrating the closely entwined nature of artistic expression, religion, and the state. GERHARD HADERER Gerard Haderer (b. 1951) is an Austrian illustrator and cartoonist. In 2001, Haderer published Das Leben des Jesus (The Life of Jesus), a comic book where

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Jesus was depicted as a pot-smoking, naked surfer, and drinking buddy to Jimi Hendrix. Haderer’s book was meant to be a lighthearted, albeit irreverent, take on the life of Jesus. However, Cardinal Schönborn of Austria, and many others, protested its publication. The controversy became so great that the book was banned in Greece. Although he was not a citizen, nor did he live in the country, Haderer was tried and convicted (in his absence) of “malicious public blasphemy,” and received a six-month suspended jail term. However, the court of appeals eventually overturned the ruling and exonerated Haderer. In spite of the protests, there was not overwhelming support for this censorship of Haderer’s work. Indeed, many spoke out against Haderer’s prosecution, believing he was unfairly targeted by a government unduly influenced by religious authorities. Over a thousand artists across the globe signed a petition in support of Haderer and the right of free expression for artists. THE DANISH CARTOON CONTROVERSY This controversy must be understood in the wider context of European debate on censorship and Islam. In 2004, a short film was released in the Netherlands called Submission. It focused on violence against Muslim women in their own communities. Accused of blasphemy, both the director, Theo van Gogh, and the writer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, received death threats after the film’s release. Van Gogh was subsequently murdered on his way to work. Later, on September 17, 2005, the Danish newspaper, Politiken, published an article that focused on author Kare Bluitgen’s inability to find illustrators for his children’s book on the life of Muhammad. Three illustrators turned him down: one cited the murder of van Gogh and another appealed to an attack on a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen who had read the Qur’an to non-Muslims. Bluitgen eventually found an illustrator, who agreed only on the condition of anonymity. This article on the fear of reprisals led to a public debate in Denmark about the fear of artists and others to critique Islam. On September 30, 2005, the Danish newspaper, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, published a group of twelve cartoons and caricatures, titled Muhammeds ansigt (Muhammad’s face). In the editorial accompanying the cartoons, the paper argued that the demand by some Muslims for non-Muslims to self-censor on matters related to Islam ran counter to a secular democracy and the freedom of speech. Thus, through their editorial cartoon spread, they hoped to contribute to the ongoing debate in Denmark on the critique of Islam and self-censorship. Some of the cartoons portrayed Muhammad in rather violent fashion. For example, one depicted Muhammad wearing a lit bomb as a turban. The Muslim creed was written on the bomb. The publication of the cartoons created an immediate controversy in Denmark. Danish imams and ambassadors from Muslim-majority countries requested a meeting with the prime minister. The prime minister, however, refused a meeting, and defended the cartoons on the grounds of freedom of expression and the press. Denmark’s blasphemy law (section 140) prohibits disturbing the peace by public displays of insult against lawful religious communities. Moreover, section

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266b prohibits insult or threat of persons due to race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Citing these two criminal codes, several Muslim organizations filed a complaint against Jyllands-Posten on October 27, 2005. The case was dismissed in January 2006, however, on the basis of the freedom of the press to editorialize on matters of public interest. Many Danish Muslims felt that the publication of the cartoons was not an isolated, neutral event that sought merely to open up public conversation. It seemed rather to be a part of a wider pattern of discrimination and Islamophobia. In the months that followed, more pictures appeared in the paper, Weekendavisen. Hate mail was sent to some Danish Muslims. At the time, the controversy received limited international coverage. However, an Egyptian paper, El Fagr, published six of them in October of 2005, denouncing the cartoons. Over the next year, protests grew and papers around the globe had to decide whether or not to publish the pictures. Most papers in the United Sates and Britain chose not to publish them. Over 139 people were killed in protests. Several embassies were closed or set on fire. Although pictorial representations, particularly of Muhammad, are seen in some traditions of Islam as idolatry, it was the violent or derogatory nature of some of them that caused the bigger problem for most Muslims. Insulting Muhammad, by portraying him as a suicide bomber, for example, is tantamount to blasphemy. Indeed, what this controversy makes clear are the very real sociopolitical ramifications of blasphemy in the arts. Irreverent satirical cartoons are not just about making an artistic or religious statement. They are also about the religious persons who find meaning and value in those images: they are also about insulting Muslim communities and sometimes threatening the very real well-being of those communities. If artists feel their right of free expression is limited in critiquing Islam, many Muslims feel their civil rights are limited in the war against terrorism. Public “blasphemous” images, then, contribute to and confirm this feeling of discrimination. “Blasphemous” depictions therefore hit close to the religious community in question and can touch raw nerves if the images used by graphic artists deal with problems or issues that the community is currently dealing with. BLASPHEMY VERSUS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION In the Danish cartoon controversy, Denmark affirmed both the legality of the blasphemy law, and yet resolutely stood on the side of freedom of expression. Nevertheless, the controversy spiraled out of control, as Danish Muslims and Muslims around the world—many of whom indeed affirmed their commitment to the freedom of expression—felt targeted by a powerful majority. Danish law makes clear that the freedom of expression is not absolute. The same is true in the United States, where threatening, slanderous, or obscene behavior is not considered to be protected speech. This became evident in the debates over censorship and funding by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), in the 1980s and early 1990s, when “blasphemous” art was a smaller part of a larger conflict over censorship, the arts, and the fear of moral decay

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in American society. Two artists to receive a lot of attention were Andres Serrano, infamous for his photograph depicting a crucifix in urine called Piss Christ (1989), and Robert Mapplethorpe, whose homoerotic, sadomasochistic, and interracial photographs caused an uproar over “public decency.” In 1990, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, and its director, David Barrie, were brought up on obscenity charges for exhibiting Mapplethorpe’s photographs (Cincinnati v. Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, 1990). Although Barrie and the center were acquitted, the case illustrated a real concern at that time to protect the public against indecency and obscenity. That same year, the United States Congress agreed to continue funding the NEA, but required the NEA to consider “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public” in awarding grants (National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965, amended 1990). Although the constitutionality of this was challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that decency could indeed be considered in funding grant applications (National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 1998). Thus, although blasphemy statutes are unlikely to be enforced in the United States, “blasphemous” art can still be denied funding on the grounds of indecency or disrespect for diverse public beliefs. It is also conceivable that “blasphemous” art could be subject to criminal charges, if deemed obscene. Thus, graphic artist Mike Diana (b. 1969) was convicted on charges of obscenity by a Florida Court in 1994 for Boiled Angel, a magazine of drawings that depicts sex, violence, religion, and society through explicit images of rape, gory sexual dismembering, and pedophile priests. U.S. controversies in “blasphemous” art and design, however, often take place in the commercial, rather than legal, domain, where boycotts, street protests, or letter-writing campaigns attempt to have the offensive work removed from sale or display, or at least to damage the offending parties economically. One conflict involving the graphic arts is of particular note for its successful commercial protest campaign. In 2004, a controversy erupted when attention was brought to a set of Jesus magnets sold by the clothing—and other merchandise—store, Urban Outfitters. The magnets were created by graphic artist, Normal Bob Smith, and were originally available on the Internet as an on-line dress up game. On this site, there was a crucified Jesus in “tighty-whitie” underwear, able to be dressed by dragging and dropping on his form various outfits and accessories, such as a propeller beanie hat, snorkel gear, bunny slippers, and a devil outfit. The site became quite popular, and Smith created a magnet version for sale. Urban Outfitters picked them up and began selling Jesus Dress Up refrigerator magnets. After someone saw the magnets in the store and notified the press, a widespread and organized letter-writing campaign was launched, successfully forcing Urban Outfitters to stop selling the magnets. Artistic expressions intentionally provoke in order to create an aesthetic experience. Visual images, particularly religious ones, are incredibly powerful, even in secular societies. This makes such images attractive for artists to use, regardless of their religious beliefs. And yet, religious images, symbols, and beliefs are deeply enmeshed in religious traditions and communities. It is therefore unsurprising that religious groups will be invested in how their beliefs, practices

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and communities are portrayed. Therefore, the limits of free expression are difficult to assess. When do irreverent cartoons, comics, drawings, or lithographs become “blasphemous,” “obscene,” or even dangerous to public order? Balancing artists’ rights of free expression with religious communities’ welfare is a complicated process. On a personal, artistic level, recent controversies in the graphic arts raise the question of what responsibility artists bear—if any—to those religious communities from which they draw their images. This is a question all artists must ask themselves, as controversies in the graphic arts illustrate that art does indeed have profound consequences for public life. “Blasphemous” art can be extremely effective in making a statement— whether it is a critique of German militarism, religious hypocrisy, or religious censorship. It can serve an important role in societies, raising essential questions for religious and nonreligious persons, such as: What is the relationship between religion and art? How should nonbelievers censor themselves when treating the religions? Graphic arts and designs today reach people globally through digital printing, marketing campaigns, and the Internet. This makes them particularly powerful as a tool of public communication and debate. This also makes them easy targets. See also Western Cinema; World Religion Aesthetics. Further Reading: Diver, Krysia. “Cartoonist faces Greek jail for blasphemy.” The Guardian, March 23, 2005. Available at: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,11711,1443908,00. html; Dubin, Steven C. Arresting images: Impolitic art and uncivil actions. London and New York: Routledge, 1992; DuBoff, Leonard D., Sherri Burr, and Michael D. Murray. Art Law: Cases and Materials. Buffalo: William S. Hein and Company, 2004; Flemming, Rose. “Muhammeds ansigt.” Jyllands-Posten, September 30, 2005; Flemming, Rose. “Why I published those cartoons.” Washington Post, February 19, 2006. Available at: http:// www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021702499. html; Heins, Marjorie. Sex, sin, and blasphemy: A guide to America’s censorship wars. New York: The New Press, 1993; Heller, Steven. The graphic design reader. New York: Allworth Press, 2002; Heller, Steven. Design literacy: Understanding graphic design. 2nd ed. New York: Allworth Press, 2004; Hollis, Richard. Graphic design: A concise history. Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc., 2001; Kammen, Michael. Visual shock: A history of art controversies in American culture. New York: Alfred A. Knopf; Massachusetts General Laws. Chapter 272: Section 36. Blasphemy. 2006. Available at: http://mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272–36.htm; Plate, S. Brent. Blasphemy: Art that offends. London: Black Dog Publishing, 2006; Tiefenbrun, Susan, ed. Law and the Arts (Contributions in Legal Studies). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999; Wallis, Brian, Marianne Weems, and Philip Yenawine, eds. Art matters: How the culture wars changed America. New York and London: New York University Press, 1999.

Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier

BATTLEGROUND RELIGION VOLUME 2 (H–Z)

Edited by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Battleground religion / edited by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–34098–7 (set: alk. paper) ISBN 978–0–313–34099–4 (vol. 1: alk. paper) ISBN 978–0–313–34100–7 (vol. 2: alk. paper) 1. Religion and sociology. I. Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. BL60.B315 2009 200—dc22 2008038760 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2009 by Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008038760 ISBN: 978–0-313–34098–7 (set) 978–0-313–34099–4 (vol. 1) 978–0-313–34100–7 (vol. 2) First published in 2009 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS Guide to Related Topics Series Foreword Introduction

ix xiii xv

Entries: Abortion

1

Addiction and Recovery

10

AIDS

17

Aliens

23

Amish

30

Animal Sacrifice

37

Animation as a New Medium

44

Anti-Catholicism and American Politics

49

Apocalypticism and Nuclear War

54

Bible and Poverty

63

Birth Control and Family Planning

69

Capital Punishment

77

Capitalism and Socialism

83

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Christian Zionism

89

Civil Disobedience

97

Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in America

104

Cloning

114

Cosmology

119

“Deep Ecology” and Radical Environmentalism

127

Divorce

133

Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide

141

Evangelical Christianity in America

153

Evangelical Men’s Movements

160

Evangelicals and Environmentalism

167

Evolution versus Creationism in Public Schools

174

Faith-Based Health Care, Religious Morality, and Institutional Policies

183

Female Subordination in Christian Thought

191

Gambling and the Religious Conscience

199

Genetic Research

206

Genocide

211

Global Warming and Prosperity Theology

217

Gospel of Prosperity

224

Graphic Arts

229

Health Reform Movements

237

Higher Intelligence Animals

244

Homeschooling

252

Homosexuality

258

Hucksterism and Religious Scandals

267

Hutterites: Communal Living versus Individual Freedom

274

Immigration

283

Islamic Nationalism

291

Jailhouse Conversions

299

Just War

305

Liberation Theology

311

Contents | vii

Marketing Religion

319

Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy

325

Muslim Minorities in the West

332

Nation of Islam

341

Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion

347

Native American Religious Freedom

353

Neuroethics

358

New Religions as Growth Industry

365

Organ Transplants

373

Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence

379

Prayer in Public Schools

386

Prime Time Religion

392

Religious Conversion

399

Religious Diplomacy

405

Religious Publishing

411

Religious Symbols on Government Property

417

Right-Wing Extremism

425

Rock Music and Christian Ethics

432

Same-Sex Marriage

439

Sanctuary Movement

445

School Funding

451

Science Fiction

458

Separation of Church and State

463

Terrorism

471

Universal Health Care as Religious Ethical Issue

479

Vegetarianism as Religious Witness

485

Western Cinema

489

World Religion Aesthetics

497

Bibliography

503

About the Editor and Contributors

505

Index

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GUIDE TO RELATED TOPICS art Animation as a New Medium Graphic Arts Prime Time Religion Science Fiction Western Cinema World Religion Aesthetics

culture Animal Sacrifice Muslim Minorities in the West Prime Time Religion Western Cinema

economics and business Bible and Poverty Capitalism and Socialism Gambling and the Religious Conscience Immigration Marketing Religion Prime Time Religion Religious Publishing Rock Music and Christian Ethics Sanctuary Movement

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Guide to Related Topics

extremism Apocalypticism and Nuclear War “Deep Ecology” and Radical Environmentalism Female Subordination in Christian Thought Gospel of Prosperity Hucksterism and Religious Scandals Nation of Islam New Religions as Growth Industry Right-Wing Extremism

personal behavior Abortion Addiction and Recovery AIDS Animal Sacrifice Birth Control and Family Planning Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in America Divorce Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide Gambling and the Religious Conscience Homosexuality Jailhouse Conversions Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy Same-Sex Marriage Vegetarianism as Religious Witness

politics and political ideas Bible and Poverty Capitalism and Socialism Christian Zionism Genocide Islamic Nationalism Just War Liberation Theology Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence Religious Conversion Religious Diplomacy Separation of Church and State Terrorism

religious impact on society Anti-Catholicism and American Politics Apocalypticism and Nuclear War Christian Zionism Civil Disobedience

Guide to Related Topics |

Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in America Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide Evangelical Christianity in America Evangelical Men’s Movements Evangelicals and Environmentalism Evolution versus Creationism in Public Schools Female Subordination in Christian Thought Gospel of Prosperity Health Reform Movements Hucksterism and Religious Scandals Immigration Islamic Nationalism Jailhouse Conversions Liberation Theology Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion New Religions as Growth Industry Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence Religious Symbols on Government Property Rock Music and Christian Ethics Sanctuary Movement School Funding Universal Health Care as Religious Ethical Issue

science Aliens Brain Research Cloning Cosmology “Deep Ecology” and Radical Environmentalism Faith-Based Health Care, Religious Morality, and Institutional Policies Genetic Research Global Warming and Prosperity Theology Higher Intelligence Animals Neuroethics Organ Transplants Science Fiction

social policy Abortion Addiction and Recovery AIDS Bible and Poverty Birth Control and Family Planning Capital Punishment Evangelicals and Environmentalism

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Guide to Related Topics

Faith-Based Health Care, Religious Morality, and Institutional Policies Female Subordination in Christian Thought Gambling and the Religious Conscience Genocide Health Reform Movements Homeschooling Homosexuality Immigration Jailhouse Conversions Just War Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy Native American Religious Freedom Prayer in Public Schools Religious Conversion Religious Diplomacy Same-Sex Marriage Sanctuary Movement School Funding Separation of Church and State Terrorism Universal Health Care as Religious Ethical Issue

subcultures Amish Animal Sacrifice Civil Disobedience Evangelical Christianity in America Evangelical Men’s Movements Evolution versus Creationism in Public Schools Global Warming and Prosperity Theology Gospel of Prosperity Homeschooling Hutterites: Communal Living versus Individual Freedom Immigration Islamic Nationalism Muslim Minorities in the West Nation of Islam Native American Religious Freedom New Religions as Growth Industry Prayer in Public Schools Religious Symbols on Government Property Right-Wing Extremism Vegetarianism as Religious Witness

H HEALTH REFORM MOVEMENTS Since time immemorial, religion and medicine have been interrelated, religion often setting the parameters for what was considered to be appropriate in the treatment of illnesses of the human body and mind. In Western medicine, two trends emerged: the professional practice of medicine, generally supported by the affluent classes, and folk medicine, most commonly practiced among the peasant populations. Over the years these two trends have existed in tension and, at times, have drawn on each other. The numerous health reform movements that have arisen in Europe and the United States have been influenced by Chinese, ayurvedic, as well as Christian philosophies and theological positions, often in conflict with mainstream medical practice, which in the United States has found itself in tension with alternative medical approaches that are growing in popularity as “regular” medicine becomes more focused on symptoms with more sophisticated and expensive healing procedures. ROOTS OF THE JUDEOCHRISTIAN HEALTH AND RELIGION CONNECTION The Jewish Tradition Although the Torah is the basic religious document of Judaism, most of its directives regarding medical ethics and practice come from rabbinic literature. The principal source of rabbinic discussion on medical matters is the Mishnah (220 c.e.) and the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds (400 and 500 c.e., respectively). In the Jewish tradition, since God created the body, the body is not

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only good, but it displays God’s power and infinite goodness. Unlike other religious traditions, the body was not a prison house for the soul, but the means by which God’s will could be fulfilled, if the body was treated correctly. The human body is loaned to each human being and, therefore, they are required to care for it. Hygiene, diet, exercise, and sleep were matters of legal obligation, not just suggestions for better living. Such notable rabbis as Hillel and Maimonides laid out the theological undergirdings of the body’s care, and Jews were to observe the dietary restrictions indicated in the biblical books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Nor was care for the body necessarily related to its contribution to good health. Causes of disease, according to the Talmud, were blood, bile, air, contaminated food, bodily discharges, and insects (particularly worms and flies). Excessive eating, drinking, fasting, and sexual activity were also seen as disease producing. Psychological causes of disease were also taken into account—fear and changes in routine, for example. Before the Greek introduction of a kind of secular medicine, Jewish rabbis forbade treatments used by pagan practitioners whose use of magic were seen as inconsistent with a belief in God. Treatments approved by rabbis included bloodletting, warm and cold compresses, sweating, sunbaths, hydrotherapy, psychotherapy, massages, and exercises. Wine was considered to be the most healing of medicines, but herbs were widely used in the form of powders and liquids. Clean air and sunlight were also considered among the best cures. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Jewish doctors were guided by the practices of the time, and not by Talmudic instructions, now seen as outdated and even dangerous. Christian Era The core of New Testament theology was that God had given salvation to the human race through Jesus Christ who, in turn, had restored the broken fellowship with God. It was revolutionary as a religious tradition in that it presented itself as a religion of healing. It was the religion of the sick and afflicted, promising them physical and spiritual restoration. Caring for the sick was a Christian imperative. For the afflicted, though sickness and suffering were to be the lot of the Christian, God’s grace would sustain them through it all. Such suffering was, after all, only temporary and inconsequential when compared with the joys of heaven awaiting them. The Gospels’ treatment of illness revolves around Jesus’s miraculous healings. The Acts and Epistles again underscore examples of miraculous interventions (the blind man at the Gate Beautiful, the resurrection of Dorcas, and others). The writings of St. Paul suggest that more importance is to be given to the cultivation of godliness than physical training (I Timothy 4:7–8), but I Corinthians 3:16 makes it clear the our bodies are sacred (“God’s temple”), and in II Cor. 6:16 the concept is underscored once again: “For we are the temple of the living God.” The New Testament carries over from the Old Testament the notion that illness derives from sin, or that it is a punishment for sin. Jesus seemed to suggest

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that illness also came from demon possession (Luke 13:11,16). Far from disparaging the body, as did some Greek modes of thinking, New Testament Christianity honored the body as God’s creation that would one day inherit eternal life. But care for one’s own body was to be subsumed to care for the suffering of others. Jesus was the supreme example of selfless charity in the care of the hungry, thirsty, sick, and imprisoned (Matthew 25:35–40). Taking up this Christian imperative, Christian hospitals began to appear soon after Christianity was legalized in Rome. Another outgrowth of the Christian’s view of the human body as God’s creation was the notion of inherent human worth, demanding that human dignity be protected. Therefore, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, suicide, and murder were strongly opposed. During the post-Apostolic period, Christians rejected some forms of secular medicine and sought healing principally through prayer, the laying on of hands, and exorcism. Nevertheless, early Christian fathers such as Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom saw physicians and medicine as gifts of God. THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE COUNTERREFORMATION The Middle Ages were dominated by the Christian Catholic church, increasingly influenced by pagan asceticism, magic and superstition, the veneration of relics, and the growing influence of holy men. Dualism—whereby the body came to be disdained in preference for the spirit—was an outgrowth of the new asceticism that encouraged celibacy, virginity, and contempt for the material world. The idea that disease is caused by demons and the use of magic in healing persisted throughout the Middle Ages as did healings based on miraculous intervention by holy men and women called saints. The Church’s stance in the face of the Black Death (1348–1349) was a temporary concession to physicians as a response to an urgent need, but the plague was still seen as a God’s punishment for sin. Special indulgences were conceded to clergy ministering to the sick. Meanwhile, the widespread Church corruption that was already being addressed in Italy and the Netherlands, for example, resulted in the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther and a cry for reform of abuses. As for its position on medicine, the Church walked a fine line at the ensuing Council of Trent (1545–1563) between secular medicine and miracles, even superstition, preserving in this way its traditions. HEALTHFUL LIVING: THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States were characterized by four Protestant Christian revivals called Great Awakenings. The First Great Awakening ran roughly from the 1730s to the 1740s, the second from around 1820 to 1830, the third from 1880 to 1900 and the fourth, from the 1960s to the 1970s. The last three have had the most impact on health issues in American life.

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Some scholars explain these revival phenomena as cultural revitalizations that arise at the end of one cycle of beliefs and values, to be replaced or enriched by those of a new generation. Traditional family values are challenged by new opportunities, usually available to youth. These cultural revolutions are generally marked by the rise of numerous new denominations, sects, and religions. Generally speaking, “awakenings” look back to an idealized time of peace free from “evil” manifestations. Some themes of such movements have been women’s rights, sexual purity, the environment, physical exercise, diet, or a return to nature. Health reform has often accompanied these times of awakening that attempt to change the “bad habits” of previous generations, having to do with the abuse of alcohol, tobacco, sexuality, food, and physical fitness. Health reform, or what Prof. Ruth Engs calls clean living movements can be divided into four phases: (1) moral persuasion, setting out arguments in favor of the change; (2) coercion, through which attempts are made to legislate the new behaviors in some way; (3) a backlash to strategies of coercion; and (4) complacency after failure to impose the reforms (Engs 2000). JACKSONIAN ERA HEALTH REFORM 18301860 This movement coincided with a wave of Protestant revivalism and aimed its darts at the ills of drinking rum and other strong drink. Most active in the New England states and western New York, the movement created two new religions: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Seventh-day Adventists. Both religions incorporated healthful living as part of their religious creed. Together with a perfectionist tendency deriving from a millennialist mentality that gave urgency to preparedness for the Second Coming of Christ, these religions believed that illness was neither a punishment from God, nor an ill to be born stoically. Disease is avoidable by humans taking positive action to prevent it. Health and salvation soon became one and the same in importance. In general, the attitudes of Mormons and Adventists toward illness arose from their mistrust of orthodox physicians. In Word of Wisdom, Smith’s treatise on health and the fundamental health document of the Mormon church, he advances the virtues of hygiene and domestic health, as well as abstinence from the use of tobacco and liquor. The Word of Wisdom advised moderation in the use of meat and wine, but by the early twentieth century, advice became mandate for regular membership in the church. Health reform in the Adventist church came chiefly through visions given to Ellen White, with subjects ranging from abstinence from liquor and tobacco and stimulants, such as coffee and tea, to vegetarianism. Sickness was to be addressed exclusively with natural remedies such as sunlight, fresh air, exercise, water, and proper diet. Like the Mormons, Adventists disdained the fashionable corsets of the day in favor of more practical dress, and spoke in favor of hygiene as a means to safeguard health. In hundreds of articles, and in a book titled The Ministry of Healing, Ellen White championed all the health reform issues of the day. Under the influence and guidance of White, the Western Health Reform Institute opened in 1866. A decade later, under the able leadership of Adventist-raised

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John Harvey Kellogg, the institute was renamed Battle Creek Sanitarium, and soon became the center of the second wave of health reform. Of the new “health foods” served at the sanitarium to such dignitaries as presidents Taft and Rockefeller and business tycoons, J.C. Penney and Montgomery Ward, granola and other precooked cereals, peanut butter, and other nut-based meat substitutes emerged, and have ever since formed part of the American diet along with the name “Kellogg.” Both Mormon and Adventist health reform was set against the Temperance Movement that arose from an American cultural clash between Northern and Southern European attitudes toward drinking. Drinking habits of Roman Catholic immigrants coming into the country during the nineteenth century clashed with those of the native-born Protestant mainstream. The two most influential Christian physiologists, William Andrus Alcott (1798–1859), and Sylvester Graham (1794–1851), went beyond the drinking problem to promote exercise, cleanliness, fresh air, and proper diet as means to health. Likewise, an antitobacco movement developed between 1830 and 1860 as a result of the Second Great Awakening. Tobacco was seen as a “gateway” drug to other more harmful substances. Stimulants such as tea and coffee were denounced, because they increased sexual appetites, interfered with digestion, and drained the body of vital energy. And spices such as cinnamon, mustard, vinegar, ginger, and salt were thought to overstimulate the appetite. Another outgrowth of the Second Great Awakening was the women’s rights movement, initially linked to health reform. Victorian mores that denied women proper medical care attracted women to the health movement. The dress reform also grew out of concerns for women’s health, with Amelia Jenks Bloomer creating the famous bloomer associated with the women’s rights movement. Bloomers, the combination pant-skirt named after its inventor, Amelia Bloomer, grew out of the women-led abolitionist, suffrage, and temperance reform movements of the nineteenth century and was meant to address the unhealthful skirts that dragged on the filthy streets of Victorian America, perpetuating the common illness of the time. Other issues addressed during this reform period were human sexuality (birth control, abortion, masturbation, and homosexuality), phrenology (eugenics, or the role of inheritance on health), and the role of immigration on American public health (with the outbreaks of cholera in the middle to end of the nineteenth century). THE THIRD CLEAN LIVING MOVEMENT 18801920 This movement grew out of the religious revival called the Third Great Awakening that responded to the need for a spirituality to address the changing life of American society with its rapid urbanization, immigration, and industrialization. To this period belongs the Social Gospel Movement out of which arose the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in response to the perceived “feminization” of Protestantism during the Victorian era. Church brotherhoods came

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into being to cultivate the manly physical virtues in the Christian man. Sports and physical fitness became central. The period between 1890 and 1930 was one of the most experimental spiritual periods, including sects based on Eastern philosophies and mental healing. Theosophy, Baha’i, the Vedanta Society, hypnotism, and Spiritualism begin to gain followers. Out of the New-Thought movement emerged Mary Baker Eddy and the Christian Science religion, with its emphasis on mental healing. On the other hand, the poorer and immigrant classes were developing their own religious response to the rapid social and theological changes. The fundamentalist revivalist movement consisted of three factions: (1) the holiness revivals within the Methodist tradition that created the Salvation Army and the Nazarenes, (2) Pentecostalism with its speaking in tongues and faith healing, and (3) Baptist dispensationalism that encouraged resisting secular humanism. Other outgrowths of this period were the Physical Culture Movement (gymnastics and physical education), the Anti-Saloon Movement that resulted in Prohibition, the Eighteenth Amendment, the creation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Tobacco Crusade, the Purity or antiprostitution movement (to prevent sexually transmitted diseases), eugenic sterilization (to prevent passing on severe mental and physical health problems, including alcoholism), and the Birth Control Movement with Margaret Sanger. The Pure-Food and Anti-Drug movements had their beginnings during this time, and contributed to the passage of various acts controlling the adulteration of food and the use of narcotics. In June of 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, and a law requiring the inspection of animals in meat-packing plants. A call for honest labeling and patenting of medicines were other strategies that were meant to ensure public health. The leading cause of death during this period was chronic disease, chiefly tuberculosis and influenza. A Tuberculosis movement began with Edward Trudeau (1847–1915) who, stricken with the disease, went to upstate New York’s Adirondack region to spend his last days. Rather than die, he recovered, and began to treat others at a sanatorium he set up there. Public health measures increased during the first decade of the twentieth century to protect the public from the spread of the disease, and national associations and societies were established to monitor these laws. The term preventive medicine arose around the 1890s. It was linked to immunization and sanitation gains made during the second half of the nineteenth century. THE FOURTH CLEAN LIVING MOVEMENT 1970PRESENT This religious revival that began toward the end of the 1950s and early 1960s drew on widely diverse spiritual traditions, including occultism, paganism, and Eastern mystical religions. By the 1980s this movement had the name of New Age and included concerns about diet and alternative and holistic health. The

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health reform crusades that began in the 1970s and 1980s continue having their effects today. The Christian Right grew out of the charismatic churches that sprouted all over the country, attracting those seeking a more personal and passionate religion. These churches advocated a return to a more traditional morality. Many of the advocates of grassroots health and moral reform were associated with these religious groups. This conservative tendency found its expression in the 1970s with the Moral Majority and, in the 1980s, with the Christian Coalition, among others, who were less interested in health and healing than promoting their religio-political agenda against abortion, pornography, illicit drugs, and homosexuality. Together with this wave of conservatism, an eclectic wave of spirituality, inspired by Eastern spiritual traditions, occultism, and neo-spiritualism was gaining strength with its agenda to recreate a new society. Transcendental meditation, tarot cards and astrology, and practices based on Celtic, Greek, and Norse mythology, sustained a kind of neo-paganism. Adherents of these religions embraced alternative healing, Eastern-inspired exercise, and vegetarian diets. The last two decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of the alternative medicine and holistic health movements. After World War II, conventional medicine became increasingly technological, raising health care costs and ignoring the needs and rights of patients. In response, many Americans began to seek alternative treatments. By the 1970s, these alternative and unorthodox modes of healing gave rise to the holistic health and wellness movement, concerned chiefly with the prevention of disease. The 1970s saw the appearance of antibiotic-resistant diseases, the HIV/AIDs epidemic, and the lack of cures for chronic conditions, including the “new” autoimmune diseases, all of which further whittled away at confidence in mainstream medicine. Eventually, physicians such as Herbert Benson, Dean Ornish, and Andrew Weil began to incorporate alternative healing techniques into their practices, and the federal government established the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in order to explore what they called “unconventional” medical practices. Alternative medicine has been divided into six categories by the OAM: (1) mind-body interventions (meditation, imagery, hypnosis, yoga, prayer, etc.), (2) bioelectromagnetic (laser and radio-frequency hyperthermia), (3) alternative systems of medical practice (acupuncture, homeopathy), (4) manual healing (massage therapy, chiropractic), (5) pharmacological and biological treatments (alternative drugs and vaccines), and (6) diet and nutrition medicine (herbs, vegetarian or vegan diets). See also Faith-Based Health Care, Religious Morality, and Institutional Policies; Universal Health Care as a Religious Ethical Issue. Further Reading: Buettner, Dan. “The Secrets of Long Life.” National Geographic (November 2005): 2–26; Engs, Ruth Clifford. Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000; Gevitz, Norman, ed. Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America. Washington, D.C.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988; Harakas, Stanley S. Health and Medicine in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. New

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Higher Intelligence Animals York: Crossroads, 1990; Hubbard, Reuben A. Historical Perspectives of Religion and Health. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1986; Koenig, Harold George, Michael E. McCullough, and David B. Larson. Handbook of Religion and Health. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; Koenig, Harold George, Michael E. McCullough, and David B. Larson. The Healing Connection: The Story of a Physician’s Search for the Link Between Faith and Science. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation, 2000; Marty, Martin E. Health and Medicine in the Lutheran Tradition. New York: Crossroads, 1983; Marty, Martin E. and Kenneth L. Vaux. Health /Medicine and the Faith Traditions: An Inquiry into Religion and Medicine. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982; Numbers, Ronald L. and Darrel W. Amundsen, eds. Caring and Curing: Health and Medicine in the Western Religious Traditions. New York: MacMillan, 1986; Plante, Thomas G. and Allen C. Sherman. Faith and Health: Psychological Perspectives. New York: Guilford Press, 2001; Reid, George W. A Sound of Trumpets: Americans, Adventists, and Health Reform. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1982; Spencer, Colin. Vegetarianism: A History. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993, 2000.

Lourdes E. Morales-Gudmundsson

HIGHER INTELLIGENCE ANIMALS Do unique religious ethics apply to the treatment of some animals in a unique way? What about those animals that are proven to have a capacity for higher intellectual ability? As we learn more about the mental capabilities of higher intelligence animals such as the great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos) and cetaceans (dolphins)—some have argued that humans have greater ethical responsibilities toward such sentient species (that is thinking species), while others argue that species loyalty—or showing a preference for human beings over all animals—remains an acceptable religious value. RESEARCH ON ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE In 1661, Samuel Pepys, a member of Parliament at the time, happened to see what he called a “baboon” (probably a chimpanzee) on the London docks. In his famous diaries, he speculated that such great apes may be able to develop the ability to communicate with human beings. He would hardly guess how far this modest suggestion would be taken in the late twentieth century, and the issues that this would raise. Scientists who work with chimpanzees (Pan troglodyte) frequently point out that humans and chimpanzees share 98.5 percent of the same genetic patterns (some estimates are higher, some lower). Indeed, the genetic “gap” between humans and chimpanzees is closer than the genetic similarities between, for example, Asian and African elephants. In the case of dolphins, the comparison with human species on the genetic level are obviously quite divergent, but here the relevant comparison is the ratio of brain size to body size—almost identical between humans and dolphins, with brain sizes and weights also almost identical. Do such comparisons mean that these particular species of animals are in a unique moral category apart from other animals in the world?

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ANCIENT JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS AND ANIMALS According to the famous Creation story of Genesis, the sea and air animals were created on the fifth day, and land animals were created with human beings on the sixth day. But humans received a particular distinction in this ancient account, and theologians of both the Jewish and Christian tradition have debated about the precise meaning of humans being created in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:27). While the precise meaning of this “image” is debated, the Jewish and Christian traditions agree that at the very least, it means that humans were intended to occupy a unique and special place in the creation. One of the religious and philosophical storms of debate between materialist evolution (all is merely chance based on the behavior of atoms and cells) and religious-based ideas of “creation” (without defining the means of creation), is that evolutionary theory tends to reduce the differences between humans and other living species, and question the privileged position of humans in the general scheme of nature. Some forms of evolutionary theory suggest that humans are simply one among many species, and although presently dominant, are no more “deserving” of life than any other species. Western religious traditions, however, have always maintained that humans have a special status, but then debate whether this special status allows humans to treat everything else in creation as “raw materials,” or whether there are responsibilities that are connected to that unique status as created in the “image” of God. The Genesis accounts, after all, also suggest that humans are dominant: God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Genesis 1:28–30) Jewish and Christian theologians debate, however, whether this passage is a blank check or license to use the physical world and exploit animals in any way that humans may wish. Some religious scholars have argued that there is an ethic of responsibility implied in this passage by arguing that the meaning of having dominion suggests rule, as in the rule of a king or political leader. The importance of this interpretation is simply to point to the biblical tradition that strongly suggests that all rulers must not ever be cruel or despotic, and that they must take just and compassionate care of those over whom they have “dominion” (1 Kings 10:9; Psalms 72, etc.), in short, dominion can imply compassion, not cruelty. The biblical tradition is also well aware of cruelty to animals: in the charming story of Numbers Chapter 22, Balaam’s donkey is allowed to “speak” to Balaam while he is riding it, and the donkey complains about mistreatment! Animals

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were allowed to have a “Sabbath rest” (Leviticus 25). The twentieth century Jewish philosopher and rabbi, Abraham Kook, believed that many of the biblical dietary constraints are designed to keep alive a sense of reverence for life so that people would eventually return to vegetarian diets. He also believed that the future “Messianic age” will be vegetarian. He based this on the words of Isaiah (11:69): “ . . . the wolf will dwell with the lamb . . . the lion will eat straw like the ox . . . and no one shall hurt or destroy in all of God’s holy mountain.” In the Christian tradition, even though there is very little in the New Testament about animals specifically, in early Christian folklore outside of the Bible, there is a charming story of St. Paul converting a lion, and when the same animal later turns up in a Roman coliseum where Christians are being fed to lions, the animal astonishes the Roman audience by refusing to eat Paul (The Martyrdom of St. Pelagia, second century?). WERE THERE “HIGHER ANIMALS” IN THE BIBLE? Despite these and other passages often cited as a religious basis for compassion toward animals, it is also observed by those biblical scholars interested in these issues (e.g., Linzey and Regan 1988; Waldau 2002) that there does not seem to be much evidence in the biblical tradition of a special awareness of uniquely intelligent animals, and thus any basis for particular responsibilities unique to those species such as the great apes or dolphins. In the case of the apes, however, this is likely to be from simple lack of contact with these species of higher apes, whose habitats in central Africa were far from the Mediterranean lands of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. Some biblical scholars have tentatively suggested that cetaceans like dolphins might be implied in at least one use of the generic term for large sea-creatures, usually translated in English as Leviathan. This famous example is Psalm 104:26, because of its reference to obvious behavior of dolphins near sailors: Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it. (Psalm 104:25–26) In general, however, the Christian tradition seems to have accepted the general Greek philosophical view that argued for a clear division between humans capable of “reason,” rational thought, and communication, and all the other “beasts” who are not (Aristotle). It is precisely this radical separation between humanity and all other species that is now under serious question, as a direct result of research on the intelligence of “higher animals”—and most particularly great apes and dolphins. EXAMPLES OF LEARNING IN GREAT APES There are three species of apes that have received the most laboratory work related to teaching communication and language skills. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) have received the most training, but

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the famous Koko is a mountain gorilla. The accomplishments of much of this research is impressive, and at times, controversial. To date, the most common forms of communication experiments have used three methods of communication: (1) American sign language, (2) lexigrams (signs on a keyboard the animal selects, and must select in proper order), and (3) plastic magnetized symbols that can be arranged on a board. There are four particularly important examples of primate research noted here. In 1966, Beatrix and Allen Gardner begin to teach Washoe, a chimpanzee born in West Africa in 1965. By 1969, the Gardners reported in Science that Washoe recognized 85 signs resembling those of the American sign language. Further, Washoe could identify objects based on pictures correctly 86 to 96 percent of the time—pure guessing would be 4 to 15 percent. Washoe learned to apply the term open to anything he wanted opened, including cans, boxes, and even items whose names he was not taught. Perhaps even more impressive, Washoe taught another chimpanzee, Loulis, over 40 signs in addition to the seven Loulis was taught by human trainers. By 1968, Ann and David Premack begin to teach Sarah, a chimpanzee, to communicate with plastic symbols lined up on a magnetic board. Similarly, Duane and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh began to teach a bonobo, Lana, to use a lexigram board. Lana was able to arrange signs in proper order, correct mistakes, and even ask for names of specific objects. In 1986, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh published on her earlier work with chimpanzees Sherman and Austin, who were able to communicate with each other through a keyboard, and correctly instruct each other on methods of retrieving food that they then shared between themselves. The most famous bonobo subject, however, was Kanzi, whom Dr. SavageRumbaugh worked with in the 1980s. Kanzi, at age 8, could correctly respond to verbal instructions without seeing the trainer 74 percent of the time—compared to a three-year-old child who responded to the same instructions correctly 65 percent of the time. Perhaps the most celebrated case of all, however, began in 1972, when Dr. Francine Patterson began to work with Koko, an African mountain gorilla born on July 4, 1971. Very early in the process, it was noted that Koko was able to apply lipstick using a mirror, and was aware of herself in a mirror sufficient to touch ink spots on her face when they applied without her prior knowledge. Dr. Patterson claimed that Koko was proficient with over 200 signs in American sign language at 5 years of age, and even made up names for objects shown her for the first time, such as “elephant baby” for a Pinocchio doll, and “eye-hat” for a mask. School children across North America and in Asia know her name, and know the famous story of Koko’s attachment to a kitten. Koko is now using over 700 signs. While it is overly-sentimental to compare these apes closely to humans, or even to suggest that they actually understand human language, these are points that are never argued by the researchers themselves. What is beyond dispute is that the level of communication and interaction with humans has achieved an astonishing level of sophistication unimaginable as late as the mid-twentieth century. That such a realization ought to place these species in a unique category of animals in relation to humans seems almost impossible to dispute, at least

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THE DECLARATION ON GREAT APES In 1993, a group of scientists, ethicists, and philosophers who formed The Great Ape Project issued the following Declaration on Great Apes. The Great Ape Project is hoping to encourage the UN to adopt the provisions of this statement:

1. The Right to Life The lives of members of the community of equals are to be protected. Members of the community of equals may not be killed except in very strictly defined circumstances, for example, self-defense.

2. The Protection of Individual Liberty Members of the community of equals are not to be arbitrarily deprived of their liberty; if they should be imprisoned without due legal process, they have the right to immediate release. The detention of those who have not been convicted of any crime, or of those who are not criminally liable, should be allowed only where it can be shown to be for their own good, or necessary to protect the public from a member of the community who would clearly be a danger to others if at liberty. In such cases, members of the community of equals must have the right to appeal, either directly or, if they lack the relevant capacity, through an advocate, to a judicial tribunal.

3. The Prohibition of Torture The deliberate infliction of severe pain on a member of the community of equals, either wantonly, or for an alleged benefit to others, is regarded as torture, and is wrong. Source: www.greatapeproject.org/declaration.php

among the popular and scholarly supporters of human-nonhuman communication research. Why would religious persons object? The debate seems to be complicated on three levels: (1) scholarly skepticism; (2) economic and political implications; and (3) philosophical debates, sometimes associated with evolution on the one hand, or vegetarianism on the other. SCHOLARLY SKEPTICAL RESPONSE TO ANIMAL COMMUNICATION EXPERIMENTS There have been scholarly skeptics of the claims that apes understand language. In 1979, for example, David Terrace reported largely negative results with his chimpanzee, Nim Chimsky, and his writings had a devastating impact on subsequent funding for, and interest in, communication with primates, until more recently. However, at least one major “skeptic,” Dr. Thomas Soebeck, reportedly reversed his initial opposition in 2002, and stated that SavageRumbaugh’s work, in particular, deserves recognition. Joel Wallman’s work, Aping Language (1992), remains the most widely cited critical study that challenges the notion that apes, specifically, are actually learning language in any meaningful sense. The skeptical response is largely based on the idea that apes are simply learning to respond to positive feedback that results in their being

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fed, and furthermore, they are responding in ways that are only occasionally more interesting than similar behaviors in other “lower” animals. Furthermore, the notion that animals are “thinking” is considered pure sentimental attachment by “animal lovers,” and not true and careful science. It should be clearly stated, however, that serious researchers, such as Savage-Rumbaugh, the Gardners, and Peterson, have all vigorously responded to these criticisms in academic literature, and have insisted on maintaining careful laboratory standards in their research to resist precisely these accusations. But laboratory methods are not the only grounds for objecting to many of the more positive interpretations of primate-human communication studies. ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS If it is accepted that dolphins and great apes do indeed deserve a unique moral category of animals in relation to humans, and even are deserving of certain “rights,” the economic results of these “rights” become controversial. Many companies involved in the tuna fishing industry, in particular, have already been forced to make costly adjustments to large-scale net-fishing methods in the open seas in order to minimize killing dolphins. Further, some cultures are resistant to giving up eating habits that have a long history (e.g., dolphin meat is served in Japan, along with whale meat, etc.). Are dolphins, then, worth the foreign policy problems and economic difficulties that would be created if, for example, the United States adopted a stronger pro-Dolphin stand that began to alienate Asian business partners? It is also argued that a strong education campaign to discourage certain eating practices would be costly, and might even be misconstrued as interfering in the cultural rights of some Asian nations. Similarly, African nations often demand increased foreign aid from Western nations in exchange for the costs of policing the habitats of great apes in central African states against poaching. Part of the problem is the cost of setting aside vast tracts of forest land as preserves, rather than opening up these tracts to forestry and mining, as well as urban development. While the tourist industry may have the economic benefits to eventually provide steady streams of income for African nations who are willing to set aside large wildlife reserves, in the short term there is too little political stability in these regions to build the financial and physical foundations (hotels, restaurants, etc.) for a thriving tourist trade. Even more immediately serious, however, is the illegal trade in bushmeat. The term bushmeat refers to all forms of African wildlife caught and eaten for food, and the practice is especially prominent in towns, villages, and major povertystricken areas of Central Africa. It is estimated that 30 million people live within the forested regions of Central Africa, and of these, 30 to 40 percent of these peoples rely on the meat of wildlife as a primary source of animal protein (Bushmeat Crisis Task Force, http://www.bushmeat.org/portal/server.pt). The bushmeat trade includes all kinds of forest and jungle animals, but hunting monkeys and apes is also a prominent part of the legal, and illegal, trade in bushmeat generated by increasing human population growth. Changes in these economic practices would require economic and political cooperation among

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forestry industries, mining industries, and the introduction and maintenance of alternative forms of protein in either vegetable/fruit production, or raising farming animals for consumption, as opposed to rare and wild species. The potential financial beneficiaries of these new policies may not always be the same companies and businesses that now benefit from the present market in bushmeat, and should the resistance to the continued market in bushmeat gain momentum as an African, or even international issue, there is likely to be a period of serious struggle between the interests of established cultural practices (again, including a matter of cultural tastes as well as traditions) and established businesses (those making money under the present practices), against the newer businesses that would seek to build on more conservation-minded principles, often by marketing other kinds of products. Finally, there is often an issue that indigenous peoples feel violated by outside interests that appear to be “interfering” with the traditional life and practices of those who have lived on bushmeat for generations. Again, the economics of mounting major re-education campaigns have both political and economic implications. RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES The final issue that complicates specifically religious involvement in efforts to consider higher animals in a separate moral category is guilt by association with evolutionary debates on the one side, and more extreme advocates for animal rights that insist on full commitment to vegetarianism, on the other side. It is largely the case that research dedicated to communication with higher intelligence animals is often championed by biological and philosophical Evolutionists. In the minds of these advocates, to establish the intelligence of apes (even more than dolphins) is considered to be evidence to further establish the arguments for human evolution from earlier primate species in history—so that human-primate communication is almost seen as “communicating with our past.” Clearly, some religious inspired resistance to the implications of animal intelligence, are influenced more by the potential use and interpretation of this research, rather than the research itself. If Christians, for example, believe that humanity was made in the image of God, and that this “image” is mainly concerned with the ability to have a “consciousness” or engage in rational thought, then research on communication with higher animals threatens a clear, and age-old separation, between humans and animals. It would suggest a third category—something like near humans, at least near enough to be in a special moral category that confers certain rights to preservation and existence, and certainly rights against being the subjects of painful or lethal medical research for the benefit of the human species alone. The celebrated primatologist, Dr. Jane Goodal, has raised questions about any confinement of great apes under any circumstances. It seems difficult to argue that biblical writers would never have allowed such a third category if, as seems conclusively to be the case, they had no experience of these species of creatures in any sustained or regular manner. This does not mean, however, that such an additional third category between “animal” and

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“human” could not be determined based on biblical and religious inspired principles. ANIMALS’ RIGHTS AND THE PROBLEMS OF THE “THIRD CATEGORY” The reason that such a third category would seem necessary to some religious thinkers would be the need to preserve the argument in favor of these higher animals so that the unique issues are not swallowed up by the more general ethical arguments for animal rights for all species. Such generalized arguments, for example, would be typically used by those arguing for a full endorsement of vegetarianism by granting all animals equal rights to life in the world alongside human beings. Such is the position taken by the Jain religion, for example, and certain forms of Hinduism. But a rejection of this extreme case does not thereby remove the potential need for a newly articulated “religious responsibility toward Koko” (to put it in somewhat emotional terms). Furthermore, increasing numbers of Christians and Jews are making a case for vegetarian eating—but this debate is clearly not directly concerned with higher intelligence species. The wider debates about animal rights in general, however, tend to avoid the special case of the higher animals. Those who argue for full equality of animal rights as against human rights, do not wish to give up some of their strongest examples—namely the higher animals—who help make their case more effectively than, say, arguing for compassion for rabbits. Those who argue against such full animal rights advocates, also avoid the separate case of the higher animals, and argue in general for an acceptable loyalty to the human species over all others. The general issue of animal versus human rights, however, is a different debate. Is it possible to argue for the unique rights of higher animals without advocating similar rights for all animals? While it may be difficult to establish set criteria for making such a difference between the rights of rats and the rights of mountain gorillas, it would seem that contemporary research on mental capacities of higher animals are forcing the issue. The present very elementary understanding of precisely the differences between the mental capacities of housecats, as opposed to dolphins, is simply too meager to begin to establish clear and widely accepted criteria—but this does not mean that such criteria will not eventually become clear and possible to articulate in public debate. It should be theoretically possible to ground such a third category of higher animals by pooling what we know about the biological, neurological, and psychological differences between species in order to inform a theologically significant difference between acceptably herding cows for food, and unacceptably killing chimpanzees for bushmeat. It is furthermore not necessarily the case that Christian, or other religious acceptance of such a proposed third category of unique rights granted to higher animals, would mean that all the other ethical, nonethical, or other philosophical conclusions advocated by materialist evolutionists must also be accepted. In religious debates in the West, there is definitely the fear of an ethical domino effect connected to animal rights’ debates. This fear seems to be directed at

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arguments that would seem to lead toward either evolutionary materialism, or full vegetarianism. It is clear, however, from the growing literature surrounding both human-primate, and human-cetacean communication, and the growing literature around religious conservationism, and animal rights, that this issue will become increasingly urgent in the twenty-first century. See also Evolution versus Creationism in Public Schools. Further Reading: Bushmeat Crisis Task Force. http://www.bushmeat.org/portal/server.pt; Chapple, Christopher. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions. New York: State University of New York Press, 1993; Corbey, Raymond. The Metaphysics of Apes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Gould, James L., and Carol Grant Gould. The Animal Mind. New York: W.H. Freeman [Scientific American Library], 1994; Griffin, Donald R. Animal Minds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992; Hauser, Marc D. Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think. New York: Henry Holt, 2000; Hillix, W.A., and Duane Rumbaugh, eds. “Animal Bodies, Human Minds: Ape, Dolphin, and Parrott Language Skills.” In Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects, vol. 3. London: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2004; Linzey, Andrew. Animal Gospel. Westminster: John Knox, 1998; Linzey, Andrew, and Tom Regan, eds. Animals and Christianity: A Book of Readings. New York: Crossroad, 1988; Linzey, Andrew, and Dorothy Yamamoto, eds. Animals on the Agenda. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998; Pinches, Charles, and Jay McDaniel, eds. Good News for Animals?: Christian Approaches to Animal Well-Being. New York: Orbis Books, 1993; Waldau, Paul. The Specter of Speciesism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; Wallman, Joel. Aping Language (Themes in the Social Sciences). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher HOMESCHOOLING Homeschooling has risen as an alternate to public education in the United States. Originally confined to fringe religious groups like the Amish, it has turned into a social phenomenon in America, including middle-class suburbanites and urban elites. Additionally, it has become a large commercial market that provides everything from school supplies tailored to the homeschool market to conferences for homeschool teachers. HOMESCHOOLING STATISTICS In 1999, and again in 2003, the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) did a nationwide study of homeschooling in the United States. In the latter study, the NCES estimated that there are more than one million homeschooled students. Approximately 2.2 percent of all students are homeschooled. That percentage had risen by almost one-third since the 1999 study. The study showed that the vast majority of home-schooled students are white, urban, and from the South. Additionally, the majority of students come from traditional two-parent homes where one parent works and the other stays home. While middle-class parents predominate (defined as household incomes between $25,000 and $75,000), lower-class families make up more than one-quarter of

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homeschooled-students, while just over one-fifth of home-schooled students come from upper-class parents. Likewise, home-schooled parents are fairly well educated, with the majority having a degree or some college level education, though graduate/professional school parents make up the smallest percentage (NCES 2006). The NCES study also measured not just raw numbers, but included a multivariate approach that showed the likelihood of a given group to homeschool given all other variables being held equal. Here the results were somewhat different. This study showed that lower-class parents were significantly more likely to homeschool their children than either middle- or upper-class parents. Likewise, families with three or more children were more than twice as likely to homeschool as those with fewer children. Also, in a multivariate analysis, rural families were significantly more likely to homeschool than urban families (NCES 2006). However, it is important to note that homeschooling need not be an all or nothing proposition. Eric Isenberg notes that 21 percent of home-schooled students attend public school part-time, usually going a few hours a week. He also shows that parents who have multiple children may choose not to homeschool all their children, but select one or more to homeschool, sending the others to public school. This percentage is higher than might be imagined; Isenberg states that 55 percent of parents that homeschool with multiple children “sent at least one other child to school” (Isenberg, 2007). Additionally, students may be homeschooled in some grades, but not in others. However, families that homeschool their children for religious reasons are more likely to homeschool all of their children. What is clear from this statistical analysis, is while the likelihood of homeschooling is higher for certain groups, there are larger numbers of homeschooling children, a variety of social and ethnic classes, and homeschooling may not be as exclusively relegated to evangelical Christians as is generally believed, particularly if there are private school alternatives available. Thus, homeschooling is not limited to a particular subgroup, but is a widespread phenomenon in the United States. THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF HOMESCHOOLING There is no federal law that regulates homeschooling. Section 9506 of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 specifically forbids federal control of homeschooling. Thus, currently all law related to home schools is state based, and therefore laws regarding home school vary greatly from state to state. States are able then to regulate home schooling as they see fit, theoretically even to ban it. However, at this point, all states recognize homeschooling as an educational option. The most significant legal barrier to home schooling has been compulsory attendance laws. Homeschooling, by definition, demands exemption from compulsory education attendance requirements. States thus must legislate specific exemption for home schooled children. Likewise, states may determine to what degree a home-schooled student may participate in extra-curricular activities

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like sports, or band, or classes the parents feel inadequately prepared to teach, like foreign language, chemistry or music. In Swanson v. Guthrie, the tenth circuit appeals court held that a homeschooled child may be denied access to selected classes if there is a board policy denying all part-time students such access. Additionally, the courts have held that there is no constitutional right to extracurricular activities even for public school students, and therefore may correspondingly exclude home school students as well. On the other hand, states may exercise their rights to determine the qualifications of homeschool teachers. However, this must also be consistent. If private schools are allowed to employ noncredentialed teachers, then there can be no requirement that homeschool teachers be credentialed. But if a parent does not fulfill the uniform standard of teacher qualifications for a state, then the homeschooling request may be denied. North Dakota has some of the most stringent requirements for homeschool teachers, requiring either a teaching certificate or a bachelor’s degree. If the parent has neither of those, but they have a General Educational Development test (GED) or equivalent, they may still teach, but are supervised by a credentialed teacher. They may also qualify by passing the teacher exam. North Dakota, however, is an exception. The majority of states have no qualification requirements for homeschool teachers. In general, states have been quite accommodating of homeschool students. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) rates 25 out of 50 states as having either no regulation or low regulation (meaning parents only have to notify the state that they intend to homeschool). Another 19 states are rated as having moderate regulation (parents are required to indicate student progress to the state through grades, test scores, portfolios, etc.). Only 6 out of 50 states are considered by the HSLDA as having high regulations. Generally these states require more documentation in terms of attendance and student progress. REASONS FOR HOMESCHOOLING Homeschooling started in the 1950s as a liberal rebellion against an educational system that was perceived as too institutional and rigid. Parents eager to try more cutting edge educational methods took their children out of the public schools and began educating them at home. Starting in the 1970s through the 1980s with Supreme Court decisions banning school prayer and mandatory bible reading, the homeschooled student body shifted to a more conservative group. It was now religious conservatives who made up the bulk of homeschooling families. While this group still comprises the majority of homeschoolers, homeschooling advocates claim that homeschoolers come from across the political spectrum (though a 2002 study indicated that 75 percent of homeschooling families are conservative Christians). Homeschool families have been divided into two different categories: Ideological and pedagogical. Ideological homeschool families do so because they believe that public schools do not support their beliefs and values. Often these are conservative Christians who feel the absence of prayer and bible reading, and the teaching of evolution, sex education, and “moral relativism,” makes the public

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schools hostile to their core beliefs. On the other side are pedagogical homeschooling families. These are families, sometimes with special needs’ students, who feel that public schools are not teaching their children appropriately. The problem here is not with content, as it is with ideological homeschoolers, but rather with method. Pedagogical homeschooling families believe they can meet the educational needs of their children more effectively than the public schools. In contrast to the ideological homeschoolers who often follow textbooks quite rigidly, pedagogical homeschool parents will adapt and selectively use material developed by homeschool publishers. These parents often focus on experiential learning, and pedagogical methods can vary daily. It appears that these (pedagogical) parents are growing in number. Studies have suggested that ideological reasons for homeschooling appear to be subsiding in importance for this general population, whereas pedagogical and special needs’ reasons are becoming increasingly important motivators for parents’ decisions to home school. Another study on homeschooling divides parental reasons for homeschooling differently. For this study, the reasons of homeschool parents can be mapped between parent-focused homeschooling and partnership-focused homeschooling. Parent-focused homeschool parents are those who feel an enormous responsibility for their children’s education, and thus take the responsibility for themselves. These parents may go it alone without getting involved in homeschooling groups. Likewise, these parents are not necessarily negative in regards to public schools; they have a different priority. Partnership-focused homeschool parents are actually in flight from the public school system. They seek another organization to work with, and have found the public schools wanting. As a result, they have rejected the public school as their partner, and have turned to homeschooling groups for partnerships. Still, this study does not dispute a religious or value-based motivation for homeschooling. In fact, their study confirms such a belief, though it warns against a single-designation of homeschool families as ideologues. While values do inform parents’ decisions to homeschool, the argument is that, just as important, is the parents’ conception of their role in their children’s education. They hold that religious belief structures are in the end only a part of the explanation, rather than the entirety of it. The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) also measured reasons for homeschooling. Isenberg (2007) compiled a number of studies of homeschooling families. The data with regards to religion was somewhat ambiguous. When asked why they homeschooled, 30 percent of parents who homeschool their children reported religious reasons as the primary cause. On the other hand 48 percent of parents listed educational reasons as their primary impetus to homeschool. Moreover, the number of homeschooled students taking the SAT who report having a religious faith (41.8%), is lower than those in public schools (52.5%). Though the number of homeschool students who report being Baptist is higher (17.7%) then those in public school (10.3%). However, the competition may actually not be from the public school sector as much as from the private school sector. Isenberg concludes: “In small towns, however, private school enrollment does depend

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on the percentage evangelical Protestant, showing that they substitute private schooling for homeschooling when economies of scale for private schooling can be obtained” (Isenberg 2007). It has also been pointed out that many parents homeschool because of behavioral or special needs issues, particularly with older children. Isenberg notes that those parents who give the reason for homeschooling more than doubles from students age 13 and younger to students age 14 and older. Additionally, when one examines the number of parents who include this reason as significant (though not primary), the number of students who are homeschooled for behavioral and special needs concerns age 14 and above is 48 percent as opposed to younger children, whose parents cite this reason at a level of less than half as often (22%). Thus, the contrary to popular conception of homeschooling as a fundamentalist or evangelical exodus from the public school system to defend a rightfully imperiled premodern world view is not proven. The data shows that the reasons for homeschooling are far more complex. Certainly, religion is an important factor in a family’s choice to homeschool their children, yet there are often other reasons that are more important from the parents’ point of view. As public education is increasingly denounced as “a failure,” one of the beneficiaries of this is the homeschooling movement, as parents try to find alternatives to improve their children’s education. HOMESCHOOL OUTCOMES Studies that follow homeschooling outcomes are methodologically difficult to undertake due to the lack of consistent requirements by the state to track homeschooled students. The question that is often asked is how successful is homeschooling as compared to conventional schooling in terms of student achievement? Brian Ray’s study of homeschool outcomes tried systematically to examine the test data on homeschool students (Ray 2004). Several states require homeschool students to participate in state standardized tests. Ray’s examination of the data showed that homeschooled students generally scored as well, or better than their conventionally schooled counterparts. Ray is quick to point out, however, that one cannot draw conclusions about homeschooling per se, but rather that a number of factors, including low teacher to student ratios, teaching to the test, and high levels of parental involvement, may be significant factors as well. Controlling for these factors, homeschool students may not perform significantly better than conventionally schooled students. In terms of social effects, homeschool students appear not to lag behind their conventional peers. Psychological testing of homeschooled children shows a selfconcept generally at, or above the norm. While homeschool students appear less peer-focused than non–homeschool students, a study of their level of socialization showed that they had a great deal of peer interaction through homeschooling organizations, community groups, and churches. Studies of homeschooled children found no negative psychological indications that can be directly traced to the homeschooling environment.

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THE HOMESCHOOL MARKET Homeschooling is not a task that can be taken on without preparation. The homeschooling parent knows that they need resources and materials in order to teach the variety of topics that are a part of a well-rounded education. To this end there has arisen an entire new market to provide these materials to willing and wanting parents. Broadly, two curriculum options are available for parents who homeschool: Complete curriculum and learning resources. There are complete curricula that start at over $500 but provide lessons in math, reading, history, and so forth. Companies market these is a variety of ways. From A Beka Home School, which offers a choice of traditional and accredited programs “designed to provide an excellent Christian education for those who teach their child at home,” to Clonlara School, with its holistic emphasis on the child and its affirmation that “Clonlara School is welcoming: We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender, nationality or ethnic origin in administration of our educational and/or admissions policies.” Clonlara likewise touts accreditation for homeschoolers who sign-up with them. For those looking for accreditation, and thus an easier entry for their children into college, the costs of programs like these can run upwards of $1000 per year, including materials. There are also resource vendors who are willing to sell workbooks, hands-on supplies, games, and other teaching materials. Many of these books are the same products that regular classroom teachers use to supplement their district curriculum from publishers well known to public school teachers like Teacher Created Resources, and Frank Schaffer Publications. Other texts are more specifically designed for those attempting to integrate religious instruction into their material, with books and materials from publishers like Alpha Omega Publication, and Bob Jones University Press. What is perhaps most interesting is the cost of these products. Individual workbooks often cost around $20 and subject packs like those offered by Bob Jones University Press can cost in the hundreds of dollars. Thus, the homeschool market is a growing and profitable industry, which is buoyed by local conferences where vendors are able to display their wares, and online communities in which home school parents are able to share their insights and recommendations regarding different curriculum choices. In fact, some homeschool organizations have turned to on-line tutoring and communication as a way of supporting homeschool teachers, as well as providing avenues for students to discuss educational topics with one another. Web sites like Jubilee Academy offer an on-line educational experience where students can take courses over the internet. As on-line education becomes more feasible at the adult level, homeschool organizations are likewise seeing their value as a way of creating more value in the homeschool market. This has particular appeal to those parents who wish to homeschool their children in the higher grades, but do not have the specialized knowledge to teach subjects like World History or Calculus. CONCLUSION The homeschool world is still very small. Estimates put homeschooling at two to three percent of the education populace. Still, in the United States this

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translates to over a million homeschool students. As we have seen, those who homeschool do so from a variety of social and economic backgrounds, and do so for a variety of reasons. There is not doubt that fundamentalists and evangelicals make up a large percentage of those who homeschool, but increasingly homeschooling is seen as a viable option by those who are not necessarily inclined towards a more conservative religious ideology. The percentage of homeschool parents who listed religion as their primary reason actually declined from 1999 to 2003. As the public school system is increasingly under attack as ineffective or worse, parents from a variety of backgrounds are seeing homeschooling as a workable alternative. The homeschool market is addressing the needs of these parents, and with the increasing power of the Internet, on-line courses may soon become a staple of homeschooling life. See also Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Bielick Stacey, Kathryn Chandler, and Stephen P. Broughman. “Homeschooling in the United States: 1999.” Education Statistics Quarterly 3, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 25–32; Collom, E. “The Ins and Outs of Homeschooling: The Determinants of Parental Motivations and Student Achievement.” Education and Urban Society 37, no. 3 (May 2005): 307–35; Green, Christa, Joan M. T. Walker, and Kathleen HooverDempsey, V. “Parents’ Motivations for Involvement in Children’s Education: An Empirical Test of a Theoretical Model of Parental Involvement.” Journal of Educational Psychology 99, no. 3 (August 2007): 532–544; Green, Christa L. and Kathleen HooverDempsey, V. “Why Do Parents Homeschool? A Systematic Examination of Parental Involvement.” Education and Urban Society 39, no. 2 (2007): 264–287; Home School Legal Defense Association. http://www.hslda.org; Isenberg, Eric J. “What Have We Learned About Homeschooling?” Peabody Journal of Education 82, nos. 2–3 (2007): 387–409; Kern, Alexander, and David M. Alexander. American Public School Law. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2004; Mur, Cindy, ed. At Issue: Home Schooling. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2003; National Center for Education Statistics. “Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993 to 2003.” http://nces.ed.gov/ pubs2007/2007045.pdf (accessed November 2006); Ray, B. D. “Homeschoolers on to College: What Research Shows Us.” Journal of College Admission 185 (Fall 2004): 5–11; Ray, B. D. “Home Schools: A Synthesis of Research on Characteristics and Learner Outcomes.” Education and Urban Society 21, no. 1 (November 1988): 16–31; Romanowski, Michael H. “Revisiting the Common Myths about Homeschooling.” Clearing House 79, no. 3 (Jan/Feb 2006): 125–129; Van Galen, J. A. “Ideology, Curriculum and Pedagogy in Home Education.” Education and Urban Society 21, no. 1 (1988): 52–68.

Randall Reed HOMOSEXUALITY With the possible exception of the fight over abortion, no topic has been the focus of more heated debate in the battleground of religion than homosexuality, and its related issues of sexual orientation, same-sex marriage, the ordination of homosexual clergy, biblical interpretation, and gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender identity in relation to religious traditions.

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BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION The interpretation of the few biblical passages that deal in some way with same-sex relations has been an important battleground in the fight over homosexuality, even though the topic of homosexuality occasions very little attention from the biblical writers. Indeed, whereas the status of same-sex relations is one of the most divisive ethical issues in the modern religious debate, it is barely of passing interest to the ancient biblical authors. There are basically six passages in the Bible that refer directly to homoerotic relations, three in the Old Testament/Jewish Scriptures (Genesis 19:1–11; Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13), and three in the New Testament (Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; and 1 Timothy 1:10). The famous story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 includes a passage stating that the men of the city wanted “to know” (yadah) Lot’s guests. Lot calls their desire “wicked” and offers his daughters for them “to know,” indicating that the term to know here connotes sexual relations (similar to Adam knowing his wife Eve). The men apparently want to rape Lot’s foreign guests by way of demeaning them. Little do the men of the city realize, of course, that their evil desire only confirms God’s judgment against the city, a judgment the visiting angelic guests soon carry out. Some scholars point to the violation of hospitality as the primary issue in the passage, but Lot’s offer of his daughters suggests overtones of sexual violence as well (a similar passage is found in Judges 19:14–29). The two passages from Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 occur within the context of the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26), where the Israelites receive instructions on how they shall conduct themselves upon entering the Holy Land. Both passages give clear prohibitions against same-sex relations between men, though no reason for the proscription is given. The second prohibition in 20:13 adds the punishment of death to men engaged in same-sex relations. There are many other prohibitions in the Holiness Code (e.g., crossbreeding of animals, sowing two kinds of seed in one field, wearing garments made of two different fabrics, rounding off the hair of one’s temples, receiving a tattoo; cf. Leviticus 19:19, 27–28; 21:5). It appears that these various practices were perhaps markers for the previous idolatrous inhabitants of the land. In modern discussions, the rationales for these various prohibitions, including same-sex relations, forms a significant issue of debate. All of the New Testament passages come from the Pauline letters. The Romans 1:26–27 passage is the most important, as here Paul clearly views homoerotic behavior (male or female) as a consequence of idolatry, unnatural, and an expression of excessive lust. The modern interpreter must ask, of course, about Paul’s understanding of homoeroticism in the first century Greco-Roman world. Most scholars acknowledge that Paul knew of homoeroticism indirectly and in stereotypically Jewish terms, which means that Paul was referring to the Gentile practices of pederasty and male prostitution. This becomes somewhat clearer in the reference from 1 Corinthians 6:9, where homoeroticism finds inclusion in a typical vice-list of prohibited

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behaviors. Issues of translation are particularly important here, as there was no word in ancient Greek corresponding to our modern term homosexuality (which was coined at the end of the nineteenth century). Literally translated, the terms in question, malakoi and arsenokoitai, mean soft people, and something like men who go to bed, respectively. These terms may be euphemisms for the passive and active partners in same-sex activity, whether in relation to pederasty or male prostitution, but the exact meanings of the terms are disputed. Modern translations, however, often mislead the reader by rendering these terms as sodomites (reading the Sodom and Gomorrah story into the text; e.g., New Revised Standard Version [NRSV], New King James Version [NKJV], New American Bible [NAB]) or as homosexuals (anachronistically reading modern understandings of sexual orientation into the text; e.g., New International Version [NIV], NKJV). It may well be that Paul derives the term arsenokoitai from the Septuagint version of Leviticus 20:13 (meta arsenos koiten). The passage in 1 Timothy 1:10 also refers to arsenokoitai in the context of a vice list, with the same unclear, but apparently sexual, meaning as in 1 Corinthians 6. The relative lack of attention to homosexuality in the biblical writings means that the few passages where it does arise have attained an exaggerated importance in the modern debates. The difficulties of using the Bible to address homosexuality in the modern era are further complicated by: (1) issues of translation, (2) differing contextual understandings of same-sex relations in antiquity, and (3) placing homosexuality within the larger frameworks of biblical approaches to human sexuality. As seen above, how best to translate both the terms, and the understanding of homoerotic sexuality in the biblical texts into modern English (or any other language), is a significant issue, especially in relation to 1 Corinthians 6:9. This difficulty is directly related to changing understandings of same-sex relations over time. Whereas in antiquity, same-sex relations were typically understood as exploitive and a perversion of the natural order, modern understandings of homosexuality differ significantly—particularly in terms of mutuality rather than exploitation, and in terms of people having different naturally occurring sexual orientations. Here it is important to note that the concepts of heterosexuality and homosexuality as sexual orientations is a modern construct not found in antiquity (the term homosexuality was coined in late nineteenth-century German psychological literature). Further, another issue is how the biblical materials should be understood in light of the modern psycho-social and biological sciences regarding human sexuality. The larger frameworks of human sexuality from biblical perspectives also come into view. The Bible includes various sanctioned sexual relationships that in the modern world are generally viewed as unethical (e.g., polygamy, and levirate marriage). Thus there has been significant and ongoing religious debate across the ages over what counts as appropriate and inappropriate expressions of human sexuality. At present, many religious traditions are deeply divided regarding the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender believers within their faith communities.

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BUDDHIST VIEWS OF HOMOSEXUALITY In Buddhist thought, the core philosophy of renunciation has directly affected Buddhist approaches to the topic of homosexuality. Sexual desire in general (heterosexual or homosexual) has been judged in negative terms within Buddhist tradition (which originated in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E). Engaging in sexual relations was generally viewed as giving in to physical bondage and sensual pleasure, which would impede the achievement of spiritual enlightenment. The spiritual value of renunciation and asceticism, then, has long been a key value within Buddhist thought and practice. The body is viewed as a kind of prison for the human spirit, and all love should be universal and nonsexual in expression. These values are important especially for Buddhist monks. For committed lay Buddhists, it was understood that they would have families, but still the goal was to imitate the ideals lived out by Buddhist monks. Lay Buddhists typically take vows of temporary celibacy in order to devote themselves to achieving enlightenment and wisdom. Because the general attitude of Buddhism towards human sexuality is one of renunciation, there has not been any particularly negative view of homosexuality as opposed to heterosexuality. Finally, within some forms of Buddhist tradition the notion of a third sex, the napuusaka (literally, non-male) exists, alongside the male and female genders. Still other Buddhist traditions have a more positive view of homoeroticism, and sexual activity in general, though the Dalai Lama has reasserted traditional Buddhist views of sexual renunciation.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN TRADITION In the Roman Catholic tradition, the most recent official statement on homosexuality is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s 1986 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons. This letter was written when Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church, the organization within the Church that maintains oversight over matters of doctrine and official teaching. This document has taken on all the more weight in light of Cardinal Ratzinger’s election as Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. In this letter, Cardinal Ratzinger appealed primarily to scripture, church tradition, and a certain understanding of the complementarity of the sexes. In appealing to scripture, Ratzinger simply repeats the admonitions of the Bible without any real attention to the historical contexts of the passages in question. More significant is the testimony of church tradition. In keeping with the official teaching of the Church, Ratzinger maintains that the only appropriate expression of human sexuality is within a monogamous heterosexual marriage that is open to the possibility of procreation in every sexual encounter. Since same-sex relations cannot, by definition, result in a procreative act, Ratzinger argues that all such relations go against nature, and against the teachings of the Church. Further, for Ratzinger, the biology of physical complementarity between the sexes that can result in the transmission of new life demonstrates that only such heterosexual relations (in marriage) are

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valid expressions of human sexuality. According to Ratzinger, this is simply how the natural order works (Ratzinger 1986). What, then, of homosexuality from this view? Ratzinger declares that homosexuality is “a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent” (Ratzinger 1986, 7). Indeed, “although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder” (Ratzinger 1986, 3). Thus, having a homosexual orientation is not in and of itself sinful, but acting on this orientation in any way is sinful. The only faithful course of action, from this perspective, is for gay and lesbian people to abstain from all same-sex relations as disordered. Though there have been strong reactions against this official teaching of the Church (see, e.g., J. McNeill 1993), the Church has not changed its stance over the years. PROTESTANT CHRISTIAN TRADITION The Protestant Christian tradition has had a different approach to the topic of homosexuality from the Roman Catholic Church, but with much the same results. Taking its lead from the plain sense of scripture, Protestant tradition in the late 20th century was extremely cautious in changing its approach towards homosexuality. Conscious of the task of being a church semper reformans (always reforming), the leadership of most Protestant denominations took seriously the call by many to reconsider its traditional teachings on homosexuality. In the United States, for example, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Episcopal Church, all engaged in multi-year studies of how to respond to the presence of gay and lesbian Christians in their congregations and in their church leadership. Such deliberations led to deep divisions in each of these denominations, as year after year some church leaders called for the church to change with the times and be more inclusive of gay and lesbian Christians, while others called just as strongly for the church to take a firm stand against endorsing any form of homosexual expression, especially by ordained clergy. Those seeking inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in the church have emphasized sexual orientation as a natural God-given predisposition that individuals discover as they mature. Those seeking to uphold traditional sanctions against homosexuality have emphasized centuries of church teachings against same-sex practices and, though not seeing homosexual orientation itself as a matter of personal sin, have argued that such an orientation is a distortion of God’s creative purposes. From this perspective, homosexual persons can be welcomed into the church, but are called to abstain from same-sex relations. Most Protestant churches in recent years have issued official pronouncements ruling against the ordination of noncelibate homosexual Christians, as well as against the blessing or recognition of same-sex unions. Still, significant and vocal movements within the various Protestant denominations have continued to call for full acceptance of openly gay and lesbian clergy, and for recognition of

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gay/lesbian unions and committed relationships. The United Church of Christ and the United Church of Canada have not prohibited the ordination of gay/lesbian clergy. And in a celebrated case, the Episcopal Church (the U.S. branch of the Anglican Church of England) ordained Rev. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as a Bishop of the church. Protestant churches have also sought to incorporate into their reasoning about homosexuality, some of the more significant findings from the psychological and biological sciences, though these findings continue to be the subject of tremendous debate. In particular, churches have paid attention to the 1973 decision of the American Psychiatric Association to stop treating homosexuality as a pathology or disordered condition in need of treatment. Some controversial biological research has also suggested various genetic factors contributing to homosexual orientation. These developments have encouraged many to rethink the Natural Law tradition, and the degrees to which the formation of gender identity is a function of essential sexual identity and/or of changing social constructions. The significant debate that has ensued in the church has basically been between two camps. On the one hand, the majority position advocates that heterosexual marriage has always been God’s intended and exclusive norm for the expression of human sexuality (emphasizing the unitive and procreative functions of sex in marriage). On the other hand, the minority position advocates that changing notions of gender roles are crucial in shaping all sexual identities, ancient and modern, and that there have always been various notions of sexual identity attributed to divine sanction: for example, polygamy, celibacy, eunuchs, levirate and monogamous marriages. Though homosexuality has been increasingly accepted as a normal and natural way to live in American and European societies at large, more traditional Protestant churches have called into question both the psychological and physical health of homosexual expression. A number of para-church and controversial change ministries have arisen that seek to heal people of their homosexuality (e.g., Exodus International Ministries), with the understanding that people can shift from homosexuality to heterosexuality. Such claims have been hotly debated within the church, and have been largely dismissed by the psychological community. Perhaps the most important and difficult component to factor into Protestant attitudes towards homosexuality, involves the ways people have experienced the presence of gay and lesbian Christians in the various denominations. The “coming out” of many prominent Protestant church leaders as gay/lesbian/bisexual persons has forced churches to respond to the tension created by their effective ministries in light of traditional church teaching against homosexuality. The personal witness of successful and capable gay/lesbian Christian leaders has been a powerful presence that has convinced many to push churches to be more accepting of these leaders in particular, and to encourage the larger society to be more accepting of homosexual persons in general. At the same time, the traditional Protestant rejection of homosexuality has led many gay and lesbian Christians to leave the church completely, or to find local congregations that have publicly embraced an inclusive attitude towards homosexual persons. The rejection of gay/lesbian Christians in several Protestant denominations also

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led to the formation of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination dedicated to the full inclusion of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered Christians. In sum, Protestant churches have often been of two minds in their approach to homosexuality. On the one hand, many denominations have passed binding resolutions ruling against the ordination of noncelibate gay and lesbian Christians and against same-sex unions. On the other hand, most denominations have also passed resolutions calling on elected government officials to pass legislation that makes discrimination against homosexual people illegal.

TRANSGENDER AND TRANSSEXUAL Significant confusion revolves around the realities of transgendered and transsexual persons. The term transgender refers in a general way to people whose behavior and identity differs from traditional and stereotypical gender and sex norms. Transgendered people typically identify in some way with the opposite biological sex, whether through cross-dressing, being a drag queen/king, or even going through sexual reassignment treatment. The term gender variant is also often used to describe transgender. The term transsexual refers more specifically to individuals who feel strongly that their spiritual gender identity does not match their biological gender identity, namely that they were born into the wrong biologically gendered body. Transsexual persons have an overwhelming desire to transform their physical identity to match the personal gender identity they feel within themselves, and so to live as members of the opposite biological gender. For transsexual persons the most significant issues are typically related to cross-living and to gender reassignment surgery that begins with hormonal therapy. Intersexed individuals are persons born with physical genitalia and/or chromosomes that are biologically both male and female. Like the development of the understanding of homosexuality in the psychological community, transgender and transsexuality are no longer viewed as psychological disorders, but as naturally occurring orientations that cause individuals to experience significant gender dysphoria, the term used to describe this experience. Further, while transgendered and transsexual persons are often grouped together with gay and lesbian persons (e.g., in the acronym GLBTQ [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer]), many transgendered and transsexual persons do not identify with gay or lesbian communities. The reason for this is that sexual orientation (e.g., heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual) is not at all the same as gender identity (the rubric for transgender). But in popular culture, these different groups are often viewed together because they all are at variance with the dominant heterosexual cultural and sexual norms. The situation gets even more confusing when it becomes clear that many transgender people are homosexual or bisexual. For example, a man who is transgendered may dress as a woman and be sexually attracted to men, but this attraction derives from a female gender identity that the man expresses. For gay men, by contrast, the sexual orientation to men comes from a male gender identity that is simply different from that of the male gender identity that leads other men to have a heterosexual orientation.

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When it comes to religion and transgendered and transsexual persons, these individuals regularly experience the same kind of rejection that gay and lesbian persons have long received, especially in western religious traditions, and particularly within Christianity. A biblical passage from Deuteronomy 22:5 is often cited against transgendered practice: “A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the Lord your God.” Historically this passage most likely was an ancient Israelite prohibition against Canaanite worship practices that simulated change of sex. Thus, the prohibition was less against what we would call cross-dressing, and targeted at practices that could lead to the worship of false idols in violation of God’s law. Within the Christian community, the question about same-sex relations remains much the same, whether one is discussing a man whose transgendered identity is female, and so is attracted to men (thus technically a heterosexual orientation from a gendered female within a biologically male body), or whether one is discussing a gay man whose sexual orientation is homosexual. In either case, most Christian traditions prohibit any form of same-sex relations regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. For this reason it is not uncommon for transgendered individuals to live in denial or to be closeted, even more so than for gay or lesbian persons. While there is growing acceptance of gay and lesbian persons in popular culture, transgendered persons still face significant social stigmas. Ironically, these social constraints come not only from the traditional heterosexual population, but can also come from gay and lesbian individuals who do not understand the gender dysphoria that a transgendered person experiences. By the same token, gay and lesbian persons can experience similar criticism from transgendered persons who do not believe that a homosexual orientation comes from God. Still, transgendered and homosexual persons are typically viewed by the heterosexual mainstream as belonging to the same group of nonnormative sexuality, and therefore suspect.

CHANGING VIEWS OF HOMOSEXUALITY A significant factor in twentieth-century debates over homosexuality in Catholic and Protestant churches can be traced in changing views about homosexuality in the larger society. Three general overlapping stages can be seen in popular attitudes towards homosexuality. At the beginning of the twentieth century, homosexuality was widely viewed as a perversion of God’s natural order, and was punishable as a crime against God and society. As the century progressed, and as general attitudes towards sexual behavior became more relaxed, a more accepting attitude began to develop towards homosexuality (especially in the aftermath of the Kinsey report of the1950s, which suggested that people fell on a sliding scale between absolute heterosexuality and absolute homosexuality). The language associating homosexuality with “perversion” started to be seen as harsh and judgmental. In the latter half of the twentieth century the language of sexual preference began to be employed. This term still suggested personal choice in the realm of sexual activity, but same-sex sexual preference increasingly came to be seen as a relatively benign departure from societal

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norms. Toward the end of the twentieth century, in addition to the language of sexual preference, the term sexual orientation gained prominence, which suggested that an individual had no real choice about gender identity and sexual attraction, and that such identity was more of a given. Since homosexuals were not personally responsible for choosing their sexuality, a movement developed, that encouraged healthy and self-affirming homosexuals not to be ashamed of their identity, but to accept their homosexuality as a natural predisposition and orientation. This acceptance led, in the last decades of the twentieth century, to “gay pride” and to a sense of belonging to a gay community seeking and gaining acceptance from larger society. Such acceptance has led to the tacit nonenforcement of most laws against homosexuality, to the de-criminalization of many older laws against homosexual behavior, to the recognition of same-sex domestic partners by many businesses and some states, and to the wide depiction of gay and lesbian people as normal individuals through the vehicle of popular entertainment. These developments and changes in societal attitudes towards homosexuality have had a significant effect on mostly the Christian and Jewish traditions in particular, with the result that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many churches and synagogues are more open than ever towards gay and lesbian adherents, while at the same time most official denominational pronouncements have ruled against the full inclusion of noncelibate gay and lesbian couples. This tension has led to serious debate in various faith communities about whether believing communities are behind the times and failing to follow the lead of God’s reforming Spirit by including gay/lesbian believers, or whether churches/synagogues are most faithful in holding firm against recognizing any homosexual relationship as legitimate. The Roman Catholic Church has also faced significant debate and discussion about homosexuality, though on somewhat different terms than the Protestant tradition. First, whereas Protestant churches have spent a great deal of energy addressing the issue of whether or not to allow the ordination of noncelibate gays and lesbians, this has not really been an issue for the Roman Catholic Church, since all priests are by definition celibate, be they homosexual or heterosexual. In the Protestant tradition clergy are typically married, and this automatically raises the question of how gay or lesbian couples serve as models for Christian marriage, which has traditionally been envisioned in heterosexual terms. Second, as mentioned above, in the Roman Catholic tradition, the role of procreation in marriage has been central, though the unitive function of sexuality has also gained in importance. This has meant that, since homosexual unions cannot by themselves procreate children, homosexual unions cannot receive the blessing of the church. By contrast, in the Protestant tradition, the unitive function of sexuality has typically held slightly greater importance than procreation (hence the common use of birth control in the Protestant tradition and not in official Roman Catholic teaching). While critics of homosexual relationships have raised questions about the biological complementarity of same-sex couples, those advocating the appropriateness of blessing same-sex relationships in the church argue that it is wrong to define sexual complementarity in exclusively heterosexual terms.

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See also Same-Sex Marriage. Further Reading: Brawley, Robert. Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality: Listening to Scripture. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996; Brooten, Bernadette. Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996; Dover, Kenneth. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978; Gagnon, Robert. The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001; McNeil, John J. The Church and the Homosexual. Boston: Beacon, 1993; Nissinen, M. Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998; Ratzinger, Cardinal, and Archbishop Borone. “Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith,” October 1986. Rogers, Jack. Jesus, The Bible, and Homosexuality. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006; Seow, Choon Leong. Homosexuality and Christian Community. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996; Siker, Jeffrey S., ed. Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994; Siker, Jeffrey S., ed. The Encyclopedia of Religion and Homosexuality. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006; Via, Dan and Gagnon, Robert. Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.

Jeffrey S. Siker HUCKSTERISM AND RELIGIOUS SCANDALS In 2007, Alexandra Pelosi made a documentary about evangelical Christians, Friends of God: A Road Trip with Alexandra Pelosi that featured Ted Haggard making a speech about his purity, honesty, and integrity as a mainstream, politically powerful evangelical. This documentary was released scant weeks before the scandal of Haggard’s homosexual liaisons and crystal methamphetamine use became public knowledge. Haggard’s ministry collapsed in the wake of the scandal, and it appeared to some that the old equation of two-faced licentious preachers and huckster religious leaders deceiving their congregations while getting rich and having illicit sex is still as much as part of America today as it was when Sinclair Lewis penned his satirical antihero pastor Elmer Gantry. Yet this age-old problem of ministerial sexual and financial misconduct has not destroyed the credibility of religious leaders, and in fact, televangelists continue the American tradition of incorporating theatrical methods and business models in their sermons and “performances”. The long-awaited secularist victory is still frustrated, as Americans continue to attend church in roughly the same numbers as 200 years ago. In the ever-competitive marketplace of American religion, sincere preachers, huckster ministers, and televangelists continue to compete for the hearts, souls, and dollars of America’s Christians, and the secular revolution seems to be even farther away than when Max Weber suggested it in the 1920s. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, a man who never hesitated to use religious language, and regularly gave carefully crafted extemporaneous political sermons, one person’s religious huckster is another person’s charismatic leader. AWAKENINGS AND REVIVALS Elmer Gantry, the fictitious antihero of Sinclair Lewis’s 1927 novel of the same name, is a caricature of a charismatic religious leader. He embodies all that

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Lewis found objectionable in “enthusiastic” religion. Gantry betrays his followers, who are true believers, through personal failures, hypocrisy, and dishonesty about his use and abuse of alcohol and sex. Gantry is able to avoid prosecution and, despite personal tragedy and loss, alcoholism and voracious sexuality, he remains a minister. While he lusts for money, booze, and women, he preaches hellfire and brimstone, frugality, abstinence, and temperance. His congregation is devoted to him without question. Gantry is a consummate performer: he is able to sway and hold his followers through his persuasive rhetorical style. This has been called Lewis’s most satirical novel, and certainly provoked a great deal of controversy. The novel was banned in several cities, and denounced by ministers and lay-Christians alike. The fallen (and redeemed) leaders that Gantry reflects are often more complicated in the real world but have similarly very strong relationships with their faith communities. Many use the performance techniques that Lewis’s character embodies, and face similar personal foibles: passionately preaching against specific sins, and all the while engaging in those very sins in secret. Gantry’s image is not pure fiction, it is based on a number of preachers, and a kind of preaching that is a unique product of the American religious experience. In the mid-eighteenth century, George Whitefield (1714–1770), an Anglican minister, preached throughout England and the American colonies. He is considered one of the leading ministers of the First Great Awakening, a religious revival that swept through England and across the Atlantic to the English colonies. Whitefield offered his sermons outside to very large crowds. While Whitefield’s theological method followed standard Calvinist lines regarding sin, salvation, and redemption, he added a bit of panache to his sermons. Gesticulating dramatically, shouting about hellfire and brimstone, weeping and wailing openly, Whitefield’s vibrant extemporaneous preaching style captivated his audiences. His innovation was pure theater, but also pure genius, as many preachers embraced the new style of dramatic, extemporaneous preaching. Old style preachers, such as Jonathan Edwards, read their carefully crafted sermons in an even, sonorous voice; Whitefield and his followers hollered and cajoled, and paraded their emotions throughout their sermons. Converts expressed their religious experience emotionally as well, weeping and wailing in response to Whitefield’s preaching. While giving the appearance of preaching without any preparation, Whitefield’s sermons were as carefully constructed as Edwards’s more staid and traditional sermons. But that spur-of-the-moment quality distinguished Whitefield, and introduced a new kind of preaching to a new kind of church: the revival circuit. Evangelical preachers and converts rejected the older forms of preaching as lacking in piety, inspiration, and grace, and embraced the newer emotionally-laden style of religion. As Whitefield and his followers were itinerant ministers, traveling from town to town and delivering their dramatic rendition of the gospel message, hometown pastors often found their authority in jeopardy, and had to change in order to keep their congregations content. After the American war for independence, Charles Grandison Finney (1792– 1875) continued this pattern of emotional, extemporaneous preaching to large crowds outside, known as tent meetings, throughout the antebellum period.

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There were a few significant changes though, in the new nation’s religious fervor. First, while Finney and his itinerant colleagues continued to preach with an emphasis on human sin, an emerging sense of human action, in combination with religious experience, began to emerge. This emerging pattern of the experience of conversion developed into clear steps: terror of eternal damnation, a strong sense of release found in redemption, and the ecstatic promise of achieving heaven. Second, it was not only faith or belief that these itinerant ministers were inciting in their listeners; conversion was a life-changing experience that happened to those who attended the tent meeting. Continuing the tradition of weeping and wailing openly at the thought of eternal damnation, many of those attending camp meetings underwent a profound experience of God’s love and grace, causing them to flail on the ground, weep and sing with joy at the relief they experienced with God’s forgiveness. This intensely emotional series of events gave antebellum Christians a new sense of self, profoundly changing individuals and their relationship with, and to the world. Third, Finney and many like him, took their religious revival into the south, preaching to slaves as well as white Christians. Those who attended the meetings reflected the growing population of the United States; immigrants, factory workers, women, and slaves. Many greeted these ministers and their tent meetings with suspicion, not only because of the rampant emotionality and high spirits that dominated the service, but because of the people who were experiencing this emotional Christianity. As the population of the United States continued to grow, larger urban settlements required a change in revival and tent meeting style. Dwight Moody (1837–1899) was a lay minister who spearheaded the urban revival front. Possibly the most well-known urban evangelical preacher was William A. (Billy) Sunday (1862–1935). The challenge for these urban ministers was to bring the energy of the tent meeting to a more confined space. Billy Sunday continued to preach along a circuit, just as the itinerant ministers of the past had. But rather than meeting in a big field outside a town or village, Sunday held his meetings indoors, often with other classes offered during weekdays. By the 1920s, Sunday had an entourage of traveling musicians, bible school teachers of both sexes, and custodians to set up and break down the performance areas. Revival style religion, with its flamboyant preaching and high-emotion experiences, had become an institutionalized facet of the American urban landscape. While many of these groups and leaders were scandal free, the strong emotional content of the emerging holiness movement continued to be controversial. The scandals that were reported were, and continue to be, big news—drawing national attention from supporters and detractors. For example, in the 1840s an Episcopalian minister, Benjamin Onderdonk, was accused of seducing his female parishioners while intoxicated. For many flourishing Holiness-Pentecostal movement preachers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the intense emotional and physical aspects of the revival tradition became a regular part of weekly worship, such that even regular worship services became revivals. The specter of licentious preachers hovered over the heads of many holiness preachers, who were regarded as suspicious characters by many. And the intense emotionality of the service, coupled with the intimate relationship

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between the minister and his parishioners, especially female parishioners, was ripe for scandal, real or imagined. Historian of Christianity, Ann Taves, has traced this experiential trend, noting the ways Christians and secularists who did not participate in the religious fervor of the Holiness movement tended to treat those religious experiences as pathological—inauthentic religion, inspired by theatrical preachers to excite and provoke the masses. Class and race contributed to these assessments of authentic versus inauthentic religious experience (Taves 1999). Adding to the mix of emotionally laden religious experiences were several new religious movements that erupted in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Mormonism and its early emphasis on a tradition of plural wives, led to controversy over sex and marriage. At the same time, the Oneida Community, with their beliefs in the importance of sexual relations as a way of creating more spiritually perfect individuals, gave Americans a counter example to debate. Both these groups combined sex and religion in innovative ways, and challenged the expectations of mainstream Christians. While Mormonism officially removed plural marriage from its religious practice in the early 1900s, some groups of Mormons continue to practice polygamy. Most recently, Warren Jeff ’s Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at Zion Ranch in Texas has come under scrutiny for polygamy and under-age marriage. While considered a “breakaway” sect of Mormonism, the scandal of the FLDS reveals the fascination America has with sex in general, and Mormon sexual practices in particular. Scholar R. Laurence Moore argues that the power of these scandals is, in part, that the scandals themselves provide a forum for Americans to discuss issues that are generally considered taboo (Moore 1995). In the case of Mormonism, issues of marriage and sexual satisfaction within marriage were a prominent part of the public debate about the legitimacy of Mormonism and the practice of polygamy. CONTEMPORARY CHURCH LEADERS AND SCANDALS The twentieth century saw many different religious scandals that gave support to the enduring stereotype of the two-faced preacher and her or his gullible congregation. In the early part of the twentieth century Four Square church founder Aimee Semple McPherson preached Pentecostal revivals to standingroom only crowds. It was alleged that she had an extramarital affair and, when faced with being caught, faked her own death. She later claimed that she had been kidnapped. Thorough investigation could neither prove she had been kidnapped, nor find evidence that she had faked the kidnapping. McPherson was one of the first evangelists to use media, in her case the radio, to spread her religious message and gain financial support from listeners. During the 1980s, the trend of incorporating technology to spread Christianity reached its peak: Peter Popoff stated the home addresses and specific illnesses from his large audience attending his revival style ministry with eerie accuracy. He claimed this was his “God given ability” and shrugged off nay-sayers as tools of the devil. In reality, Popoff was using an earpiece, and being fed information via walkie-talkie by

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his wife. She and her assistants talked to members of the audience as they came into the service area, and then passed the information on to Popoff. Popoff ’s ministry went bankrupt in 1987, after James Randi and Steve Shaw revealed his method. Much like Elmer Gantry reflected methods and styles of ministers from the early twentieth century, the fictionalized account of Popoff ’s scandal was told in Richard Pearce’s 1992 film Leap of Faith. The minister in that film, Jonas Nightengale, uses technology to fool his audience before taking their offering and leaving town. Televangelists in the 1980s and 1990s raised a great deal of money through their ministries by utilizing technology. Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral was funded by donations collected in church and via television ministry. His particular blend of religion and business models have made the Crystal Cathedral one of the most successful churches and businesses in the United States today. Schuller preaches a gospel of success and values that equates spiritual success with financial success. The Crystal Cathedral is a site of pilgrimage for many Protestants, and promises to be a place where success is generated and Jesus is Lord. A radically individualistic message of salvation and success, Schuller offers his followers, viewers, listeners to his radio show, and pilgrims, an opportunity to be part of the cathedral itself through donations that contribute to the walk, the cathedral’s signature tower, or Schuller’s worldwide ministry. While many are skeptical of Schuller’s combination of the gospel and large donations from his flock, his ministry has remained untouched by major scandals. The same cannot be said of Oral Roberts. There are two financial scandals that rocked Roberts’ religious empire. In the late 1970s, Roberts, ordained by the Pentecostal Holiness Church, claimed that Jesus told him in a vision to build a medical center that would be a successful blend of modern medicine and faithbased healing. The center opened in 1981, and at that time it was one of the largest health campuses of its kind. Shortly after the opening, Roberts claimed that Jesus had commissioned him in person to find a cure for cancer. The City of Faith Medical and Research Center operated for merely eight years before closing. In a unique twist that some considered spiritual blackmail, Roberts told his television audience in 1986 that God told him if he did not raise eight million dollars in a matter of a few months, God would “call him home” to heaven. He raised 9.1 million dollars. Though Oral Roberts has since left the public scene, his lasting impact is seen in Oral Roberts University (ORU). Yet even ORU has had its share of scandal, most of which has been the result of allegations of fiscal improprieties by Roberts’s son and university president, Richard Roberts. Richard Roberts has been accused of misusing university funds, and using the university to further conservative political purposes, which would threaten the tax-exempt status of the university. In addition to the allegations of financial impropriety, were allegations that family cell-phones were used to send suggestive text messages to under-age boys in the middle of the night. Though Oral Roberts returned to the public spotlight to defend his son, eventually Richard Roberts was forced to resign as president of the university, and the university board of regents formally broke all ties to Oral Roberts Ministry, which Richard Roberts was president of as well.

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Perhaps the most notorious evangelical Christian scandal of the late twentieth century involved Jim Bakker, his wife Tammy Faye, a woman named Jessica Hahn, and Jimmy Swaggart. In the 1970s, the Bakkers founded Praise The Lord ministries. PTL grew into a multi-million dollar organization, reporting $129 million in revenue in 1986, and operated a worldwide television ministry by satellite. PTL also owned and operated the now defunct 2,000+ acre Heritage USA Christian amusement park in Fort Mill, South Carolina. In the late 1980s, PTL was rocked by several scandals. First, the acclaimed and very successful Jim Bakker was accused not only of committing adultery and using PTL funds to pay off the woman in question, Jessica Hahn, but also of defrauding his viewers and supporters. The scandal was brought to light by Jimmy Swaggart, who Bakker and his lawyers feared was attempting a hostile takeover of PTL. Called The First Felon of TV Evangelists by the New York Times, Bakker was charged with, and convicted of 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison, and served four years in a minimum security prison. His followers were deeply horrified at the charges, and shocked by the conviction. Despite promising life-time vacations at Heritage USA in exchange for financial support of his ministry, and then diverting millions of dollars to his own opulent home and fleet of expensive automobiles, Bakker’s followers maintained his innocence. However, in 1996, a few of the Bakkers’ more disgruntled followers brought a class action suit against him, but a North Carolina court dismissed the suit. In 2003 Bakker returned to TV ministry and currently appears on his own show The Jim Bakker Show with his second wife, Lori Bakker, broadcast from Branson, Missouri. Jimmy Swaggart himself was caught in a similar scandal involving prostitutes, though the financial improprieties were not as extensive as those that plagued PTL. In an attempt to save his ministry, Swaggart went on television and publicly repented. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he wailed “I have sinned!” He apologized to God, his wife, and his audience. Swaggart was suspended from his ministry for three months for his behavior. However, shortly afterwards a prostitute came forward stating that Swaggart had paid her to pose nude for him in a New Orleans hotel, and the denomination increased his suspension to one year. Swaggart rejected the harsher punishment and was defrocked by the Assemblies of God denomination for his lack of compliance. Nonetheless, he returned to the pulpit after three months. Yet in 1991, Swaggart was again found with a prostitute at a traffic stop in California. At that point he resigned as head of Swaggart ministries, and turned over the reins to his son. The television ministry business is a cutthroat endeavor. Jim Bakker accused Jimmy Swaggart of being behind his undoing and then claimed Jerry Falwell, who had been given custodianship of PTL during Bakker’s absence, was trying to hijack the ministry. Both Swaggart and Falwell denied the claims, and Falwell eventually removed himself from PTL’s helm. But an even more interesting component of the Swaggart saga is the intrigue between Swaggart and another pastor, Marvin Gorman, who headed a small television ministry in New Orleans. Swaggart published accusations that Gorman had committed numerous adulteries. Gorman admitted to a single affair in the late 1970s, claiming that he

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had repented and filed suit against Swaggart for libel. Gorman, however, was instrumental in Swaggart’s own subsequent downfall, when he provided pictures to the police of Swaggart and a prostitute in a New Orleans hotel. Eventually the court ruled in favor of Gorman, and awarded him $10 million (though considerably less than the $90 million he sued for), and the two settled out of court before the appeal was heard. By that time, both ministries were in bankruptcy. In 2005, Ted Haggard, founder of the 14,000-member New Life megachurch in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, resigned under suspicion of “immoral sexual conduct.” Male escort Michael Jones came forward and alleged that he and Rev. Haggard had been involved in a three-year homosexual affair. Initially, Haggard denied the affair, but admitted to buying methamphetamine from Jones. Jones denied selling drugs, but maintained his allegation of the affair. Utilizing rules that Haggard himself had developed, the New Life church board of overseers removed Haggard from his ministerial position. New Life church is not a member of any denomination, and answers only to Haggard’s handpicked board of overseers. While shocked by how rapidly Haggard was removed from his position, the New Life church congregation rallied around Haggard, offering support, forgiveness, and a generous severance package of $138,000 (one year’s salary). Haggard admitted to committing “sexual misconduct” and agreed that the overseers had done the right thing by removing him from the pulpit. He agreed to undergo intensive counseling, and after three weeks declared himself “completely heterosexual.” Regardless, he did not return to his congregation. In 2007, Haggard and his wife sent a message to their former New Life congregation asking for money to help them pursue degrees in psychology and counseling as full-time students at the University of Phoenix. Haggard’s former board of overseers chastised him for asking for financial support, saying that Haggard should have consulted with the church board first. Haggard and his wife would like to go back to serving Christians in the Phoenix Dream Center, a faith-based half-way house, after they complete their degrees. CONCLUSION In the 1997 film The Apostle, staring Robert Duvall, the issues of hucksterism and religion are presented in a brilliant way. Sonny, the pastor of a large Pentecostal church, finds his wife in bed with his youth minister, who then orchestrates a leadership coup of Sonny’s megachurch in Texas. While admitting to his own infidelities, Sonny goes too far in revenge for his wife’s unfaithfulness and the loss of his church and beats his rival to death. He then flees the state and begins again, once more as a Pentecostal pastor. Sonny’s charismatic preaching coupled with the scandal that eventually ends with him in prison, still preaching, highlights the attractiveness of these pastors, and the humanness that is so often their downfall. Religious parishioners look on first in denial, and then despair, as their beloved pastor’s transgressions are revealed. Yet the American religious penchant for faith in those who in the end show themselves unworthy, often after fleecing their flocks for thousands or millions of dollars, continues to

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fascinate historians, sociologists, novelists, filmmakers, and psychologists of religion. Perhaps the aphorism, “there’s a sucker born every minute” is never truer than in the realm of religion. See also Apocalypticism and Nuclear War; Prime Time Religion. Further Reading: Butler, Jon. Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992; Chidester, David. Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture. 1st ed. California: University of California Press, 2005; Finke, Roger and Rodney Stark. The Churching Of America, 1776–2005: Winners And Losers In Our Religious Economy. Revised ed. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005; Holman, Hugh, C. “Sinclair Lewis: Overview.” In Reference Guide to American Literature, ed. Jim Kamp. 3rd ed. Detroit: St. James Press, 1994; Moore, R. Laurence. Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture. USA: Oxford University Press, 1995; Price, Joe. “Salvation as Success: The Charisma of the Crystal Cathedral.” Unpublished; Randi, James. The Faith Healers. New York: Prometheus Books, 1989; Stout, Harry S. The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991; Taves, Ann. Fits, Trances, and Visions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Laura Ammon

HUTTERITES: COMMUNAL LIVING VERSUS INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM Hutterites are the oldest continually existing society practicing community of goods in North America. Since their beginnings in Moravia (1529) during the Protestant Reformation, and following their migration to North America starting in 1874, the Hutterites have sustained their commitment to the rule of economic sharing practiced by the apostolic communities described in Acts 2 and 4. The thriving of such communities in which private property has been abolished, relies to a significant extent on the voluntary subjugation of individuals and families to the authority of the church community. Because such a privileging of the community over the individual challenges basic premises of modern liberal societies, the Hutterites have experienced numerous controversies, both between their communities and the host cultures, as well as among different factions and applications of the communal principle within their society. These controversies have included differences of view about the proper location of the nuclear family within the community, the relationship of personal spirituality to communal authority, the exercise of legal rights versus submission to the church, the application of church discipline to members who dissent or leave, and the integration of communal economics with the surrounding capitalist economy. ANABAPTIST ORIGINS AND SCHISMS Anabaptist communities first emerged in Europe during the early part of the sixteenth century. Dissenters unsatisfied with the scope and intensity of reforms initiated by leaders like Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli established “free

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churches” that were neither supported nor protected by established political authorities. These church communities were often called Anabaptist (rebaptizer) because they rejected infant baptism, and insisted on voluntary and uncoerced decisions to join their churches. Two additional significant teachings of some of these communities were a rejection of the sword, including military service, and an affirmation of communal economics—the sharing of all resources in common among believers. But not all Anabaptist communities rejected military service or private property. One such “sword-bearing” Anabaptist community was at the city of Nikolsburg in Moravia, where its pastor, Balthasar Hubmaier, had established a city-wide Anabaptist reformation protected by magisterial authority. A pacifist group influenced by Anabaptist missionary Hans Hut and led by Jacob Wiedemann, living in and around the city, challenged Hubmaier’s swordbearing version of Anabaptism, and eventually divested themselves of their property before leaving the city. This peaceful and communal-minded group of Anabaptists eventually settled at Austerlitz, and became a destination for numerous Anabaptist refugees seeking a stable practice of pacifist and communalistic Christianity. As refugees poured into their community, the Austerlitz Brethren struggled to routinize alternative forms of economic distribution, eventually dividing over differences concerning the economic privileges of their leaders. A vocal leader by the name of Jacob Hutter led a faction that separated from the Austerlitz Brethren. This group also opposed several other communally-minded Moravian Anabaptist groups that became aligned with Austerlitz. Partly because of its strong group discipline and missionary zeal, the Hutterite group flourished and established multiple colonies throughout Moravia. The pattern of community established by Jacob Hutter and his associates, included the gathering of all members of a colony into a bruderhof: a concentration of large houses where members of the community lived and worked together under the joint leadership of spiritual leaders called servants of the word and managers of the communal economy called stewards. In the bruderhof, individual families maintained their identities, but collectivized the rearing and education of their children, pioneering the first nursery schools called kindergartens, and preparing youth for their roles in the craft production that sustained their communities financially. Although many Hutterite leaders, including Jacob Hutter, were brutally executed by authorities carrying out the Hapsburg monarchy’s policy of intolerance toward Anabaptists, the Moravian Hutterite colonies survived, and throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century experienced a golden age where their population swelled to nearly 30,000, living in bruderhofs throughout the Moravian lands. However, by the middle of the seventeenth century, most of these bruderhofs had been brutally destroyed, victims of the Catholic counterreformation and religious strife during the Thirty Years War. Some Hutterites managed to reestablish their communal life in Hungary and Transylvania, but in Hungary, tolerance eventually was replaced by a policy of Catholicization, leading to the dissolving of the few remaining bruderhofs. In Transylvania, which was tolerant of religious diversity until the Hapsburg monarchy took over, Hutterite bruderhofs managed to hang on until 1695. However, Hutterite beliefs and practices

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were discovered by a group of Lutheran refugees from Carinthia, who settled in Transylvania in 1755. The Lutherans reestablished community of goods and revitalized Hutterian teachings, eventually leaving the region to settle in Russia in 1770 near the Mennonite colonies of the Ukraine. In Russia, the Hutterite communities flourished once again, yet with disagreement over when and how to reestablish the bruderhof pattern of community of goods. These disagreements led eventually to the three different varieties of Hutterite communities that persist to the present, named after their original leaders or that leader’s occupation: the Dariusleut, the Schmiedeleut, and the Lehreleut. The Hutterites began migrating to America in the latter part of the nineteenth century in response to the introduction of compulsory military service by the Russian government, and the refusal of the government to confirm their privileges as conscientious objectors. The first North American Hutterite communities were established in 1874, starting with the Bon Homme colony in present-day South Dakota. While the American Hutterite communities have generally grown and prospered, there are no longer any Hutterite communities in Europe. The European descendants of Hutterites, called Habaner, continue to live in parts of the present-day Czech Republic and Romania. Although the Hutterites settled originally in the United States, beginning with their first colony in South Dakota, significant numbers fled to Canada in the aftermath of persecution of Hutterite conscientious objectors during World War I. The Hutterite colonies in Canada now outnumber those in the United States. Not all Hutterites who came to North America adopted the model of communally owned property. Those who did not came to be known as Prairieleut. Most of the Prairieleut ended up joining Mennonite churches and leaving behind their Hutterite roots. In the twentieth century, following the aftermath of World War II, a communal society of German origin called the Bruderhof, migrated to the United States (after a brief sojourn in Paraguay). This community, led by Eberhard Arnold, had been influenced by sixteenth-century Hutterite writings, and eventually joined themselves formally to Hutterites. However, differences in habit and piety, as well as disagreements between the leaders of the two groups, led ultimately to the Bruderhof going its separate way in 1991. THE FAMILY AND COMMUNAL LIFE In today’s Hutterite colonies, communal life is given priority over the autonomy of families. The colonies are organized around three significant centers of activity: the meetinghouse, the schoolhouse, and the dining hall. In the meetinghouse, daily evening services are held, in addition to the Sunday morning worship service. In the schoolhouse, children are gathered for instruction in both Hutterite religious principles and in secular practical knowledge. And in the dining hall, the community gathers three times each day for a communal meal. Each day’s routines are established by the community’s leaders, and by the seasonal requirements for attending to a large agricultural

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cooperative—a kind of mega-farm—that provides sustenance and income for the colony. A patriarchal authority structure provides for an orderly way of life in the various spheres of colony activity. A colony boss manages the colony’s financial enterprises, and establishes the work responsibilities of the able-bodied men and women of the community. He is subject, along with the rest of the community, to the minister or elder, who oversees the spiritual life of the community and leads the worship services. Other subsidiary positions of authority for men may include an assistant minister, a field boss who focuses on supervising farm work, and other areas of leadership responsibility related to specific enterprises of the community, such as plumber or dairyman. Women serve in such positions as head cook, head of the kindergarten, and gardener. Children begin the process of induction into communal life and identity at the age of three, at which age they begin spending much of the day in the colony nursery under the supervision of a kindergarten teacher. At the age of six, children graduate to the colony school, where time is divided between the “German school,” which focuses on passing on the Hutterite faith and the German language, and the “English school,” which is oriented around practical subjects taught by an employee of the public schooling system. As teenagers, the youth of the colony are encouraged to consider carefully the step of being baptized in the faith community of the Hutterite brotherhood. Baptism marks a decision to be subject to spiritual authority of the church, to give up all ownership of personal property, and to devote one’s life to the wellbeing of the community. But most importantly, baptism marks a decision to enter the spiritual “ark” of salvation, the church, where one is safe from the judgment of God, as well as from the corruptions of the surrounding society. Those who are baptized are assumed to have received the Holy Spirit, and are therefore entrusted with greater responsibility. The next step for a younger person after baptism is typically marriage, a decision that is initiated through a process of courtship—typically between young people from different colonies. This decision must be approved by the parents of both partners, and by the elders of both communities. These priorities and routines of colony life circumscribe the privacy and autonomy of Hutterite families, who are maintained as distinct units on the one hand, and are subject to the authority of the community on the other hand. Nuclear families, especially when extended by marriage into networks of influence, pose a constant threat to the ultimate authority of the colony. The tension between communal and family authority is managed through habits of communication that rely on directness rather than subtlety. Such cooperation—based on habits of command and obedience—is cultivated by encouraging a discipline of yieldedness, or acceptance of one’s place in the colony structure throughout childhood. Nevertheless, sociologists have noted that expressions of dissent or resistance are given voice within certain contexts. For example, although women occupy a secondary location to men in the authority structure (they are unable to vote in colony decision-making), it is not uncommon for wives to express discontent about a social arrangement to their

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husbands, who have the status to voice such concerns in more public assemblies. SPIRITUAL FREEDOM VERSUS COMMUNAL IDENTITY For Hutterites, spiritual life is experienced communally, defined to a very significant extent by the expectation of surrender to God and to the church. As Jakob Hutter put it in his eighth letter (1535): “Let us not waste the time we still have on earth, doing only what our flesh desires, but let us serve and obey God and His children as long as we live.” Early Hutterite teaching made surrender of life and property to the community an article of faith on par with other essential doctrines of Christian faith. In Peter Walpot’s article book of 1577, for example, article three, titled True Surrender and Christian Community of Goods insists that “all lie who say ‘community is not necessary and is no basis of doctrine,’ for it is an article of the faith, yea an institution of Christ and of the Holy Spirit and His teaching. Therefore, just as it is necessary for us to hold to the doctrine of the apostles, to prayer and to the breaking of bread, even so it is necessary for us to hold to community of goods” (Walpot 1577). Such teachings make the spiritual discipline of yieldedness to communal authority a central tenet of Hutterite piety. However, Hutterites are not immune from influence by outside forms of spirituality with the capacity to undermine the communal life. A BBC film of 1992 directed by Jane Treays documents the strife that takes place in one Hutterite commune in Montana, when some of its members are converted to evangelical Christianity and consider themselves “born again.” The film deals with the effects of such “conversions” on extended family relationships, and on life within a colony fractured by differences in piety. Evangelical piety, which emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, contradicts the Hutterite emphasis on attachment to Christ through the church. Another example of the tension between personal religious curiosity and Hutterite communal authority is the argument that ensued in the 1960s within a Manitoba Schmiedeleut colony over the teachings associated with Herbert W. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God. Several members had been listening to the Armstrong radio broadcasts, which featured apocalyptical teachings regarding the end of the age, along with sabbatarian views advocating for Saturday observance of the Sabbath and the return to Jewish kosher food laws and religious holidays. Those influenced by Armstrong’s teachings broke colony rules against listening to the radio, and began to adopt the practices and beliefs of the Worldwide Church of God, thereby dividing the colony. After the colony elders expelled them from the community, the dissident group refused to leave, drawing on the resources of the Worldwide Church of God to bring a lawsuit against the colony, demanding that the resources of the colony be distributed fairly among all the members, including the dissidents. This demand challenged the longstanding Hutterite rule that anyone leaving the community forfeits all rights to communal property. The court battle was carried out amidst considerable publicity, and eventually ended up before the Canadian Supreme Court in

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1966, which ruled on behalf of the colony, thereby forcing the dissident group to leave the community. LEGAL RIGHTS AND COMMUNITY AUTHORITY The issue of the rights that ex-Hutterite individuals have to communal property they have participated in accumulating has been an ongoing controversy. Historically, court litigation around this question has been initiated by aggrieved former colony members, not by colony leaders, who have adhered to the Anabaptist conviction against using the coercive power of the secular legal system to settle disputes within the church. However, in 1987, the leaders of a Schmiedeleut colony in Manitoba brought a lawsuit against dissidents who had been expelled but who had refused to leave. The leaders were apparently influenced by their association at that time with the Bruderhof—the communal societies originating in twentieth-century Germany under Eberhard Arnold’s leadership and focused mostly on the eastern seaboard of the United States. The Bruderhof had a long tradition of using the court system to enforce expulsions and to defend themselves against what they perceived to be slander. The lawsuit came about because of a long-simmering dispute that threatened the unity of the entire Schmiedeleut brotherhood in both Canada and the United States. This conflict arose when the patent rights to a new hog feeder design that had been obtained by one colony, Crystal Spring, were disputed by Daniel Hofer, a member of the Lakeside colony, on whose behalf Hofer claimed to have actually submitted the patent claim earlier. The leader of the Crystal Spring colony, Jacob Kleinsasser, also happened to be senior elder of the Schmiedeleut. Through its official distributor, Crystal Spring had been active in enforcing its patent rights to the point of sharing infringement claim proceeds won by the distributor from fellow Hutterite colonies. When ordered by the distributor for Crystal Springs, through the distributor’s lawyers, to stop manufacturing hog feeders, Hofer—who was head of the Lakeside stainless steel shop—refused to submit, claiming that Crystal Spring colony had stolen the patent from him. When the colony’s leaders, backed by Schmiedeleut overseers, ordered him to stop, and negotiated a settlement with the Crystal Spring distributor, instead of submitting, Hofer actively sought to nullify the settlement. Threatened with excommunication, Hofer demanded adjudication by the broader Schmiedeleut leadership. However, partly because of the influence of the Schmiedeleut elder, Jacob Kleinsasser, Hofer and other dissidents from Lakeside who supported him were expelled from the colony, an action to which Hofer and his associates responded by refusing to leave. The decision by colony leaders and Schmiedeleut overseers to force the dissidents to leave through the intervention of the court was met by a countersuit filed by Hofer and his friends that argued their expulsion did not follow correct procedure and was therefore nulled. Meanwhile, the extended family networks reaching beyond the Lakeside colony, expanded the local division throughout the Schmiedeleut brotherhood, with colonies in both the United States and Canada dividing according to whether or not to support the Daniel Hofer faction or the Hutterite leadership. More

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lawsuits ensued, and the obvious significance of the question at hand helped to bring the Hofer suit before the Supreme Court of Canada, which agreed with Hofer that the Hutterite leaders had not followed their own rules in the process of expelling Hofer and his associates, and that, therefore, the dissidents were still legally members of the Lakeside colony. This decision exacerbated rather than resolved the intensity and scope of the conflict among Schmiedeleut colonies, which experienced a proliferation of lawsuits and countersuits by factions and colony leaders. At the same time, the credibility of Jacob Kleinsasser’s leadership of the Schmiedeleut increasingly became a question of dispute, leading ultimately to a church-wide division and the establishment of two separate Hutterite conferences of Schmiedeleut. Colonies now were forced to decide which of the conferences to align with, a question that typically led to division, and then to the question of how to dispose of colony resources in the wake of a church-wide schism. Did the leadership of the colony have the authority to constitute the legal affiliation of the colony and thereby to deprive those in their community who sided with the rival group of any claim to resources? In Canada, through a series of interventions by Canadian judges, dividing colonies were encouraged to distribute the resources proportionately. In the United States, the courts typically refused to become involved in the disputes, citing separation of church and state precedents; as a result, the U.S. colonies tended to follow a winner-take-all approach to division, with minority dissidents being forced to leave without any claim to colony resources. These lawsuits and their outcomes illustrate the complexity of interaction between liberal societies based on individual rights, and communal societies based on social authority. Hutterite communities toward the end of the twentieth century were increasingly engaged in competitive market practices that compromised their long tradition of mutual support and sharing. As a result, they became involved in court disputes that also undermined the authority of church leaders to manage conflicts according to Hutterian traditions and processes, granting instead to secular courts increasing power to determine how the Hutterite community conducted its affairs. TRADITIONAL FARMING COMMUNITIES VERSUS COMMUNAL LAND OWNERSHIP Hutterite communities have, in recent decades, become fairly wealthy communities, owning multi-million dollar agribusiness and manufacturing enterprises, demonstrating that communal surrender carries with it the potential for a good life full of considerable security. Such wealth has sometimes presented obstacles to neighborly relationships, with families and individuals playing the capitalist game without the resources of communal life. Already in 1942, the state of Alberta forbade the sale of land to “enemy aliens, Hutterites, and Doukhobours,” a law modified later to permit the sale of land as long as Hutterite colonies did not form within 40 miles of one another. Later, that law was amended in 1960 to provide for even greater flexibility, yet requiring all land sales to Hutterites to be approved by a government agency. Manitoba

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Hutterites at one point were required to restrict their colonies to one or two per municipality, and to separate them by at least ten miles. The branching of Hutterite colonies into new areas often produced protest that provincial governments in Canada sought to address, typically by creating liaison offices that managed public relations aspects of Hutterite branching, in order to reassure local farm populations that their communities would not be outnumbered by Hutterites. The efforts by Canadian provinces to restrict the density of colony locations, resulted in the dispersion of the Hutterites geographically, and forced them to locate colonies in less than optimal settings for farming. These colonies have nevertheless thrived because of the efficiencies of communal farming, and through innovations in agricultural methods. At the same time, colonies have increasingly moved beyond farming to the manufacture of agricultural products, with considerable success and profit. The economic success of well-established Hutterite colonies has led to an era of security and well-being, perhaps unmatched since the Golden Age in Moravia. See also Amish; Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence. Further Reading: Esau, Alvin J. The Courts and the Colonies: The Litigation of Hutterite Church Disputes. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004; Gross, Leonard. The Golden Years of the Hutterites. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1980; Gross, Paul S. The Hutterite Way. Saskatoon: Freeman Publishing Company Limited, 1965; Hassenberg, Kathleen, trans. “A Notable Hutterite Document Concerning True Surrender and Christian Community of Goods.” Mennonite Quarterly Review 31, no. 1 (January 1957): 22–62; Hostetler, John A. Hutterite Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997; Hutter, Jakob. Brotherly Faithfulness: Epistles from a Time of Persecution. Rifton, New York: Plough Publishing House, 1979; Janzen, William. Limits on Liberty: The Experience of Mennonite, Hutterite, and Doukhobor Communities in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990; Kraybill, Donald and Carl Bowman. On the Back Road to Heaven: Old Order Hutterites, Mennonites, Amish, and Brethren. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001; Packull, Werner. Hutterite Beginnings: Communitarian Experiments during the Reformation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995; Peter, Karl. The Dynamics of Hutterite Society: An Analytical Approach. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1987.

Gerald Biesecker-Mast

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I IMMIGRATION Immigration is the historical process of peoples crossing into new regions. As opposed to migration, immigration denotes a certain degree of permanence in the change of location of the migrating persons. Immigration is often caused by economic and political push-and-pull factors between nations. It is also a form of escape for peoples suffering from religious, political, or cultural persecution. A process carrying vast numbers of persons, immigration has profound effects on both the region left, and the region ventured into by immigrants. As a result, immigrants are often received with hostility and conflict in the new land. The phenomenon of immigration has continued into the twenty-first century and still greatly affects modern culture. For religious Americans, the effects of immigration have continued to be debated as individuals try to balance religious encouragements to “welcome the stranger” (a high value in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions especially), and yet also respect for laws regarding border passage. ANCIENT IMMIGRATION IN THE BIBLE: EGYPT AND THE EXODUS Modern immigration is not a new phenomenon, and the Judeo-Christian scriptures feature many cases of crossing borders, such as the famous population movements depicted in the book of Exodus. The beginning of Exodus describes Jacob and his 12 sons as immigrants seeking refuge in the land of Egypt from famine. Fearing the large amount of Israelites entering their nation, affluent Egyptian leadership created an oppressed work force out of these sojourners. The economic and political suppression of the Israelites led to their desire to once again migrate

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to another land. While the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt is an event that is very telling of why people choose to immigrate, the period of exile that followed gives much insight into the struggles of immigrants following the physical movement of immigration. The cultural struggle of the Israelites proved to be difficult as they attempted to adjust in a new land while maintaining their distinct identity—a struggle that often led to violence between resident groups in their “promised land”. These opposing desires illustrate the struggles of all immigrants as they balance the traditions of the past, and the hopes of the future. The cultural shock of living in a Diaspora is present in all stories of immigration as the questioning of national identity and self-identity forges beyond mere lines and borders. MODERN IMMIGRATION: THE GLOBAL EFFECTS Immigration is a fluid and dynamic attribute of humanity that is constantly occurring between nations. Throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, there are examples of especially active borders and issues of immigration, including the borders separating the United States and Mexico, separating Mexico and Guatemala, and separating Morocco and Spain, as well as Sudanese refugee immigration to many neighboring nations. Each of these distinct movements is characterized by deep historical, economic, and political influences. While Moroccan immigrants seek economic opportunities, Sudanese immigrants seek refuge from their authoritarian government. Furthermore, each case of immigration is the story of an individual seeking the opportunity for a better life. THE HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES The United States was founded as a land of immigrants when European immigrants from Britain sought religious freedom in the West. Beginning on the East Coast, the nation has been filled by centuries of global immigration. The only citizens of the United States who cannot attribute their past to another land are Native Americans who, because of immigration to the United States, have nonetheless been consistently internally displaced persons. The Statue of Liberty sends forth the message: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Ironically, the history of immigration in the United States has been far less pleasant than this famous monument suggests. The original flow of immigration from Europe (in waves that often reflected population movements from different parts of Europe) has been followed by an influx of Asian immigration in the early 1900s, and Latin American immigration in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. A HISTORY OF REJECTION Mass famines in Ireland and a failed revolution in Germany created an influx of European immigration to the United States in the mid-1800s. This impulse

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was ill-received by nativists—as evident in opposition groups such as the KnowNothings who feared the spread of Catholicism. Asian immigration in the late nineteenth century was referred to as the yellow peril, and was restricted legislatively through the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Until 1982, several other legislative endeavors continued to limit immigration by targeting specific groups through health tests and other tactics. The Immigration Act of 1942 created a quota system that allowed for only certain amounts of immigrants from individual nations. None of these legislative attempts to bar immigration included exclusion of Latin American immigrants. HISTORY OF UNITED STATESMEXICO RELATIONS Conflicting interests between the United States and Mexico began early while the United States expanded in the name of Manifest Destiny, that is, a sense of God-given privilege to expand and gain power. This period of rapid territorial growth included encroachment of Mexican territory in what today is referred to as the Southwest of the United States. In 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico over this territory, and in 1848 acquired half of Mexico’s territory through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Although part of the settlement included a payment to Mexico of $15 million, the United States acquired an immense amount of property, as well as the superior role within the relationship of these two nations. Following the United States’ military domination, the United States acted on its’ economic supremacy as well. As U.S. investment began to supersede the agricultural endeavors of Mexico, 96 percent of Mexican families were left landless by 1910. This disparity between Mexican and United States prosperity was heightened with the passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. NAFTA created the opening of U.S. fruit and vegetable markets to Mexico, and the Mexican grain market to the United States. This policy has resulted in the dependency of the Mexican economy on the United States, who now absorbs 88 percent of Mexican exports. The production of corn, Mexico’s main crop, was devastated by the importing of cheap U.S. corn (whose price was subsidized by U.S. government assistance to farmers) resulting in the bankruptcy of Mexican farmers. THE CONTEXT OF MEXICAN IMMIGRATION INTO THE UNITED STATES Once U.S. citizens began moving toward urbanized and industrialized workforce options, the U.S. agricultural sector was in need of cheap labor. Between 1942 and 1964, 4.8 million Mexicans were used as seasonal workers under a system called the Bracero Program. Under the program, Mexican farm workers were contracted to live in the United States during crop seasons, and then move back to Mexico once the crop was harvested. Since this movement between the United States and Mexico was advantageous for American agriculture, the immigration of Mexicans was not affected by the legislative restrictions put in place throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The program did, however, safeguard any hopes of permanent residence for the seasonal workers.

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Family members were not allowed to travel with the workers during the crop season in hopes that the fathers and husbands would yearn to go home at the end of the crop. Secondly, a portion of the bracero’s wages were not paid until arrival back home in Mexico. The success of the Bracero Program created the first instances of “illegal immigration”. The popularity of the program led to the exclusiveness of becoming a bracero worker. As a result, many men chose to travel north without the papers, and still received work alongside the chosen braceros. Growers began enticing these undocumented workers, which was unsupported yet permitted by the U.S. government. By 1949, there were 74,600 braceros and 142,000 undocumented workers in the fields of the southern United States. Mexican immigration was originally sought by the United States in its time of economic need; however, the influx of workers also stirred another round of xenophobic fears, which led to further pressure for immigration restrictions similar to those enacted earlier in the century and directed to Asians and other potential immigrants. During the period of McCarthyism (1940s–early 1950s), racism and fear of communism caused tighter control on all American borders, which created the first series of legislative restrictions on Mexican immigration. In 1954, Operation Wetback called for the deportation of between one and two million undocumented Mexicans. This change in perspective towards the Mexican immigrant from “agricultural aide” to “illegal alien” is a change that continues to permeate much of the general American reaction to Mexican immigration as portrayed in the media. MODERN ENDEAVORS TO HALT MEXICAN IMMIGRATION The escalating conflict of Mexican immigration into the United States has increased attention given to the physical border between the two nations. In 1994, Operation Gatekeeper enhanced the effectiveness of government enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border. The increased funding was allocated towards additional border patrol agents, more technology and security measures, as well as the building of the physical border. This financial increase toward border security illustrated the change in paradigm, that immigration was no longer a concept to be struggled with, but instead it had become a physical battle between these two nations. HR 4437, the proposed Sensenbrenner-King Bill in 2005, sought to take matters further by criminalizing the act of associating with an undocumented immigrant. In this sense, not only were immigrants targeted, but so too were United States’ citizens who contributed to the livelihood of an undocumented immigrant. Highly controversial, HR 4437 did not pass. However, it did illustrate the highly political debate that was erupting over immigration reform. THE PUSHES AND PULLS OF IMMIGRATION Despite the countless legislative attempts to restrict immigration, it has been a continued reality across the deserts of the U.S.-Mexico border. Though the act

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of illegally entering the United States has become increasingly more difficult, the immense pressure from economic pushes and pulls still drives immigration. The disparity of wealth within Mexico leaves 18 percent of the nation living under the poverty line (compare 12.3% in the United States for 2006, where poverty is measured at a higher economic level), while the national GDP continues to grow steadily. This growing gap causes the immigration of the country’s poorest out of simple economic necessity. Even college-educated individuals in Mexico have extreme difficulty finding a sustainable income within the Mexican job market. Immigrants in this context, and across the world, are pushed by the desires to escape poverty, to provide better education to their children, to find more job opportunities, and to find hope for a better life. While Mexican immigrants are pushed by these desires, they are equally pulled by forces from within the United States. While the United States sends a message that illegal immigration is a criminal act, the job market suggests otherwise. Immigrants fill what are referred to as the 3-D jobs: the dangerous, difficult, and dirty jobs such as agriculture and construction. Many complain that undocumented immigrants filling these jobs hinder our economic growth. Economists argue, however, that our economy has benefited from the labor of undocumented workers. This truth is what allows corporations and businesses to act as the pull factor as they invite undocumented laborers to fill their job openings. THE POLITICS OF THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE The complexity of these economic pushes and pulls has resulted in a highly contentious political debate. While many speak of whether we should have an open or closed border, the most pressing issue is how the United States will create a path towards legalization. Beyond the issue of continued immigration into the United States, the government is working to detail an approach toward addressing the undocumented immigrants already within the borders of the United States. Deadlocked congressional legislation in the summer of 2007 presented many different formulas to tackle this dilemma. A point system was proposed that would determine which types of peoples amongst the immigrants would first be granted citizenship. Many supported family reunification efforts by providing more points towards relatives. Others argued that more points should go towards those who will contribute most to the United States, such as scientists and highly skilled workers. While this debate continues, most undocumented immigrants have no hope of being granted citizenship, since the system is now backlogged for years to come. THE DESERT BORDER CROSSING While debate over legislative reform discusses necessary institutional changes, Mexican immigrants continually risk their lives crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Project Gatekeeper provided funding to build up the physical border between the two nations. Established in the original location of mass immigration, Tijuana, Mexico, illegal border crossings have moved farther East in the past decade. As a result, many immigrants cross through the deserts of Arizona and

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New Mexico where the border is less regulated. This dangerous trek has caused 238 immigrant deaths since 2006 in Arizona alone. In addition to the heat of the desert, immigrants are faced with extreme blisters from their long journey, abuse from coyotes, dehydration, and other daunting factors. Additionally, increased military technology has made an illegal entrance an even harder task. As a result, immigrants are very cautious of Border Patrol agents and tend to travel only at night. When caught by the Border Patrol, immigrants are then taken to Wackenhut in vans. Wackenhut is a private security company paid by the U.S. government to deliver undocumented border crossers back into Mexico. Ironically, the company is known world-wide for its countless human rights violations. As a result, much discontent has arisen from this additional component to the already contentious debate on immigration. A frightening truth is that many of the undocumented immigrants placed back in Mexico are not Mexican. Many immigrants travel from the extreme distances of Central America. The simple immigrant drop offs into Mexican border towns hold even further disappointment for these individuals. IMMIGRATION INTEREST GROUPS Immigration from Mexico to the United States does not only affect the immigrant; instead, its repercussions are felt by many groups within the United States. Of special interest are the corporations who benefit from the labor of these undocumented workers. Many of these companies and businesses have become dependent on this exploitable labor, so legislative changes that would further enforce documentation of all workers would severely alter the nature of their work force. Other people highly involved in the immigration debate include vigilante groups. Highly patriotic, these people volunteer to physically help the border patrol in preventing illegal immigration. The aid of minutemen to the border patrol has been highly opposed due to instances of extreme violence and even murder between themselves and immigrants. There are other groups that side on the interest of the immigrant. Many nonprofit groups defend the rights of the immigrants, and work against the xenophobia and racism that escalate the immigration debate. THE FIGHT AGAINST IMMIGRATION Beyond mere racist or xenophobic disdain for immigrants themselves, there are many other reasons why United States citizens oppose Mexican immigration. Many citizens fear the economic ramifications of immigration, and are disgruntled in particular by issues such as taxation and health care. Others are opposed to immigration due to the connections between drug cartels and illegal immigration. Immigration has also been highly resisted following September 11. Terminating illegal immigration from Mexico has been included as an effort to prevent future terrorist attacks on the United States.

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THE RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO IMMIGRATION: OLD TESTAMENT TEACHING Despite the complexity of immigration, most religious traditions have a sound response: compassion toward the immigrant. This message is depicted in biblical sojourners throughout the Old Testament. The exploitation of immigrants is shown as a contradiction to the desire of God as depicted in Deuteronomy: “[God] executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and. . . loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing” (10:18). Following the book of Exodus, the Old Testament describes the compassion of God towards the exiled Israelites. A message of hope is revealed in Isaiah 40:3–5: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be made low. . . Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” JESUS CROSSING BORDERS The Gospels continue a message of hope for the immigrant through the life of Jesus. Jesus consistently sided with the marginalized while breaking political, religious, and cultural borders. In John 4:9, Jesus speaks with a Samaritan woman who bewilderingly asks him: “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” Jesus breaks this border based on nationality and embraces the foreigner as a neighbor. Similarly, when Jesus was asked “who is my neighbor?”, he replied with the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10). In this example, Jesus explains that a neighbor is not one of physical proximity or political alliance, but one who rightfully shows mercy. He calls others to break boundaries and to show mercy to all. Hispanic Theology in the United States, derived from Liberation Theology, also places emphasis on the life of Jesus as a call for compassion toward the immigrant. Virgil Elizondo illustrates the fact that Jesus was a Galilean Jew, as opposed to the culturally superior Jews of Judea. Drawing a correlation between Mexican Americans caught between two cultural identities, Jesus is seen as a mestizo between Judea and Galilee. This portrayal of Jesus is especially meaningful for immigrants who are caught between two conflicting societies. The depiction of Jesus as a mestizo is also very pertinent to immigration, in that it illustrates God’s becoming human in the severely marginalized and rejected of the world. This creates a call for the Christian community to continue to meet Jesus in the marginalized, to find Jesus in the immigrant. This call has been heard by countless Christian groups who work to better the plight of the immigrant. CHRISTIAN ACTION IN RESPONSE TO U.S.MEXICAN IMMIGRATION Since the majority of Mexican immigrants come from Catholic backgrounds, the Catholic Church on both sides of the border plays a significant role in U.S.Mexican immigration. For instance, Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles pledged

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to defy HR 4437 if it were enacted, for he argued that it defied Catholic Social Teaching. Catholic Social Teaching upholds the principles of the dignity of the human person, the preferential option for the poor, and the dignity of work, all of which promote empathy for the immigrant. Cardinal Mahoney’s rejection of HR 4437 and his Justice for Immigrants Campaign have enhanced Catholic support for the dignity of the immigrant. Catholic Relief Services has created a program called Diocese Without Borders, which works to connect the efforts of Catholic churches on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The goal of this program is to create greater solidarity within this universal church, while acknowledging that the kingdom of God has no borders. Another attempt to create solidarity between people of faith on both sides of the border is through the religious celebration of Las Posadas. This annual reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s struggle to find shelter in Bethlehem currently takes place on the U.S.-Mexico Border. In this way, the reenactment presents a parallel between the refusal of the holy family, and the refusal of Mexican immigrants. The fact that Mary and Joseph eventually received shelter in time for the birth of Christ acts as a symbol of hope for greater hospitality and empathy between the two communities. THE JEWISH AND ISLAMIC RESPONSES TO IMMIGRATION The narratives of Moses and the Exodus in the Torah are especially meaningful within the Jewish tradition. Breaking their exploitation, God liberated the Hebrew people from Egypt and delivered them to a “land flowing with milk and honey” (Deuteronomy 26:8). Some believe that modern Jews are still in exile until they return home to Israel. Because of this exilic identity, the Jewish tradition has a long history of aiding the refugee and the migrant. Many efforts to create a more empathetic approach towards U.S.-Mexican immigration include interfaith organizations combining the efforts of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic communities. See also Sanctuary Movement; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Brewer, Stewart. Borders and Boundaries: A History of U.S.-Latin American Relations. London: Praeger Security International, 2006; Chacon, Justin Akers and Mike Davis. No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006; Dawson, Alexander S. First World Dreams: Mexico since 1989. London: Fernwood Publishing, 2006; Deck, Allan Figueroa, ed. Frontiers of Hispanic Theology in the United States. New York: Orbis Books, 1992; Ekblad, Bob. Reading the Bible With the Damned. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005; Hill Notes, February 2007: Comprehensive Immigration Reform. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Migration and Refugee Services. http://www.usccb.org/ sdwp/projects/200702immhn.pdf; Hoppe, Leslie J. There Shall Be No Poor Among You. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004; Koenig, John. New Testament Hospitality: Partnership with Strangers as Promise and Mission. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985; Laufer, Peter. Wetback Nation: The Case for Opening the Mexican-American Border. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004; Nevins, Joseph. Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the “Illegal Alien” and the

Islamic Nationalism | 291 Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary. New York: Routledge Taylor ad Francis Group, 2002; Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. Jonah, Jesus, and Other Good Coyotes. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007; Stalker, Peter. The No-Nonsense Guide to International Migration. London: New Internationalist, 2001; Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope: A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration From the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States. Washington D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2003.

Elizabeth Shaw ISLAMIC NATIONALISM According to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, the Muslim community (ummah) is one that transcends territorial, ethnic, and racial boundaries. The concept of nationalism, which implies fidelity to a nation (according to Webster’s, a group of people associated with a particular territory possessing its own government), stands contradictory to the teachings of the Prophet. National loyalty, in the modern sense, was introduced to Muslims through European colonization in the eighteenth century. As a result of European domination and the arbitrary division of the Islamic world into nation-states, Muslim leaders inherited a Westernized geographical reality. While there were some in the Islamic community who embraced traditional Western nationalism, there were others who rejected it, warning of the consequences. Today, throughout parts of the Muslim world, nationalism has evolved from the concept of nation-states to a nationalist movement, which supports a religious foundation. HISTORICAL ISLAMIC COMMUNITY The violent and unjust society of seventh-century pre-Islamic Arabia provided the setting for the emergence of a monotheistic religious tradition, eventually referred to as Islam. In a cave outside Mecca, Muhammad ibn Abdallah is said to have received revelations from God, in the form of a new scripture, the Qur’an. The Qur’an instructed believers (Muslims) to submit wholly to God and behave in an ethical manner toward one another. In response to tribal conflicts, vendettas, and immoral behavior, which pervaded the region of western Arabia, the first duty Muhammad assigned to his followers was to create a just society. This new society took the form of a community called an ummah. Living according to the Will of God was essential to the prosperity of the ummah, and consequently, if the Muslim community suffered misfortune of any kind, Muslims could deduce that they were not practicing authentic Islam. Critical to the teachings concerning the ummah, was the instruction from Muhammad that Muslims identify themselves through membership in the spiritual community rather than through their individual ethnicity, language, or geography. Ideally, the Islamic world was to operate as a single political unit, governed by a caliph, who would, under the tenets of Islam, preserve the integrity of the ummah. However, Caesar E. Farah, in his book, Islam, writes, “As early as the second century of Islam, the conquered Iranians resented the refusal of the conquering Arabs to accord them the full social

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equality ordained by Islam. The challenge to caliphal authority equated with Arab hegemony resulted frequently from such resentment. The nature of the challenge often took on the form of ‘ethnicism.’” (Farah 2003). The persistent problem of ethnic sentiment resulted in the discontented local groups being given the authority to rule their immediate areas under the guidance of the caliph. Muslims became accustomed to ethnic loyalty, regional differences, and kinship ties, however, not disregarding the “universality of the ummah and Islam” (Farah 2003). It was within this diverse cultural setting that an unsuspecting Muslim population encountered a menace from the West. EUROPEAN COLONIALISM AND NATIONALISM By the mid-eighteenth century a newly industrialized European society emerged. Having cast off the religious restraints of the pre-Reformation period, and embracing rational and scientific principles, the West was free to advance economically within its new secular, democratic society. Efficiency and productivity epitomized the modern nations. As a result of a growing economy, British traders, looking to expand their markets, advanced on India. Flush with a sense of superiority, the European countries expressed a national pride that disregarded the welfare of not only India, but that of other Muslim nations. By the mid-nineteenth century, with the forced expulsion of the last Mughal emperor, British rule was established throughout India. Russia sought to take control of Central Asia, the French annexed Tunisia, Italy occupied Libya, and the British advanced into Egypt. Muslim lands were devastated politically, economically, and culturally due to colonization. In response to the loss of political and social positions in India, the majority of Muslims rejected anything associated with the British. However, some Muslims, such as educator and reformer Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), refused to retreat from the influence of the British, and encouraged Muslims to study Western arts and sciences. As this attitude influenced young Muslim men, some of them began using their European educations to voice their grievances. Known as Modernists, they sought solutions to the problems of modernity, while keeping their religious ideals. One such man was Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1838–1897), known as “the Awakener of the East.” THE MODERNISTS Al-Afghani, an Iranian schooled in the Shiite tradition, traveled to India in 1856 with the goal of furthering his education. Witnessing the cruelty of the British during the Indian rebellion of 1857, he devoted his life to the cause of Muslim freedom from European domination. Convinced that Islam provided the answers to the desperate situation in which the Muslims found themselves, al-Afghani encouraged the return to ijtihad (independent reasoning). He promoted the implementation of rational thinking as put forth by the Prophet and the Qur’an, to propel Muslims into the modern world. Instead of embracing the European system, he rejected their secular politics and insisted on an Islamic

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approach to modernization. Al-Afghani allied himself with a group of Turkish academics who believed that Western democracy could be presented in an Islamic context. It is within this atmosphere of Islamic self-determination and reformation that Pan-Islamism became popular. Pan-Islamism is, in essence, a return to Muhammad’s original concept of an Islamic community—the ummah. Colonialism had torn the Islamic world into separate states, but the hope was that the ideology of Pan-Islamism could unite all Muslims, and rid themselves of the European imperialists. Al-Afghani united with a young Egyptian scholar, Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), and founded the Salafiyyah reformist movement, which viewed “Islam as civilization.” Muhammad Abduh believed that in order to address the needs of a modern Islamic world, the Sharia (Islamic law) needed to be reformed, and the educational system updated. He felt that the average Muslim could not understand the principles of modern law and politics unless they were presented in an Islamic context. After the death of al-Afghani, Abduh and the journalist, Rashid Rida (1865–1935), tried to advance Pan-Islamism as the ideology of Egyptian politics. They were successfully opposed by secular nationalists who believed that Islam itself was holding Muslims back. Rida, sensing that secularism was a threat to the ideals of the ummah, responded by putting forth the notion of a modern Islamic state based on an updated Sharia. The Indian poet and philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal (1876–1938), may have been influenced by Rida’s call for a complete update of Islamic law. Living in India under British rule, Iqbal was exposed to the realities of colonialism, but it took a journey to England in order to evoke his fierce repudiation of European nationalism. Muhammad Iqbal, born in the Punjab province of Pakistan and educated in Quranic studies, traveled to England in 1905 to continue his education. There he received a view of nationalism that would determine the course of his life. Iqbal had long been in favor of Indian nationalism and had shown support for a Hindu-Muslim state. He had believed that an individual could be loyal to his country and retain his own religious beliefs without serious conflict. While in England, Iqbal observed a growing tension between the European powers due to aggressive nationalistic policies. Judging against the selfishness of Western nationalism, he began to favor the promise of a just and compassionate society that could be achieved through the universalism of the ummah. Recognizing the pitfalls of nationalism, Iqbal rejected the idea of a Hindu-Muslim state and began to call for a separate Muslim nation, eventually earning the title, “spiritual father of Pakistan.” By the commencement of World War I, the Muslim world was in a state of despair, and Iqbal responded to the situation by focusing on the worldwide Muslim community—the ummah. He wrote, “The essential difference between the Muslim Community and other Communities of the world consists in our peculiar conception of nationality. It is because we all believe in a certain view of the universe, and participate in the same historical tradition that we are members of the society founded by the Prophet of Islam. Islam abhors all material limitations, and bases its nationality on a purely abstract idea, objectifies in a potentially expansive group of concrete personalities. It is not dependent for its life-principle on the character and genius of a particular people; in its

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essence it is non-temporal, non-spatial” (Mir 2006). Iqbal, as a proponent of an Islamic religious concept of nationality, saw no conflict between the formation of separate Muslim states and the unification of Muslims on a spiritual rather than a geographical basis. Rather, he put forward the idea of a Muslim League of Nations that would recognize the existence of multiple Muslim states, while promoting common goals. Iqbal embraced a humanitarian ideal of Pan-Islamism, rather than the political concept of one Muslim nation under a single caliph. Secular nationalism, however, was on the rise in the Middle East. ARAB NATIONALISM A group of Arabs throughout the Middle East were employing secular nationalism as a means to fight European colonialism. They believed that the only way to defeat the imperialists was through racial unity (Pan-Arabism), not religious solidarity (Pan-Islamism). Sati-al-Husri (1880–1968), a leading promoter of PanArabism, in order to rally support, argued that Arab nationalism was not incongruous with Islam, as Islam had its roots in Arab history. Arab nationalists agreed with the Pan-Islamists that Muslims must return to the ideal of the Medinan ummah, but emphasized that since the original community was Arab, Arab unity was essential to Muslim unity. However, by the twentieth century the Arabs were a small fraction of the Muslim community—approximately 20 percent. Nevertheless, secular nationalism triumphed after the First World War with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and consequently, the Caliphate. The Turkish Nationalist movement under the leadership of Ataturk, defeated their European occupiers and established the secular, ultranationalist Turkish republic (1922–1924). Their success motivated much of the Muslim world. Conversely, there were some who became alarmed at the specter of secular rule. MUSLIM BROTHERS AND SOCIAL CHANGE Hasan al-Banna (1906–1949), a member of the Hasafiyyah Sufi Order, arrived in Egypt in 1923 seeking a higher education. While in Cairo, he became appalled by the squalid conditions of the people, as well as the widespread secularism established by the British and Egyptian elite. Influenced by al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh, al-Banna believed that a return to the Islamic ideals of equality and social justice would be the only way to change the plight of the people. He rejected nationalism, and therefore Pan-Arabism, as a solution, declaring that nationalism was actually responsible for the ills of Muslim society. Al-Banna founded a movement in 1928 called the Society of the Muslim Brothers. His organization, engaged in religious, social, educational, and charitable activities, asserted that modern life must be met with Islamic values. Extending their movement to other Arab countries—Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Palestine, Sudan, Iran, and Yemen, the Brothers were becoming politically active. However, frustrated in their efforts to enact change in Egypt, a small minority engaged in terrorist activities. This resulted in the 1948 assassination of the Egyptian Prime Minister, subsequently followed by the assassination of al-Banna.

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By the end of World War II, the Egyptians had turned toward Arab nationalism with little improvement in the impoverished conditions of its people. In 1952, a group of discontented military leaders, called the Free Officers, seized power. The Muslim Brothers, who had aided in putting an end to British domination, were promised the implementation of social reforms. However, it soon became clear that the authoritarian rule set up by Jamal Abd al-Nasser (1918–70) conflicted with the Islamic ideals promoted by the Brothers. This sense of betrayal eventually led to an assassination attempt on Nasser by one of the Brothers. In response, thousands were rounded up and thrown into prison, some tortured and executed. The Brotherhood, now outlawed, went underground and continued its activities, which included attempts to overthrow the regime. One of its ideologues, Egyptian-born Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) would come to be known as the founder of Islamic radicalism. Sayyid Qutb, influenced by liberal nationalism, had at one time embraced Western ideas and secular politics. Influenced by the writings of the ideologist, Mawdudi, from the Indian subcontinent, he became disillusioned with secular ideas and turned down an offer from Nasser to join his government. Qutb joined the Muslim Brothers and became one of many thrown in jail after the attempt on Nasser’s life. Experiencing the inhumane conditions of prison, and witnessing the brutal torture and executions of his friends, Qutb became hardened in the belief that secularists could not live in peaceful coexistence with people of religion. He wrote, The homeland (watan) a Muslim should cherish and defend is not a mere piece of land; the collective identity he is known by is not that of a regime . . . Neither is the banner he should glory in and die for that of a nation (qwan) . . . His jihad is solely geared to protect the religion of Allah and His Shari’a and to save the Abode of Islam and no other territory . . . Any land that combats the Faith, hampers Muslims from practicing their religion, or does not apply the Shari’a, becomes ipso facto part of the Abode of War (Dar al-Harb). It should be combated even if one’s own kith and kin, national group, capital and commerce are to be found there . . . A Muslim’s homeland is any land governed by the laws of Islam. Islam is the only identity worthy of man . . . Any other group identity . . . is jahili identity of the type humanity has known during its periods of spiritual decadence. (Moaddel 2005) Jahiliyyah, the Time of Ignorance, had been the term used to describe the preIslamic period in Arabia. Qutb’s declaration, that non-Muslims should be fought to the death, is in direct opposition to Islam, which upholds a doctrine of tolerance, nonviolence, and inclusiveness. Quranic belief holds that God granted people with freedom to choose, therefore, to implement forceful conversion is to disobey God’s command. Qutb distorted the message of the Qur’an and the teachings of the Prophet, however, the concept of his new ideology, Islamism, would come to impact every Sunni fundamentalist group. In 1966 Qutb was hung for treason after the publication of his manifesto, Milestones, in which he called for the removal of all secular governments.

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The remaining Muslim Brothers sought refuge in Saudi Arabia—the only country that would accept them—where ultraconservative Wahhabism was the official Islamic law of the land. Incredibly wealthy due to the discovery of vast oil reserves, the Saudi royal family created the Muslim World League in 1962 in order to spread Wahhabi Islamic doctrine to the entire Muslim world. Reza Aslan writes, “Since the creation of the Muslim World League, the simplicity, certainty, and unconditional morality of Wahhabism have infiltrated every corner of the Muslim world. Thanks to Saudi evangelism, Wahhabi doctrine has dramatically affected the religio-political ideologies of the Muslim Brothers, Mawdudi’s Islamic Association, the Palestinian Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, to name only a few groups. The Saudis have become the patrons of a new kind of Pan-Islamism: one based on the austere, uncompromising, and extremist ideology of Islamic fundamentalism, which has become a powerful voice in deciding the future of the Islamic state” (Aslan 2006). In a bizarre turn of events, the Saudi royal family has itself become the target of a Wahhabi indoctrinated group called al-Qaeda. Any Muslim who does not observe the Sharia, and interpret the Qur’an according to this puritanical form of Islam, is considered an infidel. It is in this fundamentalist context that an extreme form of Islamic nationalism, in its intolerant and militant form, is displayed. CONCLUSION Nationalism, secular and religious, has taken on a central role in modern Islamic history. Although nation-states were unheard of in the precolonial Muslim world, ethnic inequality under a central Caliphate had surfaced early. By the advent of European occupation, the caliph was a mere figurehead, and the state of Islam had become stagnant due to the rigidity of the religious scholars who had “closed the gates of ijtihad.” The devastation brought on by occupation prompted an elite group of intellectuals to try and rebuild Islamic identity through education and religio-political reform. After the First World War, the Muslim countries were ripe for reformists dedicated to improving the conditions of the ummah. Citing nationalism as the cause for society’s ills, they called for a return to Islamic social justice and equality. Ultimately, this led to a clash with the nationalist governments and the dispersion of socialist groups throughout the Muslim world. The ideals of the reformers inspired later generations in various ways. A small minority took the call to return to Islamic values as a directive to use whatever means necessary, including violence, to implement change. In recent decades, the Islamic nationalist movement has become an intense topic of controversy, with its share of opponents and proponents within the Muslim world and beyond. See also Nation of Islam; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: The Modern Library, 2002; Aslan, Reza. No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. New York: Random House, 2006; Coury, Ralph M. “Nationalism and Culture in the Arab and Islamic Worlds: A Critique of Modern Scholarship.” In Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century, eds. Suha Taji-Farouki and Basheer M. Nafi. New York and London: I. B. Tauris,

Islamic Nationalism | 297 2004: 128–171; Esposito, John L. What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, from One of America’s Leading Experts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; Farah, Caesar E. Islam. 7th ed. Hauppage, N.Y.: Barron’s, 2003; Joffé, E.G.H. “Arab Nationalism and Palestine.” Journal of Peace 20, no. 2 (June 1983): 157–170; Lewis, Bernard. Islam and the West. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993; Mir, Mustansir. Iqbal. New York and London: I. B. Tauris and Oxford University Press India, 2006; Mir, Mustansir. Understanding the Islamic Scripture: A Study of Selected Passages from the Qur’ān. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008; Moaddel, Mansoor. Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2005; Saeed, Abdullah. Islamic Thought: An Introduction. New York and London: Routledge, 2006.

Candace Lev

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J JAILHOUSE CONVERSIONS Over two million people are imprisoned in the United States. More prisons and jails were constructed in the United States between 1980 and 2000 than had been built in the previous 200 years. The American prison system costs well over $60 billion dollars per year. In Michigan, the workings of the prison system takes up 20 percent of the state budget, while in the 1980s, it was only seven percent. Housing a prisoner for one year costs a national average of $25,000 a year. THE HISTORY OF RELIGION AND PRISONS Religious organizations have always been involved in prisons, and in fact, religious organizations inspired the very concept of prison. It is often pointed out among ancient historians that prisons simply did not exist in the ancient world—either in Greece, Rome, or biblical Israel. In Greece and Rome, there were places where debtors were held until payment arrangements could be made, but there was apparently no concept of a long-term incarceration as a form of punishment. There are references in the Bible to “prisons” (Genesis 39:20, 22), such as the holding place for Samson (Judges 16:21, 25), but there are no laws in the Bible discussing prison as a legal institution or punishment. It is clear that there were no long-term incarcerations in ancient Israel, either, and the mentions of “prisons” were merely as holding places until judgment had occurred, or payments made, as in classical Greece or Rome. Skotnicki (2006) suggests that Christians were drawn to the idea of “encouraging penitence” because they were skeptical about making use of the Roman

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legal system during the long centuries when Christianity itself was illegal or publically persecuted (St. Paul asks, in 1 Corinthians 6:1: “When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints?”). The presumption of an antagonistic relationship with the state is also perhaps the theme in the teachings of Jesus, suggesting the importance of visiting those in prison (Matthew 25), and an early Christian writer writes: Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. (Hebrews 13:3) In Western Christian society, however, the institution of the monastery inspired the idea of cells for those who need to be removed from wider society and allowed to reflect and pray about their lives, and hopefully then to be penitent. However, secularized prisons—apparently developing from the treatment of errant monks within the monastery—was a slow development, and only began to emerge in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of the Christian era. Skotnicki makes the interesting observation that the Christian concept of purgatory—a kind of prison of God for errant souls before they are released into heaven— emerged at roughly the same time as the concept of prisons for those considered dangerous to society. The religious, and the social, ideas appeared to develop at the same time, and were closely related (Skotnicki 2006). The notion of solitary confinement, however, is often associated with the early American prison reform work of the Quakers. Believing that what the errant individual requires is quiet time to reflect on their mistakes, Quakers encouraged such reform projects as Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, which opened in the nineteenth century. The idea was not to severely punish, but to allow time for repentance and considering one’s life. As an alternative to severe physical abuse, the Quakers suggested solitary confinement as a humane alternative. Psychologists, however, debate how “humane” such long-term isolation really is. The eighteenth century had seen a major rise in interest among philosophers and religious leaders in Europe in the reforming of the often horrendous conditions of prisoners. Philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham saw prison reform as an important aspect of their social philosophy in the late eighteenth century in England. But solitary confinement as a concept was not unique to the Quakers. Schmid (2003) notes in her study of the history of prison reform, that Pope Clement XI in 1704 built the Hospice of San Michele as an early experiment, keeping persons in monastery-like enclosures, or cells in hopes that isolation and confinement would encourage repentance and reform. It was a similar belief that isolation, prayer, and long periods of time given to thought, would be more effective than inflicting pain and bodily harm, or other forms of physical punishments and public humiliations, that led to Quaker support of institutions such as Eastern State Penitentiary, built precisely to maximize isolation of individual prisoners. The very architecture of this prison was intended to look frightening to those outside by building it as a castle-like structure, as well as maximize separation and isolation for those within. But it was precisely this isolation that

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was considered by other visitors to this prison, such as Charles Dickens, to be inhumane punishment and a kind of “death.” Eastern State itself was closed as a prison in 1971, and reopened as a museum in 1994. “Solitary Confinement” is today used only in short-term cases of severe isolation and punishment. JAILHOUSE CONVERSIONS AND THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN MODERN PRISONS There have always been stories of important conversions in prison. Perhaps most importantly in the twentieth century, Malcolm Little converted to a form of Islam, and became Malcolm X, one of the most important African American religious civil rights leaders in the twentieth century before his assassination by members of a rival Islamic movement. Such religious conversions have also raised difficult questions. In the late twentieth century, the celebrated conversion of a death-row inmate Karla Faye Tucker, raised difficult questions for conservative American Christians who normally support a strong prison system, and normally support capital punishment in large numbers. Tucker, who wished to serve out a life sentence, claimed to be completely transformed by her Christian conversion, and even married an assistant prison chaplain, and became a model prisoner. Tucker was finally executed on February 3, 1998, after a series of appeals, including many from prominent conservative Christian leaders who had previously supported capital punishment, particularly television evangelist Pat Robertson, who himself called for a suspension of capital punishment until it can be “more justly applied.” Such spectacular individual cases raise the issue of religious involvement in the prison system more generally, and also what the prison system is intended to accomplish. In many religious traditions, including Islam and Christianity, there is hope for the repentance and transformation of someone who is in the wrong. There is, in short, the possibility and the hope for some kind of redemption. Does this mean, however, that persons are to be reintegrated into wider society? The call for punishment as the goal of prison often overrides this belief in redemption, and thus any kind of reintegration is viewed with great suspicion. It is often claimed that “jailhouse conversions” are too easily manipulated as merely a claim by prisoners seeking early release, parole, or special privileges. In their studies of the role of religion from the perspective of inmates themselves, however, social scientists have noted the issues associated with religious activity in prison are not simple. On the one hand, religious involvement clearly offers benefits to prisoners. Time in chapel can often be a safe haven away from hostile prisoners, and can offer a form of friendship without the often associated loyalties that must be formed between prison gangs or racial groupings. Just having religious friends often serves to protect prisoners from the dangers of being seen as a loner without associates that look out for them in prison life. This is seen as equally important for prisoners who are Muslim as well as Christian. Finally, prisoners often sought the association with volunteers and religious leaders who represented some kind of regularized contact with the free world.

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On the other hand, studies have also shown that prisoners themselves doubt that religious involvement earns them any special favors, and even prisoners who are not religiously active express doubts that the “religious ones” are getting any special treatment. Furthermore, studies also show that inmate involvement in religious activities actually contributes to building positive self-images by allowing inmates to deal with their mistakes, and build a “new life.” In many cases, religious involvement helps them to face their mistakes by associating those mistakes with their “old life.” Do religious programs, however, actually contribute to transformation or “reform” of the individual prisoners, and perhaps even serve to reduce the rate of criminal behavior once they are released? This is normally a question of recidivism rates. Recidivism refers to the frequency with which former prisoners are returning to prison because of further criminal behavior after serving time. The impact on religion on recidivism has been a subject of interest for social scientists who surveyed a wide range of studies on religious involvement and delinquency among youth, and concluded that “religion consistently had a negative effect on delinquency,” and “religiosity was inversely related to delinquency” (Matthews and Blanchard 2005). That is to say, religious involvement among youth significantly reduced tendencies toward delinquent behavior. PRISON MINISTRIES AND EXPERIMENTS There are a number of prominent national Christian prison programs. Former White House aid Charles “Chuck” Colson, upon his own dramatic religious conversion before serving a short sentence for his involvement in the Watergate scandals in the Nixon White House, established Prison Fellowship, which is similar to other Christian Prison ministry projects such as Kairos Ministries who send volunteers into prisons to establish Bible studies and discussion groups. Encouraging letters are given to prisoners, written by volunteers with Kairos, and there are “graduations” from the program organized. A related organization, Kairos Outside, attempts to work with families of those who are imprisoned as a support group. Christine Money, warden of an allmale prison in Marion, Ohio, reported that in her fourth year as warden, the number of grievances filed monthly by prisoners had dropped from over 100 to single digit figures. Kairos Ministries claims that recidivism rates in the state of Florida were 15.7 percent among prisoners who had participated in only one session of their programs, and drops to 10 percent among those who are regular participants, as opposed to 23.4 percent for the general prison population. The recidivism rates are much higher nationally. Some estimates are as high as two-thirds of those released from prison will re-offend within 3 years. Other studies have noted similar positive results with Native American prisoners by initiating Native traditional religious programs into prison life (Irwin, 2006), and there are many Islamic prison programs as well, especially since the founding of the first chaplaincy training program for Muslims in the United

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States, located at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, whose graduates work in hospitals, corporations, or prison chaplaincy programs. In Europe, the development toward regularized prison work among Muslims is further developed than the United States, and in London, a Muslims Chaplaincy Association was founded in 2007 to formalize the selection, training, and employment of Islamic chaplains working in the prison system. THE NEW CONCERNS ABOUT RELIGION IN PRISON In his article in the World Policy Journal, Ian Cuthbertson (2004) reports on the growing concern with radical recruitment in prisons—conversions to both Islamic and American “Christian” hate groups advocating religious or racial dominance. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Pistole of the FBI called American prisons, “a viable venue for radicalization and recruitment” for Islamic organizations. Cuthbertson, however, also points to the “utterly abysmal conditions” suffered by prisoners in penal institutions in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Iraq, and Afghanistan, estimating that there were over 10,500 persons being held in these three places in 2004 (Cuthbertson 2004). The conditions themselves contribute to an openness to messages of radicalization. The concern is that prison conditions further encourage the spread of radical religious ideas, and that the British “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, and the American José Padilla—accused of trying to construct a radioactive bomb—were both converted to a radicalized version of Islam while in prison. REFORM OR PUNISHMENT? One of the most important sources of debate, therefore, is between those Americans who advocate the continued construction of prisons while denying expensive programs in those prisons (education and religious programs) which are seen as coddling the guilty (and thus these Americans have supported massive cuts in prison education programs). The common social attitude of let them rot, however, creates the very conditions of worsening radicalization and breeding of recidivism (gang violence in prisons that spills over outside the prisons) that leads to the increased need for prisons. It has been argued, however, that if prisons are only seen as places of punishment, and not treated in any way as potentially changing or reforming the prisoner—then the continued role of prisons as literal breeding grounds of crime and violence both inside and outside the prison will continue. The increased expenses of such let them rot policies will become increasingly crippling to state and national budgets (see Zehr 2005). The arguments for prison reform, improved prison health and education programs, and continued religious involvement in prison ministry, can now include the growing alarm expressed by the fact that radical groups appear to be using the bad conditions of prison as a basis for recruiting prisoners to hate groups.

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SUMMARY The recent alarm at levels of prison recruitment into radical hate groups has re-opened the issue of the role of religion in prisons. Religious ideas were part of the very formation of the modern prison system, for better or worse, and religious involvement has always been some part of the prison system. Within the United States, two sides of the debate on religion and prisons have tended to harden their views. As some more conservative political and religious attitudes in the United States toward crime have associated getting tough on crime with attitudes of let them rot in prison—and thus cutting education and other positive program benefits to those in prison—they are finding that they are actually increasing the problem of radicalization and recruitment in prisons, and increasing the levels of crime outside through gang activities. They find themselves having to argue for increased spending on prisons in order to get tough. Among major religious traditions, Christianity has the strongest tradition of teaching about visiting those in prison and taking care of the imprisoned, undoubtedly because of the legacy of imprisonment and persecution during the first 300 years of Christianity. The advocates of increased health and education spending toward a potentially positive use of prisons as places of penitence and, hopefully, redemption and transformation have tended to focus on celebrity cases of “jailhouse conversion.” Those who point to these cases would support increased programs that would eventually have the result of reducing social dependence on prisons that are becoming increasingly expensive. In short, more education and positive programs in prisons would result in the need for building fewer actual prisons. See also Capital Punishment; Gambling and Religious Conscience; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Clear, Todd, Patricia Hardyman, Bruce Stout, Karol Lucken, and Harry Dammer. “The Value of Religion in Prison.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 16, no. 1 (February 2000): 53–74; Cooey, Paula. “Women’s Religious Conversions on Death Row: Theorizing Religion and State.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 70, no. 4 (December 2002): 699–717; Cuthbertson, Ian M. “Prisons and the Education of Terrorists.” World Policy Journal (Fall 2004): 15–22; Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York City: Seven Stories Press, 2003; Irwin, Lee. “Walking the Line: Pipe and Sweat Ceremonies in Prison.” Nova Religio, The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 9, no. 3 (2006): 39–60; Johnson, Byron, De Li Spencer, David Larson, and Michael McCullough. “A Systematic Review of the Religiosity and Delinquency Literature.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 16, no. 1 (February 2000): 32–52; Kerley, Kent R., Todd Matthews, and Troy Blanchard. “Religiosity, Religious Participation, and Negative Prison Behaviours.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religions 44, no. 4 (2005): 443–457; Schmid, Muriel. “ ‘The Eye of God’: Religious Beliefs and Punishment in Early Nineteenth-Century Prison Reform.” Theology Today 59, no. 4 (January 2003): 546–558; Skotnicki, Andrew. “God’s Prisoners: Penal Confinement and the Creation of Purgatory.” Modern Theology 22, no. 1 (January 2006): 85–110; Spann, Johnny. “Front Line Dilemmas.” Christianity Today 50, no. 2 (February 2006): 38–41; Zehr, Howard. Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice. 3rd ed. Scottdale: Herald Press, 2005.

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

Just War

JUST WAR The tradition of just war theory asserts that, under certain conditions and restrictions, the use of force can be justified. Some contest the theoretical application of these normative rules to the ambiguities of war, whereas others—such as those in the pacifist tradition—reject any use of force as morally justified. The United States’ pursuit of a war on terror provides a case-study for debate on the ethics of war. THE ORIGINS OF JUST WAR THEORY AND ITS CONTENT St. Augustine (354–430) is one the earliest theologians who discusses the notion of a just war (though just war was also discussed by Augustine’s contemporary, St. Ambrose [c.339–97]). In The City of God, Augustine describes the misery of war even when just: “But the wise man, they say, will wage just wars. Surely, if he remembers that he is a human being, he will rather lament the fact that he is faced with the necessity of waging just wars; for if they were not just, he would not have to engage in them, and consequently there would be no wars for a wise man” (Augustine 1984, 861–862). Augustine believes that wars can be just if they comport with rationality, wisdom, and certain moral criteria such as self-defense, and the protection of the innocent against unjust aggression. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) appropriated the writings of Augustine and refined the criteria that constitute a just war. In his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas argues that just wars must be waged by competent authorities who possess a just cause and rightful intention (Aquinas 1920, q. 40. a. 1). Following Augustine, Aquinas defends ambushes (Aquinas 1920, q. 40. a. 3) as consistent with the just war criteria. These criteria were developed further by theologians such as Francisco de Vitoria (1486–1546). From these thinkers and the historical development of the just war tradition, basic principles emerge. The fundamental normative principles that govern classical just theory and the moral use of force can be generally characterized into two criteria. The first pertain to the justification for going to war (jus ad bellum) and the ends of war, and the latter pertain to justified conduct in conflict (jus in bello) and the means of war. The criteria for jus ad bellum include the following conditions. Just cause includes the right to self-defense in the wake of an attack, but is also mandates that nations seek peace, not hateful revenge. Just cause is frequently interconnected with right intention; nations should protect innocent persons from unjust attacks, and restore a just order for the broader social common good. Last resort (ultima ratio) means the exhaustion of all diplomatic avenues before the use of force out of necessity. Legitimate authority addresses conscience, but also properly recognized governmental structures that must undergird carefully designed mobilizations of power and armed forces. The final jus ad bellum principle is some reasonable probability of success, which helps ensure that the loss of life remains minimal. This criterion received intense scrutiny during the Vietnam War; many determined that—after considerable loss of life—the conflict had reached an impasse, and it no longer was justified. In

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JUST WAR THEORY AND TERROR The September 11 terrorist attacks generated enormous debates about the ethics of war. How does one determine proportionality and discrimination when innocent civilians are killed? Do the rules of just war—which assume a Westphalian system of nation states—apply against disparate and clandestine terrorist cells whose suicide bombings violate laws of war? Can we make moral judgments about the American response to terrorism? Adopting an Augustinian realism, Jean Bethke Elshtain (2003) holds that just war theory does not promote a realpolitik anything goes strategy in responding to terror. Just war restrictions were followed by the United States in its subsequent attacks on Afghanistan: “We can see that the U.S. military response in Afghanistan clearly meets the just cause criterion of being a war fought with the right intention—to punish wrongdoers and to prevent them from murdering civilians in the future.” Other thinkers such as Ronald Stone (2005), who also holds a realist position influenced by Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, have articulated concerns regarding the legitimacy of the war on terror: “The war in Iraq was not justified by defense against terrorism directed against the United States” and “The ‘war against terrorism’ in its worldwide dimensions is misguided.” Stone cautions that just war can easily morph into a triumphant militarism. He prefers a prophetic realism that mediates between just peacemaking and pacifism, on the one hand, and just war and militarism, on the other.

terms of the jus in bello principles, noncombatant immunity restricts violence against innocent civilians and bystanders; violent engagement can only occur against soldiers committed to battle. Additionally, proportionality stipulates that the goods to be achieved through the use of force must outweigh the destruction of the means. The use of force must be proportionate to the opposing force so as to avoid inflicting unnecessary suffering. There is considerable disagreement regarding the proportionality of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, which ended World War II, but at the cost of substantial death and suffering. Recently, some thinkers have begun to address postconflict aspects of war, or jus post bellum, which include peace treaties, reconstruction, and methods of reconciliation, and punitive aspects such as tribunals or trials for war crimes. MORAL USE OF FORCE AND APPEALS TO SCRIPTURE: MARIN LUTHER AND MENNO SIMONS In the Protestant tradition, there has been consistent appeal to Scripture as the normative use regarding the ethics of war and the moral use of force. Twentieth-century Theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) and Paul Ramsey (1913–1988) uphold the moral use of force, but these views derive from earlier theologians such as Martin Luther. Luther (1483–1546) was a Protestant reformer who firmly believed that God had entrusted humanity with the authority to use the sword, signifying the morally justified use of force. A scholar of Scriptural exegesis, Luther finds Scriptural grounds to support his claims: “Hence it is sufficiently clear and certain that it is God’s will that the sword and secular law be used for the punishment of the wicked and the protection of the

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upright” (1 Peter 2:14). The use of violence is a necessary means, according to Luther, of confronting a world ravaged by the effects of sin. Luther develops a conceptual theological model to explain further the use of force. He submits that God creates two kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world (that resemble, in some ways, Augustine’s two cities). True believers in Christ, and those who are obedient to Christ, inhabit the heavenly kingdom. Consequently, “these people need no secular sword or law. And if all the world were composed of real Christians, that is, true believers, no prince, king, lord, sword, or law would be needed” ((Luther 1962, 368–369). By contrast, those in the kingdom of the world include the unrighteous; the sword therefore functions as a means to control the wicked and to protect the innocent. If Luther were so committed to Scripture, how does he interpret Christ’s use of the sword? Luther acknowledges that Christ does not use the sword (cf. Matthew 5:39). Nonetheless, Luther insists that Christ does not absolutely reject the sword: “Therefore, even though Christ did not bear the sword nor prescribe it, it is sufficient that He did not forbid or abolish it, but rather endorsed it; just as it is sufficient that He did not abolish the state of matrimony, but endorsed it, though He Himself took no wife and gave no commandment concerning it” (Luther 1962, 379). Luther extrapolates from Christ’s teachings that one can never use the sword to promote one’s own interests. This theological and ethical restriction resembles the basic premise of just war: force can only be used in the service of protecting the weak neighbor. The central difference between Luther and just war theory resides in Luther’s negative anthropology, that is, his belief that humans are radically sinful, and this sinfulness threatens the earthly kingdom. Luther affirms, then, that individuals can and must undertake force to preserve order: “Therefore, should you see that there is a lack of hangmen, beadles, judges, lords, or princes, and find that you are qualified, you should offer your services and seek the place, that necessary government may by no means be despised and become inefficient or perish. For the world cannot and dare not dispense with it” (Luther 1962, 374–375). Luther’s theologically grounded concern for order was famously illustrated in his repudiating the 1524–1525 Peasants’ Revolt where an estimated 100,000 peasants were slaughtered. If Luther finds Scripture as grounds for supporting the moral use of force, Radical Reformer and Anabaptist leader Menno Simons (1493–1561) uses Scripture as grounds for rejecting any moral use of force. Simons’ followers became know as the Mennonites, one of the peace churches who practice pacifism. Simons appeals to text such as Isaiah 2:4: “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Simons contrasts the purity of the regenerated community and the depravity of the world; he emphasizes the retrieval of the discipline of the early Christian Church, and rejects the corruption of the present (Catholic) Church. Unlike Luther, who viewed the state’s use of force as the divine wrath of God (cf. Romans 13:1–7), Simons abrogates any official relations between church and state.

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JUST WAR THEORY AND IRAQ The first invasion of Iraq in August 1990, and the second attack in March 2003, have received intense scrutiny: do these Gulf Wars satisfy the moral criteria established by just war theory? Defenders point to the role of diplomacy and the ends achieved (the liberation of Kuwait) as definitively just for the first Gulf War. However, others express reservation regarding the methods of jus in bello: “I have grave doubts about whether it was really necessary to bomb the Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait as intensively as we did” (Miller 1992, 464). Jim Wallis has critiqued both Gulf Wars as having grave moral consequences for American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers, but he condemns the wars most emphatically, due to the enormous loss of civilian lives. Just war advocates argue that extremists have blended themselves with innocent civilians, thus requiring on the ground amendments to just war theory and the ethics of war. President Bush has argued that the establishment of democratic order and freedoms in Iraq justifies the tragic deaths of American soldiers. Critics argue that the conflict in Iraq has devolved into a civil war, that neither can be viewed in just war terms, nor can be justified on these terms (e.g., there is no probability of success).

In his 1550 text On the Ban, Simons advocates for radical imitatio Christi (imitation of Christ) as grounds for—in contrast to Luther—gainsaying the secular sword. For Simons, the use of force is never morally justified; rather, he recommends the ban as an alternative. Simons envisions two central moments, entering and departing from the Church. Baptism, which occurred as an adult, signifies entering the community as a member. The ban, whereby one is extruded by the community as a form of punishment, represents a response to sin and violence that does not itself enact violence. Simons derives the ban from Matthew 18:15–18: “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” When one in the community has sinned, he or she is shunned by the community, and must leave the community for a period of time until the sinner has repented and the offense has been healed. A CONSTRUCTIVE SYNTHESIS OF JUST WAR AND PACIFISM? In 1983, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote a pastoral letter entitled The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response. The Challenge of Peace is an important theological and ethical analysis of the use of force during a particularly volatile time of the Cold War. The Bishops hold

Just War

that “[t]he Christian has no choice but to defend peace, properly understood, against aggression. This is an inalienable obligation. It is the how of defending peace which offers moral options” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 1983, paragraph 73; original emphasis). These moral options include just war defenses and military service, as well as the refusal to bear arms, conscientious objection, and active nonviolence. Are these two approaches—one which views violence as morally justified, and one which views violence as morally reprehensible—antithetical? Can one uphold both options as moral without being contradictory? The Church argues that the two approaches are distinct but complimentary: “They differ in their perception of how the common good is to be defended most effectively, but both responses testify to the Christian conviction that peace must be pursued and rights defended within moral restraints and in the context of defining other basic human values” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 1983, paragraph 74). Building on the tradition of Catholic social teaching, The Bishops insist that the Christian has a responsibility to respond to unjust aggression. The solidarity of all humanity imputes a duty to confront aggression that corresponds with the tenets of just war theory: “This is why Christians, even as they strive to resist and prevent every form of warfare, have no hesitation in recalling that, in the name of an elementary requirement of justice, peoples have a right and even a duty to protect their existence and freedom by proportionate means against an unjust aggressor” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 1983, paragraph 78). However, the Bishops affirm that nonviolent means afford another way to confront this aggression. They identify nonviolent methods in Jesus’ life and teaching, St. Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King. The Bishops conclude that just-war teaching and nonviolence are “distinct but interdependent methods of evaluating warfare. They diverge on some specific conclusions, but they share a common presumption against the use of force as a means of settling disputes” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 1983, Paragraph 120). Other thinkers hold that such a synthesis cannot be coherently achieved. Glen Stassen (1988) and other supporters of just peacemaking reject the coexistence of peace and war; they believe that peace-building, social justice, nonviolent direct action, and preventative diplomacy offer alternatives to the use of force. They focus on peace mobilization through the work of the United Nations, and religious and political organizations such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Mennonite Central Committee, Global Action to Prevent War, and Global Nonviolent Peace Force. Stassen asserts that conflict resolution, protection of human rights and religious liberty, communal cooperation, voluntary associations, and arms reduction foster the goals of just peacekeeping, including the abolition of war (Stassen 1998). Theologians such as Stanley Hauerwas (1984; 1985) and Michael Baxter have similarly called for the abolition of war as mandated by a Biblical witness of peace and justice. They insist that no mediation of just war theory and a pacifist perspective can be argued on coherent theological and moral grounds.

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See also Apocalypticism and Nuclear War; Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence. Further Reading: Aquinas, Thomas. The “Summa Theologica” of St. Thomas Aquinas. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 2nd and revised edition. London: Burnes, Oates, and Washbourne. 1920; Augustine. Concerning The City of God against the Pagans. A new translation by Henry Bettenson. Introduction by John O’Meara. New York: Penguin Books, 1984; Cahill, Lisa Sowle. Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994; Christopher, Paul. The Ethics of War and Peace: An Introduction to Legal and Moral Issues. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994; Elshtain, Jean Bethke. Just War against Terror: The Burden of American Power in A Violent World. New York: Basic Books, 2003; Elshtain, Jean Bethke, ed. Just War Theory. New York: New York University Press, 1992; Hauerwas, Stanley. Against the Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society. Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985; Hauerwas, Stanley. Should War Be Eliminated?: Philosophical and Theological Investigations. Marquette: Marquette University Press, 1984; Kleiderer, John, Paul Minaert, and Mark Mossa, eds. Just War, Lasting Peace: What Christian Traditions Can Teach Us. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2006; Luther, Martin. “Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed?” In Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings. Edited and with an Introduction by John Dillenberger. New York: Anchor Books, 1962. First published 1523; Massaro, Thomas J., and Thomas A. Shannon. Catholic Perspectives on Peace and War. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003; Mattox, Mark. Saint Augustine and the Theory of Just War. London: Continuum, 2006; May, Larry, Eric Rovie, and Steve Viner, eds. The Morality of War: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006; Miller, Richard B. Interpretations of Conflict: Ethics, Pacifism, and the Just-War Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991; Miller, Richard B., ed. War in the Twentieth Century: Sources in Theological Ethics. Library of Theological Ethics. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992; O’Donovan, Oliver. The Just War Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; Ramsey, Paul. The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 2002; Stassen, Glen, ed. Just Peacemaking: Ten Practices for Abolishing War. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2002; Stone, Ronald H. Prophetic Realism: Beyond Militarism and Pacifism in An Age of Terror. New York: T and T Clark International, 2005; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response.” In Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage, eds. David J. O’Brien and Thomas Shannon. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002.

Jonathan Rothchild

L LIBERATION THEOLOGY Liberation Theology is a twentieth-century theological movement that intersects with grassroots struggles for social justice, especially throughout Latin America. Born out of the Roman Catholic Church, and especially the changes formed at the great church gathering known as “Vatican II” (in Rome in the 1960s), Liberation Theology includes an emphasis on the church’s role as one that “relates believers to the modern world” (Gutiérrez 1988). Advocates of Liberation Theology interpreted this to mean that the church is to be an advocate for believers, especially poor believers. Liberation Theology took the preferential option for the poor as a rallying cry and, through Christian-based communities (regular gatherings for study and prayer), worked for social and economic justice for the poorest peoples. Connecting to other global movements such as feminism and environmentalism, Liberation Theology has continued to expand, despite resistance from inside and outside the Catholic and Protestant churches. LEADING FIGURES Leading figures in the Liberation Theology movement are Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru, Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, and Leonardo Boff of Brazil. Peruvian Dominican priest and activist Gustavo Gutiérrez, defined the method of Liberation Theology as “critical reflection on Christian praxis in the light of the bible” in his 1968 address to the first South American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM) at Medellín. Praxis became a central term in Liberation Theology generally, and the term—meaning action—sought to focus all Christian

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action toward transforming unjust social structures in favor of the poor and dispossessed. While educated in Europe himself (Catholic University of Louvain, University of Lyon, Georgian University, Rome), Gutiérrez worked most of his career in Peru, and he emphasizes that Liberation Theology must be “home grown.” Theologies from Europe and America, however well intentioned, are not sufficient. The starting point of Liberation Theology, then, is specifically the experience of Latin Americans—and especially the unique context of suffering and economic depression. One of the most prolific liberation theologians is the Jesuit priest Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay. Segundo and Gutiérrez became good friends during their time together as students at Louvain. Called the dean of liberation theologians, Segundo has written extensively on the method of Liberation Theology. Segundo rejected a European-styled emphasis on individualized or personal readings of the gospel, and argued for a more contextual and social reading. The importance of the Bible for social situations—economic and political—was taught against an exclusively personal religion, only for the individual. In Liberation Theology, it was believed that these new interpretations of the Bible’s message would give way to new, positive social structures. Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit priest from El Salvador, writes extensively on the tradition of martyrdom within Liberation Theology. The way of being Christian in Latin America carries with it the mark of martyrdom, signified by the assassination of Monsignor Oscar Romero in 1980. While this particular death is well known, Romero is only one of the 70,000 victims killed by El Salvador’s armed forces and paramilitary death squads during the 1980s and 1990s. In part, Sobrino’s emphasis on martyrdom grows out of those deaths, as well as from being a member of the community of Jesuits who were assassinated by Salvadoran guards in 1989. Sobrino only escaped because he was in Thailand at the time. In the 1980s and 1990s Sobrino and his brother Jesuits carried on the work for social justice, pioneered by Monsignor Oscar Romero, with El Salvador’s poor and disenfranchised. Sobrino questions the role of human cruelty and indifference in the world and challenges the “developed world” to recognize their complicity in the suffering of the world’s poorest inhabitants. Brazilian Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff is another leading figure in the movement. His book, Introducing Liberation Theology, written with his brother Clodovis Boff, has been the foundation for base communities in Brazil (Boff and Boff 1987). Boff specifically advocates the notion that authority and ministry can come from below, rather than from the church hierarchy. He was silenced twice by the Vatican, first in 1985, and again in 1991, for his “politicized” theology. After honoring a second year of silence, Boff left the priesthood and continues to act as an advocate for the poor and disenfranchised as an honorary professor of theology at the University of Rio de Janeiro. VATICAN II While Liberation Theologians trace their lineage back to Bartolomé Las Casas, who advocated for the rights of South American Indians already in the

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sixteenth century, the origin of Liberation Theology can be found more recently with a proclamation originating in the Second Vatican Council. The Vatican document, Gaudium Et Spies (Joy and Hope), calls for greater human equality, both social and economic. In the landmark Second Vatican Council held from 1962 to 1965, the council called for the Church to engage in a renewed involvement in the world, and to give attention to the dignity of all humans, specifically in political and economic aspects. As a result, one of the commitments to arise from the council was a sense of obligation for the church to relate to believers, especially the poorest of believers, through the liturgy and the relationship of the church to governments. The council furthermore articulated a concern for social justice over the accumulation of wealth. The council called for the Church to take a position of energetic conversation and exchange with the modern world in order to learn from, as well as teach, secular, non-Christian, and Protestant persons. Liberation Theologians enthusiastically took up this injunction to dialog with secularists, and freely incorporated social sciences into their theologies. MEDELLÍN, 1968 In the wake of Vatican II and its new articulation of the Church’s relationship to the world, liberationists like Boff and Gutiérrez focused on social sciences in dialog with theology in order to develop a theology of liberation. This method of constructive theology linked salvation and liberation as a way of understanding the relationship of God’s free gift of salvation on the one hand, and human efforts at liberation on the other hand. While traditional theology has used Western philosophy as a basis for reflection, Liberation Theology uses the critical and liberating perspectives of the social sciences—including elements of Marxism— to identify the root causes of oppression, and to reflect critically on formulating Christian action to overcome this oppression in society. Liberation Theology is a new way of doing theology—a theology of praxis from the perspective of the poor, and through their struggle for justice and for liberation. Because Liberation Theology calls for a new way of acting as Christians in the world, liberationists are activists first and foremost. This is reflected especially in the activities of communidades eclesiales de base or base Christian communities (called CEBs) in Latin America. CEBs were fully articulated at Medellín. The conference at Medellín, the first Latin American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM), encouraged use of communidades eclesiales de base for organizing social, political, and religious justice among the poor and disenfranchised. A second goal of the CEBs was to render the Bible more accessible, utilizing the Bible as a tool for educating and empowering the poor. CEBs are groups of between 5 and 30 individuals who meet to worship, read the Bible, and make plans for social justice in their communities. Reading the Bible through the lens of their struggle for justice, CEB members understand God as an advocate of justice. CEBs focus on education, teaching the members basic literacy skills through reading the Bible. For example, evidence of God’s partisanship toward the poor and outcast is found in the Hebrew Bible. The role

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of God in Exodus is a particularly poignant passage for liberation theologians, and is emphasized in the CEBs (Exodus 3:7–8). Likewise, liberationists emphasize Jesus’s solidarity with the poor and outcast, as seen in the Gospels. These biblical images then guide their Christian practice as disciples of Jesus, creating a relationship of solidarity between Jesus and the poor, shaping and guiding advocacy for social change. Liberation is broad term within Liberation Theology, including not only the establishment of political and social justice and freedom from oppression for the poor, but also liberation from sin. When speaking of sin, liberationists tend to emphasize social sin, embodied in unjust societal and institutional structures such as racism and sexism. These unjust social systems lead further to individual sin. The bishops at Medellín condemned the “institutionalized violence” of poverty, and denounced capitalism and communism equally, placing blame for hunger and misery of the poor of the world on the rich and powerful. Following Vatican II, Liberation Theologians see continuity between justice and liberation in this world and the fullness of the Kingdom of God in the next world. Their primary focus, however, is on this world. One of the first social theorists embraced by liberationists was Karl Marx, and this was clearly expressed at Medellín. While Liberation Theology specifically rejects the atheism of Marxism, and the apocalyptic notion of supernatural intervention in the political world, Marx provided important and necessary categories for understanding the experience of poverty and oppression in Latin America. Liberation Theology is founded upon a central notion of God’s (and the Church’s) preferential option for the poor that dictates its understanding of tradition, biblical texts, and philosophy. At Medellín, the conference of bishops took specific aim at the system of capitalism, arguing that it “militates against the dignity of the human person.” Major components of Liberation Theology were formulated by Gustavo Gutiérrez, just prior to the conference at Medellín. Gutiérrez’s book, A Theology of Liberation, marks the first full expression of Liberation Theology (Gutiérrez 1988). The bishops at Medellín emphasized that Liberation Theology starts from an experiential perspective, more specifically, it begins from the experience of the Latin American poor. The focus is then on a bottom up approach to theology, as seen in the CEBs. Theology is not done in the ivory towers of distant first world academies, but rather by “ ‘militant theologians’ working with the pilgrim people of God engaged in their pastoral responsibilities” (Boff, 1987). Leonardo and Clodovis Boff (1987) indicate that Liberation Theology has several themes: • • • • • • •

Solidarity with the poor Real faith requires liberating action God sides with the oppressed God is actively working to set up the Kingdom of God in history Jesus attacked oppression and his gospel is one of freedom from oppression God is found in the struggle of the oppressed Mary is a “prophetic and liberating woman”

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• God supports the rights of the poor • “Liberated human potential becomes liberative” A quick examination of these themes shows several commonalities. First, there is a focus on the poor and the oppressed. Second, God has a clear preference for the oppressed and the poor. God, Jesus, and Mary are all invoked on the side of liberation. Finally, there is clearly a class emphasis at the root of Liberation Theology’s analysis. While Gutiérrez and the Boffs rebel against oppression of any kind, including sexism and racism, at the bottom it is class oppression that is paramount for their articulation of Liberation Theology. The tone for this type of class analysis was set at the Medellín Document on Peace, specifically the section titled, Tensions between Classes and Internal Colonialism. There, the bishops identify some of the problems as “Extreme inequality among social classes,” “Forms of Oppression of dominant groups and Sectors,” and “Power unjustly exercised by certain dominant sectors” (CELAM 1968). Likewise Gutiérrez, diagnosing the problem that leads to oppression and degradation of the poor, states quite clearly, “only a class analysis will enable us to see what is really involved in the opposition between oppressed countries and dominant peoples” (1988). COMMUNIDADES ECLESIALES DE BASE CEBs A detailed study of CEBs in El Salvador during the 1980s identified three ways CEBs contributed to politically mobilizing the poor. First, the local religious community was democratized in the CEBs, and through this mutual empowerment, those people were able to question institutional structures and existing systems of authority. Second, CEBs helped people develop leadership and organizing skills, especially in rural areas. Through the democratization of the CEBs, there was an emphasis on speaking in public, and working toward consensus rather than a hierarchical expression of power within the community. This gave individuals who would usually have said little about church or God or their community, an opportunity to participate in their church and community actively, leading to the second step of leadership and organization in order to change society at the grassroots level. For example, members of CEBs participated in community building projects and trade cooperatives. Lastly, CEBs strengthened collective identity among the poor, and helped them develop a sense of solidarity that comes from their struggle together. This solidarity then informs their relationship to each other, society, Jesus, and God. Cohesion at this local level leads to political solidarity and, in the case of El Salvador, participation in revolution. CEBs emphasized empowerment from the base, rather than from the top down, and functioned as the grassroots of Liberation Theology. PUEBLA, 1979 The second South American Bishops Conference was held in Puebla, Mexico in 1979. The newly elected John Paul II attended this conference. There, he affirmed the conclusions of Medellín regarding the preferential option for the poor

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that the bishops had articulated at the first South American Bishops’ Conference, but the Pope also cautioned against the misuse of secular political theories. He declared that Christ is not a political figure, nor a revolutionary, and said it was wrong to identify the Kingdom of God with an earthly political situation. He validated the liberationist’s concern for social justice, while at the same time finding the use of secular social theories profoundly wrong. VATICAN RESPONSE Following Pope John Paul II’s address at Puebla, the Vatican issued two instructions on Liberation Theology in the 1980s. The first, Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation, was released in 1984. This Instruction has at its heart a rejection of the possibility that Marxist analysis can make any constructive contribution to Catholic theology. The Instruction rejects the idea that Marxism is science, and that Marxism provides a strategy for changing society. The Instruction denies that any of these elements can be removed from Marxism in order to give it any validity in constructive theology. While this Instruction does not use terms such as heresy or errors, the Vatican voiced concern that liberationists deviated from church teaching. In 1986 the Vatican released a second instruction on Liberation Theology. Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation continues the themes developed in the first Instruction regarding Marxism, but this second Instruction is more hopeful about the possibility of achieving political liberation and freedom through social movements. The second Instruction acknowledges political uses of biblical narratives, such as Exodus, but subordinates political interpretations to “spiritual interpretations.” Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation cautions religions against encouraging popular piety toward a “purely earthly plan” of liberation, calling that “nothing more than an illusion.” The two instructions indicate that the aspect of Liberation Theology most alarming to the Vatican is the Marxist elements. Liberation Theology should be purged of its Marxist taint, and these Instructions offer guidance from the church of the issues of liberation, and the role of religion in political and social unrest. SANTO DOMINGO, 1992 This fourth meeting of the South American Bishops’ Conference was called to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the Americas. The theme of this conference was evangelization and human development. The conference emphasized the “preferential option for the poor” as articulated at Medellín. John Paul II spoke at the opening of this conference and called the bishops to practice a “genuine praxis of liberation” as set forth in the two instructions issued during the 1980s. Having effectively offered the final official word on Liberation Theology through the two instructions, the Vatican acted to change the role of the leaders of the movement. Throughout Latin America, liberationist priests and bishops were replaced with more conservative priests and bishops. And yet the Liberation Theology continues to be an important

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and effective voice in the Catholic Church, and to develop and grow in Latin America. NEW DIRECTIONS During the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, Liberation Theology has continued to use the CEBs to organize and expand. Because their emphasis is on praxis (practice or action), liberationists see Christianity as an active community of believers, and have continued to work with that goal in mind. Feminist and black theology, as well as ecologically informed theologies, have intersected with, and been woven into the fabric of Liberation Theology. One of the areas that both Boff (1995) and Gutiérrez (1988) focus on in their latest writings is the environment. Social solidarity has been expanded to include creation. Defending indigenous land rights and fighting for the respect for life at all levels is part of the humanistic endeavor of liberationists. Identifying the paradigms of development and consumption as the main causes of the worldwide ecological crisis, liberationists see the connection between the global environmental crisis, and the poor health and ever-increasing high rate of mortality of the earth’s poorest inhabitants. Gutiérrez articulates this commitment as “poverty means death, unjust and premature death” (Gutiérrez 1988). The activism cultivated through CEBs, combined with the fact that the majority of the Catholic Church’s constituency is poor, will continue to effect the way that theology is done, at least in those areas in the developing world most exploited by the developed world. See also Bible and Poverty; Capitalism and Socialism. Further Reading: Alves, Ruben A., and Elsa Tamez. Against Machismo: Ruben Alves, Leonardo Boff, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Jose Miguez Bonino, Juan Luis Segundo . . . And Others Talk About the Struggle of Women: Interviews. Yorktown Heights, NY: Meyer-Stone Books, 1987; Assmann, Hugo. Theology for a Nomad Church: Practical Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986; Boff, Leonardo. Ecology & Liberation: A New Paradigm. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995; Boff, Leonardo, and Clodovis Boff. Introducing Liberation Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987; Gutiérrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988; Hennelly, Alfred T. Theologies in Conflict: The Challenge of Juan Luis Segundo. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979; Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM). “Medellín Document on Peace.” In Third World Liberation Theologies: A Reader, ed. Deane William Ferm. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1968; Peterson, Anna L. Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion: Progressive Catholicism in El Salvador’s Civil War. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997; Second Vatican Council. “Gaudium Et Spies.” 1965. Available at: http://www.rc.net; Segundo, Juan Luis. Liberation of Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1976.

Laura Ammon and Randall Reed

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M MARKETING RELIGION Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ was the surprise box office hit of 2004. Generating in its first year more than $370 million in domestic revenue, the movie went on to garner more than $600 million from theater attendance revenues, and another $400 million in DVD sales. Advertising, sales promotion, and ubiquitous publicity are what got people off their couches on a Friday night and into the local multiplex. But unlike other mediocre Hollywood films, The Passion had several elements that enhanced its box office potential: an A-list movie star as director and spokesperson, a story with a built-in audience, and a topic—religion—that readily lends itself to controversy. What are the issues raised in a market-driven economy like that of the United States when religious products become deeply involved in the economic system? PROBLEMS IN RELIGIOUS MARKETING IN A MIXED RELIGIOUS AMERICAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY At first, the controversy revolved around whether The Passion was anti-Semitic. That controversy was initiated and then exacerbated by the film’s producers for months before the film’s release. By framing the controversy as anti-Semitism, the producers opened up the film to a new market—Jews—an audience that would likely have otherwise avoided the film altogether. One of the issues raised by this aspect of the film’s promotion, is whether negative marketing can itself be an effective tool in religious products as much as it is used in other product marketing (e.g., “bad reactions are better than no reaction,” or more crudely, the old Hollywood adage: “There is no such thing as bad publicity”).

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As this controversy began to die down, a new one appeared. This latter controversy became a question as to whether Mel Gibson himself was anti-Semitic. It further became clear that Mr. Gibson’s personal religious beliefs were based in strict pre-Vatican II Catholicism and therefore ultraconservative—controversial even in Catholic circles. The extent of his conservatism and possible anti-Semitism was fueled by stories about Gibson’s father, who was widely reported as being anti-Semitic (he claimed that the Holocaust was mostly fiction), and was believed to have passed those beliefs down to his son. Of course this was not the only publicity associated with the film. There were stories about Mel Gibson funding the movie himself. There were stories about how true to the Gospels the movie was. There were the typical stories about the making of the film. In sum, the publicity machine was humming in full force right up to the opening day. Even after the film opened, publicity ran for months, which is an unusual course of events for a Hollywood film. Stories subsequent to the film’s release focused on audiences’ response to the film. In particular, news stories centered around the idea that people viewed the film not so much as entertainment, but as a religious experience. There were several reports of audience members having heart attacks; one man confessed to a murder he had committed years ago; still others were moved to affirm or reaffirm their faith. This free publicity, which was valued in the millions of dollars, was supplemented by other traditional film marketing elements. For example, there were e-mails from Amazon.com promoting the movie to anyone who had purchased religious or spiritual books, there were appearances by Mr. Gibson on a number of television talk shows and newsmagazines, and there were the typical commercials on television, and ads in local newspapers. DIRECT MARKETING TO CHURCHES AND CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS However, it was the marketing that most people did not see that drove the ultimate success of The Passion. Grassroots marketing, led by Gibson himself, was developed in conjunction with local churches throughout the country. Evangelicals, charismatics, and Roman Catholics were the target markets for this film. Thirty invitation-only screenings were held for high-level church leaders and the heads of prominent evangelical organizations. The first of these occurred in Colorado Springs, Colorado, home of many of these institutions, including the ultraconservative Focus on the Family run by James C. Dobson. The leaders of these organizations, and many others, were encouraged to purchase blocks of tickets for their institutions, and to suggest that the local churches do the same. More than $3 million in advanced tickets sales were generated through this campaign. Church promotions began in December 2003—a full two months before the movie opened. The Pastors’ Action Kit provided churches with information via the Internet (www.passionmaterials.com) on how to tie into The Passion. Promotional ideas included showing trailers of the film at church, putting up banners, inviting parishioners to attend a screening, and, of course, buying out an

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entire theater screening and taking the congregation. Sermon suggestions were promoted to correspond with the Christian calendar, and information about what aspects of the movie to discuss in relationship to these sermons was provided. There were also special materials targeted to the teen audience via church youth groups. Just as in secular films, ancillary products were created in conjunction with the movie’s release. These products included book tie-ins and coffee mugs like other Hollywood fare, but they also included crosses and—one of the most popular items—small and large pewter nail pendants on a leather string, which retailed for between $12.99 and $16.99. As with most major motion pictures, a soundtrack was created. The Passion soundtrack sold 50,000 units the day it was released, making it the third highest selling first-day soundtrack. Initially, this product, as with others associated with the film, was distributed primarily through traditional Christian bookstores. However, products were distributed more widely as the success of the film translated beyond the initial narrowly targeted groups. WHY WAS THE PASSION IMPORTANT? The Passion of the Christ showed in the most blatant of ways that religion is a product, no different from any other commodity sold in the consumer marketplace. The Passion started with a defined target audience, created secondary targets through promotion and publicity, and perpetuated the product’s relevance through creating ancillary businesses. And while initially the objective was to sell a film, we can see from the sustaining campaigns and comments made by the director, that the ultimate objective was to promote religion itself. Another reason why The Passion was important is that it furthered the notion that while religious practice is very much privatized, religious presentation and promotion has become widely acceptable within our culture. Many forms of religion are being advertised and promoted in a way never seen before. Churches advertise on billboards and in print media. Books sell us all types of religious and spiritual wisdom. Television has become overrun with religious content, with no fewer than eight channels presenting sermons and faith-based programming 24 hours a day, not to mention religious content in broadcast prime time and as regular content for nightly newsmagazines. IS MARKETING REALLY NEW? While the intensity of religious messages is new, marketing religion is not. It has been going on for centuries. When Gutenberg invented the printing press in the fifteenth century, for example, much of the early advertising was to sell Bibles. In America, the need for religious marketing stemmed from the First Amendment right to freedom of religion, something the Founding Fathers believed was fundamental to the establishment of the democracy. Choosing one’s religion was as important a right as freedom of speech, or the right to petition the government against grievances. Establishing no state religion meant that

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people would be free to choose how to worship, or not to worship. With no state-mandated religion, religions had to compete for parishioners, and oftentimes that meant using marketing techniques, from simple print advertising to door-to-door salesmen, as evidenced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, competing in the religious marketplace was simple in simpler times. For centuries, new Americans brought religion with them from their home countries, and passed that religion down from generation to generation. Houses of worship carried significance in the communities where they served because they were a place for community, as well as a place for worship. Going to church was not only about God, but also about making social connections. Churches were able to maintain their value and their numbers because social agents—family, work, and even the congregation itself—supported remaining in a single faith throughout one’s lifetime. This began to change as American society moved from agrarian to industrial. First, the opportunities to connect with other people presented themselves as part of daily life, particularly through one’s place of business, thus usurping the church’s monopoly on community building. Second, as the baby boom generation came of age in the 1960s, children rebelled against the older generation in myriad ways, including rejecting the faith of their parents. The flexibility to choose one’s faith combined with reduced social stigma attached to not attending services meant that churches were no longer ensured a congregation. Finally, increasingly more sophisticated communications technologies—first the radio, and then television and the Internet—provided alternative forms of communication that could be used for connecting with others, as well as a means for distributing religious content. The church was no longer the only source of religious information—and in fact has become the least convenient one—and thus continued to erode in value. This is not to say that religion or spirituality has diminished in acceptance. America is one of the most religious countries in the world, certainly the most religious industrialized country. Poll after poll touts the fact that 90 percent or more of Americans believe in some form of higher power, whether it is God, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, or some other lesser known entity (though almost 75 percent claim to be Christian according to Simmons Marketing Research). Not only are Americans religious, or spiritual, as some prefer to call it, but we readily buy products and services that relate to our faith. We do this because, as mentioned earlier, traditional religious institutions are not the primary source of spiritual sustenance for most people anymore. While nearly 8 out of 10 Americans claim belief in a higher power, only one out of three attends religious services on a regular basis. Specifically, only 26 percent of Americans go to church or synagogue regularly—that is, at least once a month—even though close to 90 percent believe in God. Doing the math, that means more than 60 percent of Americans get their faith from something other than a religious institution. People attend movies, read books, and participate in religious chat rooms, all of which are diminishing religious bodies’ direct influence on religious consumers. Instead of going to church, we wear T-shirts with WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) or Jewcy

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emblazoned on our chests. We buy Christian rock albums and New Age crystals. In fact, we spend more on religious/spiritual/self-help books than any other country, which makes total sense, given the size of the target market (79 percent of Americans), our faith beliefs, and our consumerist culture. All of this is to say that religion as practiced in the United States is an autonomous, self-oriented religion. This individualized religious practice, famously noted by Bellah and his colleagues in the mid-1980s, was called Sheilahism, named after a nurse who created her own form of religious practice. Since that time, other scholars have seen this pastiche of religious practice as a continuing trend. More recently this cafeteria religion is believed to be increasingly fueled by a commodity culture. In 2003, research estimates put the market for religious publishing and products at $6.8 billion, and growing at a rate of nearly five percent annually. This market is subdivided into three categories: books (the largest segment, with $3.5 billion in sales and a seven percent growth rate); stationary/giftware/ merchandise (sales at $1.4 billion, and a 4.5 percent growth rate); and audio/ video/software ($1.4 billion in sales and flat). Given the current interest in religious products, which continues to be fueled by The Passion, experts estimate that the market will grow at almost a five percent annual rate for at least the next three years, reaching $8.64 billion in sales (Seybert 2004, 50). But even this tells only part of the story. Unlike other product categories, there is no standardized means for collecting data on religious products and services. Therefore, these numbers are misleading, and in fact significantly underreport the money consumers spend on these products and services. In the book segment, for example, there is little uniformity in what constitutes religious or spiritual content. Some religious-oriented titles can be categorized as fiction, or even science fiction in one store, as in the case of the Left Behind series, a fictional series based on the End Times, for example, and as religion in another. In terms of other media, these numbers do not include theatrical films like The Passion of the Christ, which in, and of itself, would add 14 percent to the total spending in the category. Nor does it include religious television, which is a viewer-supported, several billion dollar industry, and growing, as evidenced by the recent introductions of numerous digital channels dedicated to religious programming. These numbers do not reflect the money spent on religious seminars, lectures, or spiritual adventure travel. So from a consumer product and service perspective, what is being tracked is just the tip of the iceberg. A good indication of where religious marketing is heading is evidenced by the fact that Wal-Mart, the behemoth of all retailers, has jumped on the religious retail bandwagon. In 2003, the company sold more than $1 billion in Christian book and music titles, and they are quoted as saying that they are “looking at this as a huge opportunity for the future” (Seybert 2004, 13). WHY RELIGIOUS MARKETING HAS PROLIFERATED There are two main reasons why religious marketing has permeated our culture. First, millions of Americans have been set free to choose their religion.

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The ability to choose has created the real open market for religion. Yes, when the Founding Fathers chose not to force a particular religion on the country, they were promoting the proliferation of religious choices. However choice is no choice if the rest of society (and particularly your mother) makes you go to a specific religious institution. In addition to the elimination of familial pressure to attend religious services, there is no longer a social stigma attached to not attending church. Given the aforementioned statistics, you are more likely to see your neighbor in the local mall on Sunday than in your local church. Second, in the last 20 years, the level of media saturation in general has reached a height never imagined. In addition to cable television, we now have digital cable, with the average home having the ability to receive more than 130 channels, not to mention direct broadcast satellite with its capacity to deliver several hundred channels to the home of anyone willing to pay for them. The Internet, with broadband access, has become a household item for many people, and where this is not the case, people readily access cyberspace in their workplace or at their neighborhood library. The media beast needs to be fed with content—all types of content. The simple fact that there is more media means that there is more religious media. Tied into the proliferation of media is the ubiquitous advertising that goes with it. Our interactions with advertising have led us to expect certain things from marketers, specifically, convenience and entertainment. These expectations have migrated to the realm of spiritual practice. Religion is no longer tied to time and place; it can be practiced any time of the day or night via the media without going to a sacred space. So, traditional religious institutions have to compete not only with brick and mortar churches, but also with religion presented in other forms. The Internet, for example, presents information about all aspects of religious products and activities, from Beliefnet, a comprehensive site about all things religious, to opportunities to worship through online churches—everything from the Vatican to the Church of the Blind Chihuahua. A 2004 study called Faith Online, by the Pew Research Center, found that almost two-thirds of Internet users had used the computer for religious or spiritual purposes (Hoover, Clark, and Rainie 2004). Television presents religious programming through 24-hour cable channels, including the Inspiration Network and the Prayer Channel, and Sunday morning religious infomercials too numerous to mention. Thus, seekers can receive the word of God in their homes 24 hours a day. This is not to say that the physical church or synagogue or mosque will disappear. Just as the VCR did not eliminate the local movie theater, the computer or plasma screen will not destroy the local place of worship. People like to experience events—religious or otherwise—in physical community. It does suggest, however, that traditional and nontraditional institutions have to compete with more entertaining forms of religious practice. In the same way that elementary schools have been forced to compete with Sesame Street over the past 30 years, religious institutions now have to compete against online churches, 24-hour religious networks, and even a recently announced 24-hour gospel music channel. If one does choose to go to church, consumers have a heightened expectation of being entertained, which is usually met with music and dramatic presentations. Moreover, believers expect

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an experiential practice, that is, a more personal connection to God wherein they experience His presence. Sermons from on high just won’t cut it for the majority of today’s religious consumers. One of the most successful segments of religious media is the book publishing industry, which in the last few decades has become big business, and is getting bigger. Look at The New York Times bestseller list on any given week and you will see multiple religious or spiritual titles on it. For example, books by popular pastors, such as The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and Joel Osteen’s Your Best Life Now, have become perennials on this list. See also Animation as a New Media; Graphic Arts; Religious Publishing; Western Cinema. Further Reading: Beaudoin, T. Consuming Faith: Integrating Who We Are With What We Buy. Chicago: Sheed and Ward, 2003; Bellah, R., R. Madsen, W. M. Sullivan, A. Swidler, and S. Tipton. Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985; Carrette, J., and R. King. Selling spirituality: The silent takeover of religion. London: Routledge, 2005; Cimino, R., and D. Lattin. Shopping for faith: American religion in the new millennium. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998; Clark, L. S., ed. Religion, Media and the Marketplace. New Brunswick, N.J., 2007; Einstein, M. Brands of Faith: Marketing religion in a commercial age. London: Routledge, 2008; Finke, R., and L. R. Iannaccone. “Supply-side explanations for religious change.” The Annals of the American Academy (AAPSS) 527 (1993): 27–39; Hoover, S.M., L. S. Clark, and L. Rainie. “Faith online.” Pew Internet and Public Life Project. 2004. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Faith_Online_2004.pdf (accessed February 17, 2005); Miller, V. J. Consuming religion: Christian faith and practice in a consumer culture. New York: Continuum, 2004; Moore, R. L. Selling God: American religion in the marketplace of culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Roof, W. C. A generation of seekers: The spiritual journey of the baby boom generation. New York: HarperCollins, 1993; Roof, W. C. Spiritual marketplace: Baby boomers and the remaking of American religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999; Seybert, J. EPM’s guide to the Christian marketplace: Selling books, music, gifts and videos to America’s 218 million Christians. New York: EPM Communications Inc., 2004; Twichell, J. B. Shopping for God: How Christianity Went from In Your Heart to In Your Face. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007.

Mara Einstein From Einstein, M. (2008). Brands of Faith: Marketing religion in a commercial age. London: Routledge.

MARRIAGE, SEXUALITY, AND CELIBACY Contemporary debates on marriage, sexuality, and celibacy involve the function of sexuality (does it pertain more to procreation, pleasure, or some combination of both?), the indissolvable nature of marriage (is it more akin to a covenant or a contract?), and the fundamental right to marry (should samesex couples be granted marriages?). The heart of these debates lies in a question about the resonance or dissonance between the Scriptural and traditional grounds of marriage, and contemporary practices.

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THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SEXUALITY One of the challenges for theological reflection concerns the function of sexuality. Procreation (Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply”) and union of one flesh (Genesis 2:24) grounds biblical claims about the importance of procreation as a gift from God. The Song of Songs celebrates sensual, bridal, and sexual imagery (e.g., Song of Songs 1:2: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” and Song of Songs 4:5 “Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies”). Mystical theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux have implemented these images as part of the spiritual union with God. Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body examines sex within the rubric of theological anthropology. Arguing that humans are the integration of mind and will, the Pope contends that the body expresses who we are as persons. Sexuality relates to the person because it represents the bodily expression of love, that is, mutual self-donation. The Pope views sexuality as a means by which we can love others as the union of body and person (Pope John Paul II 1981). These positive images must be juxtaposed with other descriptions of sexuality in Scripture, including the account of the fall in Genesis 3. Rather than a sense of intimacy, the text reveals “enmity between you and the woman” (Genesis 3:15), “pangs in childbearing” (Genesis 3:16), and hierarchy (“he shall rule over you,” Genesis 3:16). The account of the fall represents a view of sexuality that is ambivalent and fraught with deconstructive tendencies. As Eve consented to the temptation of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (and thereby disobeyed God), later interpreters began to conflate sexuality, sin, evil, and estrangement from God. Should any pleasure associated with sexual activity be valued in and of itself? Should sexuality be reserved exclusively for married persons for the purposes of procreation? Classical Christian theologians, drawing on Scripture and tradition, have promoted a vision of sexuality rooted in marital commitments, and designed by God for purposes of procreation. Contemporary theological ethicist Christine Gudorf critiques traditional Christian understandings of sexuality. She censures the view of thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, who “maintained that sexual pleasure is something that humans have in common with animals” (Gudorf 1995, 83). Gudorf contends that such perspectives do not appreciate sexuality as a truly human good. She remains more concerned with the implications of Augustine’s understanding of sexuality as irresistible. She writes that “the Augustinian understanding of sexual pleasure as an evil that robs humans of control of their actions and causes them to ignore the rights and needs of others has tended to prevail in American Christian culture” (Gudorf 1995, 83). More broadly (with respect to current notions of sexuality), this understanding has resulted in sexual avoidance, excuses for irresponsible behavior, and the misuse and abuse of women by men. By contrast, Gudorf insists that we can, and do control sexual pleasure, and we must strive for sexual pleasure that is consistently mutual. She argues that human beings are created for experiencing pleasure, and thus she does not believe that they should feel compelled to undertake celibacy.

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She does not repudiate all forms of celibacy, but she cautions that pleasure remains central to the human condition: “Permanent celibacy, as any other form of pleasure deprivation, should be chosen only with the understanding that the individual accepts this deprivation as instrumental in procuring some greater pleasure, and has developed appropriate alternative avenues for satisfying the physical, emotional, and symbolic human desires normally satisfied by sex in this culture” (Gudorf 1995, 99). In reconstructing Christian conceptions of sexuality, Gudorf submits that mutual sexual pleasure should be the ethical criterion for evaluating sexual activity. She argues that mutual sexual pleasure celebrates the goodness of sexuality without lapsing into hierarchy or abuse. Moreover, she believes that there is a Scripturally-grounded basis for mutual sexual pleasure: “Christianity has never really taken seriously the real wisdom of Jesus’ injunction to love neighbor’s as oneself: that love of neighbor must begin with love of self ” (Gudorf 1995, 115; original emphasis). The mediation of love of self, and love of other, presents difficult challenges for theological interpretations of sexuality. Love of the self in ordinate ways is tantamount to sin, lust, and the inability to love the other without instrumentalizing them. The inundation of sexual images, their commodification, and their portrayal of women as submissive objective (e.g., pornography) render sexuality as impersonal (and thereby obviating the mediation of love of self and love of other). Sexuality, according to many contemporary theologians (e.g., Au 1989; Farley 2006; Cahill 1996), is naturally good, but it is also potentially destructive, in that individuals can experience alienation and suffer abuse. Freudian models of sexuality seem to undervalue the goodness of sexuality; they insist that persons must repress their sexual drives that inevitably lead to fixation and guilt. THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON MARRIAGE Hebrew Scriptures The Hebrew Scriptures depict marriage and procreation as fundamental to God’s creation. Immediately following the creation of human beings in God’s image, God declares that humans should “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). Moreover, in the second creation account, God deems that human beings should not be alone (Genesis 2:18) and that marriage helps, in profound ways, to achieve relationality (“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” Genesis 2:24). Genesis dedicates significant attention to family lineage, and God (YHWH) makes promises—secured in, and through covenant—that relate to the proliferation of these lineages. Despite the account of the Fall (Genesis 3) that introduces pain, enmity, and hierarchy into marriage, and the patriarchal assumptions and practices within marriage, fidelity, holiness, and righteousness are centrally located within marriage and family. God’s covenant (see Exodus, the book of the covenant) establishes a model of loving trust between God and God’s people that conveys the depths of the commitment of marriage (e.g., “Thou shall not commit adultery,” Exodus 20:14).

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NEW TESTAMENT In the New Testament, Jesus upholds the sanctity of marriage as divinely instituted. He refutes adultery (consistent with the Mosaic code), but he also— intensifying and interiorizing the law—repudiates lust in the heart (Matthew 5:27–30); he also rejects divorce, and identifies marriage as grounded in God’s intention for the world (“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” Matthew 19:6). In terms of the question of not marrying (and, given that sexuality only was to occur within marriage, not engaging in sexual intercourse), Jesus affirms the varieties of celibacy: “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let any one accept this who can” (Matthew 19:12). The New Testament, however, also presents challenges to the notion of marriage as the principal way of Christian living. In Luke 14:26, Jesus preaches: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” Furthermore, the apostle Paul affirms that the celibate life offers an appropriate model within the eschatological context: “I think that, in the view of the impending crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife . . . Yet those who marry will experience distress in this life, and I would spare you that” (I Corinthians 7:26–27; 28). This affirmation of celibacy continued for centuries in the Christian tradition, particularly among religious communities. Consecrated virgins, monks, nuns, and priests took vows to uphold obedience, poverty, and chastity. Chastity reflected control of the body and the importance of the soul, where the only marriage that occurs is in the marriage with Christ. THEOLOGICAL TRADITION Early Christian martyrs frequently made choices that reflected a commitment to God over and above commitment to family (see Luke 14:26 reference above). The martyrdom account of Perpetua, for example, records her decision to give up her infant in order to give her own life for God. An important voice in defending marriage was St. Augustine (354–430), who developed an account of marriage, sexuality, and family in his treatise On the Good of Marriage (c. 401). Concerned about the lascivious and sinful dimensions of sexuality, but determined to defend the goodness of creation (and, by extension, the goodness of the Creator), Augustine insists that marriage is the only acceptable relationship for sexual intercourse. He articulates three goods of marriage: fidelity (a bond with one’s spouse that functions as a remedy for lust); sacrament (a bond with God that is eternal and indissoluble); and offspring (children). Augustine characterizes the first two goods as the unitive goods or aspects of marriage, and the third good as the procreate good or aspect of marriage. He concludes that the unitive and procreative aspects are inseparable; hence, anything that severs them is not morally licit. Between the fourth and thirteenth centuries, weddings were rarely performed by priests in churches (though priests would bless marriages after the civil

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ceremonies). Marriages were principally means by which economic and political ties could be strengthened, and offspring ensured the succession of property and possessions. A shift in the theological grammar used to describe marriage occurred in the Middle Ages. Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas, view marriage as a natural gift of God, but also a supernatural—in, and through the sacramental character of God’s self-bestowal of God’s sanctifying grace—and eternal gift. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) clarified further that Catholic weddings must occur in a church, and be performed by a priest, to ensure its sacramental character. In the early modern period up through the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Church emphasized the communal dimensions of marriage, where the sacrament means that marriage consists of the relationship between spouses, but also the relationship with the church, children, and community. The sacramental character, the “unbreakable oneness” according to Pope John Paul II (1981), ensures that marriage is indissoluble. MODERN CHALLENGES: THE RISE OF COHABITATION AND DIVORCE Since the 1960s, the state of marriage in the United States has been under intense pressure. Many point to the cultural understandings and attitudes toward marriage as one of the catalysts for this pressure. On the one hand, cohabitation, or unmarried sexual partners living together, has risen dramatically. It is estimated that in 2000 there were more than 5.5 million couples cohabitating in the United States. Studies identify economic, cultural, religious (or lack thereof), and other factors as explanations for this rise in cohabitation. On the other hand, the rates of divorce also rose steadily from the 1960s, peaking in the 1980s, and reaching a plateau in the 2000s. Even as Jesus explicitly rejects divorce for any reasons (Mark 10:2–12 and Luke 16:18), divorce rates in the United States are highest in those states that constitute the Bible belt. Some thinkers point to the increasing cultural acceptance of divorce as the catalyst within religious and secular circles, whereas others suggest that legal mechanisms, such as no-fault divorce laws (whereby divorces can be granted simply for irreconcilable differences), exacerbated divorce rates. The notion that marriages are merely contracts, began to overtake understandings of marriage as covenant. Others insist that broader socioeconomic changes—for example, enhanced opportunities for women, the effectiveness of artificial birth control, the decline of religion, and the loss of morality—account for both of these phenomena. Some theologians, such as Rosemary Radford Ruether (2000) and Margaret Farley (2006), view some aspects of these phenomena as potentially positive, particularly for women. That is, women no longer need to sacrifice themselves solely for the good of the marriage. Others, such as Pope John Paul II, worry that they reflect selfishness, rather than selflessness, and cause grave harm to the institution of marriage and to children. The longitudinal studies of Judith Wallerstein have shed light on the potential long-term effects of divorce. For example, her studies indicate that children of divorced parents typically experience difficulties in establishing intimacy later on in life when they are adults.

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COVENANT MARRIAGES Louisiana, Arkansas, and Arizona have passed legislation for covenant marriages in their states. These marriages, which individuals would voluntarily select, require that individuals undertake various steps to ensure that marriage is a lifelong commitment. First, premarital counseling is mandatory before these states will grant a covenant marriage. Second, marital counseling is required if the marriage experiences challenges and there is contemplation of divorce. Third, there are restrictions on when and why divorces could be granted (e.g., period of separation and no irreconcilable differences). Other states have attempted such measures, but legislative debates have reached impasses. Some argue that states are attempting to implement a Judeo-Christian notion of covenant that might violate the separation of church and state. Others worry that the restrictions ascribed to such marriages limit personal freedoms and the pursuit of happiness. Only a small percentage of marriages in these states are covenant marriages, but some argue that their potential successes might inspire other states to develop such legislation in the hopes of strengthening marriages and improving the lives of children.

DEBATES REGARDING SAMESEX MARRIAGE Current Legal and Political Developments In 1996, the United States Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in anticipation of the legalization of same-sex marriage. The act defines marriage as between a man and a woman, and stipulates that states do not have to recognize the marriage laws of other states that grant samesex marriage. Furthermore, DOMA prevents same-sex couples from receiving any of the federal rights or benefits of marriage (which currently include over one thousand benefits). Forty-four states have adopted some version of the DOMA provisions. In 2000, Vermont created civil unions (which have been adopted as domestic partnerships in several states, including California, Washington, and Oregon), that allowed heterosexual and homosexual couples to have similar, but not equivalent, legal benefits. Defenders of civil unions claim that it protects and promotes the rights of all couples, whereas opponents of civil unions claim that such unions function as separate but equal and thus are viewed as (legally and socially) inferior to marriage. In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage violated the state’s constitution by denying due process and equal protection under the law to same-sex couples. In May, 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to grant same-sex couples the right to marry. Several cities, notably San Francisco, seized upon the legalization and recognized same-sex marriages within their jurisdictions. This recognition prompted state legislatures to act to deny these marriages, and to implement mechanisms to prevent future same-sex marriages. In November, 2004, 11 states voted to ban same-sex marriages. As of August 2007, 27 states have amended their constitutions to ban same-sex marriages. During the same time period, however, several countries, including Belgium,

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Canada, The Netherlands, Spain, England, and South Africa, have legalized same-sex marriages. In November, 2006, Arizona became the first state to vote down a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriages. It is difficult to predict political sentiment within the United States and outside of it, but it is clear that the political disagreements will remain quite polemical. A fundamental question within the political debate remains: Is there a fundamental right to marry? Political scientist Evan Gerstmann, for example, argues that such a right is a constitutionally protected right. Noting similarities between the United States Supreme Court’s 1967 rejection of Virginia’s antimiscegenation statute, and the desire of same-sex couples to receive legal recognition of their marriages, Gerstmann states: “There is a well-established, fundamental constitutional right to marry that is not limited to child-bearing couples” (Gerstmann 2004, 110). The fact that same-sex couples cannot have their own biological children should not, according to Gerstmann, preclude their legal right to marry one another. Gerstmann supports his claim by appealing to legal precedence and by asserting that though “the Constitution protects the right to bear children, it also protects the right to avoid having them by using contraceptives, to abort them, to bear them out of wedlock, and to raise them in nontraditional settings” (Gerstmann 2004, 92). Theological Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage The Catholic Church condemns both homosexual acts, and proposals for legalizing same-sex marriage. In July 2003, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) (prefect, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) issued Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons. The text begins by articulating the nature of marriage and its inalienable characteristics. Focusing on first two creation accounts’ depiction of the biological complimentarity between men and women, and the function of sexuality therein, the text posits that “God has willed to give the union of man and woman a special participation in his work of creation” (CDF 2003, paragraph 3). Would same-sex marriage comport with such participation? The text gainsays any correlation with same-sex marriages: “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family” (CDF 2003, paragraph 4). Engaging Scripture and Christian tradition, the CDF views homosexual acts to be a serious depravity and objectively disordered, though it does affirm that persons with homosexual tendencies should be accepted with respect, and not discriminated against in unjust ways. Persons with such tendencies are called to a life of chastity. The CDF insists that civil authorities cannot legitimate the “evil” of homosexual unions by legalizing them. In constructing an argument again legal recognition of homosexual unions, the Church appeals to four different orders; the order of right reason, the biological and anthropological order, the social order, and the legal order. The order of right reason pertains to the natural moral law, where—following the model of Thomas Aquinas that civil law is the application of natural law to specific communities—“civil law cannot contradict right reason without losing its binding force on conscience” (CDF 2003, paragraph 6). The argument from the

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biological and anthropological order points out that homosexual unions cannot naturally procreate (and also should not utilize new reproductive technologies; see related entry on birth control and family planning). Moreover, the CDF contends that children raised by same-sex couples would not develop fully: “the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons” (CDF 2003, paragraph 7). In terms of the argument based on the social order, the text claims that the institution would be redefined, thereby harming the common good. Individual pursuit of autonomy (and, in this case, the right to marry) cannot override, the text holds, the values of society. Finally, according to the argument from the legal order, marriage is legally sanctioned by the state because it ensures the succession of generations; as same-sex couples cannot achieve reproduction for the common good, it does not merit this legal recognition. The text concludes with a brief discussion about the role of Catholic politicians vis-à-vis legislation in favor of homosexual unions. The CDF notes that when legislative debates arise, “the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it” (CDF 2003, paragraph 10). Among organized religious groups, some mainline Protestants and liberal Catholics support gay marriages, but white Evangelicals, Black Protestants, and conservative Catholics reject that legal right for homosexuals. These groups adopt similar positions to civil unions, though religious individuals defend it vis-à-vis gay marriage. See also Abortion; AIDS; Female Subordination in Christian Thought; Homosexuality. Further Reading: Au, Wilkie. By Way of the Heart: Toward a Holistic Christian Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1989; Cahill, Lisa. Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; De La Torre, Miguel A. A Lily Among the Thorns: Imagining a New Christian Sexuality. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007; Farley, Margaret. Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006; Gerstmann, Evan. Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Gudorf, Christine. Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1995; John Paul II, Pope. “Familiaris Consortio.” 1981. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/ apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio_en.html; Kidder, Annemarie. Women, Celibacy, and the Church: Toward a Theology of the Single Life. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2003; Loader, William. Sexuality and the Jesus Tradition. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2005; Ryether, Rosemary Radford. Christianity and the Making of the Modern Family. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000; Schneiders, Sandra M. Seeing All: Commitment, Consecrated Celibacy, and Community in Catholic Religious Thought. New York: Paulist Press, 2001; Scott, Kieran, and Harold Horell, eds. Human Sexuality in the Catholic Tradition. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2007.

Jonathan Rothchild

MUSLIM MINORITIES IN THE WEST Approximately 10 to 15 million Muslims live in Western Europe, and anywhere from 6 to 10 million reside in the United States. As a minority, Muslims

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have struggled to maintain their Islamic identity, safeguard their family values and lifestyle, and worship according to the tenets of Islam. Although the beginnings of Muslims in Western Europe and America were significantly different, the twentieth century has seen parallel experiences. Efforts by both Muslims and the West are being made to improve relations and coexist peacefully. MUSLIM BEGINNINGS IN AMERICA Today, Muslims with citizenship in America possess all of the rights of citizens, and are free to practice their religion in accordance with the constitution. However, the first Muslims to arrive in America were not free, but brought over from West Africa as slaves during the colonial era. Although some were religious scholars, they were not allowed to practice their religion, and were forced to accept Christianity. It was not until the 1800s that Muslims, mostly Arabs, came to the United States of their own free will. Poverty and political instability under the Ottoman regime were the deciding factors that caused them to immigrate. Arriving from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine they did not wish to create Muslim communities, but intended to return to their home countries. Nevertheless, many did not return to their homeland, sending for their families to join them. At the turn of the twentieth century, American Muslims practiced their faith within the home, seeking no recognition as a member of a religion different than that which was considered normal in America. Many assimilated into American culture, especially the youth, who attempted to become more like their white peers. Refusing to learn Arabic and turning to non-Muslim partners for marriage, the Muslim identity was beginning to disappear. In order to prevent the further erosion of their culture, American Muslims began to build communities in the hope of re-establishing their Islamic distinctiveness. Muslim beginnings in America were humble, and documented evidence of the first Muslim groupings was found in the Midwest—North Dakota presumably the earliest. Syrians and Lebanese attended the first Islamic Center in Michigan City, Indiana, around 1914, which led to the formation of the Modern Age Arabian Society in 1924. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, saw the construction of a mosque in 1934, which is still attended and referred to as the Mother Mosque of America. New York City has been home to a Muslim population since the late 1800s. Polish, Russian, and Lithuanian Muslims created the American Mohammedan Society in Brooklyn in 1907. By the 1930s, the Moslem Mosque was established, and is still functioning. Today, Muslims from nearly every country in the world live in New York City, resulting in an increase in the number of Islamic centers, mosques, and schools. Chicago also saw an influx of Muslim immigrants, mostly Syrians and Palestinians, in the late nineteenth century, and by the early 1900s may have been the home of more Muslims than any other city in America. Today there is much cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity among the Chicago Muslim population. The Nation of Islam, an African-American heterodox group known as Black Muslims, established its base in Chicago. By 1895, Muslims from the Punjab had arrived in California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada, and in 1947, the partition of India resulted in an increased

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immigration of Indian Muslims. Today, California is home to Muslims from all over the world, in particular to those from the Middle East, Iran and South Asia, as well as recent Muslim immigrants from Afghanistan, and refugees from some African countries. Los Angeles and San Francisco have seen the most growth, as evidenced by The Islamic Center of Southern California located in Los Angeles. Dearborn, Michigan, saw the first influx of Muslims when Sunni Ottoman Turks arrived in the early 1900s. After the launch of Dearborn’s Ford Motor Company plant in the latter part of the 1920s, an Arab community began to grow. Today, large numbers of Lebanese, Yemeni, and Palestinian Muslims are settled in Dearborn where Sunni and Shi’i Arab Muslims enjoy a close relationship. Quincy, Massachusetts, due to its location as well as jobs created by the shipping business, became a home to Muslims, the majority being Lebanese, after 1875. Seven families consisting of Sunni and Shi’i, provided the inspiration for the establishment of the Islamic Center of New England. NATION OF ISLAM From the late nineteenth century and through more than half of the twentieth century, Muslims lived quietly without much notice from their fellow Americans. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century there were some converts to Islam. These new Muslims were mostly African Americans who were drawn to the racial and ethnic equality that was professed by Islam. In Detroit in the early 1930s, Wallace D. Fard claimed that he had just come from Mecca with a message of liberation for black Americans. According to Fard, they were the descendants of the lost ancient tribe of Shabazz. He encouraged separation from the white American oppressor, and established the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in the Wilderness of North America. Fard mysteriously disappeared in 1934, and Elijah Muhammad, formerly Elijah Poole, one of Fard’s most ardent followers, became the leader of the Nation of Islam. Preaching a message of black militancy and separatism, he condemned white society for its oppressive policies toward blacks. He predicted the inevitable downfall of the white racist society, with the rise of the black community whom he referred to as a Chosen People. The teachings of Elijah Muhammad encouraged self-reliance, self-improvement, and empowerment, and forbade gambling, alcohol, drugs, and laziness. However, the Nation of Islam differed greatly from mainstream Islam. Its racist doctrine and the belief that Fard was Allah and Elijah Muhammad was the last prophet were antithetical to true Islam. The Five Pillars of Islam were not adhered to, and major Islamic traditions were not followed. Malcolm X, a renowned member of the Nation, initially followed the teachings of Elijah Muhammad’s theology. However, in 1964, he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and renounced his once firm belief that races could not coexist. On his return to the States, he declared himself a Muslim, rather than a Black Muslim. Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, followed by the conviction of two members of the Nation. In the 1970s, with approximately 100,000 members, the Nation integrated with mainstream Islam, under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad’s son, Warith Deen Muhammad. This, however, met resistance with Louis Farrakhan, who maintained that

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the original teachings of Elijah Muhammad were accurate. Claiming leadership of the Nation, Farrakhan continued to preach black militancy and separatism. In recent years he has led the Nation toward traditional Islamic practices, and claims that the Nation now meets the standards of mainstream Islam. MUSLIM IMMIGRATION DURING THE 1960s The 1960s saw an influx of Muslim student immigrants with the advent of the civil rights movement. Immigrant students established Muslim student organizations on many of the college campuses across America. Some returned home becoming influential in their own countries, while others remained. Many had been recruited by the United States, and eventually became professionals in areas of medicine, engineering, and other sciences. Muslims began to question what their role was to be in a non-Muslim society. Active participation in a nonMuslim government might not be considered permissible according to Islamic law. However, this issue would soon be addressed through American opinion, not Islamic decree. CONFLICTS IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Arab Americans came under the scrutiny of the United States Government. The FBI spied on individuals and organizations within the Arab-American community and interviewed anyone associated with them—employers, neighbors, friends, and family. Already under suspicion, Muslims became increasingly singled-out as a threat to America with such events as the Iranian revolution, hijackings, and hostage situations. John L. Esposito writes, “Some saw these events as signs of an Islamic threat or a clash of civilizations, Islam versus the West. America’s relationship with Muslims was seen within a context of conflict and confrontation. Islam was viewed as a foreign religion, distinct from the Judeo-Christian tradition. This reinforced a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’” (Esposito 2002). Instances were reported in which Muslim activists were arrested and their possessions confiscated, although there was no evidence of any wrong doing, and Palestinian activists, even though they were U.S. citizens, were threatened with deportation. Anticommunist laws were supplanted by antiterrorist legislation aimed mainly at Arabs. Arabs were not only excluded from political campaigns, but often campaign donations from Arab Americans were returned. Arab-Americans have regarded this unfair treatment as the intent of the U.S. government to marginalize them, and not afford them the same rights as non-Arab citizens, including freedom of speech. During the 1980s and 1990s, according to a study in Chicago, participation in civil activities was minimal, with the exception of a few Arabs who did not fit the typical physical description of Arabs, display their ethnicity, or openly express their opinion about U.S. foreign policy. Although there was improvement in the 1990s, Arabs still felt uncomfortable outside their own community. One of the biggest problems in the American Islamic Community has been that Americans have had very little accurate information about Muslims. Within

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the last 40 years, negative stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims by the media has resulted in discrimination in the work force and society. While Americans have had little understanding of Muslim beliefs and customs, Muslims have struggled to define their identity within a pluralistic American culture. Issues, such as the role of women, education, worship traditions, the relationship between men and women, intermarriage, and the question of how devotion to one’s faith integrates with loyalty to one’s country, have created concerns within the Islamic community. MODERN AMERICAN MUSLIMS The modern American Muslim woman is outspoken in her demand for equality. The traditional separation of men and women during worship or in public meeting places in America is a choice that the woman is allowed to make. She also has the right to define her own manner of dress. Dressing conservatively has been the general rule, but that which defines conservative dress is up for discussion. Education is not only considered important for men, but is highly encouraged for women, as it is seen as a religious duty and a preventative measure against the repression of women that has plagued Muslim women in other countries. Marriage between men and women in America still favors the man. Although the man is free to marry Jews or Christians as long as his children are raised as Muslims, women, on the other hand, are restricted to marrying within the faith. This double standard, which leads to a lack of selection, results in the inevitable marriage of American Muslim women to men from their home countries. Another area in which Muslims have sought solutions concerns Muslim worship in America. In the past, imams were brought to America from Muslim countries. However, there existed a lack of understanding on the part of these foreign religious scholars concerning the unique set of problems that American Muslims face. Within the last couple of decades, American-born Muslims have been trained as imams in order to successfully handle these issues. Also, Muslims have reached out to Christians and Jews, participating in interfaith discussions. Probably the largest quandary facing American Muslims is the question of how to stay true to the faith and still be loyal to America. As America became involved in disputes with Muslim countries, the question of loyalty to faith or nation arose. The anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment that accompanied these conflicts resulted in a shift in identification during the 1990s. Instead of identifying themselves as Arabs, Palestinians, or Jordanians, the Islamic community started to view themselves as Muslims first. Feeling rejected in the democratic society, the American Muslim began to turn to a transnational orientation focusing on the common ideals of Islam. This sentiment was to become a larger issue with the tragic events of September 11, 2001. SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 The aftermath of 9/11 brought immediate attention to American Muslims. Terrorists espousing Islamic phrases and ideals, however distorted, placed the

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Muslim community in a potentially volatile situation. President Bush, recognizing the potential for retaliation on Muslims, quickly beseeched all Americans to understand that Islam is a religion professing peace and not terrorism. As non-Muslim Americans have had to process the events of September 11, 2001, so too have Muslim Americans. Omid Safi (2006) describes three ways in which American Muslims have dealt with the situation. Initially, the perception among the Islamic community was that Muslims did not carry out the terrorism. Instead, a plot was concocted by the CIA or Israel’s Mossad to vilify Muslims, in order to rationalize a violent retaliation on Muslim countries. Muslims all over the world held this view, and many American Muslims came to believe it as well. This type of thinking developed out of the disbelief that any Muslim could possibly perform such a monstrous act. After the realization that Muslims did engage in such activity, under an undeniable body of evidence, a rush to distance the true Muslim from the terrorist became paramount. Al-Qaeda was an aberration, and simply not representative in any way of the Islamic community. Finally, the third alternative is the realization that Islam can be interpreted in many ways, and can be used to justify violence. In fact, all the major religions can be construed so as to find a basis for good or evil acts. All three views are attempts by Muslims to understand and come to terms with a shocking event that has affected their entire lives. In the post-9/11 era, a critical question remaining is: what will be the relationship between the American Muslim community and the rest of American society? A broad survey of mosque leaders taken in 2000 (Mosque in America: A National Study [MIA]), has been followed up by interviews in 2002 with the same mosque leaders, along with consideration of American Muslim literature pertaining to these concerns. The results have shown that almost all of the Muslim leaders wish to take part in American society without relinquishing their fundamental Islamic beliefs and traditions. There is a certain degree of trepidation concerning the secular and materialistic nature of American society, along with what Muslims view as the immoral behavior of Americans. Another issue that causes unease is America’s foreign policy, which they believe to be biased and unfair. And although the Muslim community desires an active role as citizens, many are not comfortable with American demonstrations of patriotism. Many issues facing American Muslims also face European Muslims. HISTORY OF MUSLIMS IN WESTERN EUROPE Muslims have lived in Europe since the eighth century, and controlled Spain and areas of Italy and France, until Fernando of Aragon and Isabella of Seville began a campaign in the late fifteenth century to expel Muslims. Today, Muslims of virtually all ethnic groups reside in Western Europe. Most Western European countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Norway, and Austria are home to considerable numbers of Muslims, with France, Germany, and Great Britain being the most populated. Great Britain and France experienced some immigration before World War II, however, a greater influx

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occurred afterward. Educated Muslims, whose countries were no longer under colonial domination, sought work in the same European countries that had once been the colonizers. During the 1960s and 1970s, Europe’s booming economy was creating jobs that required unskilled laborers. Over a million Muslims poured into Germany, France, and Great Britain. Soon, Muslim students sought higher education in Europe, and while many returned to their home countries, some stayed, either for political or economic reasons. France, with five million Muslims, claims the largest Muslim population in Europe. Ten percent of its inhabitants are Muslim, and of those, many reside in major cities. Next to Roman Catholics, Muslims constitute the second largest religious group, and boast more than 1000 mosques. However, the Muslim experience in France has not been a positive one. At one time welcomed by the French to help with a labor shortage, working class Muslims are now accused of taking jobs that should belong to French citizens. Muslim girls wanting to wear the headscarf (hijab) have come under criticism due to the pressure by the French government to assimilate. Making matters worse are the influx of North Africans from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria—former French colonies. Violence in Paris, reportedly carried out by Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group, and attacks against Jewish synagogues, have added to the already increased tensions. Many are expressing doubt that Islam can ever be harmonious with French secular culture. Most Muslims living in France do not have the privilege of voting, the same is true in Germany. Between one and two million Muslims reside in Great Britain, most of which came from the Indian subcontinent. There are more than 600 mosques in Britain, many having been funded by Saudi Arabia. Since most Muslims have come from British Commonwealth countries, they enjoy full citizenship, participate in local politics, and occupy seats in the House of Lords and the House of Commons. But not all has gone smoothly for British Muslims. In the late 1980s, when Khomeini issued his fatwa on Salman Rushdie for the publication of the Satanic Verses, Muslims were targets of hostility. A speech was delivered in Oxford by the Prince of Wales in 1993, in which he admitted that “misunderstandings between Islam and the West continue.” CONCLUSION While most of the Muslims in Western Europe are working class, Muslims in the United States are middle class, finding employment as doctors, intellectuals, and engineers. As a result, American Muslims have experienced more acceptance than European Muslims. Today, the American Muslim community (orthodox, heterodox, Sunni, Shi’i, or Sufi) is experiencing a trend of inclusion, and an acceptance of Islam as an American religion. In spite of the negative attitude toward Muslims following 9/11, a majority of American Muslims have reported that non-Muslim Americans have shown compassion and kindness, and have even offered protection. Although the history of Muslims in Western Europe is different than that of Muslims in the United States, many of the present-day concerns are the same. The struggle to retain their Islamic identity,

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uphold their family values and lifestyle, and the ability to carry out Islamic traditions, remain challenges for the Muslim minority in the West. See also Islamic Nationalism; Nation of Islam. Further Reading: Armstrong, Karen. Islam: A Short History. New York: The Modern Library, 2002; Bagby, Ihsan. “Isolate, Insulate, Assimilate: Attitudes of Mosque Leaders toward America.” In A Nation of Religions: The Politics of Pluralism in Multireligious America, ed. Stephen Profero. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006: 23–42; Cainkar, Louise. “No Longer Invisible: Arab and Muslim Exclusion after September 11.” Middle East Report 224 (Autumn 2002): 22–29; Esposito, John L. What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, from One of America’s Leading Experts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; H.R.H. The Prince of Wales. “Islam and the West.” Arab Law Quarterly 9, no. 2 (1994): 135–143; McCloud, Aminah Beverly. “Islam in America: The Mosaic.” In Religion and Immigration, eds. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Jane I. Smith, and John L. Esposito. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2003: 159–174; Safi, Omid. “Progressive Islam in America.” In A Nation of Religions: The Politics of Pluralism in Multireligious America, ed. Stephen Profero. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006: 43–60; Smith, Jane I. Islam in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999; Suleiman, Michael W. “Arab-Americans: A Community Profile.” In Islam in North America: A Sourcebook, eds. Michael A Koszegi and J. Gordon Melton. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1992: 49–58.

Candace Lev

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N NATION OF ISLAM The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a black, nationalist, religious, and political movement founded to empower African American people in light of ongoing racism and oppression that they were experiencing. The movement has come to be associated with controversial teachings, and its most famous member, Malcolm X. Since its inception in 1930, the organization has offered an alternative teaching and worldview that appeals to some African Americans who have otherwise given up on mainstream American values and Christianity as possible systems of liberation. The Nation of Islam is a unique, peculiarly American form of Islam that combines a black nationalist social, political, and economic program with a religious doctrine fused from Islam and Christianity. While mainstream Muslims (notably Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims), do not recognize the Nation of Islam as a legitimate form of Islam, the movement’s leadership has always maintained that they are indeed Muslims, who have had to address very particular cultural and social ills within the United States, thus requiring a revised doctrine, that speaks to those ills. Most notably, mainstream Muslims specify that Islam is a universal religion, open to all people regardless of color. This differs significantly from the exclusivity of the Nation of Islam, which is a movement specifically targeted to African Americans, and is specifically not open to Caucasians, who are seen as the enemy, indeed, the devil incarnate. The NOI developed out of a black nationalist, social context that preceded it in at least two other movements, including the first American Black Muslim group, the Moorish Science Temple Movement founded by Noble Drew Ali in 1913. While the NOI grew to be the most dominant form of African American Islam, Noble Drew Ali had previously presented a form of Islam to poor and

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disenfranchised black Americans in order to address many of the same issues that the NOI would later approach. Ali believed that a black nationalism would save black people from white hatred and bigotry that continued to plague them. The founder, and subsequent leaders of the NOI, would build upon this foundation laid by Ali. The Moorish Science Temple Movement would eventually decline following the death of its founder. A second black nationalist movement was also instrumental in providing a context for the Nation of Islam. Marcus Garvey and his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), advocated a back to Africa program in 1916 as a means for African people throughout the world to have a foundation and homeland apart from European and American countries. Garvey’s plan for the uplift and economic empowerment of black people throughout the Americas continued to play a dominant role for African Americans in the 1920s. He would gain the support of hundreds of thousands of black Americans who were willing to join him and build Liberia into a home base for Africans returning to the continent of Africa. Although Garvey would later be deported from the United States, following a conviction for mail fraud, and the movement crippled, Garvey’s impact would continue to be felt in subsequent black leaders, including Elijah Poole, who would later become the leader of the Nation of Islam. These prior movements illustrate a new consciousness among African Americans, a thought pattern characterized by confidence, independence, black theology, and a concept of self-help. These movements were appealing and compelling for a large number of African Americans over a period of years from 1900 to 1930, because they seemed to offer an alternative way of life, free from the restrictions and obstacles of racism. The Nation of Islam would simply tap into that consciousness and build on it in an enormously impactful way. By 1930, the African American social context was ready to receive a teaching like the Nation of Islam. African Americans were dealing with vicious forms of racism in the forms of lynchings, Jim Crow segregation, and dehumanizing treatment in their daily lives. Black Americans felt that local and federal government agents were infested with the same racism as the people they encountered every day, and so could not be counted upon to change the system. Many African Americans began listening to the teachings of black nationalists who proclaimed that self-help was the only alternative. In particular, some African Americans began listening to the teachings of Fard Muhammad, (sometimes spelled Farad), who announced that Allah had come to rescue his people from their oppression. Fard Muhammad has remained a mysterious figure in terms of his heritage, birth place, and personal background. As a very fair-skinned black man, many have speculated about his origins, writing that he was perhaps Arabian or Polynesian, or any number of other nationalities. Whatever his ancestry, it is clear that he emerged in 1930, and began his ministry in Detroit, first appearing as a door to door salesman, who would offer more than just his wares to people. He spoke to poor and disenfranchised black people, offering them a message of identity, history, morality, communal responsibility, and empowerment. One of the people, who heard Fard Muhammad, was Elijah Poole.

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The 1930s were a time of economic depression, following the stock market crash of 1929, and Elijah Poole, like most people of this time, found himself struggling to make a living for himself and his wife, when he met Fard Muhammad in 1931. Poole was so profoundly moved by these new teachings that he became Muhammad’s most ardent pupil and disciple. He even came to believe that Muhammad was God in the flesh, a messiah figure. Consequently, the history and theology of the Nation of Islam would teach that Muhammad was the Great Mahdi, or messiah, who had come to liberate African Americans from their oppression. Poole joined with Muhammad, and learned history and religion according to this new perspective, ultimately becoming the leader himself. From this point on, Elijah Poole took the name Elijah Muhammad, following the teaching of Fard Muhammed that blacks should renounce their Christian slave names and take on Arabic or African names as befitting them as a people. As the Nation of Islam began to take shape, Poole would understand himself to be Fard Muhammad’s messenger or prophet. Muhammad disappeared by 1934, leaving Elijah Muhammad to assume leadership for the organization. One of the first things that Elijah Muhammad set out to do was to describe and articulate the teachings of his predecessor Master Fard Muhammad. (He began to do so as a person of very little formal education. He maintained that these teachings had to have been delivered by Allah, because he (Elijah) had not been well educated, and thus could not have made up these doctrines.) The basic teaching of the NOI under Fard and Elijah Muhammad was that God would appear to his people in the form of a messiah (Fard) in order to deliver them (black people) from their enemies (whites) and teach them how to destroy their white adversaries. Moreover, blacks should understand themselves to be descendants of the lost nation of the ancient tribe of Shabazz, from whom the founding prophet of Islam, Muhammad had descended. African Americans should further understand that though they were once “lost in the wilderness of North America,” they are now “found,” and being guided by God through Fard and Elijah Muhammad on the true teachings of who they are as a race of people. (This idea and these terms link to the biblical idea of the ancient Israelites who, according to the book of Exodus, wandered in the desert following their flight from Egyptian bondage. African Americans are thus like the Israelites for whom God has intervened against an oppressive political and social structure.) For some African Americans who had been suffering under enslavement, racism, violence, and civil disenfranchisement, this type of program had wide appeal. NOI followers were empowered by teachings that affirmed their human dignity, even in this case, at the expense of demonizing all white people. African Americans felt that this teaching gave them confidence, and opportunities for self-improvement, despite the hatred and limitations imposed upon them by white society. Some African Americans found the NOI to be a refreshing alternative to more mainstream teachings by Christian ministers and accommodationist leaders, who cautioned blacks against radical doctrines and actions. In addition to providing a theology and a genealogy, the NOI teachings inform a particular set of beliefs and core values for its members. The NOI teaches that Islam is the true religion for African Americans because it was a dominant

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religion in Africa prior to the slave trade. Some scholars, such as Sylviane Douf, have attempted to document the early practices of Islam on slave plantations. These numbers are largely lost to history because enslaved Africans were prohibited from practicing Islam, thus we have no exact count of African Muslims who were brought to the United States in bondage. Nevertheless, the NOI reclaims Islam for contemporary African Americans based upon this ancestral link. They believe that despite the large number of African Americans who are Christians, Islam is the true religion for all people of African descent. Moreover, the Nation of Islam’s program of uplift for African Americans is built upon certain values. These values include thrift, honesty, race solidarity, discipline, monogamy, and a concern for black history and Third World politics. Members of the NOI see themselves as united with other blacks around the world, and seek to be involved with justice issues in underdeveloped areas of Africa, and the Caribbean in particular. This form of race solidarity has, of course, been harshly criticized. As a black nationalist organization, the NOI can be characterized as a supremacist and separatist organization. One point of difference, however, from white supremacist groups, is that the members of the NOI perceive themselves to offer a haven to blacks in response to long-standing racism, discrimination, and violence. On the other hand, perhaps one major similarity between the two types of organizations is the perception each group has about the threat from the other. Each group claims to have an interest in self-preservation from the encroachment of the other racial group. In truth, they both hold similar ideological viewpoints, but maintain opposite extremes of the racial spectrum. The NOI strives to instill a strong sense of personal and communal responsibility in African Americans, challenging them not to depend on well meaning whites or anyone else for their social uplift. The NOI is firm in its teaching that black Americans have only themselves to look to for their progress; and this forms the basis for their exclusivity. Likewise, the group’s sensationalist rhetoric against whites and Jews has caused a great deal of controversy throughout their history. Many controversies have followed the Nation of Islam since its inception in 1930. Even the origins of the movement’s founder, Fard Muhammad, are controversial. But even more detrimental than this relatively minor point, has been the construction and profession of a theology that identifies white people as devils. In a very elaborate cosmological and genealogical description of human origins, the NOI has described the creation of whites as a process of genealogical grafting from the original black people for the sole purpose of being an adversary to Blacks, and to undermine God’s order. More controversy ensued following the1965 assassination of Malcolm X. While it is a matter of record that Malcolm was killed by Nation of Islam members, it has never been determined to what extent those members were following the orders of the NOI hierarchy. Given that Malcolm’s assassination followed his public departure from the NOI over theological and personality issues, the dissension between the two of them was well known. Following a religious pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm began to rethink this version of Islam that he had grown so accustomed to, and to speak out about what he felt were its shortcomings. This was

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particularly difficult for Malcolm to do because he had considered himself to be reborn after his conversion to Islam and personal tutelage under Elijah Muhammad. Consequently, he was extremely close to Elijah Muhammad, and looked up to him as Allah’s messenger and his own personal mentor. Controversy began to erupt as Malcolm became aware of some of Elijah Muhammad’s affairs and illegitimate children. Malcolm became severely disillusioned with his mentor, and began to rebel against his admonitions not to speak out against national politics. Malcolm also explored more traditional Sunni Islam, and built alliances with members of those communities. Elijah Muhammad began to see Malcolm as a loose cannon, whom he could no longer control. Tensions continued to escalate, resulting in Malcolm officially leaving the Nation in 1964. He would begin to formulate his own program for the uplift and empowerment of oppressed people, but he would do it as a Muslim free of racial exclusivity. Malcolm began to adopt the tenets of Sunni Islam as he continued the political work of liberating African Americans from civil rights’ abuses. However, he would not live to see his vision unfold. In February of 1965, Malcom was shot to death while giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York. His pregnant wife, Betty Shabazz, and their 4 young daughters were present. Some suggest that the NOI killed Malcolm because he was a traitor and publicly criticized Elijah Muhammad’s teachings. Another theory claims that the assassins were planted by the FBI and CIA, who had been watching the movements of the black nationalist organization for many years. The theory asserts that plotting Malcolm’s assassination would bring dissent, and the eventual downfall of the whole organization. Elijah Muhammad would continue as leader of the Nation of Islam until his death in 1975. During his 44-year tenure, he continued his teaching for the uplift of African Americans over and against the inferiority of whites. Controversy would once again arise as two other leaders attempted to follow in his footsteps, his son, Warith Deen Muhammad, and Louis Farrakhan. Schism in the movement occurred as Warith Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan set forth their agenda for continuing the movement. Each took their positions, and considered the other to be a false prophet. Muhammad aligned himself with Sunni Islam, and proceeded to take the movement along a nonracialized direction. Some of the older members, who had come in under Warith’s father, did not accept this. Muhammad was severely criticized, and many members left to support Farrakhan. Minister Farrakhan ended up being the most persuasive, winning the larger following with the old doctrine as Elijah Muhammad had taught it. Thus, the 1980s saw the Nation of Islam beginning to stabilize with Farrakhan as its new leader. Current leadership rests with Louis Farrakhan. Louis X, as he was known then, joined the Nation of Islam in 1957. Prior to joining, he had been a musician, living a fast, partying lifestyle. Although he had been aware of Elijah Muhammad and his teachings, Louis had been in no hurry to attend their meetings. He had been raised in the Episcopal Church, and did not feel compelled to give up the Christianity of his youth. Ultimately, however, he did listen to Elijah Muhammad, and became convinced of the truth of Islam for African Americans.

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Louis converted to the NOI, changing his name to Louis X, and began his ascent in the movement as the head of the Fruit of Islam (FOI) in Boston. The FOI is the organization’s security force. Farrakhan excelled in this role, advancing to captain, and then to minister of the Boston mosque that Malcolm X had started. Malcolm had thought well of Louis, and mentored him before leaving Boston. It was Malcolm’s move that opened a place for Louis X to develop and gain recognition. Louis X would become Louis Farrakhan, and would become the national minister of the Nation of Islam. He has been credited with rebuilding the organization following the disarray of the movement in the aftermath of Elijah Muhammed’s death. Although Farrakhan has weathered a considerable amount of controversy since taking the leadership of the NOI, he maintains a reputation as the most influential black leader in the United States. He consistently draws tens of thousands of people to hear his public lectures. In addition, as a man now in his 70s, he seems to have mellowed in some areas of his teaching, and theology. For example, he has moved away from Elijah Muhammad’s teaching that Fard Muhammad was actually God in the flesh. In 1999, he began to clarify this point, stating that Muslims believe in one God, and Fard Muhammad, revered though he may be among Nation of Islam members, is not to be understood as Allah. The standout event for Minister Farrakhan is the Million Man March of 1995. This event called for African American men to gather in the spirit of atonement for self and community. As an extension of the Nation’s traditional challenge for African American self-help and self-reliance, this landmark march was intended to inspire renewed moral discipline, and commitment of men to families and communities. The NOI was initially heavily criticized by women for being excluded from a gathering intended to uplift the whole community, but eventually the male-centered approach was accepted. The October 16, 1995, record-breaking gathering brought one million African American men to the nation’s capital, reminiscent of the 1963 march lead by A. Phillip Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr. While that historical march addressed an audience of 250,000, the million man march was the largest all-black demonstration in American history, with an estimated one million attendees. (This number has been contested since the original event in 1995. However, the best estimate from the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing, using advanced photographic imaging is 837,214 with a 20% margin for error.) The NOI maintains that at least one million black men were in attendance (Boston University Press Release 1997). Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam earned a good deal of notoriety on that date, and many believed it to be a turning point in the overall reputation of the movement. While it is true that Minister Farrakhan has many more mainstream followers than Elijah Muhammad had, many African Americans, and others, still consider the movement to be an extremist and separatist organization. Perhaps what redeems the Nation of Islam is the movement’s commitment to African American communities throughout the United States. The NOI, through the Fruit of Islam, has maintained a strong street presence in depressed and high crime neighborhoods in many major cities such as Chicago,

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Detroit, Washington D.C., and New York. This unarmed, but highly trained, paramilitary security force, has played a significant role in maintaining civil order in many of these communities. Some of the most dangerous housing projects have been reclaimed by its residents with the ongoing help of the FOI guards. In addition, Nation of Islam–owned businesses stand as models for African American entrepreneurship. Chicago, Illinois, is the headquarter city of the movement, home to the flagship temple Mosque Maryam, and the central location for the national newspaper, The Final Call. At its heyday, the Nation of Islam flourished with a flagship restaurant and entertainment venue, Salaam Restaurant, training academies, K-12 grade schools, the University of Islam, offices, bookstores, bakeries and other small businesses. Health and beauty products continue to be sold through the organization’s Web site, and in The Final Call newspaper (www.noi.org). As with many large institutions, the Nation of Islam has risen and fallen and risen again. It is a critical time in the life of the movement right now because of the health status of Louis Farrakhan. The minister is living with prostate cancer, and he has made statements that he will soon retire from his public role. However, no successor has been named. Although members continue to be hopeful for his recovery, and The Final Call continues to report that all is well, a new leader is destined to emerge in the very near future. The next stage in the history of the Nation of Islam imminently waits to be written. See also Islamic Nationalism; Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: Curtis, Edward E., IV. Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought. Albany: State University Press, 2002; Gardell, Matthias. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996; Haley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992 (1965); Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America. New York: Beacon Press, 1963; Muhammad, Elijah. Message to the Black Man. Chicago: Secretarius Memps Publications, 1997(1965); Murphy, Larry, ed. Down By The Riverside: Readings in African American Religion. New York: New York University Press, 2000; White, Vibert L. Inside the Nation of Islam: A Historical and Personal Testimony by a Black Muslim. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2001.

Darnise C. Martin NATIONALISM, MILITARISM, AND RELIGION Nationalism, militarism, and religion have always related to each other in ways that have been ambiguous and troublesome. All three draw on, and speak to some of our deepest human hopes and fears. They all, at least potentially, offer resources for creating secure and flourishing communities. Too often, however, they have interacted in ways that have created deep animosities and horrendous destruction, including the loss of millions of lives in the past century alone. How can that be possible when all three are so integrally linked to our basic identities as people?

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An excellent way to begin deciphering these relationships is to reflect on Memorial Day. This typically American national holiday was instituted shortly after the Civil War as a way to honor the soldiers who died in American wars. The Memorial Day weekend in many American cities and towns involves special religious services in churches, synagogues, and other places of worship. Homes and businesses fly American flags. Many communities join with groups like the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars to organize parades and other activities honoring the service of military veterans. The tombs of veterans are decorated in local cemeteries. There are family gatherings and picnics. Memorial Day brings together our American national, military, and religious traditions in a way that perhaps no other American holiday does. It draws on our deeply held American values of patriotism, religious faith, self-sacrifice, and family. It is both secular and sacred. Entire communities come together to dedicate themselves to the ideal of democracy, and the struggle against tyranny for which the military veterans are believed to have given their lives. Our other national holidays, such as Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, do not combine all these values in the same way. Another kind of national ceremony that offers further insight into the national, military, and religious character of our American nation is the funeral of a United States president, or other prominent national figure. The prominence of both religious and military traditions is on display in such funerals. Millions of Americans watch on their television sets as the funeral procession moves through the streets of our nation’s capital. There are religious services in the former leader’s congregation or place of worship, and prayer or brief meditation by a prominent religious leader in the national memorial service in the Capitol Rotunda. Eulogies by political leaders draw on both national and religious symbols. There is a military band, a 21-gun salute, and elaborate military protocols as the casket is carried by pallbearers from all branches of the armed forces. There are few, if any, comparable civic rituals to draw on, even if the person being remembered was not overtly religious, or did not serve in the military. Such funerals are national ceremonies largely defined by military protocol and undergirded by religious symbolism. ON NATIONALISM It is assumed that each person in our contemporary world has a national identity. That identity defines who we are in a way that is similar to other social markers such as gender, culture, and language. For example, people living in southern Florida and North Dakota share a national identity even though they are geographically, and perhaps even culturally, much closer to Cuba and Canada, respectively. The defined borders of the United States, or of any other nation, stamp one’s national identity. As the above example demonstrates, such national identity is extremely fluid. That is why rapid immigration is often seen as a threat by many people. They become alarmed that our nation is losing its basic national identity. And that is why national elites often insist on reinforcing national identities through such things as uniform public education, enforcing the use of a

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national language, and religious symbolism such as putting the phrase In God We Trust on our money. Nationalism as an ideology has had tremendous political power in the modern world. Practically all successful political movements and revolutions have identified themselves as national struggles. It is understood as the foundation for our global world order. Yet it has produced no great thinkers, and is philosophically almost incoherent. That may be one reason why so many national political cultures around the world become rather banal and unimaginative after they have been in power for any length of time. Unraveling the relationships between nationality and statehood can be especially perplexing. A nation has generally been understood as a people that identify themselves as having a common ethnic linage and shared history. In the modern world the notion of being a nation has evolved to include the right to political sovereignty within a given territory. The latter fits with Benedict Anderson’s definition of a nation as “an imagined political community—and imagined as inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson 1991, 6). Linking perceived national identities with the demands for an independent state has led to much conflict throughout the world. A dilemma of contemporary statecraft is finding ways to mediate such intractable claims. For our purposes, Anderson’s definition of a nation is better understood as referring to a nation-state. In many parts of the world, people from different national backgrounds come together to form a single state. Such states, like India and the United States, take on a hybrid national identity. As the continuing struggle for civil rights and religious pluralism in both of these countries indicates, building that kind of national society is never easy. It is always an ongoing project that is never completed. That which makes a nation-state different from other kinds of communities, such as religious or cultural communities, is its defined geographical boundaries, and the claim to absolute sovereignty within its borders. To assert their sovereignty, nation-states claim the sole right to use violence and lethal force within their territory. They organize police and military forces to enforce that claim. Emerging and failed nation-states generally find it very difficult or impossible to control other armed groups within their territory. Our contemporary world is divided into competing nation-states, each with its own military establishment to protect and advance the national interest. It is hard to even imagine a different kind of world, even though the nation-state as we know it emerged very late in human history. As recently as several hundred years ago all human societies were organized as clans, tribes, city-states, and larger realms. The borders between different realms, and even within realms, were not clearly defined. Furthermore, there was no exclusive right to the use of violence and lethal force within a realm. Local chiefs or lords generally maintained their personal constabularies or armies that were at the service of the realm during times of external threat. They also frequently fought against each other as they jockeyed for position within the realm. The nation-state, as we know it, has evolved from European experience beginning in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Popular political theories propose

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that state and military structures were formed as a social contract in which people gave up their autonomy in exchange for shared security. Political theorist Charles Tilly, however, claims that state making and war making went hand in hand in the emergence of the modern nation-state. State makers functioned as coercive entrepreneurs who extracted resources from the general population in order to fight wars to enhance their position against rival state making entrepreneurs. Though Tilly does not equate all statesmen and generals with murderers and thieves, he does claim that, “banditry, piracy, gangland rivalry, policing, and war making all belong on the same continuum” (Besteman 2002, 36). Even though we may consider Tilly’s analogy to be extreme, it helps us understand the relationship between nationalism and militarism. Whatever other functions national governments perform, they always insist on organizing and monopolizing violence. There are also significant differences in how national elites relate to the general population in their territory, as indicated by descriptive models such as a democracy, a monarchy, and a military junta. These models reflect the comparative strength and freedom of various civil society groups such as business associations, schools, labor unions, and churches within a nation-state. The more autonomy and clout such groups have the more open and democratic the society is likely to be. As this analysis indicates, a central challenge in creating a more just and peaceful world is to recognize the connection between state making and war making, and to struggle against its systemic penchant toward violence and exploitation. Citizens always need to be vigilant in resisting concentrations of power and the tendency toward violence within their own nation-state. The sad saga of national leaders taking their country to war in order to enhance their own political power is all too common in human history. ON MILITARISM We need to distinguish the military from militarism. Militarism is a legitimate concern for human security that has gone awry. An increasingly urgent task is to differentiate between legitimate security structures and functions that promote security for all people, and the kind of militarism that glorifies brute force and violence. The latter is a perverse death instinct that actually mirrors authentic human love and community. It is inauthentic because it attempts to create community over against other communities that are characterized as evil. It quickly becomes perverse when all kinds of violence, including terror tactics and torture, are justified in the fight against the other. When we engage in that kind of struggle, we inevitably become the very thing we say we abhor. Our media culture is full of the glorification of such violence. Heroes in movies and television shows portray a swashbuckling swagger that draws on ancient myths of redemptive violence. In actuality, it is far removed from the daily reality of the men and women who serve in the armed forces. There is a huge disconnect between such mythic reality and the sensory reality of police officers and soldiers carrying out their routine duties. Overcoming such myths is a central task in creating more effective and humane police and military forces. Too often,

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young recruits who join police and military forces already have their heads filled with dangerous mythic notions of glorified violence. Contrary to such myths, the average person has a natural aversion to killing other human beings. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, an army psychologist, thinks that is a good thing. Military training designed to override our natural human instinct against killing our own kind has to be used with care, because it creates psychological damage. Killing causes deep wounds of pain and guilt that soldiers live with for the rest of their lives. In extreme cases, child soldiers in some parts of the world have been trained to be brutal killers with little moral compunction. Grossman is especially concerned that violent movies and video games targeted at our youth perpetuate the myth of redemptive violence, and actually condition young people to become killers (Grossman 1996). ON RELIGION All religions are rooted in the soil of a particular place and the shared life of a particular people. This means that our religious traditions are carried by our cultural and ethnic identities. That relationship makes it easy for religion to get caught up in social conflicts involving people from different cultural, ethnic, and national backgrounds. Religion is often used as a resource for group solidarity and courage in the midst of such conflicts. Even people who are not overtly religious can use religion in this way. Furthermore, all religions draw on our human experience of the transcendent or divine, generally referred to as God in our English language. During times of conflict or war, the divine is thought to be on the side of our own people or nation. Americans, like people from other nations, always appeal to God during times of war. For example, in the lead up to the American invasion of Iraq, many Americans put flag decals and bumper stickers with the words God Bless America on their cars. National leaders will especially reach out for the support of prominent religious leaders during wartime. At the same time, religion has the capacity to draw on the divine as a transcendent point of reference that brings all our activities into question. Consequently, the popular refrain of going to war with God on our side is turned on its head, and the very act of going to war is understood as a religious failure and lack of faith in God. Reliance on military strength for human security is brought into question. In the ancient Jewish scriptures, written millennia ago, a sage wrote, “A king is not saved by his great army . . . the war horse is a vain hope for victory” (Psalm 33:16–17). Likewise, the Sutta Nipata, one of the earliest collections of Buddhist scriptures, contrasts militarism with nonviolence. The Buddha proclaims, “I turn the wheel by peaceful means—this wheel is irresistible” (Saddhatissa 1995, III. 7.7). All our major religious traditions predate the modern nation state by thousands of years, and have ample resources for resisting and subverting militarism and imperialism. For example, early Christian communities were solidly pacifist for several hundred years, and resisted being coopted by Roman imperialism. That changed in the fourth century c.e. when Emperor Constantine converted

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to Christianity. However, even after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, theologians such as Augustine developed just-war arguments to critique and curb military excesses. A big problem, of course, is that politicians and military leaders have always been quick to claim that the war they are waging is just, even though it does not meet just-war criteria. Too often, just-war arguments are coopted and used to support the kind of nationalist and militaristic agendas that they would resist if used honestly. TOWARD A DIFFERENT FUTURE The excesses of nationalism and militarism have become an increasingly toxic brew that divides our world into hostile enemy camps. That makes life ever more intolerable in our shrinking world where people of different cultures, ethnicities, and religions increasingly live in the same neighborhoods. Ever more advanced technology makes armed conflicts ever more brutal and destructive. Religions need to become more adept at not being swept up in national and military crusades. They also need to learn how to live side by side and work together for the common good in ever more pluralistic local communities. A different future will require letting go of some ingrained ways of thinking about international relations, human security, and religious faith. It demands imagination and different tools for resolving conflicts. Our religious and national identities, in such a world, will serve the common goal of creating a just and peaceful world for all people. They will not be allowed to become the sources of division and bloodshed. We will recognize that peace and justice cannot be achieved through violent means. The kind of world we want for our grandchildren will put more resources into strategic peacebuilding disciplines such as human development, diplomacy, and conflict transformation rather than pouring money and lives into ever more sophisticated armed forces and weapons’ systems. It will recognize the dignity and interdependence of everyone, regardless of nationality or creed. And it will certainly draw on the contributions of transforming religious communities, national cultures, and security structures committed to the wellbeing of all people. See also Amish; Hutterites; Just War; Personal Pacifism versus Political Nonviolence. Further Reading: Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso, 1991; Bainton, Roland H. Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation. Nashville: Abingdon, 1960; Besteman, Catherine, ed. Violence: A Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2002; Grossman, David A. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. New York: Back Bay Books, 1996; Hedges, Chris. War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. New York: PublicAffairs, 2002; Johnson, Chalmers. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2004; Saddhatissa, H. The Sutta Nipata. London: Routledge/Curzon, 1995; Schirch, Lisa. The Little Book of Strategic Peacebuilding. Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2004; Smith-Christopher, Daniel L., ed. Subverting Hatred: The Challenge of Nonviolence in Religious Traditions. Cambridge,

Native American Religious Freedom | MA: Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, 1998; Yoder, John Howard. When War is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking. 2nd ed. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1996; Zimmerman, Earl. Practicing the Politics of Jesus: The Origin and Significance of John Howard Yoder’s Social Ethics. Telford, PA: Cascadia, 2007.

Earl Zimmerman NATIVE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Generalizing about Native American religions is a daunting task. There are many different forms of Native American religion practiced by the various tribes found throughout the United States. For our purposes there are two central locations where Native American religious practice comes into conflict with various state and federal laws: (1) land use for sacred purposes, including burial rights; and (2) use of controlled substances in Native American religious practice. While monotheistic traditions such as Christianity orient their religious life around time, Native American religions relate to space and location rather than time. Because of the Native American understanding of the relationship of the tribe to the land, and religious identity as community-based rather than based on an individual to her or his own property and personal identity, Native Americans face a challenge demonstrating the sacred nature of areas such as the Black Hills, or creatures such as the endangered American eagle, to the United States government. Endangered species and national park land are understood to be public and protected, rather than part of the Native American religious landscape and heritage. Additionally, state and federal laws prohibit the use of controlled substances, yet the traditional use of peyote is part of some Native American tribal heritages, and therefore has offered constitutional challenges to the state and federal ban on peyote use through the Free Exercise of Religion Clause. HISTORICAL CONTEXT The history of the relationship between the United States government and Native Americans is painted in bloodshed and broken treaties on a canvas of forced relocation and constant pressure on Native Americans to break with their heritage and assimilate in mainstream American culture. From the early days of contact, the relations between the U.S. government and Native peoples has moved through various stages: government to government negotiations with sovereign nations, removal of native peoples from traditional lands onto reservations, forced assimilation, holding native lands in “trust” via the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and most recently, to self-determination and self-governance in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Department of the Interior officially recognizes 561 indigenous groups in the United States. These groups consist of indigenous peoples who are eligible for programs and services from the U.S. government because of their status as natives. Because of this unique relationship to federal and state governments, Native Americans still may find that their property, civil, and political rights may be either diminished or extended by federal or state action.

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United States’ policy since the settling of the West has been to move the Native Americans onto limited reservations, by whatever means necessary, or force Natives Americans to adapt to mainstream U.S. lifestyles. Reservations are lands given to Native Americans usually in exchange for relinquishing tribal homelands. Throughout the course of U.S. government management of Native American reservations, there have been various Allotment Acts. These acts determine the location and size of a given reservation, and then determine how the reservation will be divided into individual land plots for the reservation inhabitants. Some of the Native American lands are held in trust by the U.S. government. These lands are not reservations per se, but are still considered Native lands. As part of the U.S. government trust for native lands, tribal lands are subject to the will of the U.S. government plans for redistribution, re-purposing, or reallocation. In many instances, allotment acts result in a reduction in size and purpose of trust lands, as well as individual land holdings. Often these changes in the allotment and purpose of trust and reservation lands rendered most agricultural practices infeasible and opened up “unused” reservation lands to white ownership, private development, or national park status. While different presidential administrations and shifting domestic policies have kept this trajectory of containment on reservations and forced assimilation from being a consistent policy, the basic thrust of the federal government policy toward Native Americans has been to absorb Native peoples into the general population. This results in a kind of cultural extinction. This basic trajectory has been largely determined by the needs and demands of the U.S. government. Prior to 1968, those Native Americans living on reservations did not enjoy basic civil rights guaranteed to other U.S. citizens. Reservation residents were offered full United States citizenship in 1968 when the Indian Civil Rights Act was passed. Prior to this, Native Americans were considered extra-constitutional residents of the United States, living as sovereign peoples on reservations or parcels of land from various Land Allotment Acts. The rights and privileges of Native Americans prior to 1968 were subject to mercurial changes, due primarily to events and policies that had little or nothing to do with the Native Americans themselves. For example, some tribes were “terminated” because their reservation lands were discovered to be rich in natural resources. During the 1950s, the U.S. government dissolved some tribes, such as the Klamath tribe in southern Oregon, moved them from rural communities to urban relocation centers, and then ended any material support members of those former tribes had enjoyed through treaties and management of the land trust. Not only did this result in a loss of tribal lands, these policy changes deprived entire tribes of their homes, and means of sustenance. Significantly, this termination meant that tribal legal sovereignty was officially ended, and the application of traditional laws and values had to be adapted to state laws and regulations. Tribal termination, ultimately a policy of forced assimilation of Native Americans into mainstream American culture, meant the end of some federally managed land trusts, and the redistribution of Native lands to private ownership, almost always outside the tribe.

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In the wake of other civil rights acts in the late 1960s, the Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA) was passed. This law granted civil rights to Native Americans both on and off reservations. While this act did guarantee religious freedom to Native Americans living on reservations, the ICRA also emphasized individual property rights, rather than community or tribal property rights. Therefore, the ICRA weakened the authority asserted by the tribe to negotiate land use with the U.S. government, at the same time as it protected Native American individual rights. By putting a greater emphasis on individual rights and responsibilities, the Indian Civil Rights Act took some negotiating power away from the tribe as a whole. Reservations are considered nation within a nation, and native peoples are subject to federal and tribal laws (state criminal laws are prosecuted as federal offenses on reservations). The ICRA expanded individual rights, but it did not protect tribes or their members from federal actions designed to reduce tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, or aboriginal lands. Tribes can lose their lands to imminent domain, the quest for water rights, or other natural resources. In some instances, particularly in the southwest states of Arizona, New Mexico, and eastern California, reservation lands are some of the most desolate and uninhabitable lands in the nation. The recent development of Indian Casinos has enabled Native Americans to fight legal battles with private developers and the federal government when those organizations propose reclaiming the reservation, or areas around the reservation, for coal mining, oil refineries, or natural gas collection. Ten years later, after passing the Indian Civil Rights Act, Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA). AIRFA is a nonbinding resolution that recognizes the Free Exercise of Religion Clause and applied that clause to Native American Religious Practice, but did not include any penalties for federal or private agencies who failed to comply with the law. Native American religious observation is often in conflict with federal policies. For example, sweat lodges and/or multi-day vigils in national parks, tobacco burning ceremonies, or killing federally protected creatures, such as the bald eagle, for religious and ritual purposes, all conflict with federal laws and mandates. Since much of the land Native Americans hold sacred is either part of a trust or in a public National Park, there are often conflicts over land use. When one of these practices comes into conflict with a federal law, a different federal agency enforces adherence to these laws. Until 1968, Native Americans could not appeal to federal or state courts for protection of their religious rights, because their status on the reservation was considered extra-constitutional, and as such, the reservation residents were not entitled to those protections guaranteed to U.S. citizens by the Constitution. LAND USE Because the relationship of the community to the land is such an important part of Native American religion, there are two areas where mainstream American culture, native culture, and constitutional protections collide: (1) traditional cultural use of public lands, such as the Devil’s Tower in the Black Hills of Wyoming; and (2) desecration of graves through development or archaeological excavation. Rock climbers frequent the Devil’s Tower (site of the

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film Close Encounters of the Third Kind) because it is a challenging and scenic climbing destination. Native Americans consider the volcanic tower a sacred place where they hold religious festivals and dances, especially during the month of June. In the 1990s, the National Park Service initiated a voluntary ban on climbing the tower in June. However, one climbing company challenged the ban, and the Wyoming courts found that the voluntary ban was an “unconstitutional support of religion” (see http://www.indianlaw.org/; and McLeod 2001). An executive order signed by President Clinton in 1996 mandated federal land managers to accommodate sacred sites wherever possible. While climbing at Devil’s Tower during the month of June has declined steadily, there is no law or agency that protects Native American religious practices at the site. A further complicated issue about land rights has developed with regard to burial sites and Native American remains. Here, the issue is not only about what kinds of uses and development are allowed on a specific site, but also the fate of artifacts and evidence of prehistorical humanity. In an effort to protect Native American burial sites, in 1990 congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. This law requires all federal agencies and public museums (for example, the Smithsonian) to identify Native American remains in their collections, and consult with tribes about those artifacts. If the tribe requests, the law requires the objects be repatriated and returned to the tribes. This also affects newly discovered remains, such as the site of discovery of Kennewick Man, the oldest known human skeletal remains in North America. He was discovered in the Columbia River gorge in Washington State, and the site was declared protected by the Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and reburied. There are currently no archaeological excavations at the site of the discovery of Kennewick Man. Unlike the issue of peyote, or even the voluntary 30-day ban on climbing the Devil’s Tower, the Graves Protection and Repatriation Act has stirred up a great many debates about the ownership of intellectual authority over human prehistory. Critics claim that the law’s original intent was to provide a form of cultural reparation, to give back to Native peoples artifacts of known sacred meaning. What has resulted, critics say, is that Native peoples are controlling the way objects and practices are interpreted, and have taken the law to an extreme where experts and scientists are unable to offer interpretations or displays of cultural artifacts without approval of Native Americans. Those Native Americans are not scientists or archaeologists or anthropologists, and are imposing limits on the intellectual use of Native American artifacts in understanding and interpreting human prehistory. The claim by some museum curators is summed up nicely by Edward Rothstein’s words about the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. “Tribes tell their own stories, not because they are most knowledgeable but because finally, they have control” (Rothstein 2006). PEYOTE The problem of Native American religious freedom is mostly clearly seen in the difficulties Native Americans have experienced with the legality of peyote

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use in religious rituals. Peyote is a button-like flower of a cactus plant that grows in the southwest and Texas. When ingested, peyote causes hallucinations and other altered states of consciousness. The Native American Church (NAC) uses peyote in its ceremonies. The NAC was founded in the early twentieth century as a way for Native Americans to preserve their traditions in a form that was recognized by whites and the U.S. Government. The NAC is not a public church, does not evangelize, and exists to protect and preserve Native American religious traditions. Within the religious practices of the NAC, peyote is used as a sacrament, a holy medicine given to humanity to guide, console, and heal. While the Native American church does not evangelize or accept converts, its controversial use of peyote has tested the relationship between federal and state laws, as well as the rights of Native Americans to the guarantee of freedom to practice their religion. In addition to challenging the complicated relationship between federal and state laws, the question of federal recognition of tribal identity is also a central part of the debate about peyote use in Native American religious practice. In 1990, the United States’ Supreme Court heard a case involving peyote use, Employment Division v. Smith. The court ruled that as long as a law did not target a specific group and could be generally applied to the whole population, it was acceptable. The details of this case involved the challenge of peyote use as a ceremonial substance. The court’s decision supported the federal ban on peyote, denying use to Native American religious groups as an expression of religious life. Therefore, from the court’s perspective, the use of peyote was outlawed for all persons, and while that law did affect Native American religious practitioners more than other groups, the law did not specifically target Native Americans, and therefore did not violate their freedom of religion. When in 1994 congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), things changed. The AIRFA is one of many state and federal Religious Freedom Acts designed to counter current Supreme Court interpretations of the Free Exercise Clause. This act provided for the traditional use of peyote for Native American religious purposes. Since the AIRFA was designed to protect Native American use of peyote while still acknowledging its status as a controlled substance, the law served to protect those who can provide evidence of their status as Native Americans. Therefore, one has to be a member of a federally recognized tribe to be under the protection of the law. Those limits of this amendment have been challenged in several states, most recently in Utah. The State Supreme Court of Utah found that one did not necessarily need to be a member of a federally recognized tribe in order to use peyote for religious ceremonies. As it stands today, Native Americans can use peyote in religious ceremonies, though the requirement of belonging to a federally recognized tribe is currently subject to an individual state’s interpretation of the AIRFA. Federal recognition of tribes is also significant in determining who is a Native American, and what rights and privileges are granted to Native people through the federal government. This is a contested issue currently, not only because of the peyote laws, but also has a result of the relative affluence of some tribes due to reservation gambling.

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Only recognized tribes can engage in gaming operations and casino businesses. Many tribes, such as the Ute in Colorado and the Quechan in western Arizona, have been using their gaming profits to buy back tribal land from private interests or the federal government. As casinos continue to be a growth industry for Native Americans, their ability to promote legislation and fight legal battles will develop. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act has given Native Americans solid legal ground to fight battles over religious freedom and their ability to preserve, protect, and continue their religious and cultural heritage. See also Bible and Poverty. Further Reading: Cousineau, Phil, ed. A Seat at the Table: Huston Smith In Conversation with Native Americans on Religious Freedom. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006; Mazur, Eric. “‘The Supreme Law of the Land’: Sources of Conflict Between Native Americans and the Constitutional Order.” In American Indian Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Contemporary Issues, ed. Dane Morrison. Berlin, NY: Peter Lang, 1997; McLeod, Christopher. In Light of Reverence. Oley, PA, 2001, Bullfrog Films, CD-ROM; Rothstein, Edward. “Protection for Indian Patrimony That Leads to a Paradox.” New York Times, March 29, 2006; Sink, Mindy. “Religion Journal: Peyote, Indian Religion And the Issue of Exclusivity.” New York Times, August 14, 2004; Vescey, Christopher, ed. Handbook of American Indian Religious Freedom, new ed. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, Inc., 1991; Wilkins, David E. American Indian Politics and the American Political System. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.

Laura Ammon

NEUROETHICS Neuroethics has emerged as a subdiscipline of bioethics within the past decade. It has two major areas of concern: the ethics of neuroscience (e.g., the ethical questions associated with the practice of neuroscience) and the neuroscience of ethics (e.g., the basic issues neuroscientific study has raised about human beings as ethical creatures). The contemporary challenges of neuroethics have as their source two broad streams of unprecedented development within the neurosciences. The first is the development of technology allowing researchers a fresh window into brain activity in human beings (for example, positron emission tomography [PET] scanning and functional magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI]). This capacity to capture psychologically meaningful variations in brain activity allows previously unimaginable access into a person’s inclinations, attitudes, personality attributes, aptitudes, and decision making. How might we think about basing our decisions related to hiring, criminal cases, and national security, to name only three immediate applications, on these technologies? The second is the ability to alter brain function in human beings with chemicals (that is, through psychopharmacology) and brain-machine interfaces. Implants to counter hearing loss or to mitigate the effects of Parkinson’s Disease, and the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs—for example, Prozac or Zoloft) in cases

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of depression—these are therapeutic interventions with widespread public approval. But what of the use of implants or drugs among healthy persons—say, to increase mental alertness among college students or airplane pilots, or to provide superhuman eyesight for hunters or soldiers? In addition, advances in the neurosciences have eroded much of what we have imagined to be true about what it means to be human—for example, concerning the question of whether humans have immaterial minds (or souls) that control their behavior through the exercise of free will. NEUROETHICS AND BIOETHICS Many questions in neuroethics are at home within bioethics more generally. A representative list of these issues might include the protection of humans as research subjects, the relative safety of a new technology or pharmacological agent, privacy of research data, and obtaining informed consent (especially problematic with persons of diminished mental capacity). Issues of justice, or the fair distribution of resources, also apply: Who should have access to neurobiological tests and therapies? Who should pay? The issue of distributive justice becomes more pressing when the focus shifts from the treatment of persons with neurological disorders to the prevention of those disorders, and even more so when the focus shifts to the potential enhancement of those regarded as healthy. Additional questions arise: What course of action should follow the unexpected discovery of a neurological disorder during data collection? What is the role of predictive testing for future neurological illnesses, including testing of fetuses? At many points, ethical questions facing neurobiology are familiar to ethical reflection in medical research and treatment. Even so, moving into the subfield of neuroethics raises the stakes on these concerns since many of the practices that concern us (for example, neuroimaging, psychosurgery, and psychopharmacology) are not peripheral to our subjective experience of self but intervene directly in the brain. That is, neuroscientific interventions have the capacity to reveal and shape, for good or ill, who we are as human persons at the most essential levels. Additionally, the potential of harm is exacerbated by the fact that, in spite of the remarkable strides forward made in our understanding of the central nervous system, there is much we do not know. THE ETHICS OF NEUROSCIENCE The ethical issues pertaining to the practice of neuroscience can be gathered under three headings: psychosurgery, neurological enhancement, and brain reading. Psychosurgery Skeletal remains from the distant past evidence early attempts at relieving psychic stress through surgery, but the term psychosurgery refers most prominently

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to its abuse in the early twentieth century in the indiscriminate practice of frontal lobotomy. This involved the insertion of a long, needle-shaped instrument through the skull just above the eyes, then swinging it back and forth, isolating the frontal lobes from the rest of the brain by destroying neuronal processes to and from the frontal lobes. This classic form of psychosurgery was successful in relieving psychiatric symptoms in some serious cases, but also introduced severe unintended consequences, including loss of social control, seizures, lethargy, and even death. Subsequent study has demonstrated the importance of the brain’s prefrontal cortex in social behavior, ethical comportment, and decision-making, so, in retrospect, these grievous results are unsurprising. From the perspective of neuroethics, then, the first issue raised by psychosurgery in its contemporary versions is the problem of unintended consequences. In spite of the development of precision instruments and image-guided surgical procedures, the risk of permanent damage to areas of the brain not targeted for surgery and/or to adverse psychological affects is considerable. As a result, surgical interventions in cases of psychiatric disorder are closely monitored by review committees and reserved for severe cases involving, for example, otherwise uncontrollable obsessive compulsive disorder or epilepsy. Is a candidate for psychosurgery capable of giving informed consent? (Note that the dysfunctional area of the brain targeted for psychosurgery may impair the patient’s capacity to understand his or her own condition and the risks of surgery.) What if the person who emerges from psychosurgery lacks the memories of the person who agreed to surgery in the first place? What if she or he experiences significant personality change as a consequence of surgery? Because such central aspects of personal identity as consciousness, capacity for religiosity, or memory are not localized but distributed throughout the brain, psychosurgery has the real potential of altering the patient’s sense of self. In such cases, a profession for whom the first principle is, “do no harm,” is faced with the question whether the cure is worse than the disease. Psychosurgery is thus a therapy of last resort. Nevertheless, with increasing capacity for more precisely targeted surgical interventions we may anticipate that psychosurgery will become an option for more patients. Better Brains? Neurological Enhancements Neurological enhancements come in two broad categories: psychopharmacology and brain-machine interfaces. A number of drugs have therapeutic indications for which they were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and not intended by their manufacturers. Methylphenidate (Ritalin) is a classic example. A pharmaceutical widely known for the help it provides for people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), it also has the off-label effect of helping college students by enhancing their concentration and performance on exams. Methylphenidate illustrates another issue now endemic to psychopharmacological enhancement—namely, the increasingly fuzzy line between using a drug in the treatment of a disorder and using the same drug for purposes of enhancement of a healthy human being. The first problem is

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where to draw the line between “disorder” and health. Even those committed to a rigorous interpretation of the criteria might disagree on diagnosis. The second problem is that the baseline for prescribing this and other medications has a tendency to creep upward over time, with the result that increasingly less symptomatic persons find themselves on a Methylphenidate regimen. This example can be multiplied many times over with regard to pharmaceuticals that target not only anxiety, as in this case, but also mood and memory. Memory is another interesting case, since here different uses of drugs are being explored. Memory-enhancing drugs are generally regarded as problematic for humans before middle age, since loss of memory among children and young adults is important to normal cognitive function. For older adults, however, memory enhancement might be welcomed, both as a treatment for dementia but also in cases of normal forgetfulness. What, though, of the use of drugs to achieve the opposite effect? What of the use of psychotropic substances to dampen memory in cases of trauma, whether with victims of rape or soldiers at war? Would the pharmaceutical dulling of pain also allow us as a society to forget the high costs of violence? If suffering is a means by which humans mature, would dampening the memories of suffering undermine the development of character? How do we adjudicate between the worthwhile aim of relieving suffering, on the one hand, and the erosion of our individual and societal character, on the other? The general ethical concerns raised by the off-label use of drugs for neurological enhancement are threefold. The first is safety, since the drugs in questions have been studied and approved for therapeutic applications in cases of cognitive impairment rather than enhancement. The side effects of these pharmaceuticals may be judged as acceptable in instances of psychological dysfunction; can the same be said when enhancement of normal cognitive function is the goal? The second has to do with social equity and health. If Olympic sprinters are disqualified for enhancing their performance on the track, what should we make of persons whose performance on the SAT or ACT is pharmaceutically enhanced? Moreover, if some persons gain admission to colleges on the basis of their enhanced performance, what will the social pressure be on others to enhance their performance similarly? At some point, then, the definition of what constitutes “normal human attention” (or “normal mood” or “normal memory”) may need to be adjusted, with the result that those without access to these enhancement drugs will fall further behind in terms of health and socieconomic status. To push this issue further, psychopharmacological enhancements raise questions about our definitions of human health. When normal human performance is rejected as substandard, our definitions of health will be adjusted upward. What is healthy today, tomorrow is pathological. These lines of thought generally run against our tendency to applaud attempts at self improvement. Much work on brain-machine interfaces remains largely experimental and is directed toward persons with impaired function. For example, attempts to enable paralyzed patients to communicate or to control the motion of prosthetic devices have enjoyed some clinical success, and researchers are working to create a bionic eye for those who suffer from loss of sight (much as

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cochlear implants have already restored hearing in some deaf individuals). Cyborgs or technosapiens—posthuman combinations of human flesh and machine—remain the stuff of science fiction, but this has not deterred anxiety among some regarding the future toward which we are heading. If neurotechnology advances along anticipated lines, it will do so amidst now-familiar questions: What does it mean to be human? Who will have access to these technologies? Who will pay? Will they be used for restoring the capacities of impaired individuals, or to enhance the capacities of normally functioning human beings? If for normally functioning human beings, to what end? The traction of this last question lies in the observation that much funding for electronic brain enhancement comes from the military. Brain Reading, Mind Reading When neuropsychologists refer to “mind reading,” they are usually referring to the “theory of mind” that has its basis in “mirror neurons,” those nerve cells that fire not only when a person is engaged in a certain activity but also when that person observes another engaged in the same activity. Such neural activity mirrors the movements of others, as well as their intentions, sensitivities, and emotions. Mirror neurons thus provide the neural correlates for important social capacities and behaviors, like empathy or imitation. Here, however, mind reading refers to our ability to use various forms of brain scans and images as a window into a person’s decision-making processes, affective state, personality, truthfulness, consumer preferences, religiosity, and behavioral dispositions. This is not to say that neuroimaging is a regular tool in the arsenal of psychiatric diagnosis; this is true in relatively infrequent instances in which neuroimaging might indicate the neural correlates (or, in the case of lesions and atrophy, the lack of neural correlates) of observed behavior. Instead, neuroimaging has attracted attention for its ability to observe when persons are seeking deliberately to deceive (i.e., lie detection), to know in advance what a subject is thinking, to indicate those people or things to which a subject is attracted, or to disclose a subject’s sexual preferences or predilections for social behaviors like violence or pessimism or extrovertedness. The potential applications are various: neuromarketing, lie detection and other modes of interrogation, background checks and security clearances, and screening for numerous professions, for example. These applications of brain imaging raise a host of ethical concerns. The first is privacy—in this case, privacy at the most basic level of one’s own unarticulated thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Another concern is how quickly the sorts of experimental procedures that have thus far contributed to our understanding of the brain might be removed from their present location among scholars and other clinical experts, and placed in the hands of those lacking the requisite expertise. A related line of ethical concern is marked by the obvious distinction between a person’s predisposition toward violence and one’s actual violent behavior. Should we make life-altering decisions about persons on the basis of what they might do? That is, brain scans are neither as telling nor as easily interpreted as we might want them to be, particularly in cases that involve courtrooms and national security.

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THE NEUROSCIENCE OF ETHICS The most recent challenge to traditional views of the human person has come from the neurosciences, with its tightening of the mind-brain link. The resulting portrait of the human personhood impinges on traditional views in a number of ways, the most basic of which is our need no longer to postulate a second, metaphysical entity, such as a soul or spirit, to account for human capacities and distinctives. Though neuroscientists, philosophers, and theologians champion numerous ways to make sense of this emerging view of humanity, they tend to speak somehow of human life in terms of embodiment as physical persons. Faculties traditionally viewed as belonging to the “soul”—such as consciousness, religious commitments, the “real me”—are not dismissed but are understood as embodied human capacities. The degree to which this physicalist or monist view is at home in the Jewish and Christian Bibles will come as a surprise to many, since it is widely assumed that these scriptures support a dualist portrait of the human person as body and soul. These scriptures are not concerned with defining human life with reference to its necessary “parts.” Instead, they describe humanity in relational terms, with the human assessed as genuinely human and alive only within the family of humans brought into being by Yahweh. These scriptures do not locate the uniqueness of the human in terms of the human possession of a “soul,” but rather affirm the human being as a biopsychospiritual unity. Indeed, within the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament, the Hebrew term nepheš, sometimes translated as “soul,” refers more basically to life and vitality—not life in general, but as instantiated in God’s creatures. In short, the neuroscientific portrait of the human being as embodied, physical beings is on this point very much at home in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. This biblical view stands in contrast, though, to the bodysoul dualism of much of the world’s population, including Jews and Christians. As a result, the challenge of the neuroscientific understanding of the human in physicalist terms is likely to be heard as a fundamental threat to traditional views of the human person. The significance of neuroscientific work for ethics is, partly, this emphasis on the embodied nature of human existence, but it reaches further. A number of studies since the 1990s have demonstrated the tight link between neuronal processes and moral decision making—including, but not limited to, reviewing past decisions and their consequences, weighing options and potential rewards, and envisioning the future. Some background on two aspects of human formation will orient us here. First, neuroscientists have underscored the effects of environment on human development, drawing attention to how formative influences are encoded in the synapses of the central nervous system. Although our genes bias the way we think, feel, believe, and behave, the systems responsible for much of what we do and how we do it are shaped by learning, and especially through interpersonal experiences. Second, neuroscientists have demonstrated that the amygdala, that structure of the brain implicated in emotion, is networked with the brain’s decision-making center such that, in normal brains, “thinking” is inescapably emotion-laden. Ethics, then, is not a matter of “cool

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reason” in decision making. Indeed, study of brain injuries has shown that damage to the emotion-processing center of the brain impedes real-life rationality and decision making. This means that moral reasoning and decision making are embodied capacities that involve predispositions and emotion. These studies also have important implications for issues around ethical decision making in relation to traditional notions of free will. For example, injuries to the orbitofrontal cortex in childhood have been shown to lead to lifelong social and moral behavioral problems resistant to corrective interventions. Pathological lying has been tied to abnormality within the prefrontal cortex. Patients with damage to the ventromedial prefontal cortex, an area of the brain implicated in the generation of social emotions, display abnormally utilitarian patterns of moral judgment. Patients who evidenced a “sick will” (for example, inactivity, lack of ambition, autistic behavior, depressive motor skills, and behavioral inhibition) have been shown to have subnormal activity in the prefrontal cortex. Persons with schizophrenia lack the feeling of personal authorship of some of their own thoughts or actions, attributing them to an agency beyond themselves—hence, the sense of “hearing voices” and more general imagining of unreal persons and forces. Persons with certain brain lesions have a condition known as Alien Hand Syndrome—that is, one of their hands acts outside of the subject’s voluntary control. One hand seems to function on its own accord, answering the phone, for example, choosing a blouse from the closet, or attempting to strangle the subject during sleep. Disorders of volition also appear among persons suffering from depression, a condition in which the inability of patients to initiate new goal-oriented activity is correlated with inhibition in the brain’s frontal lobe and in the anterior cingulate cortex, parts of the brain implicated in executive functioning. Widely recognized impairment of the will arises in instances of addiction and substance abuse as regions of the brain related to signaling immediate pain or pleasure override those regions concerned with future prospects. Virtually everyone has had the experience of acting unselfconsciously—say, walking or driving or doodling—when the action is repetitive or habitual. Apparently, free will is not an all-or-nothing capacity. These and other data have raised serious questions about long-held views of human freedom to act and the responsibility that is generally tied to that freedom. This, in turn, has raised difficult questions for institutions, including our court systems, that have typically tied responsibility to self-conscious agency. What if, when it comes to most of our behavior, we are on autopilot after all? Does this make us less responsible for our behavior? Since the prefrontal cortex, that part of the brain responsible for “executive function,” begins to reach developmental maturity in late-adolescence and early adulthood, are teenagers responsible for actions that display a lack of impulse control? Because we diagnose schizophrenia as a brain disorder, should we punish a schizophrenic for criminal behavior arising from that disorder? What of the person who suffers a closed head injury in a car wreck, the result of which is the tearing of the neuronal processes that allow the prefrontal cortex to override her urges to lie or cheat; is she responsible for her behavior? If she refuses to participate in the combination of cognitive and psychopharmacological therapies that might restore her

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capacity to exercise self-control, is she then more responsible for her behavior? What of the real situation in which a man indicted as a pedophile is found to have a tumor displacing his right orbitofrontal lobe, an area of the brain commonly implicated in moral-knowledge acquisition and social integration? If, as was the case, upon removal of the tumor, his sexually lewd behavior discontinued, should he be regarded no longer as a threat and returned to his family and community? In short, can we tie moral and legal responsibility any longer to traditional concepts of free will, or must other definitions be explored? Exploration of the neural correlates of consciousness, moral decision-making, memory, and other aspects of personal identity challenges both how we think about conscious self-determination and self-responsibility and, more broadly, almost all traditional images we have had of ourselves in the course of our cultural history. See also Genetic Research; Health Reform Movements. Further Reading: Bush, Shane S. “Neurocognitive Enhancement: Ethical Considerations for an Emerging Subspeciality.” Applied Neuropsychology 13, no. 2 (2006): 125–36; Center for Bioethics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. “Neuroethics: Implications of Advances in Neuroscience” (A Webcourse on Neuroethics). http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/neuroethics/index.html; Farah, Martha J. “Neuroethics.” http://neuroethics.upenn.edu/index.html; Feinberg, Todd E. Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Gazzaniga, Michael S. The Ethical Brain. Washington, D.C.: Dana Press, 2005; Glannon, Walter, ed. Defining Right and Wrong in Brain Science: Essential Readings in Neuroethics. Washington, D.C.: Dana Press, 2007; Glannon, Walter. “Neuroethics.” Bioethics 20, no. 1 (2006): 37–52; Glannon, Walter. “Psychopharmacological Enhancement.” Neuroethics 1 (2008): 45–54; Illes, Judy, ed. Neuroethics: Defining the Issues in Theory, Practice, and Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; Levy, Neil. Neuroethics: Challenges for the 21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Moreno, Jonathan D. “Neuroethics: An Agenda for Neuroscience and Society.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4 (2003): 149–53; Murphy, Nancey. Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Murphy, Nancey, and Warren S. Brown. Did My Neurons Make Me Do It? Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007; Peterson, Gregory R. “Imaging God: Cyborgs, Brain-Machine Interfaces, and a More Human Future.” Dialog 44, no. 4 (2005): 337–46; Sebanz, Natalie and Wolfgang Prinz, eds. Disorders of Volition. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006; Tancredi, Laurence. Hardwired Behavior: What Neuroscience Reveals about Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Joel B. Green NEW RELIGIONS AS GROWTH INDUSTRY New religious movements have become big business, raising questions as to their methods of recruitment, financial practices, and legitimacy. A new religious movement (NRM) is a spiritual or religious group that has emerged relatively recently, and is unaffiliated with an established religious organization. Contemporary times find many NRMs booming at a fast rate. This

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expansion is known as a growth industry, where an organization is in demand, expanding at a faster rate than the overall market. NRMs have become quite popular, no longer localized to a particular place, or limited to a specific group of people. As people seek answers to their ultimate questions today, they have instant and equal access to NRMs (as much as mainstream, established religions) through the Internet and mass media. As a result, the demand for information, materials, and contact with, by, and about NRMs has led to a flood of information, products, and services. From training seminars, to crystals, to red string Kabbalah bracelets, to Scientology stress tests, to Goddess cards, to books and articles written about new religious movements, new religious movements are big business. WHAT IS A NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT? The term, new religious movement, arose as a designation for the many new religious organizations that formed in Japan post–World War II. At this time, new religious freedoms and social upheaval made fertile ground for such groups. The term was later used to describe other emergent religious groups around the globe. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1965 lifted immigration restrictions from Asia, opening the doors to Asians, Asian religions, and their teachers. Groups, such as the Unification Church (Family Federation for World Peace and Unification— popularly known as the Moonies) and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON—popularly known as the Hare Krishnas), attracted largely young, white, middle-class disciples. Asian religious groups provided responses to their problems that were different from mainstream American traditions, and became popular and controversial for this very reason. The innovative and turbulent 1960s and 1970s, also gave rise to other groups. While some employed more secular, psychological, and scientific methods and ideas, such as the Church of Scientology, others drew on ancient or hidden traditions, such as the Covenant of the Goddess, and the Order of the Solar Temple. Other groups that had emerged in earlier times were also considered alongside these newer sects. They also posed an alternative to mainstream American religion. Some provided Christian alternatives, such as Christian Science, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormonism). Others emerged from African (La Regla de Ocha—Santería), or Native American (The Native American Church) beliefs and practices. Scholars debate how “new” a movement has to be to constitute a NRM. While some would date a contemporary NRM to as early as the nineteenth century (such as the Bahá’í Faith), others would argue that a new religious movement should have emerged no earlier than several decades prior to the contemporary moment. Regardless, NRMs aren’t new in the sense that they pop up out of nowhere, in a vacuum. Some groups are centuries old or at least can trace their foundations to ancient origins. Indeed, NRMs often draw heavily on past revelations or traditions to authenticate their message. For example, Wicca claims an ancient past and lineage.

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NRMs are often not religious in the traditional Western sense of belief in a deity/deities, faith coming from revelation, and/or ritual practice. The Church of Scientology, for example, has specifically denied the label of religion and instead emphasized its role in facilitating and maximizing personal development. The Self-Realization Fellowship, though it comes from a Hindu context, also does not require religious conversion or depend on any specific religious beliefs. Indeed, many groups have similarly avoided the label of religion, as it connoted the very thing that they found problematic, and the very thing new adherents were seeking to abandon. NRMs are widely categorized as movements because the term covers a wide spread of organizational structure. Movements are generally fluid, but some new religious movements are highly organized and stratified.

TIMELINE 1830—The Church of Christ (later called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is founded by Joseph Smith. 1844—The beginnings of the Bahá’í Faith, when the Báb (gate) starts teaching the local Persian Muslims about a coming prophet who would initiate a time of world peace. 1853—Mírzá Husayn’Alí receives a vision in prison that he is the Prophet foreseen by the Báb and is the fulfillment of all the world religions. 1930—Wallace Fard Muhammad teaches black power and Islam, marking the beginnings of The Nation of Islam. 1950—L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. 1954—The Church of Scientology founded. The Unification Church founded by Sun Myung Moon. 1955—Jim Jones founds the Wings of Deliverance, later to be called The People’s Temple. The group sees Jones as a prophetic healer and incarnation of Christ. 1965—A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada arrives in the United States and forms The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISCKON). 1977—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi founds Transcendental Meditation as a modernization of classical yoga. The People’s Temple is denied tax-exempt status and the group moves to Guyana, founding Jonestown. 1978—Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown; over 900 dead. 1986—Shoko Asahara (b. Matsumoto Chizuo) founds Aum Shinrikyo in Tokyo, Japan. The movement blends Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. 1993—The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raids the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX. After a 51-day stand-off, ATF agents moved in and stormed the complex. Over 80 died in a resulting fire. 1995—Aum Shinrikyo members release sarin gas in Tokyo subway, killing 12. 1997—Combining Christianity with UFO beliefs, members of Heaven’s Gate kill themselves outside of San Diego when the comet Hale-Bopp appeared to them as the sign of the ship arriving to take their souls to heaven; 39 people dead.

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New religious movements are sometimes called cults. While the word cult most generally and specifically refers to a religious system of rituals, practices, and the people who adhere to it, the term today often carries a negative connotation of a controlling, distorted, even dangerous religious group. The term new religious movement is therefore a more neutral way to refer to a wider phenomenon of emergent religious/spiritual groups. Every religion is at some point new, and NRMs are comprised by many different kinds of groups with widely divergent perspectives. While some new religious movements can indeed be dangerous to their adherents and to the general public, they are not all like this. Nevertheless, until NRMs gain the acceptance of mainstream society, establishing the legitimacy of a new religious movement is difficult. WHO JOINS AND WHY? New religious movements vary widely in their beliefs and practices; however, such groups often represent alternative worldviews and practices to the mainstream, and offer distinct responses to the problems of their day. These answers often seem more adequate than the old answers of established traditions. With widespread disillusionment in many established religious traditions, whether due to scandal or perceived backwardness, NRMs offer attractive alternatives to the mainstream. New religious movements in America are comprised largely of white middleclass young people. Groups recruit largely from the middle to upper class. Adherents’ families are generally well educated and financially stable. Many are in college or are college educated. They very much come from mainstream society. Nevertheless, people attracted to NRMs are largely dissatisfied with mainstream religion and society, are interested in religious/spiritual matters, and are actively seeking individually and independently for new answers to their life questions. Seeking to find themselves, people attracted to new religious movements want alternatives to the familiar, structured establishment of belief and practice. People in search for answers to their personal and social problems of the day will often find complete answers in new religious movements. The strong community identity will provide security and stability; the communal cooperation will provide common goals for life-building; the discipline in practice will develop self-mastery and knowledge; and recruitment and financial activities may build self-esteem. NRMs AND THE COURTS While many countries grant their citizens religious freedom, conflicts between religion and the state are inevitable, and become more intense when considering the practices of new religious movements—practices many mainstream secular and religious people may find problematic. New religious movements are often accused that they harm or endanger adherents. Court cases allege that they inflict psychological and/or physical

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trauma or death. These include practices such as kidnapping, brainwashing, mind-control, sexual abuse, alienation, harassment, harm or threat to families. This charge of endangerment and violence has also been leveled on a criminal, large-scale level. The mass murder–suicide in Jonestown is one example. Another well-known example occurred 1995, when Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas on the Tokyo subway. Another major legal issue for NRMs has to do with their status as a religious entity and their financial activities related to the organization. Tax exemption for religions and nonprofit organizations is accepted for many countries, the United States included. Here, the question involves whether particular new religious movements qualify as protected religions, and the legality of particular financial practices. An important issue raised in court cases is when an NRM becomes a legal religious entity. This is difficult, as these movements are not typically organized according to traditional Western understandings of a religion, nor do they always behave like one. Courts have to discern whether the group is a smokescreen for illegal activities, or for convenient tax exemption. Some new religious movements are indeed quite wealthy and run business-like organizations, leading to questions as to whether or not they are legitimate religions. The Church of Scientology has been under constant scrutiny for this very reason. The church has had trouble with the Internal Revenue Service and was involved in a 10-year legal battle with the Food and Drug Administration over controversial medical practices. It took 48 years for New Zealand to formally recognize in 2002 the Church of Scientology as a legal religious entity. Although Russia refused to re-register the church as a religion under their new laws on religion in 1997, the case was eventually taken to the European Court of Human Rights (Church of Scientology Moscow v. Russia), which sided with the church. In its decision on April 7, 2007, the Court found that the church was a religious entity entitled to the freedoms of association and of religion. The Italian Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that while Scientology is indeed a religion—and therefore tax exempt—its drug addiction program, Narconon, is not tax exempt. The Charity Commission of England and Wales rejected the church’s application to register as a charity (giving it tax exemption like other religious entities registered as charities). Scientology was rejected as a religion, as British law requires a religion to include belief in a Supreme Being that is expressed in worship. Scientology is also involved in legal cases in other countries, such as Germany, where it is not accepted as a legitimate religion, and instead is seen as a dangerous cult. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that Church of Scientology members could not deduct auditing and training courses from their federal income taxes. Such courses, though integral to church membership, and costing thousands of dollars, are payment for services, and not free church contributions. Auditing is the main practice in Scientology for the practitioner to gain control of the mind and achieve the state of Clear. Although the church argued that auditing is a religious practice for achieving enlightenment, and is comparable to the concept of tithing in other religious groups, the Court ruled that auditing is instead like church counseling, medical care, or other kinds of religiously sponsored services.

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Other new religious movements have had similar troubles. Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church (Moonies), was convicted by the United States on tax evasion charges prior to the group’s recognition as a taxexempt organization. Pagan and witchcraft groups have not surprisingly been challenged on their status. While U.S. courts generally recognize them as religious organizations, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island revoked the Church of Pan’s status. As the church’s activities were entirely environmental in focus, they were ruled not a religion, and therefore not exempt. In such cases, mainstream religions can also get involved; for legal issues involving new religious movements have implications for all religious groups and their practices. RECRUITMENT, FINANCIAL PRACTICES, AND THE BUSINESS OF NRMs Recruitment and solicitation of funds have been particularly controversial for new religious movements, particularly their common method of public solicitation. Solicitation at airports and other public grounds has been banned in some places because it is argued that these practices are a public nuisance, or even deceptive. For example, ISKCON members were arrested in 1987 in West Virginia for allegedly soliciting money for their community under the false pretense of feeding the poor. Critics of NRM solicitation practices argue that groups use deceptive practices like misleading donors/recruits on how the money is spent, who the specific group is, or what membership entails. Nevertheless, new religious movements do not have the forum that established religions have for gathering members and funds. Thus, public solicitation is often the most efficient way of getting the message out. Other groups organize side projects and products, establishing quasi-businesses, selling paraphernalia, vitamins or self-help books, offering cheap labor, designing websites, and so on. These practices are necessary for survival, but they also lead to questions of authenticity, legitimacy, and legality. While some NRMs deny the material world and the accumulation of wealth (for themselves and their adherents), others either embrace it, or at least teach that both are possible. Thus, some new religious movements have been extremely successful in gaining financial capital. One way to do this is by targeting mainstream businesses. Whether it is through workshops, special seminars, or selfhelp books, some NRMs have found success targeting business professionals. Organizations that offer seminars to train businesspeople have proliferated since the 1970s. These training seminars teach businesspeople techniques of management, developed out of their own beliefs, methods, and practices. For example, the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises offers programs for businesses, teaching them management practices developed from Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard; the Osho movement, founded by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, offers Results Seminars; and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation offers MBAs at its Maharishi University of Management. Another way is for new religious movements to focus on the general public. The Church of Scientology offers personality, stress, and IQ tests. Marketed

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products, Internet sites, and self-help books are all ways that individuals can take advantage of the offerings of NRMs. Through all of these, the exploration and experimentation in the self allows new religious movements to spread their message and grow. Seeking prosperity for oneself and one’s organization seems counter to the traditional notion of religions as not-for-profit, and on individual disciples focusing on their own inner spiritual life. Yet, many groups who support these kinds of business practices focus on the holism of life. If the divine is in all things, the material world is not in distinction from the spiritual world. Thus, self-empowerment leads to life-empowerment, which leads to financial empowerment. As movements grow and organize themselves, they naturally seek to attract followers, sustain themselves and grow. This requires that new religious movements finance the spread of their message. Thus, charges of financial impropriety and exploitation of vulnerable people who are seeking alternatives in their lives are inevitable. To combat these charges, NRMs must prove that they are “legitimate.” To do so, they often point to experiential proof, revelation, and ancient wisdom in establishing their legitimacy. While new religious movements proliferate, they often rise and fall fairly quickly. Only time can tell if the new religions of today will become the mainstream religions of tomorrow. See also Separation of Church and State; World Religion Aesthetics. Further Reading: Ashcraft, W. Michael and Dereck Daschke, eds. New religious movements: A documentary reader. New York and London: New York University Press, 2005; Beckford, James A., ed. New religious movements and rapid social change. London: Sage Publications/Unesco, 1986; Bromley, David G. and Anson D. Shupe, Jr. “Financing the new religions: A resource mobilization approach.” Journal for the scientific study of religion 19, no. 3 (1980): 227–239; Clarke, Peter. New religions in global perspective. New York: Routledge, 2006; Heelas, Paul. “Prosperity and the new age movement: The efficacy of spiritual economies.” In New religious movements: Challenge and response, ed. Bryan Wilson and Jamie Cresswell. New York: Routledge, 1999: 51–77; Lewis, James R. Legitimating new religions. London: Rutgers University Press, 2003; Lucas, Phillip and Thomas Robbins, eds. New religious movements in the 21st century: challenges in global perspective. New York: Routledge, 2004; Melton, J. Gordon. “The fate of NRMs and their detractors in twenty-first century America.” Novo Religio 4, no. 2 (2001): 241–248; Partridge, Christopher. New religions: A guide: New religious movements, sects and alternative spiritualities. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004; Richardson, James T., ed. Money and power in the new religions. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988; Saliba, John. Understanding new religious movements. 2nd ed. Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2003; Wilson, Bryan and Jamie Cresswell, eds. New religious movements: Challenge and response. New York: Routledge, 1999.

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O ORGAN TRANSPLANTS HISTORY Many people have forgotten that throughout most of human history, people died of diseases that are now completely treatable. Until recently, many bacterial and viral infections were lethal. Injuries to limbs led to death or required amputation because even a simple infection, say through a cut in the hand, was nearly impossible to stop once it became established. Not too many years ago, many women died soon after childbirth because of infections in the womb. Even women who survived childbirth often lost their babies to infections. If the umbilical cord was cut nonsterile instrument too close to the baby, bacteria would migrate down the cord stump and infect the child. Once infected, there was no way to save the baby. But current advances in medicine have changed our expectations. We all expect that any bacterial infection we might get will be cured because most bacterial infections can be cured with one of the dozens of antibiotics that have been discovered since the middle of the twentieth century. Another frequent cause of death until the middle of the last century was organ failure. An organ might fail because it suffers a viral infection, is exposed to a toxic compound, or because it is weak from birth. Organ failure is when an organ, like the kidney, can no longer do the job for which it was designed. The kidney filters the blood continuously and removes wastes and other chemicals to keep its composition in perfect condition. We now know, for example, that the kidney forms the units that filter the blood (called nephrons) before a person is born. If a woman’s body is undernourished before or during pregnancy, the

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kidney of her baby will make fewer filtering units than it needs during its lifetime. Even in normal people, nephrons begin to disappear as a person reaches middle age. If a person starts life with too few nephrons, the kidney will be vulnerable and potentially reach the point where it has too few left to filter the blood properly and the person might then suffer from kidney failure. Heart failure has become a very common cause of hospitalization. The heart is said to be failing if it becomes too weak to pump enough blood each beat to keep the body healthy. People who have a failing heart often complain that their legs are swelling with fluid or that they cannot catch their breath when they are lying down. Many of these people’s health deteriorates to the point where they cannot walk across a room. Up until the last few decades, people who had heart failure were prone to becoming weak and dying. Some have been helped by the drug Digitalis, derived from the “Fox Glove” plant, that helps the heart muscle beat stronger. This therapy often prolonged the lives of some people with heart failure but it too failed to stop the inevitable down-hill function of the heart. Despite good medical therapy, people with heart failure inevitably worsened and died from inadequate oxygenation. For more than 200 years, medical scientists have had the idea that the best way to fix a failing organ is to replace it with a new one—organ transplantation. This is not a new idea, the patron saints of surgery and pharmacy are the third-century physician twins Saints Cosmas and Damian (Nuland 1992). These physicians from Asia Minor refused money for their services and have been credited with a leg transplantation from a healthy Ethiopian or Moorish donor (probably involuntary) to a Caucasian bell-tower attendant. There is no record of the success of this surgery but it is certain there were issues with infection, surgical skill, and tissue compatibility. During the twentieth century, this idea of transplantation became a reasonable possibility. Human surgery became very sophisticated. Anesthesia was perfected with the invention of new anesthetics so that people would feel no pain during surgery. Operating room procedures became sterile and highly standardized. Surgery programs began rigorous training requirements that could last for 3–12 years after medical school to ensure that surgeons could perform very complex and difficult surgeries within their areas of specialty. By the middle of the twentieth century, surgeons had the skill to replace virtually any organ of the body. However, the big hurdle that prevented successful organ transplantation in the early twentieth century was not surgical skill. It was organ rejection. The body’s immune system is designed to reject any foreign tissue. Thus, if a person receives an organ from someone else, the body will naturally reject it. How does the body know that a new organ is not “self,” that it does not belong to the person who needs it? The answer to this question has been known for only a short time. Cells have proteins on their outside surface that are unique to the person who made them. The proteins are called human leukocyte (white blood cells) antigens or HLA proteins. There are more than 200 genes that make up the HLA system. They make it possible for every person (except identical twins) to have his or her own unique protein complex on the surface of their cells. Each person

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gets genes from both of his or her parents. The closer the donor is related the more similar their HLA proteins to the recipient. Therefore, receiving an organ from a close relative causes less rejection than from someone who is not related. This immune reaction is a great system because it means that a person’s immune system can recognize any foreign body that does not match its own protein complex and can then attack it to eliminate the threat. Sometimes a person’s immune system makes a mistake and sees its own tissue as non-self. This condition is known as an autoimmune disease. Severe autoimmune diseases include lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Beginning in the 1950s organ transplants began to be successful. The first kidney transplant to a patient from a living relative was performed at the Brigham Hospital in Boston in 1954 (see sidebar). This was an amazing feat that was heralded around the world. The first lung transplant was performed in 1963. The year 1967 was an exciting time for transplantation. In that year, heart and liver transplants were first performed. Over the next decade medical scientists worked to perfect other kinds of transplantation. It became possible to think that any part of the body could be transplanted. In 1981 the first combination of

TIMELINE OF SUCCESSFUL TRANSPLANTS 1905—First successful cornea transplant by Eduard Zirm 1954—First successful kidney transplant by Joseph Murray (Boston) 1966—First successful pancreas transplant by Richard Lillehei and William Kelly (Minnesota) 1967—First successful liver transplant by Thomas Starzl (Denver) 1967—First successful heart transplant by Christiaan Barnard (Cape Town, South Africa) 1981—First successful heart/lung transplant by Bruce Reitz (Stanford, CA) 1983—First successful lung lobe transplant by Joel Cooper (Toronto, Canada) 1986—First successful double-lung transplant (Ann Harrison) by Joel Cooper (Toronto, Canada) 1987—First successful whole lung transplant by Joel Cooper (St. Louis) 1995—First successful laparoscopic live-donor nephrectomy by Lloyd Ratner and Louis Kavoussi (Baltimore) 1998—First successful live-donor partial pancreas transplant by David Sutherland (Minnesota) 1998—First successful hand transplant (France) 2005—First successful partial face transplant (France) 2005—First successful penis transplant (China) 2008—First successful complete full double arm transplant (Munich, Germany) From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplant.

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heart and lung transplants was performed. Other organs that can now be successfully transplanted include small intestine, pancreas, heart and lung together, and the cornea. There are three types of organ rejection that are named according to how quickly they can attack a newly transplanted organ. When an organ is rejected right at the time it is put in a new person’s body, it is called hyperacute rejection. Hyperacute rejection happens when the person receiving the new organ already has antibodies against the proteins in the new organ. An example of this is when the two people have different incompatible blood types. All organ donors are tested for this problem before a new organ is transplanted into a person. Thus, this type of rejection rarely occurs. The second type is called acute rejection and begins during the first week and may continue for some months. Acute rejection is the result of HLA proteins that are recognized as foreign by the recipient. The third type is called chronic rejection. Chronic rejection is the result of a very slow attack on the transplanted organ by the immune system. It may cause organ failure many years after the new organ has been put into place. The most important breakthrough in transplantation came with the discovery of immunosuppressant drugs. These drugs can prevent a person’s immune system from attacking a transplanted organ. Unfortunately these drugs do not always work in people with chronic rejection. There are several types of antirejection drugs. Most work by inhibiting the ability of immune cells to attack the foreign cells. A new therapy involves the infusion of transplant acceptance-inducing cells (TAICs). These cells are modified to kill off the cells of the recipient that attack the donor organ. In time, TAICs may make it possible to have transplants without immunosuppressant drug therapy. ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS There are many ethical questions that surround the topic of transplantation. How can we be sure the donor is dead before the organ is taken? How should we define death? Does death occur when the heart stops or when the brain is deemed to be unable to function again? These problems are currently under hot debate (see Bernat 2008; Veatch 2008). A number of policies are in place to ensure that a person’s brain is really dead before any organ can be taken. Another problem is that some people believe that the heart holds the soul of a person and should not be placed in another person’s body. The biblical imagery of the heart being the center for life and love has caused many religious groups to cautiously agree to this life-saving transplant. Heart transplant recipients do experience a profound sense of thankfulness to the donor’s family for the chance at continued life but feel no transfer of the donor’s spiritual attributes. Perhaps the most important ethical issue is how to meet the demands for new organs. Organs are taken from people who have died from causes that do not harm potentially transplantable organs. Many of these people have gone on record as being organ donors when they die. In some states this can be noted on a person’s driver’s license. However, there are not enough people who die as donors each year to care for the number of people who are waiting for a life-saving organ

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transplant. Thousands of people are waiting for heart transplants every year. Sixty percent of them will never receive one. Who among them should get an organ when one becomes available? Who should be rejected from getting an organ when it becomes available? For example, if a person ruins his or her liver with excessive use of alcohol, should they be allowed to get a new liver? This question is asked several times a day in hospitals across the United States. Generally, the answer is no. Organ acquisition in the United States is governed by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) under contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). This system allows most medical institutions to allocate organs among themselves according to the most critical need of their patients. Because of the intense pressure to obtain deceased-donor and living-donor organs, some countries have allowed so-called medical tourism whereby individuals with the financial means can purchase medical services and possibly organs. The intense desperation for survival associated with poverty could place families in a moral dilemma where organs (e.g., kidneys) could be sold. This ethical nightmare would cross the moral boundaries of most societies. In 1961 the United Kingdom passed the Human Tissue Act, which made organ sales illegal in Britain. The United States followed this lead in 1984 by enacting The National Organ Transplantation Act, which made organ sales illegal and set up the OPTN. This legislation has eliminated most organ sales within these two countries. There are advocates for selling organs to ease the pressure on the organ procurement process. Two books, Stakes and Kidneys: Why Markets in Human Body Parts are Morally Imperative and Kidney for Sale by Owner, make a case that thousands of people die each year who could be saved if a system was available for purchasing organs from voluntary donors who were fairly compensated for their life-giving tissues. A person’s ethical view of this debate may be influenced by personal stories and the desperation people experience to save the life of a loved one. On October 26, 1984, Dr. Leonard Bailey at Loma Linda University transplanted a young female baboon heart into a three-week premature human infant whose heart had stopped as a result of hypoplastic left heart syndrome. This baby was named “Baby Fae” and lived 21 days before dying of kidney failure. Even though the transplantation was done to prolong a human life until a human donor could be found, several organizations picketed the medical school claiming the procedure desecrated animal-human barriers or the baboon’s rights (animal rights movement, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Xenotransplantation is the use of an organ from an animal for transplantation (i.e., cross-species transplantation). This has been attempted several times. For example, organs from pigs, chimps, and baboons have been transplanted into humans. However, organs from another species are even more likely to be rejected than human organs. Scientists have tried to find ways to use animal organs for transplantation without having them rejected. One way is to alter animal cells so that they make human proteins in place of their own proteins. This has been accomplished to different degrees in sheep and pigs. Pig heart valves are used in people every day. However, many people believe that animal tissues should not

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be used for transplantation either because it violates their view of the separation of species or because they are worried that animals will be raised and killed to support human life. Another view holds that it would be unethical to reject xenotransplantation if it could successfully save the lives of thousands of people. Everyone wonders whether it will be possible to someday perform a brain transplant. It is a tempting wish that when your body wears out, you could take your brain and put in a new healthy body. The brain will, of course, be the most difficult to transplant. Perhaps it will never be done. The problem with a brain transplant is that the brain is connected to nerves that run to every part of the body and as of today it seems unlikely that all of the connections from one person’s brain could be lined up perfectly with the cut nerves in another person’s body. This problem is made worse by the fact that the number and position of the nerves in one person is quite different from those in another so it would be close to impossible to line up the nerves from the donor with the nerves of the recipient. There is also an ethical problem. The brain is the center of personhood. The mind, which is a product of the functioning brain, would move with the brain to the new person. Therefore, even if it were possible brain transplantation might never be seen as an appropriate surgery. Organ transplantation has progressed quickly in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As is often the cause in science, the ethical framework to make these tough decisions lags behind the technology. The political establishment does its best to keep up with the pace of scientific advancements and protect against abuses. Typically, religious institutions are the last to understand the pace and the moral ramifications. While it might seem to some people that the ethical issues surrounding transplantation are unimportant, the truth is that everyone in society must do their part in making ethical decisions. As many ethicists have rather dramatically argued, the future of the human race depends on it. Further Reading: Bernat, James L. “Organ Donation after Cardiac Death.” The New England Journal of Medicine 359, no. 7 (2008): 209–13; Cherry, Mark. Kidney for Sale by Owner. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2005; History of Transplantation. Available at: http://www.donatelifeny.org/transplant/organ_history.html; Manning, Jason. The Eighties Club, Baby Fae, 2000. Available at: http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id302. htm; Nuland, Sherwin B. Medicine: The Art of Healing. Westport, CT: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1992; Taylor, James Stacey. Stakes and Kidneys: Why Markets in Human Body Parts are Morally Imperative. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Press, 2005; Truog, Robert D., and Franklin G. Miller. “The Dead Donor Rule and Organ Transplantation.” The New England Journal of Medicine 359, no. 7 (2008): 674–75; Veatch, Robert M. “Donating Hearts after Cardiac Death—Reversing the Irreversible.” The New England Journal of Medicine 359, no. 7 (2008): 672–73.

Dwight J. Kimberly

P PERSONAL PACIFISM VERSUS POLITICAL NONVIOLENCE Pacifists believe that they must not participate in any forms of violence, including military violence or even police violence. Among religious pacifists, their refusal to kill is based on ancient religious teachings, and a long history of practice. A recent variation of religious pacifism, however, believes that pacifists can and should participate in active movements for social and political change using tactics of persuasion, demonstration, economic pressures, and so on. This more assertive version of pacifism that arose in the twentieth century is known today as nonviolence or nonviolent direct action. These ideas are often defended on the basis of religious teachings, but have been heavily inspired by twentieth-century examples, like Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence from Britain. THE ROOTS OF RELIGIOUS PACIFISM: CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM Many religious traditions, especially Christianity and Buddhism, seem to have clear teachings recorded in central documents (e.g., the New Testament and early Christian writings for Christians, and ancient Sutras for Buddhists) that strongly discourage violent actions. There is some debate among religious pacifists as to how much force can be justified in any situation based on these ancient teachings, but intentionally lethal violence is always considered to be prohibited by pacifists. However, despite this ancient tradition that agrees that the written teachings have often been understood to encourage pacifism or nonviolence, later 379

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adherents of these religions often overrule or reinterpret the meaning of those ancient teachings to allow for modern participation in war and other forms of violence, especially when these religions (again, Christianity and Buddhism being particularly good examples) become the religions of nations or political systems.

THE RELIGIOUS ROOTS OF PACIFISM IN CHRISTIANITY Most scholars of the Bible agree that the New Testament seems to present Jesus as a teacher of a very peaceful ethic. Perhaps most famous of all is his instruction to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:27) and the instruction to “turn the other cheek” when struck by others (Matthew 5:39 and Luke 6:29). Ultimately, Jesus’ own death seems to be the ultimate expression of his nonviolent ethic. The other major New Testament writer, Paul of Tarsus, seems to interpret Jesus as teaching nonviolence also, because he writes in his moral instructions: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14); “Live in harmony with one another” (Romans 12:16), and “Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:17– 18). In sum, the overwhelming majority of early Christian writings suggest that for the first three centuries of the Christian movement, it was the teaching of the Christian leaders that Christians ought not to engage in any violence because of the teaching and example of Jesus. In the fourth century, however, this peaceful tradition underwent significant changes. With the apparent conversion to Christianity of the Roman Emperor Constantine, Christianity was transformed from a minority religion among others within the Roman Empire, into the official religion of the Roman Empire by the end of the fourth century. By the early fifth century, all Roman soldiers had to be baptized Christians. As a direct result of this dramatic change of status, Christianity underwent significant changes, including accommodating itself to the violent needs of the Roman Empire, including the need to maintain a military and police force for the Empire itself.

The Just War The earliest major expression of this change was the growth of the concept of the Just War. While there may be evidence for earlier forms of this idea, it finds its first major expression in the thought of the early Christian theologian, St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 a.d.). This concept was a viewpoint that argued that, under certain very strictly defined moral and legal circumstances, war was actually permissible for Christians to participate in. The ideal, however, of accepting martyrdom when facing life-threatening challenges was often still maintained in the folklore and stories of the saints in early and medieval Christianity, and remained an ideal ethic for Eastern (Arab

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and Asian) Christians, especially in the face of the rise of Islam beginning in the seventh century a.d. In Western, especially European, Christianity, however, the idea of Christian pacifism or nonviolence as a normal Christian ethical ideal was revived by certain Christian protest movements before and after the rise of Protestantism. Followers of the Italian Christian preacher Pietro Valdes (d. 1218), whose movement exists today as the Italian Waldensian Church, were initially characterized by a commitment to nonviolence, and after the Protestant Reformation, groups such as the Quakers (Society of Friends) in England, and the Mennonites in Switzerland and Holland, revived Christian nonviolence/pacifism as central moral values of their interpretation of Christianity. Both Quakers and Mennonites maintain their commitment to nonviolence as a Christian ethic. Groups such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation were founded by Christians of all backgrounds, to be an organization where commitment to nonviolence is encouraged for any Christian from any church, Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. THE RELIGIOUS ROOTS OF PACIFISM IN BUDDHISM It is recorded in Buddhist sources that there was once a prediction that the young Buddha would grow to be a great wheel-turner—a phrase that was interpreted to mean warrior (e.g., rider of chariots). According to the earliest written teachings of Buddhism, the Buddha’s first sermon was titled, Turning of the Wheel of the Law. This has been interpreted by Buddhist scholars to be his way of declaring that the famous prediction was transformed by the Buddha into a Wheel of Peace. This wheel, which became a central graphic theme of Buddhist art and iconography, is now often taken to refer to the classic teachings of Buddhism known as the Four Noble Truths. Of these four, there is included the Eightfold Path—a set of practical moral guidance for followers of Buddhism. For many Buddhists, included in their understanding of these practical steps of achieving spiritual wisdom, is a commitment to ahimsa— protecting all beings from harm or injury. This has included, for many Buddhists, a commitment to vegetarianism as well as a very personal pacifism in the classic sense. The Path to Transformation of the Self Christopher Queen writes that “The most significant contributions of early Buddhism to the practice of nonviolence . . . are its techniques to counter the three evil roots of action—hatred, greed, and delusion—the seeds of violence itself ” (Queen 2007). This includes a meditative prayer technique that involves repeating prayers such as the following: “May I be free from enmity; May I be free from ill will.” Buddhist approaches to pacifism and nonviolence, therefore, focus first and foremost on the individual’s struggle to overcome violence within themselves, and in relation to one’s immediate neighbors and contacts. This peacefulness is normally promoted by understanding one’s own lack of permanence, and

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letting go of one’s greed and desires. Combined with this view is also a profound sense of the interconnectedness of all existence, thus promoting a sense of interdependence that would question violent conflict and separations. Toward Buddhist Activism Although often associated by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists as a religion of spirituality and withdrawal from the cares of this world, Buddhist philosophy has developed a tradition of nonviolence that is more active, and has therefore been engaged in some similar debates about tactics and methods that other religions have also struggled with, namely Christianity. In the Mahayana tradition, for example, which teaches that everyone has the potential of reaching the enlightened state of the Buddha, there grew also the tradition of heroes of the faith who delayed their own ultimate enlightenment so as to assist their fellow humans—especially those in need or who are in danger. These heroes of the faith became known as bodhisattvas (literally, a being destined for enlightenment), and thus, there arose the beginnings of an ideal Buddhist who is active in the care of others. Similar to Christianity’s rise to power in the Roman Empire, forms of Buddhism became the state religion of a number of Asian kingdoms—Sri Lanka, Japan, Burma (Myanmar), and Thailand. In many cases, participation in warfare and violence were justified by Buddhist monks and philosophers, particularly where Buddhism itself was seen to be defended by military action by Buddhist societies. In response to general concerns about the increase in violence and warfare in the twentieth century, however, there have arisen new Buddhist movements advocating a much more active stance toward peacemaking and nonviolence. Engaged Buddhism The concept of engaged Buddhism is often associated with the teachings of Vietnamese Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, who began a movement of Buddhist monks opposed to the violence of both sides of the Vietnam War. In addition to speaking and teaching for peace, the public demonstrations of engaged Buddhism included marches, but also actions difficult for Western observers to quite understand, such as self-immolation of the Venerable Thich Quang Duc in the streets of Saigon in 1963. But the modern notion of engaged Buddhism has now expanded to include the largely nonviolent work of the Buddhist leader, the Dalai Llama, in his resistance to the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and the struggles of Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the Democratic Burmese opposition political parties struggling against the military dictatorship of Burma. Included in this growing sense of engaged Buddhism has been the Soka Gakkai movement of Japan, especially under the leadership of Daisaku Ikeda. Each of these leaders and movements are typified by a much more involved approach to peacemaking and social justice issues—and similar to Christian developments—an approach to pacifism that seeks to be involved with the good, rather than merely avoiding the bad.

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PACIFISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: THE CASE OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE UNITED STATES The United States Constitution gives the government the power to raise an army, so people can be drafted to fight. But, there is also an established right to conscientious objection (usually known as CO status); a right that dates from before the formal adoption of the American Constitution. As noted by the Section 6(j) of the Selective Service Act: “Nothing . . . shall be construed to require any person to be subject to combatant training and service in the armed forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.” It seems certain that American law allows for this provision because of the early colonial presence of Peace Church groups such as the Quakers, the Mennonites, and the Brethren. Traditionally, these Peace Churches practiced a form of pacifism in the United States and Canada that consisted largely of their conscientious objection to participation in military conflict. Such a religious opposition to participation in the military, however, usually does not result in a complete and total withdrawal from all modern active society. Members of all three groups participate actively in government service, business, and education, although avoiding those government agencies that would involve carrying weapons (police, border guards, and the military).

Extreme Pacifism In some cases, however, the social practices of some Christian pacifist groups comes close to virtual withdrawal from the wider society—particularly in the case of the Amish, a radical religious expression of Anabaptist/Mennonite Christian theology. The Amish, radical pacifists since their founding in the sixteenth century in Switzerland, have a very minimal direct involvement with surrounding American or Canadian society (they are almost exclusively in North America, although there are small South American settlements). Many groups of Amish or Hutterites refuse to vote, participate in unions (even when they accept jobs in non-Amish factories), and have minimal involvement in economic systems of mortgages and banking. Many Amish groups dress in simple and plain forms of dress, and refuse modern forms of transportation, preferring the simple life of horse and buggy. They will interact with non-Amish, but will tend toward isolation, and have often become the subject of tourism in locations like Ohio and Pennsylvania. It is important to clarify, however, that the majority of Peace Church believers in North America believe that they should not only freely interact with modern society, but do their part toward working for positive social and political change in wider society. How can they do this without compromising their commitment to nonviolence? This is the difficult debate that is always ongoing among the members of these groups, and also debated among any Christians who agree that Christianity ought to be a nonviolent religious tradition.

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DO PACIFISTS “DO THEIR PART”? While there was large-scale resistance to World War I among American Christians, the famous American religious teacher, Reinhold Niebuhr, dramatically abandoned his own earlier pacifist convictions to support American participation in World War II, and accused those Christians who still remained pacifist of not being realistic about evil in the world, and “standing by” when they should be involved in fighting the threat of German and Japanese conquest. These kinds of pressures against Christian pacifist groups, while present during earlier American conflicts such as the Civil War and World War I, became much more intense during World War II. Niebuhr, and others who agreed with him, tended to accuse pacifist Christians of either not doing their part, or worse, standing by in the face of evil and tyranny. This pressure arising in the mid-twentieth century combined with the international impact of Gandhi’s campaigns in India to give rise to the debates about pacifism versus nonviolent action. CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION Despite the fact that conscientious objectors willingly engaged in alternative service that typically involved building projects, wilderness projects, or medical work in nonmilitary facilities (and their terms of service usually exceeded military terms of service), there was a growing conviction among Christian advocates of pacifism that their resistance to evil ought to be more active and less passive. This was typically expressed by those who stated that they wanted to engage in political action supporting what they “were for, rather than what we are against.” In response, religious groups who try to maintain a modern commitment to the nonviolent implications of the ancient teachings of their tradition have developed more assertive forms of pacifism in order to show that a modern commitment to nonviolence need not mean a withdrawal from working for change in the serious social problems of the world. Thus, for example, the oldest religious-based lobbying organization in Washington D.C. was founded by the Quakers (Friends Committee on National Legislation) with the expressed purpose of being more assertive about advocating political leaders for issues more in line with Quaker convictions about peacemaking and social justice. Beyond advocacy, however, others determined that there needed to be more engagement in direct action—assertive actions intended to exert political pressure for changes in political and legal life of wider society. MODERN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Within both Christianity and Buddhism, but also among adherents of religious-based pacifism in Islam and Judaism, a significant change in debates surrounding religious pacifism and nonviolence occurred in the twentieth century with the political activity of Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) in India. Gandhi’s development of nonviolent, but forceful and confrontational, tactics

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for seeking Indian independence from Great Britain, gave rise to new debates about what constitutes nonviolence. Gandhi’s own religious roots in Hinduism, and his reading of the Christian Gospels, helped to inspire his formulation of political strategies and public tactics intended to pressure the British colonial government over India to grant total independence from British rule. These tactics included massive strikes of Indian workers, large scale demonstrations intended to embarrass the colonial governors or draw unwanted attention to abuses, and engage in large scale acts of noncooperation. Gandhi even experimented with attempts to economically undermine the colonial government by encouraging Indians to abandon or boycott imported products and, for example, wear only locally produced Indian clothing. The concept behind all these tactics was based on the idea that Indians can practice political and economic strategies that would make India ungovernable by an undesired foreign power, and thus the colonial powers will be forced to eventually accept Indian independence without large-scale lethal conflict. It was, in the minds of some, fighting a “war” without the lethal weapons and large scale casualties of warfare. While it is arguable that others experimented with similar political tactics before Gandhi, such as Te Whiti (1815?–1907), the Maori leader whose movement based at Parihaka was nonviolently but forcefully engaged in tactics of resistance to British presence in New Zealand in the 1860s, Gandhi is often credited with transforming nonviolence into a political philosophy in a way that engaged the world media in unprecedented ways. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. James Lawson intentionally studied Gandhi’s concepts and applied them to the American Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, including fasts, large-scale demonstrations and marches, and economic boycotts. Once again, the philosophical basis for the development of these forms of political pressure was explicitly religious, rooted in the teachings of Jesus according to both King and Lawson. With the development of large-scale American public opposition to the continued war in Vietnam, however, debate among advocates of religious based nonviolence became more seriously involved in actions that for some, began to blur the difference between pacifism and violence. Two Roman Catholic Priests, Fr. Daniel Berrigan S.J., and his brother Philip (at that time also a priest) became associated with a more assertive form of Christian nonviolence that argued that destruction of property may be an acceptable tactic for nonviolent campaigns of social change. Beginning in 1967, the two Catholic brothers started a campaign of breaking into Selective Service offices, breaking open draft file cabinets, and throwing draft files into the street outside the offices. They would then gather outside and either pour blood upon them, or burn them with napalm, or both. These acts were intended to symbolize religious opposition to the war. The tactics further evolved to a stage where Fr. Daniel Berrigan actually led a group of religious protestors to break into an armament manufacturer’s plant where the nosecones of actual missiles were produced. Quoting the famous Old Testament passage about “beating swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2:2–4), Fr. Berrigan and others actually

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began to smash the missile parts with sledge hammers. The point, once again, was symbolic, although at the same time it was forceful and assertive. These tactics represented an escalation in the form of tactics considered morally acceptable within a commitment to nonviolence. See also Amish; Hutterites; Just War. Further Reading: Ackerman, Peter, and Jack Duvall. A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Palgrave Press, 2001; Bainton, Roland. Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-Evalution. Nashville: Abingdon, 1979; Brown, Dale. Biblical Pacifism. 2nd ed. Nappanee, IN: Evangel Publishing House, 2003; Cahill, Lisa S. Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism, and Just War Theory. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1997; Charles, J. Daryl. Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition. Downers Grove, IN: InterVarsity Press, 2005; Cole, Darrell. When God Says War is Right: The Christian’s Perspective on When and How to Fight. Colorado Springes, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2002; Gan, Barry, and Robert Holmes, eds. Nonviolence in Theory and Practice. Waveland, MA: 2004; Holmes, Arthur. War and the Christian Conscience. 2nd ed. Nashville: Baker Academic, 2005; Johnson, James Turner. Can Modern War by Just? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986; Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003; Nelson-Pallmyer, Jack. Is Religion Killing Us?: Violence in the Bible and the Quran. New York: Continuum, 2005; Palmer-Fernande, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion and War. Routledge, 2003; Queen, Christopher. “The Peace Wheel.” In Subverting Hatred, ed. Daniel L. SmithChristopher, 2007; Sharp, Gene. Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice And 21st Century Potential. Extending Horizons Books, 2005; Smith-Christopher, Daniel, ed. Subverting Hatred: The Challenge of Nonviolence in World Religions. 2nd ed. New York: Orbis Books, 2006; Wink, Walter, ed. Peace is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation. New York: Orbis Books, 2000; Yoder, John Howard. When War is Unjust: Being Honest in Just War Thinking. 2nd ed. Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001.

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS The First Amendment to the United States Constitution includes two guarantees about religion: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The phrase shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion prohibits Congress from enacting any laws that have the effect of creating an official religion in this country, or committing the government’s resources to supporting or promoting any particular faith. But the Constitution also says “Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise of religion.” This protects the individual’s right to follow her conscience, both in determining what she believes, and what her beliefs require her to do.

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Sometimes these two guarantees collide when people feel a need to practice their faiths in public settings. In the United States, the venue where the conflicts are greatest and most controversial is the public school. HISTORY OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT AS APPLIED TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS When the Constitution was first adopted, it had no explicit guarantee of religious freedom, other than a prohibition on using any “religious Test” as a prerequisite for public office. The framers assumed that civil liberties would be protected by the states, and that the Constitution did nothing to infringe them. But some Americans were concerned that, without clearer provisions in the new federal Constitution, the national government might act to undermine their rights. So, 12 amendments were proposed by the first Congress to address this worry. Of these, ten were ratified by the states, including the First Amendment. The First Amendment is directed at the federal government: “Congress shall make no law . . .” Public schools in the United States are run by the states, or by the local governments created by the states, which are not mentioned in the First Amendment. (At the time the First Amendment was adopted, some states had established churches, a practice that persisted into the early nineteenth century.) After the Civil War, Congress proposed, and the states ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment, which includes a provision forbidding any state to “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The United States’ Supreme Court interpreted this provision to apply to religious freedom, declaring that the Fourteenth Amendment “incorporates” the First Amendment and religious freedom as part of the “liberty” that states must not infringe. Since the middle of the twentieth century, the Supreme Court has decided a steady stream of cases dealing with the First Amendment in public schools. While there has been substantial confusion among the general public about what these cases mean, they can be summarized as follows: • The Constitutional ban on laws respecting an establishment of religion (the Establishment Clause) prohibits national, state, and local governments from offering any kind of support to any religious faith, whether it be in the form of money, facilities, or endorsement. • The Constitutional guarantee of religious liberty (the Free Exercise clause) allows citizens to practice their religious faith without interference from the government, unless there is a compelling issue of public safety or welfare. Even in the rare cases in which governments can restrict religious practice, the regulation has to be the least restrictive possible to achieve the compelling public purpose. • In cases where a government agency has created a forum for public expression, it cannot restrict access to that forum based on the content of what is being expressed. In particular, it may not bar religious groups from using the forum because of the religious content of their speech or other activities.

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TABLE OF SUPREME COURT CASES Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, 330 U.S. 1 (1947): Court applies First Amendment ban on establishing religion to the states. Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962): Public schools may not sponsor or mandate a short nondenominational prayer. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963): Public schools may not sponsor or mandate the reading of the Lord’s Prayer or other Bible verses. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969): Public schools may not ban specific kinds of non-obscene speech, but may enforce content-neutral regulations for the purpose of maintaining order and a good learning environment. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971): Public money may not be allocated directly to parochial schools because doing so violates at least one part of a three-part test: (1) whether the government action has a secular purpose; (2) whether the primary effect of the government action advances or inhibits religion; or (3) whether the action brings government into excessive entanglement with religion, such as resolving doctrinal issues or the like. Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981): Public university may not deny use of university facilities for worship, if they are available for other student or community groups. Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985): Public schools cannot se aside a minute of silence expressly for meditation or voluntary prayer. Board of Education of the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990): The federal Equal Access Act of 1984 is constitutional, requiring public schools to allow students to organize religious groups if the school allows students to form similar groups for nonreligious purposes. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992): Public schools cannot sponsor prayers of invocation or benediction at graduation ceremonies. Rosenberger v. The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995): If other student-initiated groups are given student activities funds, a public university may not deny those funds to student-initiated religious groups. Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 790 (2000): Public schools cannot sponsor prayers of invocation or benediction at athletic events. Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001): Public schools may not deny access to religious groups to use their facilities after school if they have allowed access to other community groups. Note: These cases can generally be accessed by doing an Internet search on the title of the case. Another good way to search for cases is through Cornell Law School at http://supct.law.cornell.edu, an outstanding website for legal materials.

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CONTROVERSIAL IMPACT ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS Some of the uproar about religion in the public schools is based on misperceptions. It is not true, for example, that prayer is banned in public schools. Students and staff may pray privately at any time. Students can also pray publicly in settings where they initiate the prayer themselves, and employees of the school do not exercise control over what is said. Students can also express their religious views at any time they choose, subject to the normal rules schools can impose to keep order and protect the educational environment. Students may not force captive audiences to participate or observe. Nor may they interfere with class discipline, or disrupt the normal operations of the school. Otherwise, students are free to pray, study the scriptures, worship, and share their faith on school grounds to the same extent as any other kind of student activity and expression. Employees, on the other hand, are restricted in some of the ways they might express their religious faith. Employees are free to practice their faith on their own time, or even with colleagues in settings that are entirely voluntary—after school hours in the faculty lounge, for example. But when students are involved, the Supreme Court has ruled that the employee’s free exercise rights are limited by the students’ right not to be subjected to a de-facto established religion. So, while employees can be present to preserve safety and proper order even when students have organized themselves for prayer or scripture study, the employees cannot participate in the religious aspects of the activity, or reward or punish students for their participation. Setting aside the conflicts that arise from misunderstanding of the law—by parents, as well as school staff and administrators—there is still controversy among religious leaders and lay people about the current interpretation of the Constitution as applied to public schools. Some religious groups have essentially accepted the current rules about prayer and other religious activities in public schools. The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family offers resources describing current law, and suggestions for how to help students organize prayer meetings and share their faith on campus within the law. Moderate to conservative Christian attorneys pursue similar ends through organizations such as the American Center for Law and Justice, and the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom. But others feel that the Constitution should be interpreted to permit more freewheeling religious expression on public school campuses, by students, community members, and employees alike. Most of the arguments fall into one of five categories: • The Christian nation argument: the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and the Constitution should be interpreted in light of this. The ban on establishing a religion was not meant to exclude public expressions of Christianity by government officials, including teachers in schools. • The majoritarian argument: In a democracy, when a community is in overwhelming agreement about what should happen in its schools, it should be able to implement that consensus.

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• The educational benefits argument: There are positive educational benefits available to students from various religious activities. • The religious community argument: All the major religions include a strong community emphasis, calling adherents to worship, study, or act jointly with others in public life, including school. True freedom of religion requires freedom to practice one’s faith in this kind of community setting. • The religious accommodation argument: Some of the private, individualized duties in many faiths have to be carried out in public, or at times of the day that bring them into the school setting. Schools need to find ways to accommodate these practices or they will be prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The first two lines of argument are most often made by Protestant Christians in America, naturally, since most of the framers of the Constitution were Protestants, and Protestants are by far the group most likely to constitute a dominant majority in school districts in the United States. They are both essentially arguments from the basis of political theory, saying public religious activity is appropriate because of the kind of nation the United States is, either by definition in its founding documents, or by the political will of the current majority. Other believers, however, including many Christians, object to the elevation of any specific faith to a privileged position in public institutions. For one thing, even in the most homogenous communities in America, there are strong differences among citizens about matters of religious doctrine. Sometimes the differences are major, involving fundamental issues about the existence of God (or gods). Other times the disputes are about issues that seem minor to outsiders, but are crucial to those who disagree, including issues ranging from the roles of men and women, to matters of ethics or lifestyle. Those who framed the Constitution had similar disagreements among themselves. Whatever the differences, to assemble a majority involves one of three choices, all of which are unacceptable: forcing some people to accept or participate in expressions of faith that violate their consciences; compromising on important issues in ways that will put everyone in uncomfortable positions; or finding a way to gloss over the differences. The result, according to these critics, is a bland civil religion that masks living faith, and even distracts people from a true encounter with God. Whatever the merits of the Christian nation or majoritarian arguments, they are clearly unpersuasive in the courts on establishment of religion grounds. There does not appear to be any realistic possibility that either approach will become the basis for American law in the foreseeable future. The educational benefits argument shifts focus to the educational purposes of schools. If we hope for our schools to educate the entire person, then we should encourage students to reflect on their moral and spiritual duties by exposing them to stories of faith, and the basic teachings of religion. This line of reasoning is subtle and profound, and has several layers of appeal. At the most surface level, the argument for religious expression in school addresses prosaic concerns like discouraging disruptive behavior, or encouraging

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scholarly virtues like discipline and hard work. If students are given a few moments at the beginning of the day to pray, to think about their duties to those around them, and to consider their deepest goals for their lives, there may be immediate and visible benefits in how well they do at their studies, and how smoothly the school operates. This has been a persuasive line of reasoning in the courts, which have accepted such measures of moments of silence to start the day, as long as school staff do not encourage (or discourage) students to use the time to pray or do other religious actions. But the educational benefits of open religious practice or study in school might include more than just improving the educational atmosphere. If religion is an important factor in modern life, and if modern communications and transportation make it likely that students will encounter many faiths different than their own, then it might be valuable for students to learn about each other’s faith in school. Study of religion and watching other faiths’ practices would be good cross-cultural learning. And there is an even deeper possible educational benefit. Since so much of students’ time is spent in school, and since the public has a clear interest in developing virtuous citizens, then helping students to internalize solid values like honesty and caring for others is a public interest. Religion has traditionally promoted these kinds of values, a function that could be enhanced if religion and religious instruction were given freer rein in the public schools. Focusing on educational benefits of exposure to religion in this way does not ask schools to favor one faith over another. In fact, schools would be encouraged to make space for encounters with as many religions as possible—at least all those represented among the student population in the school. Courts have been open to this kind of thing in schools, although they are still watchful, worried that activities that appear on the surface to be neutral toward various faiths might be mere covers for the advancement of one faith. For example, attempts by various states to provide for moments of silence before school have had mixed success in the courts. They have sometimes been rejected because people sponsoring the moments of silence went on record saying their goal was to encourage students to pray in school. But the educational benefits argument is not always popular with parents, students, or even teachers. People worry that students may be converted to disfavored religions, either as a natural result of learning more about them, or because they have been recruited to a new religious faith by people abusing the freedom to practice their faith at school. The final two arguments (the religious community and religious accommodation arguments) have had more success in changing school practices. These focus on the believer’s attempt to live faithfully to his religion. Here, the religious freedom side of the First Amendment comes into full focus, and the concerns about establishing a religion are least prominent. The claim here is that schools need to be flexible in their operation to allow students and employees to participate fully in the schools without forcing them into a position of having to violate the commandments of their faith.

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Courts have generally been willing to accept, and in some cases even to require, attempts by public schools to make changes in their operations or programs to accommodate those who find the standard school experience to be contrary to their understanding of God’s will. For example, schools have had to reschedule athletic events to permit students to participate without violating religious Sabbath-day requirements. Schools have altered menus to accommodate religious diets; created space in the school, and time in the day to allow Muslims to conduct required prayers; allow students to opt out of dancing classes or other activities that violate their religious teachings; and many other forms of accommodation. CONCLUSION Courts in the United States developed their current interpretation of the First Amendment in a series of decisions since the mid-twentieth century. The boundary lines between what is, and what is not, permitted in the public schools are not yet settled firmly. But some areas of permissible activity have been clearly recognized, especially those involving voluntary nondisruptive activities organized by students. When students organize the events, and do not seek special privileges not offered to other student groups, they can pray, study the scriptures, support each other, and even share their faith gently with other students who consent to hear their message. See also Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: American Center for Law and Justice. http://www.aclj.org; American Civil Liberties Union. http://www.aclu.org/religion/index.html; Americans United for Separation of Church and State. http://www.au.org; Center for Law and Religious Freedom. http://www.clsnet.org; Dawson Institute for Church-State Studies (Baylor University). http://www.baylor.edu/church_state/splash.php; First Freedom Center. http://www. firstfreedom.org; Fisher, Louis and David G. Adler. American Constitutional Law, Volume Two, Constitutional Rights: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. 7th ed. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2007; O’Brien, David M. Constitutional Law and Politics, Volume II: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2005, especially Chapter 6; People for the American Way. http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw; The Rutherford Institute. http://www.rutherford.org.

Ron Mock

PRIME TIME RELIGION Father Ellwood Kieser, pioneer developer of Christian programming targeted for the secular audience and the founder of the Humanitas Award, complained in a 1994 essay that television producers had ignored the “most important part of the human psyche,” and he cited the statistic that 94 percent of Americans said they believe in God, and that 41 percent attended a church or a synagogue. “[I]f religion is central to American culture,” Father Kieser states, “it has been curiously absent from broadcast television in the United States” (Kieser 1997, 19).

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The leader of a conservative Christian organization, the American Family Association, Donald Wildmon, used even stronger language during a conference on religion in television at the UCLA Center for Communication Policy in 1995. He claimed that religion had been “censored” from prime time television. “The message from TV is quite clear—religion hardly exists in American society and when it does it is not a good thing” (Wildmon 1997, 4). Since 1995, however, TV landscape has included such popular religiously based programs as Touched By An Angel (1994–2003), 7th Heaven (1996–2007), and Joan of Arcadia (2003–2005). Prior to that, Michael Landon’s Highway to Heaven (1984–1989) told the story of Jonathan Smith, a probationary angel sent to Earth, helped people to find their way toward resolving their spiritual or moral crisis. While not specifically considered a show about religion, Christian faith and moral values played a central role in the characters and many of the stories in Landon’s long running series, Little House On The Prairie (1974–1983), and the characters in The Waltons (1972–1981) also embraced Christian values as a central part of their daily lives. Some critics believe, however, that television is the wrong place for religiously based dramatic programming. Thomas Plate argues that television is a medium for the entertainment of the masses. “It is not a spiritual medium ideally suited for inner reflection and communication with a Higher Being . . . The strength of American religion is in its diversity. But prime time television, as contradistinguished from an ever-increasing number of niche-nestling cable stations, cannot handle that level of diversity, nuance, or spiritual intimacy” (Plate 1997, 108–9). Still other critics assert that programming in prime time is driven by commerce alone, and that networks derive their income from advertisers who are looking for a specific audience to sell their client’s products to, and therefore are only interested in programs that will attract advertising dollars. Advertisers are often reluctant to have their product associated with any controversy, and so networks try to avoid alienating any group in favor of the other. “Television producers repeatedly note,” Michael Suman reported in 1995, “that they are afraid that religion made public on television could lead to conflict. Many feel that religious portrayals are no-win situations that will only serve to offend on large group or another” (Suman 1997, 80). The role television plays in influencing our lives cannot be denied. It is today’s public forum where ideas are exchanged and attitudes are expressed, just as the Ancient Greek dramas were reflections of the current anxieties and concerns of the Greeks. We identify with the character’s dilemmas in a television drama or comedy and find a certain catharsis in their attempt to resolve them. “Under the guise of entertainment, television teaches the hidden curriculum of society. Entertainment is our popular religion and television is its oracle” (Davis et al. 2001, xi–xii). Beginning in the Twenty-First Century, there have been a number of television shows that have incorporated religious themes into the fabric of their stories, and because television often reflects the current feelings and sensibilities of the public, it is possible to find religious debate in even the most secular of shows.

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LEADING THE RELIGIOUS LIFE IN TV LAND Perhaps the most well known “show of faith” was the popular and long running Touched By An Angel (1994–2003), which chronicled the adventures of a group of angels sent down from Heaven tasked by God to intervene in the lives of people who are at some spiritual crossroad. What made this series compelling was not just how the guest characters were touched by the angels, but how the angels were touched by the experiences of the people they were sent to help. In one episode, for instance, the angel Monica (Roma Downey) is faced with experiencing racism first hand when she becomes African American. Often the angels would have doubts about their mission or their ability to actually help their assigned human, and the lessons learned in each episode were often those of the angels. There were no ultimatums handed to those who had strayed or were in crisis, but rather a helping hand, and an honest exchange, and divine intervention was rarely the norm. This gave a certain authenticity to the stories, and prevented it from drifting into pure dogma. The message of the show was clear; “God’s got our backs,” a message Americans were responsive to, and which explains its longevity. Touched By An Angel, however, was also criticized for its heavy-handed approach at morality and social issues; a tendency to oversimplify both the problems its characters are confronted as well as the solutions. While this can be chalked up to the time constraints of episodic television, it is easy to take away the message that the only requirement for divine intervention is to desire it, rather than take divinely inspired action. “Viewers must always remember that Touched by an Angel lives in the world of fantasy and fiction, not documentary or doctrine,” Davis cautions us, “These stories are designed to make a point, but not to be taken literally” (Davis et al. 2001, 182). 7th Heaven (1996–2007) dealt with moral dilemmas and controversies within the household of protestant minister Eric Camden (Stephen Collins). Each week the faith of each family member was tested, especially as those controversies grew in scope and size. Being a family drama first, the episodes focused on character conflict, but the added element of religion often helped put a finer point on the message. The problems and lessons in the Camden household are simply presented: two of the boys deciding whether smoking is a bad thing; trusting someone’s word, especially your own children; premarital sex. At the core of each episode, however, is the basic Christian message that love is the center of grace and forgiveness. Forgiveness was a central theme in the short-lived and controversial The Book of Daniel (2006), a story about an Episcopal minister, Daniel, whose life is chock full of crisis. He is addicted to pain pills, his wife is battling alcoholism, his son is gay and Republican, his brother has run off with the parish’s funds and on top of all that, he has been having conversations with Jesus himself! Conservative Christian groups were outraged by the program, accusing its network (NBC) of being anti-Christian. Their list of complaints was large and long: openly gay characters, blasphemous portrayal of Jesus, and a negative view of clergy. Liberal Christian leaders, however, praised the show for its honesty in portraying an all-too-human clergyman who struggles with his faith. Through

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his conversations with Jesus—often heated—the burden on Daniel’s shoulders is lightened ever so slightly, giving him the strength to forge out one more day in the hopes of doing better. “What if God was one of us?” This is the question asked in the theme song of Joan of Arcadia (2003–2005), which tells the story of a teenage girl who talks to God. The unique conceit of the show is that God appears to Joan in many different human forms: a telephone repairman, a young child, and an elderly woman. God’s requests to Joan often seem small and mundane, but in the end she realizes there was a greater purpose in performing the seemingly menial task. Joan is anything but happy about God’s appearance in her life. Like most teenagers, she often bristles at authority—even the supreme authority—and is looking for fewer complications in her life, not more. But slowly Joan learns to accept the role God has given her, and tries her best to fulfill her assignments even though she doesn’t fully understand them, often struggling with the “why me, God?” question common to prophets like Moses (Exodus 4:10–13), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:6), and even Jesus (Luke 22:42). The struggle of faith was prominently explored in Sleeper Cell (2005–2006), which told the story of FBI agent Darwyn al-Sayeed, a devout Muslim who has been tasked to infiltrate a terrorist cell in the heart of Los Angeles. Darwyn is confronted daily with the cell members who call themselves soldiers of Islam, consider themselves devout Muslim’s doing Allah’s will, but as far as Darwyn is concerned, have perverted the faith. Yet even though Darwyn is quick to point out to his fellow FBI agents the difference between the Islam he follows and those in the cell, there are times when he can identify with their anger and their commitment. The biggest issue confronting Darwyn is how he, a man of faith, can survive in a secular world, especially as an FBI agent whose job is to take down fellow Muslims. He also finds himself falling in love with a non-Muslim woman, and breaking the Islamic law by having sex outside of marriage. In the end, however, Darwyn manages to retain his faith—albeit by a slender thread—and bring the terrorists to justice. Islamic scholar Amir Hussain praises Sleeper Cell for its positive portrayal of Muslims. “Such portrayals are crucial, for they offer a corrective to stereotypical representations. North American Muslims are better integrated into their societies than are their European counterparts, and these groups need to be presented on American television for what they are—part of the fabric of American life” (Hussain 2007). SALVATION ON THE AIRWAVES Often raw and ribald, Rescue Me (2004–present) presents the story of Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary), a firefighter profoundly affected by the events of 9/11, traumatized by his narrow escape in the twin towers and the loss of his cousin. His marriage is failing, his communication with his children is nonexistent, and his relationship with his fellow firefighters is strained to the breaking point. He acts out inappropriately, drinking himself into oblivion, finding himself trapped in an emotional nightmare that he can’t seem to escape from. He is constantly haunted—literally—by the ghost of his cousin and other victims of the 9/11

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tragedy. Yet Tommy is basically a good guy trying desperately to find his way back to a good life, although he is blinded by grief and guilt. In the third season, Tommy, now separated from his wife, enters his apartment and hears a strange noise coming from the spare bedroom. When he investigates (holding a baseball bat as a weapon against an intruder) he finds Jesus pulling out the nails from His cross with a hammer. For several episodes Jesus confronts Tommy with the truth of his life, and offers a simple message of salvation and love. The portrayal of Jesus was predictably criticized by conservative Christian groups as disrespectful, but others saw it as fresh way to express the teaching of Christ, who offers the same concept of salvation to Tommy—in a somewhat unusual way—as is found in the New Testament. In the end (although the series at the time of this printing is continuing into a fifth season), Tommy slowly finds his way to forgiveness and reconciliation. Saving Grace (2007–present) also presents a character caught in the cross fire of a destructive lifestyle. Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter), a hard-living detective in Oklahoma City, runs down and kills a pedestrian after a long night of drinking. Horrified by what she’s done, she asks God for help. That’s when Earl, a tobacco-chewing, good old boy of an angel appears and tells her that he’s been sent to warn her the path she’s on will only lead to pain and suffering—not just her own but others in her life—and that if she doesn’t change her ways pronto, she’s headed straight for hell. He disappears and so does the pedestrian she hit. Grace chalks it up to an “alcoholic blackout thing,” and a dream, so she soon finds herself back to her old ways. But Earl doesn’t give up on her, and slowly we get a sense that Grace might find her way after all, if she becomes willing to have faith. Salvation plays a pivotal role in the popular series Lost (2004–present). All the characters, who have survived a plane crash on a mysterious island, have a dark and unresolved past, and all are in need of some kind form of salvation. There is an epic battle of good versus evil on the island and the characters find themselves divided in loyalty to the island itself, and to the ultimate goal of rescue from the island. While God is never explicitly mentioned (although several characters reference their Catholic background), it is acknowledged (or at least argued) that some power higher than themselves is directly involved in their fate, and the fate of the island itself. “It’s clear that Lost . . . [has] a certain degree of cosmic optimism,” Ross Douthat argues. “With God (in some form) taking an active role in the narrative and nothing less than the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, it seems like a safe bet that the gates of hell won’t prevail against the heroes. A price will be exacted along the way, but, however dark the story gets, the logic of eucastastrophe [a term coined by author J.R.R. Tolkien to describe a sudden turn of events at the end of the story, resulting in the protagonist’s wellbeing] still holds, and with it the knowledge that the light will over come the darkness” (Douthat 2007, 24). CREATED IN HIS IMAGE? There has perhaps been no more unique portrayal of the theological debate on television than Battlestar Galactica (2003–present). Reimagined from the

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1978 series of the same name, the current Battlestar Galactica portrays the last survivors of the human race, chased through space by Cylons, humanoid robots that had been created by man but have since declared war on their creators. What drives the Cylons is a radical belief in “the one true God,” and their mission is to destroy mankind. The humans, on the other hand, are polytheists, worshiping the familiar pantheon of Greco-Roman gods. While it is possible to see the Cylons as stand-ins for the Islamic fundamentalists in our own universe, nothing is that simple on Battlestar Galactica. Often the polytheistic humans are even more strict adherents to their “book” than their Cylon counterparts, and the Cylons seem to have broad-based tenets in their belief system, with no strict dogma or worship. But “both sides, despite their theological differences, seem bound to a common destiny in ways that neither understand; like Jews and Christians after Christ, they’re joined in brotherhood and enmity, till the end of their quest or perhaps the end of time” (pp. 23–24). In fact, Battlestar Galactica goes out of its way to offer “a rich tapestry in which degrees of faith and differing doctrinal positions are treated sympathetically and sincerely” (Marshall and Wheeland 2008, 448). While Battlestar Galactica is about more than religious bigotry and misunderstanding (it certainly has its share of space battles), it is most certainly as dominant an element of the stories as it is in our daily existence here. CONCLUSION In the March 2004 edition of TV Guide, an article suggested that God had become a popular and sellable commodity on television. Religious leaders interviewed suggested that the media might be just picking up on the questions of faith Americans might have as a reaction to the traumatic events of 9/11 (Tatarnic 2005, 448). It might just be good business for broadcast networks to develop programs that allow spirituality and religion to be part of the storytelling in their television series, but more significant is the willingness of Americans to be open to watching these programs. Networks, as has been pointed out, are not driven by a social or ideological agenda; if people didn’t watch, these programs wouldn’t be on the air. Television’s willingness to incorporate religious themes into its programming is also a reflection of America’s openness to engage in the debate as well. See also Aliens; Animation as a New Medium; Religious Film; Science Fiction; Western Cinema. Further Reading: Abbott, Stacey, ed. Reading Angel: The TV Spin-Off with a Soul. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005; Abelman, Robert, and Kimberly Neuendorf. “Themes and Topics in Religious Television Programming.” Review of Religious Research 29, no. 2 (1987): 152–74; Davis, Walter T., Teresa Blythe, Gary Dreibelbis, Mark Scalese S. J., Elizabeth Winans Winslea, and Donald L. Ashburn. Watching What We Watch: Prime-Time Television through the Lens of Faith. Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2001; Douthat, Ross. “Lost and Saved on Television.” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life 173 (2007): 22–26; Hussain, Amir. “Muslims on Television.” Sightings (2007). Available at: http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive_2007/0125.shtml; Kieser, Ellwood E. “God Taboo in Prime Time?” In Religion and Prime Time Television, ed. Michael

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Prime Time Religion Suman, 19–20. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997; Marshall, C. W., and Matthew Wheeland. “The Cylons, the Singularity, and God.” In Cylons in America: Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica, ed. Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall, 91–104. New York: Continuum, 2008; Plate, Thomas. “Religion and Prime Time Television.” In Religion and Prime Time Television, ed. Michael Suman, 107–9. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997; Potter, Tiffany, and C. W. Marshall, eds. Cylons in America: Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica. New York: Continuum, 2008; Suman, Michael. “Do We Really Need More Religion on Fiction Television?” In Religion and Prime Time Television, ed. Michael Suman, 69–83. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997; Suman, Michael, ed. Religion and Prime Time Television. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997; Tatarnic, Martha Smith. “The Mass Media and Faith: The Potentialities and Problems for the Church in Our Television Culture.” Anglican Theological Review 87, no. 3 (2005): 447–65; Warren, Hillary. There’s Never Been a Show Like Veggie Tales: Sacred Messages in a Secular Market. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2005; Wildmon, Donald E. “It Is Time to End Religious Bigotry.” In Religion and Prime Time Television, ed. Michael Suman, 3–8. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

Remi Aubuchon

R RELIGIOUS CONVERSION In the United States, the First Amendment to the Constitution states that: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The resulting separation of Church and State is usually taken to mean that the American government will give no legal or economic preference or privileges to any particular religious institution, nor will any religious institution be declared an official religion of the nation-state. Despite the numeric majority of professing Christians, therefore, America cannot be said to be a Christian nation, in the same way that many Western European nations still have actual state churches supported in part by tax dollars. While the American tradition certainly affirms a rather generic sounding religious attitude (e.g., In God We Trust), and seeks to protect freedom of religion (to believe or even not to believe) it is clear that this religious “attitude” is not intended to be an affirmation of any particular religious tradition, but is considered generic enough to allow an affirmation equally from many different religious traditions, including Muslims, Jews, and many others. Part of this understanding of the First Amendment in the United States is the freedom to join any religious persuasion that one wishes, or equally, to leave any religious group that one chooses to leave. However, toward the end of the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first century, conservative American Christian churches with extensive church-based investments in traditional missionary work (funding and staffing Christian missionaries around the world with the express intention to seek to encourage conversion to Christianity) have become increasingly vocal about conversion as a human right, and have pressured the United States government to make religious

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freedom a major aspect of foreign policy initiatives. Critics suggest that this amounts to American governmental support for the right of American churches to conduct foreign missionary work, in violation of the First Amendment. Is conversion a human right? Are conservative churches masking their missionary concerns behind generic language of human rights, and thus pressuring the U.S. government to assist in making such missionary efforts possible? FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND THE UNITED NATIONS In fact, most countries are now signatories of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, and the two relevant articles are as follows: Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. While some Christians will tend to view Article 18 as permitting them to engage in whatever missionary activities they can manage to engage in, wherever they want—it is also true that many countries also interpret Article 19 to suggest that there must be some limitations on Western missionary work that can be seen as invasions of privacy, and even destructive of local culture and tradition. They would argue that missionary activity must not impose on the freedom to think differently than Christians! However, such freedoms to change religious affiliation are not equally observed around the world—and the issue of conversion has emerged in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century as a serious issue among many Americans in relation to their ideas about American foreign policy. Specifically, many American Christians, especially in more conservative Christian traditions, invest great amounts of time and energy into missionary work. This work has, as its explicit goals, the conversion of as many people as possible to Christian faith—and especially their own version of Christian faith. It is clear, then, that missionary work in the twentieth and twenty-first century, especially the work sponsored by conservative Christian churches based in the United States, has emerged as a major controversy in American foreign relations—and not always in relation to traditionally Islamic societies. In the April 24, 2008 edition of the New York Times, writer Clifford Levy wrote about

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President Putin’s official encouragement of Russian Orthodoxy as the de-facto state religion. Concomitant to this preference, however, Levy wrote: “They have all but banned proselytizing by Protestants and discouraged Protestant worship through a variety of harassing measures, according to dozens of interviews with government officials and religious leaders across Russia” (Levy 2008). It is clear that a study of Eastern European churches more generally reveals a similarly cautious, or even hostile, attitude toward conservative American Christian missionary work. CHRISTIANITY AS A MISSIONARY RELIGION In the West, especially in British and American history, many Christian churches believe that it is an essential aspect of their faith to seek converts. While there have arguably been missionary efforts throughout the history of Christianity, it is also true that there was a significant change in missionary activity beginning in Britain in the nineteenth century. This is not coincidentally the same time as the height of British Imperial and colonial power, and many British Christian leaders saw the hand of God behind British strength around the world, and openly encouraged Christian missionary activity to be part of the British colonial presence throughout the Third World. As New Testament scholar R.S. Sugirtharajah points out, the alleged “missionary command” of Jesus in Matthew 28:19, and the reading of Paul’s journeys in the Book of Acts (especially in Chapters 13–18) as “missionary” journeys, was radically reinterpreted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Great Britain (Sugirtharajah 2003). These texts had been dormant and were largely disregarded by the reformers, yet were reinvoked in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries during the evangelical revival that significantly coincided with the rise of Western imperialism. At this time, the Matthaean text came to be used as a template to institutionalize the missionary obligation, and Luke’s alleged recording of Paul’s missionary undertaking was fabricated as a way of perpetuating the myth that it was from the West that the superstitious and ignorant natives received the essential verities of God’s message. For many Christians, at issue is not that such words in the New Testament exist—at issue is their interpretation into actual policies and decisions of both Western governments and church organizations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The period of serious missionary activity in the west arose in the eighteenth century. In 1780, the British Baptist William Carey began to read about the Pacific voyages of Captain James Cook (Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tahiti, etc.) and was inspired to begin writing about the Christian “obligation” to spread the Christian message to those who have not heard it. From this beginning, developing along with the rise of British power, the missionary movements gained strength and popularity both in Britain, the Continent, and especially in the late nineteenth century, in the United States as well. This historical legacy of missionary work connected to government colonial policies (often referred to as: The Bible and the Flag) has created a

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highly negative stereotype about Western Christian missionary activity, since both British (in the nineteenth century) and American (in the twentieth and twenty-first century) missionaries were often viewed with suspicion by host countries. Since 1956, for example, India has begun to systematically attempt to limit foreign missionary presence and work in India, and particularly American missionary work in that massive developing nation has been the subject of controversy, and occasionally, open violence. More recently, however, the conflict over missionary activities is perhaps most serious in the twenty-first century in the context of Christian-Islamic relations and American foreign policy with these nations. CHRISTIAN AND ISLAMIC RELATIONSTWO MISSIONARY RELIGIONS There is little doubt that the two most intensively missionary religions in world history have been Christianity and Islam. Despite partisan arguments on either side, it is true that both religions have spread by means of violence as well as preaching, and often both combined. It is furthermore the case that there are many Christians who are as critical of missionary abuses as non-Christians— including Native American Christians who have documented horrendously abusive Christian practices against Native peoples and cultures. Christianity most certainly followed the expansion of Western strength in Europe, beginning with the Christianization of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, into the rest of Europe through the Middle Ages, and continuing into the modern expressions of British and American conquests in recent centuries. Islam, on the other hand, also spread by conquest outward from Arabia as well, beginning in the seventh century c.e., although it is not entirely accurate to suggest that Islam was any more violent in its expansion than was the Christian “West.” The two traditions often debate with one another as to which has the worst historical record. Inevitably, however, Christianity and Islam have confronted each other in military and political borderlands that tend to mix politics and economics with religious differences in ways that are often violent. CASES OF ISLAMIC AND CHRISTIAN CONVERSION: CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL CHRISTIAN RESPONSES TO TENSIONS WITH ISLAMIC SOCIETIES Since the rise of openly violent tensions between the United States and many Islamic nations beginning in the twenty-first century, conversion rights debates have tended to focus on Islamic nations, although China and North Korea are often also included in the debates. Two recent cases illustrate the repercussions of conversion issues for American foreign policy. The United States’ military has maintained an extensive presence in Afghanistan throughout the twenty-first century. An Afghani case, therefore, attracted considerable debate. Abdul Rahman was an Afghani convert from Islam who became a Christian while working with Western medical workers in Afghanistan

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in 1990. When Mr. Rahman began legal proceedings to divorce his wife, and attempted to negotiate visitation rights with his daughter, however, he was arrested in 2006 by Afghan authorities on the basis of Afghani law that legally prohibits conversion away from Islam. Negotiations eventually led to his being allowed to seek asylum in Italy, but the case became a celebrated case in the West, used by Western press to raise the issue of conversion in Islamic nations, and especially in nations receiving significant Western and U.S. military and economic assistance. A second case also stirred debate. Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt also present serious contemporary test cases. In March of 2008, a case went to the Supreme Constitutional Court involving the “reconversion” of several Egyptian Muslims back to the Christianity of their birth. In many of these cases, Christians legally became Muslims in order to marry a Muslim. This was considered the easiest way to get around some interpretations of Islamic law, which state that a Christian man cannot marry a Muslim woman, forcing some Christians to legally identify themselves as Christian, but then seek to convert back to Christianity after their marriages are complete. In Egypt, however, traditional Islamic law has been declared the main source of legislative precedent, and according to many interpretations of traditional Islamic (or Shariah Law) a Muslim cannot leave Islam on pain of death. Although 12 defendants were allowed to leave Islam, the case has stirred serious controversy both within Egypt (where relations between Egypt’s historically Christian Coptic minority, and the Muslim majority, have always been delicate). CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL CHRISTIAN RESPONSES Hundreds of other cases of controversies stirred by attempted conversions can be cited, cases that must surely include harassment of Muslims in the West after the tragedies of 9/11 (the New York Trade Center destruction by religious extremists), and Christians in the Islamic countries, illustrated by the two cases above. For Christians in more Liberal traditions, these issues were considered important enough to call a meeting of Christian and Muslim religious leaders in Chambesy, Switzerland in 1976, and a second major gathering, a joint MuslimChristian Consultation on Religious Freedom, Community Rights and Individual Rights, was sponsored by the World Council of Churches at the MacDonald Center for the Study of Islam at Hartford Seminary (Connecticut) in 1999. Attempts by Christians from more liberal constituencies, such as the World Council of Churches, have moved in the direction of conciliatory statements and agreements with Muslim leaders on the issue of proselytizing and missionary work in traditional Islamic societies. However, it is often the case the more “liberal” Christian churches have different philosophies of missionary work, and often seek to be cooperative with host societies, or place much more emphasis on social and medical service without ulterior motives of converting local peoples. More conservative Christian groups in the United States view such dialogue or even cooperation as compromising on the Christian responsibility to spread

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the Gospel. More conservative churches often consider social and medical missions to be largely a strategy to more effectively enable proselytizing the local population. Because of these organizations with clear goals of seeking increasing numbers of conversions (often featuring dramatic stories of conversions in their fund-raising literature), pressure to allow such missionary work has led many of these churches to pressure the American government to consider missionary work as a human right. In fact, it is clear that pressures from (largely conservative) religious groups within the United States led the Clinton administration to include conversion rights in modern foreign policy debates, and led directly to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which in turn created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The act states that this commission shall have as its primary responsibility the annual and ongoing review of the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom and the making of policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress with respect to matters involving international religious freedom. Although the Commission’s own literature suggests that this is a “. . . bipartisan federal body assess and propose U.S. foreign policy action to advance freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and other freedoms needed to protect people at risk of abuses, such as killing, detention, or torture,” it is quite clear from the overwhelmingly conservative Christian appointees to the governing committee by the Bush administration, as well as the countries that are specified for particular concern, that governmental political interests are being mixed with religious concerns. Appointees tend to come from Christian organizations with deep commitments to very traditional missionary work. The Commission has recommended that the following 10 countries be designated as Countries of Particular Concern: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistanm, and Vietnam. These nations, with many foreign policy disagreements with the U.S. administration, seem selected for as much political impact as religious concerns. CONCLUSIONS Religious belief is most certainly an important and treasured human right. It seems clear, however, that freedom of religion in the American tradition has, until recently, been understood to allow freedom to all religious traditions equally, including their right to promote their faith traditions. There are clearly occasions, however, with faith sharing can become seen as unwelcome proselytizing in hostile societies. Some religious traditions see this as merely a challenge to persist, while others are willing to consider whether the criticism of methods may involve valid concerns about local cultures and faith traditions. Furthermore, some Christians see service (medical missions, building schools, and hunger programs) as ends in themselves, or as expressions of one’s own Christian faith irrespective of the faith of those who receive these services, while other Christians see these projects as

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mainly a means to another end—seeking converts—and often measure the effectiveness of social projects by the number of resulting conversions. Should nationstates be involved in adjudicating between these two religious philosophies within Christianity? Finally, when it comes to foreign missionary work sponsored by American private Christian organizations and churches, however, it is hard to escape the political legacy of Bible and Flag—that is—the incontrovertible fact that missionary work from Great Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and more recently from the United States, has almost always been a dubious mixture of religion and politics. The attempt to use American governmental organizations as a tool to promote religious interests, therefore, is potentially disastrous both for the credibility of American policy interests as genuinely interested in all forms of religious and intellectual freedom, and the consistency and reputation of the religious traditions involved as well who, it would seem, would have serious interest in not being permanently associated with any particular national policies or nation-states that might be detrimental to their religious work. See also Marketing Religion; Native American Religious Freedom. Further Reading: Christian Post, The (pro-Missionary news service, often, features stories on Conversion rights and persecution of Christian converts). http://www.christianpost. com; Crusade Watch. (largely anti-Missionary Web Site) http://www.crusadewatch.org; Hefner, Robert W. Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation. Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1993; Human Rights Watch Report. “Politics by Other Means: Attacks Against Christians in India.” 1999. http://wwwhrw.org/reports/1999/indiachr; Levy, Clifford. “At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church,” New York Times. Available at: www.nytimes. com/2008/04/24/world/errupt/24church.html; Ramet, Sabrina, P. Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia. Duke University Press: Durham and London, 1998; Rashied, Omar, A. “The Right to Religious Conversion: Between Apostasy and Proselytization.” Kroc Institute Occasional Paper #27, August, 2006. University of Notre Dame: The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies; Sugirtharajah, R.S. Postcolonial Reconfigurations: An Alternative Way of Reading the Bible and Doing Theology. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2003; Tinker, George E. Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993; U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. http://www.uscirf. gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=213&Itemid=40.

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

RELIGIOUS DIPLOMACY A variety of religious and spiritually motivated groups have supported official international diplomacy by mediating disputes and taking actions that promote world peace. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines diplomacy as “the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations.” Many political scientists

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COMMUNITY OF SANT’ EGIDIO In 1968, a group of Roman Catholic high school students met in Rome to found an organization, the Community of Sant’ Egidio. They were committed to spreading the Christian gospel, to dialogue with followers of other religions, and to solidarity with the poor and weak. The leader of the community, since its beginning, has been Andrea Riccardi; in 1980 he also became professor of church history at Sapienza University in Rome. By 2007 the community had about 15,000 members, most of them in Italy, but others in more than 20 countries. They have worked in several countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In addition to their work in the Mozambique peace negotiations, they hosted meetings of parties involved in a military-political crisis in Algeria in 1994–1995.

today would modify this definition. They call the practice of officially conducting negotiations and other ways of resolving conflicts, by nation-states, track one diplomacy. These activities can be helped by the work of nongovernmental organizations: track two diplomacy. Nongovernmental organizations include many religious groups, and other groups that are motivated by religious or spiritual principles. Many such groups are actively involved in mediating disputes between nations or other conflicting groups. They also engage in actions that promote world peace: disease prevention, promoting human rights, economic development, building a climate of reconciliation, or spelling out principles of global ethics. All of these activities may be called religious diplomacy. RELIGIOUS GROUPS INVOLVED IN RESOLVING CONFLICTS A few examples show how religious organizations and religiously motivated groups have actively helped carry out negotiations between nations or conflicting groups within a nation. One example is the Beagle Channel dispute between Argentina and Chile. A boundary treaty in 1881 had not clearly spelled out the ownership of three islands in the Beagle Channel, a narrow passage at the southern tip of South America. Over many decades the two countries had argued about this question. An attempt in 1971, to settle the question by arbitration, had failed. By 1978, Chile and Argentina were on the brink of going to war over this issue. Pope John Paul II sent an experienced Vatican diplomat, Cardinal Antonio Samoré, to South America. “The two countries agreed to submit the matter to mediation at the Vatican under the auspices of the Pope. The Pope, the official mediator, appointed a special mediation team headed by Cardinal Samoré to conduct the day-to-day mediation” (Princen 1987). Negotiations went forward slowly and deliberately, with several interruptions. The last interruption came when Cardinal Samoré died in 1983. A treaty settling the dispute was finally signed in 1984 and ratified in 1985. A remarkable example of religious diplomacy led to the end of a civil war in Mozambique. Mozambique, in southeastern Africa, was a Portuguese colony

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until 1975. In 1964 an organization known as Frelimo had begun an armed revolt against Portugal to gain independence for Mozambique. A few months after the end of fascist rule in Portugal, that nation granted independence to Mozambique in 1975 and turned control of the country over to Frelimo, without any provision for elections. In 1977, an organization, which later changed its name to Renamo, began an armed insurgent movement against the government in rural areas of the country. In the meantime, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Beira (in Mozambique), Dom Jaime Goncalves, had become friends with a small Catholic lay movement that had started in Rome, the Community of Sant’ Egidio. This community was devoted to tolerance, dialogue, and service to the poor. Beginning in 1984, members of the community were in Mozambique to seek the easing of restrictions on the Church, and to deliver food and medicine to people in desperate need. They developed contacts with leaders of both the government and Renamo. By 1988, Frelimo and Renamo were both exploring the possibility for moving from civil war to dialogue. Beginning was difficult, because of intense mutual distrust. The Community of Sant’ Egidio were perhaps the only people who were trusted by leaders of both Frelimo and Renamo. Representatives of both parties met in July 1990 at the Sant’ Egidio headquarters in Rome with four men: Archbishop Goncalves; Mario Raffaelli, a member of Italy’s parliament; and two leading members of Sant’ Egidio, Andrea Riccardi and a priest, Don Matteo Zuppi. These four men were at first observers of the meetings; in August 1990 the two parties accepted them as mediators. Negotiations moved slowly, and with interruptions and constant difficulties. Meetings took place in various locations, but quite frequently at Sant’ Egidio headquarters. Several nations became observers of the negotiations: the United States, Zimbabwe, Italy, and Portugal. By 1992, the United Nations were brought into the final stages of the talks. A peace agreement was signed in Rome on October 4, 1992. In 1994 the first national elections were held. The Frelimo candidate for president was elected with 53 percent of the vote. The 250-member National Assembly included 129 Frelimo deputies, and 112 Renamo deputies (Cameron 1994). Another situation in which religious diplomacy played a role involved relations between the United States and North Korea. The United States became deeply concerned about North Korea’s programs to develop nuclear energy and weapons in the early 1990s; by 1994, hostilities between the two countries had reached a crisis point; they did not have diplomatic relations with each other. U.S. President William Clinton asked former President Jimmy Carter to go to North Korea. North Korea’s president, Kim Il Sung, invited president and Mrs. Carter to visit North Korea. The Carters also went as representatives of the Carter Center. After two days of talks in June 1994, “President Kim agreed to freeze North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for the resumption of dialogue with the United States”: the first talks between the United States and North Korea in 40 years. These negotiations “resulted in two agreements, reached in October 1994 and June 1995, in which North Korea agreed to neither restart its nuclear reactor nor reprocess the plant’s spent fuel” (Carter Center 2007).

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JIMMY CARTER/THE CARTER CENTER James Earl (Jimmy) Carter, Jr., was born in Plains, Georgia, in 1924. In 1946 he married Rosalynn Smith of Plains. He was governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. As president, he met with Egypt’s President Anwar Al Sadat and Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin for 12 days at Camp David, Maryland. These meetings resulted in the Camp David Accords, and the 1979 Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt. In 1982 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, in partnership with Emory University. The Carter Center has undertaken a wide variety of programs around the world to promote human rights and democracy, and to resolve deadly conflicts. These programs have included negotiations, mediation, and monitoring elections in many countries, notably Palestine. Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Beginning in 1995, economic sanctions and a severe drought led to the deaths by starvation of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. In 1999, the Carter Center joined several organizations, including CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Church World Service, and Mercy Corps International, in a project to increase food production in North Korea. In contrast, some religious organizations are acting in ways that heighten international tensions. Christian Zionists believe that Jewish control of all Palestine is a necessary step leading up to the second coming of Christ. A major Christian Zionist organization in the United States is Christians United for Israel (CUFI). The founder of CUFI “claims his movement has raised more than $12 million to help settle new immigrants in Israel, including in settlements in the Occupied Territories” (Mearsheimer and Walt 2007). The spread of these settlements on properties owned by Palestinians is a major cause of increasing conflict. INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS COOPERATION Widely representative assemblies of Christians, and of many religions, have played varying roles in the quest for world peace. In the context of the cold war, Josef Hromadka, noted Czech theologian, founded the Christian Peace Conference (CPC) in Prague in 1958. His aim was to provide churches in Eastern Europe with a Christian voice for peace, and to open dialogue between these Christians and Christians in the West and the third world. Useful dialogue did take place, but there were limiting factors. Most of the participants from North America and Western Europe were critical of United States’ foreign policy; those from Eastern Europe were strong supporters of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy. The conferences tended to produce resolutions that closely supported the views of the Soviet government. The most fruitful CPC assembly took place in Prague in 1968. Czechoslovakia was celebrating its Prague spring under the leadership of Alexander Dubcek, moving toward democracy and socialism with a human face. Dialogue was more open than ever; conference resolutions were nearly free of Soviet political jargon. After

Religious Diplomacy | 409 JOSEF HROMADKA Born in 1889, Hromadka began teaching at the Jan Hus Faculty in Prague in 1922. He became a strong opponent of German Nazism; after the collapse of Czech democracy in 1938, he fled to the United States. He was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1939 to 1947. Six months after his return to Czechoslovakia in1947, communists took control of that country. At the first assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948, the two major speakers on international relations were John Foster Dulles from the United States, who was deeply critical of the Soviet Union, and Josef Hromadka, who expressed a positive attitude toward the communist government in Czechoslovakia. In 1958 he founded the Christian Peace Conference and became president of its Working Committee. He strongly supported Alexander Dubcek’s reforms in 1968 and delivered a public letter of protest to the Soviet ambassador in Prague, when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. He resigned the presidency of the Christian Peace Conference in 1969 and died three months later.

Soviet troops moved into Czechoslovakia in October, the atmosphere changed. Leaders from the Russian Orthodox Church took over the Working Committee of the CPC; in September 1969 they dismissed the Czech General Secretary, and Hromadka resigned the presidency of CPC in protest. The United States’ Committee for the Christian Peace Conference protested, limited its attendance at CPC meetings, and changed its focus. Adopting a new name, Christians Associated for Relationships with Eastern Europe, it broadened its contacts to include Christians in Eastern Europe who dissented from Soviet policies. By the time the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the Christian Peace Conference had disappeared from the scene. The first formal gathering of representatives from both Eastern and Western religious traditions was the World’s Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in September 1893. This gathering had two significant outcomes: (1) Hindu and Buddhist speakers at the Parliament were the first members of their traditions to make people in Europe and North America aware of the spiritual strengths and values of the religions of southern and eastern Asia; and (2) it inspired the beginnings of two series of inter-religious gatherings in the second half of the twentieth century. The first of these series is the World Conference of Religions for Peace. The first world assembly of the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP) met in Kyoto, Japan, in October 1970. This conference established an International Secretariat, with a permanent staff, in New York. Its first secretary-general was Homer A. Jack, an American Unitarian minister. He and his staff lobbied delegates to the United Nations for arms control and religious freedom; they chartered a boat to rescue refugees from Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. WCRP assemblies have met at four to seven year intervals, in Louvain, Belgium; Princeton, New Jersey; Nairobi, Kenya; Melbourne, Australia; Riva del Garde, Italy; Amman, Jordan; and most recently, in August 2006, again in Kyoto, Japan.

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WCRP staff members have led peace negotiations in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Liberia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. They have helped religious communities work together to assist orphans of HIV/AIDS. Religions for Peace has brought together leaders from different religious traditions for reconciliation and peace-promoting projects in Iraq and Israel/Palestine. It has brought women of faith together as peace-builders, especially in Africa and Latin America. In Chicago in 1988, the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions was formed, and began planning a new gathering on the 100th anniversary of the original parliament. Hans Küng, a Roman Catholic priest, was a professor of ecumenical theology at the University of Tübingen in Germany, and author of many books. In March 1989 he was in Chicago and called on the council to proclaim a new ethical consensus of the religions. The council invited him to prepare a draft outline for a declaration on a common ethic. During the next four years Küng consulted widely with representatives of many religions as he strove to draw up a minimum consensus of ethical principles that are shared by all of the world’s religious traditions. Some 8,000 people took part in sessions of the September 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. A 150-member Assembly of Religious and Spiritual Leaders was chosen to consider the statement that Hans Küng had prepared. Most of the members of that assembly signed the 24-page text as an initial Declaration Toward a Global Ethic. It covered a surprisingly wide range of topics, including human rights, nonviolence, economic justice, tolerance, truthfulness, and equal rights for men and women (Küng and Kushel 1993). The council has organized further Parliaments of the World’s Religions, which met in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999, and in Barcelona, Spain, in 2004. See also Just War; Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion; Religious Conversion. Further Reading: The Carter Center. 2007. http://www.cartercenter.org; Christians Associated for Relationships with Eastern Europe. 2007. http://www.caree.info/caree/ organization.shtml; El Fadl, Khaled Abou. “Conflict Resolution as a Normative Value in Islamic Law: Handling Disputes with Non-Muslims.” In Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik, ed. Douglas Johnson. Oxford University Press, 2003: 178–209; Hume, Cameron. Ending Mozambique’s War: The Role of Mediation and Good Offices. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1994; Johnston, Douglas, and Brian Cox. “Faith-Based Diplomacy and Preventive Engagement.” In Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik, ed. Douglas Johnson. Oxford University Press, 2003: 11–29; Küng, Hans, and Karl-Josef Kushel, eds. A Global Ethic: The Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. London: Continuum Publishing Company, 1993; Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007; Princen, Thomas. “International Mediation—The View from the Vatican: Lessons from Mediating the Beagle Channel Dispute.” Negotiation Journal 3, no. 4 (1987): 347–366; World Conference of Religions for Peace. 2007. http://www.wcrp.org.

T. Vail Palmer, Jr.

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RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING In what ways has the for-profit commercial and business success of religious organizations, products, and religious marketing influenced the practice, and the message, of religion in the United States? Do religious organizations, especially Christianity, have an unfair business advantage in a country that is largely sympathetic to the Christian tradition and often gives tax incentives to religious organizations? One way to examine these issues in the American context is to examine one of the most successful religious industries to emerge in American history—namely religious-based publishing. THE SURGE IN RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING Religious book publishing is the largest segment of the religious product category. Changes in the religious product category, primarily books and also movies, began in the mid-1990s. Most insiders trace these changes to the approaching millennium and its doomsday prophecies. At this time a book arose that took the religion category by storm—Left Behind, published in 1996. This phenomenally successful book, and then series of books, plus movies and even a video game, was based on the end times and what would happen to nonbelievers in the event of the apocalypse: they would be left behind on a darkened earth while true believers would be brought to Jesus. The series was embraced by Christian consumers, many of whom already believed that the end times were near. While their secular brethren were not as immersed in the doomsday belief, they, too, readily accepted these books. According to a Time magazine cover story, evangelicals made up only about half of the series’ readership. In this same article, a Time/CNN poll found the 59 percent of Americans believe in the events in Revelation, a widely debated and interpreted book of the New Testament upon which the Left Behind series is based. Driving these apocalyptic beliefs were heightened concerns about the fate of the world, particularly in light of the events of September 11, and the subsequent anthrax scares. Sales of the series “jumped 60% after Sept. 11. Book 9, published in October, was the best-selling novel of 2001” (Gibbs 2002, 43). MARKETING RELIGIOUS BOOKS IN AMERICA The Left Behind series changed the publishing industry in a number of ways. First, the books crossed over from the traditional Christian market to the popular book market, opening up the series to a vastly wider audience. Second, Left Behind was the first Christian book to be sold in big box stores, and demonstrated for these retailers the revenue that was possible from the Christian market. Today Wal-Mart and Costco regularly stock the top Christian titles. Third, the series showed the level of success that could be achieved with Christian fiction, a segment not previously known for sizable sales. Two other books solidified the crossover of Christian books into the mainstream: The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life (2000) and The Purpose-Driven Life. Jabez is a small book—only 93 pages long—that espouses prosperity through devotion. It inspired a whole new category—prayer

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books—which could be sold in multiple formats and targeted for specific audience segments such as women, parents, and children. The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? provides 40 days of “points to ponder,” “verses to remember,” and “questions to consider.” Published in 2002, this book has sold more than 25 million copies, and is the best-selling nonfiction hardcover book of all time (Warren 2002). THE GROWTH IN RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING While these three books sold phenomenally well, they were not the only publishing successes in the religion category. The 1990s saw an overall expansion of religious and spiritual books, making it the fastest-growing adult book category, and strong sales continued into the new millennium. While sales figures are heavily guarded by the industry, and there are mixed reports about the level of growth (one source says 50 percent, another 7 percent, another 4 percent), there is no disagreement that the category is growing. In 2004 there were more than 14,000 religious/spiritual books published, which makes it the fourth largest category only after fiction (28, 010), juvenile (21,161), and sociology/economics (17,518). In 2004 religious books sold $1.9 billion, up from $1.5 billion only four years earlier, and industry insiders expect the category to reach $2.5 billion by 2008. While still small in terms of the overall category (total book sales in 2004 was more than $28 billion), the important thing to bear in mind is that the industry overall remains stagnant due to competition from alternative media sources; the religion/ spirituality category is one of the few areas of steady growth in book publishing. Religious book executives—sellers as well as industry analysts—attribute this sustained interest in religion not to single book titles, but to a number of cultural factors, both personal and global. According to Lynn Garrett of Publishers Weekly, “Religion is just so much a part of the cultural conversation these days, because of global terrorism and radical Islam. People want to understand those things. They’re looking to go more deeply into the religious traditions” (Charles, 2004, 11). Phyllis Tickle, former religion editor of Publishers Weekly and author of numerous books on religion, attributes the industry’s success to something more personal—people’s reluctance to change their public selves. “We are especially slow to express aloud religious beliefs or visibly pursue religious patterns that are too divergent from those of our community. Books are private. Books don’t tell, especially in matters of the spirit” (Harrison, 1997, 22). Others have attributed the success to the aging of the baby boomers. Lyn Cryderman, vice president and associate publisher at Zondervan, home of The Purpose-Driven Life, has said, “They hit age 50 and they start asking, ‘What significance do I have?’ and ‘What mark am I making?” (Nelson and Garrett, 2004, S4). SEGMENTING CATEGORIES AND AUDIENCES FOR MAXIMUM GROWTH Bibles remain the leading segment in the religious category, though most of them do not look anything like traditional, staid, black books of scripture. There

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are more than 50 different versions of the Bible, including the King James Version and The New International Version (NIV). There are numerous translations and specialized editions created for different audiences. One of the hottest demographics, for example, is the teen or young adult market. In terms of Bibles, products for this group have been some of the most successful—and the most controversial. Refuel and Revolve are Bibles that look like teen magazines, and are targeted at guys and girls, respectively. They feature tips on dating next to tips on how to live your faith. Revolve sold 150,000 copies in the first six months of its publication, making it the best-selling Bible in Christian bookstores. Teens, of course, are not the only segment for Bibles. To appeal to more harried, older adults, publishers are creating religious texts that can be consumed in a minimal amount of time. The 100-Minute Bible gives readers the scripture in 64 pages, and The HCSB Light Speed Bible covers the key points of the Old and New Testaments in 24 hours. These books demonstrate a trend readily apparent in the secular market where producers cater to consumers’ time constraints. For example, Stephen Hawking has recently published A Briefer History of Time, Shakespeare’s plays are being produced in abridged versions that run less than two hours, and we’re now seeing yoga classes that last for 30 minutes. Christian Living is the second biggest segment in the religious book category, and an area that has shown significant growth in the last decade. Christian Living covers a broad spectrum of titles, but fundamentally it is about making Christianity widely accessible by relating religious and spiritual themes in a practical way to life and relationships. Included in this category are the Left Behind books, The Purpose-Driven Life, The Prayer of Jabez, God Chasers, and The Passion of Jesus Christ, among many others. These books are nondenominational, which gives them broad appeal and enables them to be sold through secular retail outlets. Also, because women are the primary purchasers of religious titles, Christian Living titles cater to their needs and interests, particularly in terms of family, relationships, and prayer. The importance of women to this market is evidenced by publishing house Thomas Nelson’s Women of Faith division, which sponsors annual motivational conferences to further support this target audience. This group hosted close to 30 conferences attended by approximately 400,000 participants. Kids have always been an important market for booksellers of all kinds. For the Christian market, books and other materials for Sunday school and for summer Bible classes are a big part of their marketing efforts. Campaigns targeting children have expanded into the secular arena due to the success of Veggie Tales, the first Christian children’s video series to have significant crossover sales. These videos opened the door for other marketers, including book publishers, to release products targeting the faith-based youth market. Some of the larger publishers have special divisions, like Zondervan’s ZonderKidz, which publishes the Veggie Tales books, and Tommy Nelson from Thomas Nelson, which publishes the New International Version of the Bible for kids. Religious book publishing and retailing has seen extensive changes in the past decade. Broadly, the category has seen more nondenominational titles, a larger array of Christian Living titles that marry religion with popular culture, and

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increasing distribution through non-Christian retailers. There is considerable segmentation in the book business, with products targeting specific audiences like women, kids, and teens, and young adults. Like the secular marketplace, religious book publishers reflect the latest trends and tastes of consumers. In the wake of Left Behind, Christian fiction is exploding. Christian chick lit—fiction for women—is a particularly popular segment at this time. Religious diet books have also become a hot trend over the past five years. NONCHRISTIAN MARKETS While Christian books have been garnering the vast amount of attention in the category (and sales), they are not the only successful titles. The New Age or spiritual titles have shown consistent growth for the publishing industry. The New Age made its first major splash in the book industry with the publication of Shirley MacLaine’s Out on a Limb. This book was turned into a miniseries which aired in January 1987, which has been attributed as giving the segment a huge promotional boost. This is evident in that the same year New Age book sales were over a billion dollars, which was a 30 percent increase over the previous year. Oprah has been instrumental in promoting so-called New Age authors, starting with Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization concepts, and she introduced the world to Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson. New Age titles, too, are heavily promoted to women, but there are also titles for parents, kids, and other defined segments. Interestingly, just as there was increased interest in the Left Behind books after September 11, there was an increased fascination with psychic mediums following that event. Yet even before 2001, psychic mediums— people who profess to talk to the dead—were very popular, which many scholars also attribute to millennial fever. However, until recently, the New Age had fallen into a bit of disfavor, and again Oprah may have been a factor here. In the 1980s the specialized Advice and How-to bestseller lists were created for the New Age category. Now these books are in little evidence. Until recently, they were replaced by Rachel Ray cookbooks and Dr. Oz diets (both of whom have been heavily promoted by Oprah). However, Oprah has returned as a force in promoting these books, most notably Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, for which she created a 10-week online course. BIGGER PLAYERS AND INCREASING CONSOLIDATION The Christian book industry is an amalgam of a couple of large independently owned presses, a few multinational media conglomerates, a handful of midsized presses, and dozens of small independents. The two major independent religious publishers are Thomas Nelson and Tyndale House, publishers of the New King James Bible and Revolve, and the New Living Translation (NLT) and the Left Behind series, respectively. The major international conglomerates in this category are Newscorp (parent of Zondervan, publisher of The Purpose-Driven Life and the New International Version Bible, and HarperCollins San Francisco),

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Bertelsmann (Random House), and Hachette (Warner Faith, which was part of Time Warner until it was sold to Hachette in 2006). Warner Faith is home to Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, and most recently Creflo Dollar. Mid-size presses include Multnomah Publishers (Prayer of Jabez), Harvest House (The Power of Praying series, a top-selling Christian series since 1995), and Shambhala Publications (producer of a wide range of alternative religion and New Age works, which are distributed through Random House’s sales force). An important contributing factor in the consolidation of the publishing side of the business is the change that has occurred in Christian retailing. Whereas once this retail segment was made up almost exclusively of independent Christian booksellers, now big box stores like Costco and Sam’s Club, as well as massmarket retailers like Target and K-Mart, are key elements of any marketing plan. Wal-Mart—the retail behemoth that dominates sales in the vast majority of consumer products—has discovered the Christian market in recent years. According to Forbes, in 2003 Wal-Mart sold an estimated $1 billion in Christian-themed items. Wal-Mart has carried Christian-themed books and music for years, but it is only recently that the increase in consumer demand was enough to warrant additional attention and product lines. Wal-Mart’s product lines vary by store, but in general, the retailer has approximately 550 inspirational music titles and 1,200 inspirational books, which are primarily Bibles and best sellers. And that is just media items. According to Wal-Mart’s spokeswoman Danette Thompson, “In our jewelry department, we have seen an increase in sales of inspirational jewelry such as cross necklaces and Bible charms” (Howell, 2004, 4). Whereas small independent retailers dominated this category even 10 years ago, now their numbers are significantly reduced. These independent booksellers are members of the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA), an organization whose membership shrunk from approximately 3,000 in the 1990s to 2,370 by 2004 (Italie, 2004, A16). Paralleling these figures is the decline in sales through Christian specialty stores. In the mid-1990s, retail sales in such stores were 70 percent of the market; by 2002 they had dropped precipitously to 40 percent (Seybert, 2004). In less than a decade, secular outlets had overtaken the majority of the category sales. In addition, competition from online outlets has affected Christian publishing. Glorious Appearing, part of the Left Behind series, was the number-one fiction title on the Barnes and Noble Web site shortly after its release in 2004. The advances of secular online retailers into this space is particularly hard on Christian retailers, because online services are much more attractive to young consumers. Future book buyers are not establishing a habit of shopping at a Christian bookseller, which has long-term consequences for this industry. CONCLUSION Mergers and acquisitions have changed the face of the religious product marketplace. Multinational media conglomerates saw the money to be made in religion and turned their considerable marketing resources toward selling religious products. Suddenly, Wal-Mart and other big box stores saw that they, too,

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could generate major revenue from books like The Purpose-Driven Life and the Left Behind series. These distribution outlets also saw revenue in the movies, toys, and jewelry associated with these products. The introduction of Christian books, particularly, into mass merchandisers, increased competition exponentially in this category. Moreover, secular producers have no compunction about using churches as marketers for their products. From movies to books, churches are increasingly becoming spokespeople and distributors for secular products. Just as our schools have become endorsers of soda and junk food, churches have become endorsers of religious media, providing an implied stamp of approval for little or no compensation. The increase in mega-corporations and retailers into this arena has pushed the drive for profits, moving sacred content further and further into the realm of the secular. But at what cost? The best-selling books have all been criticized as being lightweight Christianity, if Christianity at all. Their authors are accused of pandering to reach a wider audience. The question is thus raised, ‘How much of the religious message is itself being influenced by the attraction of sales?’ Put more starkly, just as Christianity’s transformation to the religion of the Roman Empire in the fifth century A.D. created major changes in the faith and practice of Christianity itself, how might Christianity’s acceptance as a major player in the capitalist markets of the developed world also change its character and message? Yet, this is the fundamental paradox of evangelicalism. Being an evangelical means you want to spread the good word, but—and this is the core issue—you have to spread the word to nonbelievers. In order to do this, you must reach beyond the protected walls of the church and into the secular marketplace. However, to compete against the ever-growing array of more fun, more entertaining, and less guilt-ridden discretionary leisure-time activities, religious institutions have to match their message to the marketplace. That message needs to become simple and easily digestible in a short period of time. It also has to be palatable to people who may not be at all interested in what the evangelical has to sell. So the product—the book, the music, whatever—becomes the marketing message, for example, the book is what gets people in the door of the church. See also Marketing Religion; Prime Time Religion. Further Reading: Aucoin, D. We Want to Know it All, but Please, Keep it Brief. The Boston Globe, November 19, 2005, D1, D5; Boorstin, J. For God’s Sake. Fortune, November 24, 2003, 62; Chandler, R. Understanding the New Age: Revised, Updated—The Most Powerful and Revealing Analysis of the New Age. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993; Charles, R. Religious Book Sales Show a Miraculous Rise. The Christian Science Monitor, April 9, 2004, 11; Dooley, T., B. Karkabi, and R. Vara. Returning the Favor/ Best Life Redux /Osteen’s Megadeal Is One More Layer of Religious Crossover. Houston Chronicle, March 18, 2006, 1; Gibbs, N. Apocalypse Now: The Biggest Book of the Summer Is About the End of the World. It’s Also a Sign of Our Troubled Times. Time, July 1, 2002, 40–53; Grabois, A. U.S. Book Production. Retrieved August 6, 2006 from http:// www.bookwire.com/bookwire/decadebookproduction.html; Harrison, J. Advertising Joins the Journey of the Soul. American Demographics, June 1997, 22, 24–25, 28; Howell,

Religious Symbols on Government Property | 417 D. Christian retailing Ascending to New Heights. DSN Retailing Today, April 19m 2004, 4–5, 28; Italie, H. Specialty Books Hit Mainstream Success; But Christian Stores Struggle to Benefit. Washington Post, May 30, 2004, A16; Nelson, M. Z., and Garrett, L. Gimme that Old-time Spirituality. Publishers Weekly, March 22, 2004, S2; Packaged Facts The U.S. Marketing for Religious Publishing and Products. New York: Packaged Facts, 2004; Saroyan, S. Christianity, the Brand. New York Times Magazine, April 16, 2006, 46–51; Seybert, J. EPM’s Guide to the Christian Marketplace: Selling Books, Music, Gifts and Videos to America’s 218 Million Christians. New York: EPM Communications, Inc., 2004; Warren, R. The Purpose-Driven Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.

Mara Einstein From Einstein, M. (2008). Brands of Faith: Marketing religion in a commercial age. London: Routledge.

RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY Abraham Lincoln famously described America’s democratic dream as “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” a vision that is shared by billions of people around the world. The first commitment of democratic government, then, is to enact laws, carry out policies, and behave in ways that embody the aspirations and values of the people. Many people draw their most important values and sense of identity from their religion. Since their faith is central to their lives, they long to live with others of similar convictions, so they can help each other build lives that draw upon and reflect their faiths. People have migrated, at risk to their lives, across oceans and continents, and settled in wildernesses, deserts, jungles, and other harsh environments to have a chance to build communities of faith. The United States was built in large part on the contributions of several different religious communities, from Puritans in Massachusetts, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Catholics in Maryland and the desert Southwest, Lutherans in the upper Midwest, Mennonites in several northern states stretching from Kansas to Pennsylvania, Baptists in the South, Mormons in Utah, and many others. A snapshot of the United States today would include the descendants of all these religious communities, and hundreds of others, stretching outside Christianity to include Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahai, and others. But as soon as a political system is erected that incorporates more than one faith, a conflict arises: whose religious convictions get to be embodied in the policies and activities of the government? Should the workweek include a Sunday Sabbath day of rest, to accommodate Christian beliefs? Or Saturday, as most Jews and some Christians would prefer? Or Friday, in accord with Moslem beliefs? What should be taught in schools about the origins of the universe, or values of right and wrong, or the relative roles of women and men in life, and many other topics? Conflict over religious dimensions of community life can get very intense because people believe the stakes are so high. If someone is teaching my children falsehoods about God and the universe and how they should live, they are

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threatening both the quality of life in this world and, possibly, dooming my children to eternal death rather than eternal life in Heaven. Unfortunately, human history is scarred with the battles over control of government policy between different religious groups, including some of the bloodiest wars in human history. As this is written, struggles over how to reflect people’s religious faiths in their government are especially bloody in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Lebanon, and Israel and Palestine. America’s founders were aware of this danger. So the First Amendment to the United States Constitution begins: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof With these words, the framers of the Constitution hoped to build a hedge of law around the deep passions evoked by our religious faiths. The principle of government by the people was given a limitation: even if most of the people wanted to, they would not be able to use the machinery of the federal government to establish their faith as the official faith of the entire nation. The Free Exercise Clause (“Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]”) guarantees that the government will not be used to suppress your faith. And the Establishment Clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . .”) prevents the government from favoring one faith, even when directed by a clear majority of the people. This article will focus on how the Establishment Clause has been interpreted by the courts in the United States to determine whether it is constitutional for a government agency to display religious symbols, or engage in other religious activities or expression, such as prayers or slogans. INTERPRETATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE At the time the First Amendment was ratified, some state governments had established churches, which included appropriations of tax money to the coffers of specific Christian denominations. These churches were disestablished over the next few decades, so that by the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified after the Civil War, there were no churches with official established status anywhere in the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment says, in part: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The Fourteenth Amendment has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court to incorporate various parts of the Bill of Rights, thereby extending civil rights protections to citizens against possible actions by the states. In the case of Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), the Supreme Court ruled that the

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prohibition against establishing a religion was one of the rights incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment, thus making official what had been observed in practice for a century: no state could establish a particular faith by specially favoring it over another faith. But this leaves a wide range of issues, where democratic dynamics push government to reflect citizens’ religious commitments, but the Constitution prohibits the government from anointing religion with its blessing. The Supreme Court has upheld some practices that bring religious faith into contact with the activities of governments, such as opening legislative sessions with prayer at the state level (Marsh v. Chambers, 1983); passing laws barring some commercial activity on Sunday (McGowan v. Maryland, 1961); displaying a Christian nativity scene on public property along with non-Christian symbols such as Santa Claus, reindeer, a Christmas tree, and Christmas presents (Lynch v. Donnelly, 1983); and granting property tax exemptions to religious worship organizations (Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, 1970). Other practices have been ruled unconstitutional, including laws requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms (Stone v. Graham, 1980); school-organized prayers in classrooms (School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 1963), at football games (Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 2000) and at graduations (Lee v. Weisman, 1992). These cases left laypeople (and lawyers) confused about what is, and what is not, permissible. Part of the problem is that the Supreme Court has not stuck to one single test for deciding matters. In some of the cases, the Court applied a three-part test first outlined in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971): 1. Is the purpose of the government’s action primarily secular? 2. Does it have the primary effect of encouraging or discouraging religious faith? 3. Does it threaten to entangle the government in the internal affairs of a religious group, especially in making judgments about questions of faith or doctrine? School prayers, for example, do not meet the Lemon test, because courts have trouble believing the purpose of a prayer is not primarily religious. Multi-faith Christmas displays do better, because it is easier to defend them as having either no religious purpose, since so many contrasting faiths are on display, including completely secular symbols such as Santa Claus. But these simple generalizations do not seem to cover every case. If school prayers led by district employees, or involving captive audiences at games or graduations, are not constitutional, why is it constitutional to have Congress or a state legislature pay a chaplain to offer a prayer to open its daily sessions? Sometimes the Court has taken pains to point out that religion has played a major role in American history, and still does in the lives of most Americans. This point is used in two ways. Some justices (especially William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas) have employed it to argue that the framers of the First Amendment could not have meant to bar some inter-denominational expressions of religious conviction by the government. They point to many examples of

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official Congressional actions or Presidential addresses that invoke faith in God, including prayers, resolutions, proclamations, and other communications, which were made while the First Amendment was being ratified, and which continued unabated right after ratification. This is a classic originalist argument, insisting that the Constitution needs to be applied today consistently with how the original authors of the Constitution would have understood it when they adopted it. Thus, evidence that so many governmental leaders thought opening Congress with a prayer was not a form of establishing a religion, means the Establishment Clause was not seen at the time as covering interfaith prayers at government functions. Most Supreme Court justices have not been originalists. They believe the Constitution should be applied in light of things we have learned since it was originally adopted. Thus, the original idea that separate but equal was an acceptable way to provide equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment does not bind us today, according to the non-originalist view, since we learned long ago that separate but equal does not work as advertised. But even many non-originalists invoke the role of religion in American life to suggest that government acknowledgement of religion is acceptable if it is more descriptive than prescriptive—that is, if it objectively acknowledges or reports what people believe without endorsing or promoting (or criticizing) those beliefs. So a Christmas scene with secular symbols mixed in with religious symbols from a variety of faiths passes muster because it depicts (without endorsement) the range of views one could find in the community. But other Justices see most forms of government recognition of religion as violating the Constitution, essentially on the grounds that anything that throws positive (or negative) light on a faith has the effect of helping (or hindering) it, and thus functions as an endorsement (or critique) even when it is not intended to be. None of these three broad approaches has garnered enough support to command a stable majority of the Court.

SUPREME COURT CASES Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940): the First Amendment applies to the states, and prevents them from regulating public speech based on its religious content. Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, 330 U.S. 1 (1947): Court applies First Amendment ban on establishing religion to the states. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961): States or localities may restrict commercial activity on Sunday. Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962): Public schools may not sponsor or mandate a short nondenominational prayer. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963): Public schools may not sponsor or mandate the reading of the Lord’s Prayer or other Bible verses. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969): Public schools may not ban specific kinds of non-obscene speech, but may enforce

Religious Symbols on Government Property | 421 content-neutral regulations for the purpose of maintaining order and a good learning environment. Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, 397 U.S. 664 (1970): states may grant tax-exemptions to houses of worship. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971): Public money may not be allocated directly to parochial schools because doing so violates at least one part of a three-part test: 1) whether the government action has a secular purpose; 2) whether the primary effect of the government action advances or inhibits religion; or 3) whether the action brings government into excessive entanglement with religion, such as resolving doctrinal issues or the like. Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980): States may not require the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983): State legislatures may open their sessions with prayers from a chaplain employed by the state. Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1983): a local government may display a Christian nativity scene on public property along with non-Christian symbols such as Santa Claus, reindeer, a Christmas tree, and Christmas presents. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992): Public schools may not sponsor prayers at graduation ceremonies. Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000): Public schools may not sponsor public prayers before school sporting events. Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005): A state may maintain a monument displaying the text of the Ten Commandments when there is no evidence the state had a religious motive for doing so and the display is in a context that does not communicate an essential intent to advance or endorse religious faith. McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union, 545 U.S. 844 (2005): Counties may not post the Ten Commandments publicly when it is clear the intent for doing so was to endorse or advance religion. Note: These cases can generally be accessed by doing an internet search on the title of the case. Another good way to search for cases is through Cornell Law School at http://supct.law.cornell.edu, an outstanding website for legal materials.

THE 2005 TEN COMMANDMENTS CASES On June 27, 2005, the Court decided two cases involving displays of the Ten Commandments on government property. All of the dynamics that made this area of the law so murky were at work in these cases: competing visions of constitutional interpretation; contrasting views about the propriety of acknowledging religion on government property; even disagreement over how central religion has been in the development of the country. At first glance, the results were even more confusing than normal, since in one case the display of the Ten Commandments was upheld as constitutional, while in the other it was ruled to

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be impermissible. Each vote was five to four, with Justice Stephen Breyer voting in the majority each time. In Van Orden v. Perry (2005), the state of Texas maintained a plaque on a six-foot tall monument on the grounds of the state capitol, on which was inscribed the Ten Commandments. The monument was donated in 1961 to Texas by the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a national service club, as part of a campaign against juvenile delinquency. The Eagles were hopeful that, if young people were more aware of the rules of behavior in the Ten Commandments, juvenile crime would diminish. The donation to Texas was part of a campaign in which similar monuments were donated to state governments around the nation. There were 16 other monuments of similar scale on the 21-acre grounds around the Capitol, none of the rest of which involved religious texts. The inscription on the monument quotes from the Old Testament book of Exodus, although in somewhat condensed form. It starts in bold, centered text with Exodus 20:2, “I AM the LORD thy GOD” and then lists each of the Commandments. The text was framed by symbols—two stone tablets like the ones on which God wrote the original Ten Commandments, two stars of David (a Jewish symbol), and the Greek letters chi and rho (a Christian symbol). In McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union (2005), two Kentucky counties tried three times to get the Ten Commandments posted on their courthouse walls. In the first attempt, the Ten Commandments were displayed by themselves prominently in the courthouse. The text of the display was similar to the one in Texas, except that the preamble “I AM the LORD thy GOD” was omitted. In Pulaski County, there was a ceremony when the display was hung in which a county official made comments about the existence of God. When the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued in court seeking an injunction ordering the displays to be removed, the counties each adopted a resolution explaining that the Ten Commandments were “the precedent legal code upon which the civil and criminal codes” of Kentucky were founded, and stating that county leaders shared with America’s Founding Fathers an “explicit understanding of the duty of elected officials to publicly acknowledge God as the source of America’s strength and direction.” These resolutions directed that the displays be expanded to include eight excerpts from other historical documents in which there was some reference to God (such as Pilgrim’s Mayflower Compact, and the passage from the Declaration of Independence in which the Continental Congress had said that all “men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”). When the federal District Court ordered the displays removed because they lacked any secular purpose, and were distinctly religious, the counties created a third display. This one included nine documents of identical size, one of which was the Ten Commandments (in a more complete text). The others were the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, Mayflower Compact, Star Spangled Banner, the National Motto (In God We Trust), and a picture of Lady Justice. Each document was accompanied by a statement of its historical and legal significance. The one for the Ten Commandments explained that they had “profoundly influenced

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the formation of Western legal thought and the formation of our country” and provided “the moral background of the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of our legal tradition.” These two cases reached the United States Supreme Court at about the same time, and were argued in the fall of 2004. The opinions in both cases were announced on the same day the following June. In Van Orden, five justices voted to uphold the display of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, while four voted to rule it was unconstitutional. In McCreary, five justices voted to rule the displays were unconstitutional, while four voted to uphold them. The four justices who would have upheld both displays used two principal lines of argument. First, Justices Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas argued that government was not barred from favoring religious practice, because the original Framers of the constitution would not have intended such a thing—an originalist argument. Justice Anthony Kennedy did not join in that view, but did agree with the other three justices that, in each of these two cases, the intent of the displays was secular: to reduce juvenile delinquency, in the Texas case, and to inform citizens of some of the main historical sources of the modern legal system, in the Kentucky case. Since there was a legitimate secular purpose, strong enough by itself to justify the creation of the displays, they would be acceptable under the Lemon test, or any other test, according to these justices. The four justices who would have ruled all the displays unconstitutional (Sandra Day O’Connor, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and David Souter) used, either explicitly (in McCreary) or implicitly (in Van Orden), the Lemon test. They found that the displays had a primary religious intent, to go along with at least some religious effect on those who saw them. In McCreary, the religious intent was easy to discern in the second phase of the project, including the resolution that pointed to God as the source of America’s strength, and in the focus on religious texts in the display. Whereas the four justices in the minority in McCreary generally ignored the first two attempts to get the display done, the majority opinion (by Souter) assumed that the motive behind the first two attempts was the genuine one, and the third version of the display with its assertion of broader educational goals, was an attempt to cover up the religious motive with “secular crumble.” The same kind of evidence was not available in Van Orden, so the four disapproving justices focused instead on the design of the monument and the lack of any attempt by Texas to integrate the 17 displays on the Capitol grounds into any kind of coherent treatment of Texas’ legal, political, or social history. Since the context provided no clues about why the monument was there, other than the monument’s own content, and since the monument featured the phrase “I AM the LORD your God” and religious symbols, according to these justices, people looking at the monument would be likely to see it as an endorsement of Judaism and/or Christianity. Neither of these two views carried the day. Justice Breyer wrote a separate opinion in Van Orden in which he rejected the Lemon test for borderline cases where government connects itself to a message or symbol with religious content.

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He saw Van Orden as just such a borderline case, requiring him (and his fellow justices) to exercise legal judgment, by looking at the entire situation to determine if there was anything about it that violated the purposes for the First Amendment, which were: 1. To assure the fullest possible scope of religious liberty and tolerance for all; 2. To avoid the public and political divisiveness that often grows out of religious differences; and 3. To maintain “separation of church and state” so that each authority (religious and political) can do the work for which it is best suited. In Van Orden, Breyer thought there was no danger of observers being coerced or unduly influenced toward Judaism or Christianity by the old monument which had caused so little controversy for so long, and which was in a setting that did nothing to reinforce a religious message. But in McCreary, Breyer joined the majority opinion declaring the Kentucky displays unconstitutional, presumably persuaded that the history of the projects, with the clear evidence of religious purposes, moved that case out of the borderline region, so no special exercise of judicial judgment was required. THE CURRENT STATE OF THE LAW ON PUBLIC DISPLAY OF RELIGIOUS TEXTS OR SYMBOLS The results of the Van Orden and McCreary cases are instructive from a practical point of view, although not so much from a legal point of view. If a display of objects with religious content is to be attempted, it needs to be justified entirely by secular purposes fitting to the level of government, and needs to be carried out consistently with those purposes. A display about a secular topic— such as the history of the development of law, or about motives for settling a frontier—can include religious material pertinent to that purpose. So the Ten Commandments could go into a display on the history of the law. Or a diary from a settler expressing thanks for God’s protection and commitment to a vision of serving God could be part of a display about frontier life. But these items would have to be justified based on their secular importance, tied to objective evidence that law draws important inspiration from the Old Testament (a difficult proposition for any individual state’s laws, although perhaps not so difficult for the history of human law in general), or that large numbers of pioneers were motivated by religion (in some areas, a very easy case to make). These justifications cannot be added-on as afterthoughts, as ways to cover up what is really a religious motivation. The unresolved differences on the Court trouble legal theorists, but they do tend to point remarkably clearly toward a fairly stable range of outcomes. If a government is considering a public display that is worth putting up without the religious symbol or text, and if the religious material is in the display only to make it more accurate (and thus does not over-represent the role of religious faith in the subject of the display), then it probably would pass Constitutional tests.

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Nevertheless, it is important to note that the legal theory upon which future courts will judge these cases is still unsettled and even a little messy. Although the twin precedents of Van Orden and McCreary do go some way toward narrowing the scope of practical uncertainty, they did not clarify the legal definition of unacceptable government behavior in representing or displaying religious faith. See also Prayer in Public Schools. Further Reading: American Center for Law and Justice. http://www.aclj.org; American Civil Liberties Union. http://www.aclu.org/religion/index.html; Americans United for Separation of Church and State. http://www.au.org; Center for Law and Religious Freedom. http://www.clsnet.org; Dawson Institute for Church-State Studies (Baylor University). http://www.baylor.edu/church_state/splash.php; First Freedom Center. http://www. firstfreedom.org; Fisher, Louis and David G. Adler. American Constitutional Law, Volume Two, Constitutional Rights: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. 7th ed. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2007; O’Brien, David M. Constitutional Law and Politics, Volume II: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2005: especially Chapter 6; People for the American Way. http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw; The Rutherford Institute. http://www.rutherford.org.

Ron Mock RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM In both the United States and Europe, the late twentieth century saw an upsurge in the formation of right-wing extremist groups and other groups often labeled as Hate Groups (advocating the expulsion or destruction of an entire people because of race or religion), and an accompanying upsurge in the number of anti-Semitic and racist incidents of harassment and violence. While most of these groups do not use explicitly religious arguments in defense of their ideologies and ideas, some of them most certainly do. In fact, in one recent study, it is stated that: “If there were one thread that runs through the various far-right movements in American history it would be fundamentalist Christianity” (Michael 2003, 65). It is important to know about these groups, particularly because they have found the Internet to be their most important modern tool of propaganda, and many of these groups have become quite sophisticated in their public presentation, often masking their true intentions behind quite normal sounding “research groups,” “churches,” or “cultural activities.” VARIETY OF GROUPS Extremist movements, hate groups, and militias have been a part of the American landscape for many decades. The Ku Klux Klan, one of the most notorious of the American-grown terrorist organizations, was originally formed in 1865, based originally in Pulaski, Tennessee. It has been responsible for literally hundreds of lynchings and killings, mostly (but not exclusively) in the Southern United States, but dwindled into virtual nonexistence before World War I. The

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Klan, however, was revived and refounded by a Christian pastor, William Simmons, in 1915, and advocated versions of the Christian Identity doctrine (see below), and recent Klan groups (there are now various splinter groups) have been implicated in violence and murders in the United States as recently as 1981. Related extremist groups are the various militias that provide training in firearms and often advocate being prepared for an ideological battle or outright war between races or adherents of unacceptable beliefs. Among less violent groups, but still advocating racism, are organizing groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), founded in 1985 in Atlanta, Georgia, and with a membership of 15,000 are now based in St. Louis, Missouri. Finally, there are variations of the Christian Identity movements that take the form of a “church,” often using names such as Church of Aryan Nation or Christian Identity in the title. DEFINITIONS AND MEMBERSHIP Scholars of right-wing groups define these movements in many different ways. How one defines these groups, obviously, has serious implications for how many movements fall within these definitions, and therefore impact on the statistics for how many such groups currently exist. According to a 1996 study by the Center for Democratic Renewal (an important organization that is considered one of the main watchdog groups keeping tabs on right-wing extremism in the United States): “. . . there are roughly 25,000 ‘hard core’ members and another 150,000 to 175,000 active sympathizers who buy literature, make contributions, and attend periodic meetings” (Michael 2003, 1). In this study, the following break-down of right-wing groups in the United States is published:

Region East South Midwest Southwest West Total

Neo- Skin- Christian KKK Nazi head Identity 16 69 39 9 5 138

23 28 39 9 31 130

6 6 10 12 6 40

1 20 9 2 14 46

Patriot/ Other Militia 30 54 58 23 51 216

Total

16 92 51 228 54 209 36 91 60 167 217 787 (Michael 2003, 2)

However, one of the main sources of information for right-wing extremist groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center, posts on their webpage a list of extremist groups active in the United States by state. For their list, and taking only the top ten states for active hate groups, there is a somewhat surprising comparison with the previous list, suggesting that these groups have a wider geographical distribution than one might presume.

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

California Texas Florida South Carolina Georgia Tennessee Virginia New Jersey Pennsylvania Missouri

80 67 49 45 42 38 34 34 33 29

From: Southern Poverty Law Center: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp.

Studies of membership across the United States reported that the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the main conspirator of the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building which killed 168 people, on June 11, 2001, seems to have slowed membership growth in various American hate groups. However, only a few months later, the attack on the Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001 stopped the downward trend in militia membership, and the movement began to pick up membership again. CHARACTERISTICS OF EXTREMIST AND HATE GROUPS Michael lists a number of characteristics that he suggests are generally common among extremist groups: 1. Small locus of identity—Groups tend to strongly identify themselves with very locally defined groups—at most a nation, but often a race within a nation, or a race within a region. Members are not interested in recruiting beyond a select few, because they view the rest of the world in highly negative terms; 2. Low regard for Democracy—Although most groups abide by federal rules, they often have a low regard for systems that give too much freedom to all people—including, of course, the excluded groups. This violates their sense of privileges that should be limited to a select group; 3. Anti-Government—Many groups view the federal government with great suspicion, and view the U.S. Government as hopelessly under the control of particular groups; 4. Conspiracy View of History—Groups view historical as well as recent events according to often very complex theories of conspiracy and control by some particular hated group; 5. Racism—Their views often exclude non-Caucasian races entirely, but in the case of those who also direct hatred toward Roman Catholicism, even Caucasian Catholics are not immune from being targeted by hateful propaganda. (Michael 2003, 5–6)

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There can be differences, however, in certain categories of groups. Militia groups, for example, can be described somewhat differently, as suggested by Mulloy, who cites common denominators of members of Militia groups to include: 1. Conservative outlook, those who are worried about repressive government that imposes undesired limitations on them, usually including taxes and gun control; 2. Week-end Adventurers—Some of the less ideological members are simply those who enjoy dressing in camouflage and playing soldier in the woods; 3. Libertarian conservatives who argue against almost all forms of federal government, even if they accept some limited local government as valid; 4. Hardcore extremists who harbor an obsessive conviction that the United States, indeed the world, is in the grip of an all-powerful conspiracy (Mulloy 2004, 3–4). One can also add that: 5. Militia-type groups tend to be the most active in states where there is a high percentage of gun owners, current and retired military personnel, and law enforcement personnel. For Americans who fall into any of these categories, two events in the 1990s stand out as national tragedies that fueled a great deal of anger and resentment among some Americans who already tended toward a conspiracy-theory of suspicion toward government. The first was the attempted arrest of Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho in August 1992. Weaver, a known white supremacist, was arrested for selling sawed-off shotguns to an undercover informant. When he did not appear for his trial, U.S. marshals went to his rural Idaho home to arrest him. The killing of the family dog led to a gun battle where Weaver’s son Sam was killed, and a Federal Marshall was also killed. Weaver himself was wounded, and his wife was killed. The 11-day siege ended when another known member of a Patriot Movement cooperated with the Marshals and convinced Weaver to surrender. The second event was the disastrous end of the police siege of the Branch Davidian religious movement near Waco, Texas, in February, 1993. The decision to force an end to a long stand-off resulted in the death of many members of this religious cult. After a 51 day stand-off, the FBI determined to invade the complex. In four hours, over 300 cannisters of tear-gas were injected into the complex, and a fire broke out that killed over 74 people, including children, who were members of the movement. Part of the ensuing controversy was stirred not only by the fact that the events were broadcast throughout the nation, but that many of the reasons cited by the government for their aggressive tactics did not turn out to be supported. For example, there was no evidence for the alleged child-abuse, and there was no evidence of drug dealing, much less drug producing laboratories, and no massive stock-piling of weaponry. There is even some suggestion that the government enforcement agency known as the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) wanted to show off a success in Waco in the light of upcoming Congressional discussions about the future of the agency and its federal funding.

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While most Americans saw these events as isolated incidents involving religious extremists or troubled individuals, for those inclined to see conspiracies in the modern world, these events are cited frequently as “evidence” of deeper issues, and are often used in virulent literature used to stir up hatred, and support for extremist agendas. WATCHING THE EXTREMISTS Even through there are many organizations that compile information on various extremist and hate groups (including, of course, the FBI itself), there are four main organizations that are widely noted for reliable information on rightwing extremism, and are active in attempting to use legal means to limit their activities. These are: 1. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which was founded in 1913 in Chicago by attorney Sigmund Livingston as an organization intended to be a defense agency for Jews in the United States facing discrimination. However, the ADL had been active in organizing information and legal challenges against groups who advocate hatred and/or discrimination against many different minorities. Michael (2003, 15–16) even reports many cases of grudging respect for the ADL by many of the groups they have targeted for their effective use of legal challenges. 2. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 by two lawyers, Morris Dees Jr., and Joseph Levin in Montgomery Alabama. Sometimes considered controversial because of the major fund-raising success of Morris Dees, the charismatic central figure of the Southern Poverty Law Center, nonetheless the SPLC has emerged as one of the most effective agencies in combating hate groups in the USA (Michael 2003, 21–22). SPLC investigations have resulted in “civil suits against many white supremacist groups for their roles in hate crimes. More than 40 individuals and nine major white supremacist organizations were toppled by SPLC suits in the Project’s first 17 years” (SPLC Web site). 3. The Center for Democratic Renewal, was founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in response to the November 3, 1979 shooting to death of five members of the Communist Workers’ Party in Greensboro, North Carolina. This occurred when the Communist Workers’ Party group attempted to engage in a counter-demonstration against Neo-Nazis and Klansmen who were marching in Greensboro that day. Surprisingly, no members of the NeoNazi or Klansmen demonstrators were ever convicted for the shooting. The organization engages in counter-demonstrations and is considered one of the more activist watchdog groups. Many of its members have strong Marxist sympathies. 4. The Political Research Associates was founded in Chicago in 1981, attempts to be “first and foremost a research organization” (Michael 2003, 27), and they work hard at establishing academic credentials to give their research a strong and trustworthy foundation.

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THE “CHRISTIAN IDENTITY” MOVEMENT Among the most explicitly religious groups in the far-right and extremist organizations is the movement known as Christian Identity (variant but related groups appear with names like Church of Aryan Nation, etc.). There are a number of specific groups that identify with variations on this train of thought, so it is important to briefly summarize some of the basic ideas that are encountered in many versions. Among the most common ideas that feed the Christian Identity movement is a set of ideas known as British Israelism or Anglo-Israelism. This is the belief that the Caucasian races of Western Europe, and especially the Celtic and Germanic peoples, are direct descendents of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Thus, the “white” Americans and Commonwealth peoples (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.) are descendents of Israelites, and thus have a special status before God. In the United States, more virulent forms of the Christian Identity movement became deeply anti-Semitic, believing that they had “replaced” the Jews as the true “chosen people of God”, and that today’s Jews are “descendents of Satan” (Eatwell in press). Among the most dangerous of the ideas circulated among Christian Identity followers is the notion of an impending great war between good and evil, largely to be fought between white people on the one side, and all non-whites aligned with the Jews on the other “side.” Christian Identity adherents believe that there were many other people in the world before God made Adam and Eve, but that Adam and Eve were created white, and therefore the ones that God especially cared for. Eve, however, had sex with one of the pre-Adam peoples (therefore, non-white) and Cain was born from this union, and was the ancestor of all nonwhite peoples today. Abel, the true son of Adam, was the further ancestor of white people. This is then mixed with (very loose) interpretations of, for example, selected portions of the New Testament Book of Revelation, which spoke (symbolically) of a war between good and evil that will finally bind and destroy evil in the world. Some extremist members within the Christian Identity movement advocate terrorist violence against minorities in the United States, even ahead of the “great war.” Members of Christian Identity movements have been implicated in violent acts in the United States, including; Eric Rudolph’s bombings of an Abortion Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, and also a bombing at the Atlanta Olympics Arsonists who burnt synagogues in California in 1999 A murder of a Gay couple in Redding, CA The attempted murder of five individuals at a Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, again in 1999 There appear to be international connections as well, such as the Living Hope Church founded in South Africa by Rev. Willie Smith in the late 1990s in reaction to the fall of the Apartheid racist regime there.

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THE RESPONSE TO CHRISTIAN IDENTITY Both Jewish and Christian movements have supported the Watchdog organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, but it is important to note some specific religious responses to some of the religious arguments of the Christian Identity movement. This response to the Christian Identity movement by progressive Christians takes a number of forms. Besides the general disapproval of racist violence in any form, even among Christians who would otherwise support legitimate use of firearms in police or military service, Christians would also cite Scripture. Jesus was noted for his inclusive teachings, a universalism that often offended his own local societies. In the Gospel of Luke, for example, the Gospel writer speaks of the first public ministry of Jesus involving a teaching in his “home” synagogue. Jesus, according to this passage, risked his life in Luke 4: 16–30 to teach on God’s universal love of all peoples. St. Paul also famously declared this same openness to all peoples: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). In fact, one of the most important aspects of early Christianity was precisely the openness of the young movement to accept people from any background and race (including, of course, Africans, Acts 8). In fact, contemporary New Testament scholars would declare that there is not the slightest defense for the racist and violent teachings of Christian Identity in any normal reading and interpretation of the Christian New Testament, and Old Testament scholars typically read the Creation Stories of Genesis as religious story intended to teach important lessons, but not literal ancient history. But even in a literalist reading of the opening chapters of Genesis, there is not the slightest support for the racialized re-telling of the Adam and Eve story, nor the belief on pre-Adamic peoples. In short, the biblical teachings advanced by the Christian Identity movement are classic cases of having one’s political mind made up, and looking for biblical passages to twist into that political shape. Finally, many analysts see the rise of hate groups and extremist groups to be indicative of social isolation and economic depression in many rural parts of the United States, and thus argue that such organizations are symptomatic of the frequently noted attempt to scapegoat or blame certain groups as somehow responsible for the difficulties that these Americans are facing. As religious beliefs are among the most deeply held convictions of modern Americans, it seems obvious that religious attitudes will often become mixed into the resentment and anger fueled by the ideologies of the extreme right. See also Apocalypticism and Nuclear War; Hucksterism and Religious Scandals. Further Reading: Barkun, Michael. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996; Eatwell, Roger. Western Democracies and the New Extreme Right. London and New York: Routledge, 2003; Eatwell, Roger. Fascism and the Extreme Right. London and New York: Routledge, In press; Hewitt, Christopher. Political Violence and Terrorism in America: A Chronology. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005; Hewitt, Christop. Understanding Terrorism

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Rock Music and Christian Ethics in American: From the Klan to al Qaeda. London and New York: Routledge, 2002; Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003; Michael, George. Confronting RightWing Extremism and Terrorism in the USA. London and New York: Routledge, 2003; Mulloy, D. J. American Extremism: History, Politics and the Militia Movement. London and New York: Routledge, 2004; Robinson, B. A. “Christian Identity Movement.” Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. http://www.religioustolerance.org/cr_ident. htm; Smith, Brent. Terrorism in America: Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams. New York: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Daniel L. Smith-Christopher ROCK MUSIC AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS Rock and roll, as a specific music form, emerged onto the American scene in the 1950s. It brought with it a youthful sensibility that would forever change American culture. This new music form evolved from earlier musical genres, the blues, and rhythm and blues (R&B), bringing with it social, cultural, political, and religious challenges. Cultural and religious challenges were presented by the emergence of rock and roll from its R&B roots, and some of the sub-genres that would follow. In particular, this music can be related to traditional Christian values regarding the body and sexuality, how Christian musicians and singers have situated themselves within this complex social and religious context, and how some communities, marginalized from mainstream Christianity, have built underground music communities as alternative worship spaces. Rock music was born into an American culture largely shaped by traditional 1950s Christian values, affirming among other things a conservative value system about the body and sexuality. Rock and roll music has always pressed up against this system from its beginnings out of the blues tradition to the present. The blues was itself considered a racy or emotionally raw type of music, created by black artists typically speaking about their experiences as poor and disenfranchised people. In addition to songs of social critique, they also created sexually suggestive lyrics and danceable tempos that encouraged listeners into seductive movements. Many “good Christians,” both black and white, considered this music to be “the Devil’s music,” played in clubs called juke joints by, and for sinners. Moreover, it was the blues that gave us the term rockin’ and rollin’ as a euphemism for sexual intercourse in many songs, notably in a 1922 song called, My Daddy Rocks Me (With one Steady Roll), by Trixie Smith. Later in the early 1950s a white Cleveland, Ohio deejay named Alan Freed would be credited with using the phrase rock and roll to describe rhythm and blues, or black music. Freed’s use of the term seemed to remove some of the racial stigma associated with the music, and it began to appeal to a wider mainstream audience. Black musicians would claim that rock and roll was a white imitation of the more authentic rhythm and blues, and thereby used to cut out many black artists who were banned from mainstream radio, television, and whites-only venues. White performers who began singing this music filled the void. Many attribute Elvis Presley’s meteoric rise to fame and glory to this phenomenon. Songs

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from black musicians such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Louis Jordan, and a host of blues musicians would be copied by white singers such as Pat Boone and Elvis Presley, to great approval and fanfare from young white audiences. However, race music or rhythm and blues, continued to cause great anxiety for white Americans of conservative social and religious values. Given that R&B as a distinct genre has been described as, good time music, or body music, appealing to the flesh more than the spirit, embodying the fervor of gospel music, the throbbing vigor of boogie woogie, the jump beat of swing, and the gutsiness and sexuality of life in the black ghetto, the challenge to mainstream values is evident. Likewise, the music introduced white teens to black urban lifestyles that were previously considered undesirable. In pre–civil rights’ era America, integration was not yet the norm, and this music pressed the social and cultural status quo beyond most white Americans’ comfort zone. The 2001 VH1 documentary, Say It Loud: Black Music in America presents vintage news footage of an outraged white man exclaiming that, (rock and roll) promotes interracial dating, dancing, and that “the White man’s children will be driven to the level with the n***!” Nevertheless, white teens had become captivated by this music and the lifestyle it projected. “Whites had long reified Black culture as perpetually fascinating but feral, alluring but alarming, sensual but sordid antithesis to the dominant white one” (Ward 1998). So exuberant to hear and experience this music, white teens went to great lengths to acquire it. As rock and roll and R&B were scorned by the older mainstream population, race music was not readily available except in black neighborhoods. White teens pressed the boundaries even more by venturing into these areas and listening to the growing number of radio stations who played this music late at night. Much to the dismay of the white mainstream, rock and roll was already changing American culture. By the time of the so-called British Invasion, blues-inflected rock music could not be stopped, as famous rock and roll artists like the Rolling Stones, the Who, Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood would openly declare their admiration and indebtedness to the often unrecognized blues men of the Mississippi Delta region from which the genre arose. In the June 12, 2008 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, the cover article focused on these musical relationships. Not only were the cultural bounds being transcended, but traditional religious values were being challenged by the lifestyle that rock and roll projected. The music was considered to promote rebellion against social and parental authority, experimentation with drugs, and promiscuity. This was in direct opposition to conservative Christian moral codes about the body and sexuality. In contrast, all Christians were encouraged to control bodily passions, and remain celibate until marriage as a mark of being saved, and biblical obedience. However, teenagers during these early years of rock’s emergence were being presented with an alternative that seemed to pull them away from the Christian moral code deemed to be a hallmark of American values. Older white mainstream audiences were not the only ones struggling with the changes that rhythm and blues now transformed into rock and roll presented, many traditional African American Christians also struggled with the

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dichotomy between sacred and secular music. For many older African Americans acquainted with Negro spirituals and tame forms of gospel music, this new style of music was seen as pulling many of the traditional artists away from the church, and into a sinful lifestyle playing the Devil’s music. This notion was so strong that an urban legend developed around the idea that many artists who had crossed over into rock and roll had sold their souls to the Devil in exchange for fame and wealth. When some of these musicians met with untimely deaths or misfortune, the urban legend was reiterated as the Devil coming to collect his due. Thus, the divide between the things of God and the things of the world was deep and pervasive. Prior to rock and roll, many Christian blues musicians would create secular music under other names. The backlash from the church community was so great that artists feared family and church rejection, and that ultimate disparagement, being called a backslider in faith. The well known gospel standard, Precious Lord, Take My Hand was written by one of the most well known blues/gospel artists of the twentieth century, Thomas Dorsey. As a “blues man,” Dorsey was known as Georgia Tom, and his reputation for suggestive lyrics followed him among church people, some of whom accepted his gospel blues and some who did not. Dorsey’s career is a quintessential example of artists who have traversed back and forth between the worlds of sacred and secular due to a deeply instilled sense of Christian morality. Dorsey was known to venture into the blues world for a time, and then become reconciled to the church again, for a time. This vacillation between genres was a hallmark of his career. An additional layer of this issue has to do with an attempt by black Americans to fit with a white mainstream religious sensibility. Since gospel blues was considered raucous and inspired people to spontaneous dancing and disorderly worship styles, many traditional black ministers saw this music as perpetuating notions of blacks as unsophisticated wild Africans. Instead, some of these ministers wanted to appropriate the more structured, European-styled forms of worship in order to present black people as respectable and cultured. The mainstream American Christian aesthetic dictated what legitimate religion and worship style should look and sound like. Thus, many black musicians who wished to remain within the fold of good Christian morality found themselves restricted to secular music, and those who wanted to explore the realms of worldly music found themselves marginalized or outcast. With the emergence of rock and roll in the 1950s, and ever since, some of the most famous artists in music have had to navigate through this complex territory. Little Richard, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, B.B. King, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner, and Al Green represent just a fraction of artists who have had to address such a struggle. In particular, Sam Cooke grew up in the Baptist church and joined the gospel group the Soul Stirrers, later becoming the lead singer. The group was extremely popular as they traveled from church to church throughout black communities. However, Cooke stood out from the group, and was recognized for both his handsome looks and his smooth, soulful voice. He began to be recognized by the mainstream audiences as well, and despite the internal conflict he felt, between secular and sacred, he began to have bigger dreams of performing crossover music to white

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and integrated audiences. Cooke was the most famous gospel artist in the 1950s to transition into the mainstream market. His 1957 hit, You Send Me, was the impetus behind that success. Tragically however, Cooke’s rise to stardom would be stopped short by the 1964 shooting in a Los Angeles motel that ended his life. The shock of his unexpected death affected not only the public and his loved ones, but record company executives who had high hopes for Cooke’s crossover success from gospel to R&B to pop. This dynamic also played out among white southern artists who stepped out into secular music. Some of these artists came from conservative, evangelical backgrounds that prohibited joining in with rhythm and blues and rock and roll on both social and religious grounds. Where racist attitudes prevailed among these whites, they did not believe in the racial integration this music promoted. Likewise, religiously they objected on grounds of a perceived rejection of God for the Devil and his worldly things. Some of the artists who nonetheless transcended these categories include Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash among many others. As an example, Jerry Lee Lewis was routinely publicly vilified by his ultra-conservative cousin, Jimmy Swaggart, noted televangelist and church musician. Swaggart would often include the notorious escapades of his famous rock and roll cousin in his sermons as a cautionary tale, warning his congregation and Christian television audiences away from pursuit of worldly things. Many contemporary artists continue to be caught in the push pull dynamic between the church and the secular world, such as Marvin Gaye, Prince, and Tupac Shakur. We have a rich library of music that symbolizes the internal conflict many musicians felt. Notably, songs from Marvin Gaye and Prince serve as examples of sacred/secular duality. Both musicians wrote and performed songs reflecting a strong belief in God, as well as songs celebrating free sexuality. Gaye’s songs from his classic album, What’s Goin’ On, are in stark contrast with Let’s Get It On and Sexual Healing. However, these sexually themed songs include references to masturbation being “not good,” and being “sanctified,” a term used often by those in the Pentecostal/Holiness church of Gaye’s childhood to describe the holy lifestyle. Likewise, Prince’s suggestive lyrics and performance style is well known and documented. He is a convert to the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion from the Seventh Day Adventist faith of his youth. In interviews of recent years he has denounced the bad language and lewd stage behavior of his past on the basis of his devout religious practice. This dichotomy has also been written about extensively regarding the rap artist Tupac Shakur, whose music was often perceived as promoting a thug life or being part of the angry, violent gangsta rap genre of hip hop music. However, he has also been described as a sensitive, insightful poet speaking to a generation of young people who could relate to his experiences and conclusions. Although he was not reared in the church, his lyrics routinely addressed such theological issues as God, death, redemption, and the afterlife, within the context of young black urban life, much as earlier Blues and rock and roll lyrics did in their contexts. By many accounts of those who knew him, his public thug life stood in contrast to his more reflective, spiritual tendencies. For some he embodied the

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inner turmoil evident in Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man, a song reflecting right and wrong dualism within a person. Tupac’s inner conflicts were writ large through his celebrity and his ultimate early death. Another contemporary music form that emerges from this historical trajectory in which we see tension between conservative Christian values and popular music, is the underground dance sub-genre. The dance music scene is a complex one, and will not be thoroughly discussed here, but briefly summarized, as it represents another layer of tension between Christian values and popular music, as well as a response from a community marginalized by that value system. The issue remains sexual morality, but in this instance regards homosexuality, and the traditional Christian teaching against it. Contemporary dance music has evolved from the R&B trajectory via rock and roll, soul, funk, and disco. Dance music today is often referred to as electronic music. However, this broad category does not do justice to the extensive subgenres of techno, trance, house, and the multiple sub-sub genres within those. For our purposes here, I will refer to house music, specifically the sub-sub genre, gospel house. House music is a particular form of dance music with origins in the nightclubs of Chicago and New York following the demise of disco. Typically, the clientele were black and Latino gay men who had been part of disco, but found a new form of expression with house music. The term house, is a reference to one of the most famous dance clubs in 1980s Chicago, The Wherehouse, where this music was created and played by djs on turntables into the late night and early morning hours. A similar following was happening in New York City at the legendary, but now defunct club called the Paradise Garage. House music clubs represented safe spaces where gay men and those sympathetic to them could find a place to be themselves in an affirming community and dance to the music they loved. Out of this context arose the sub- sub-genre of gospel house music. In this form, djs and producers create remixes of established gospel songs, or create new songs with a gospel musicality, but with lyrics that actually replace some of the sin-oriented language with words of God’s unconditional love and acceptance of everyone. Like the blues, some of these songs are written to critique the so-called good Christian, who is found to be hypocritical, overly judgmental, and exclusive in their own personal behavior. One of these songs, You Don’t Even Know Me, describes the singer’s feelings of being judged for his sexuality, but not known for the type of person he is. Other songs are straight forward praise songs directed to God the father and/or Jesus as redeemer of all humanity, but without going through the Christian church as mediator. Some of these titles include, We Lift Our Hands in the Sanctuary, where the sanctuary is actually the club where the “worship” is happening on the dance floor; and, He Is, in which God is recognized and praised as a loving creator of all. For many gay men who have lost their family connections and church affiliations because of their sexuality, the dance clubs have become spaces for reclaiming fragments of their traditional faith in alternative ways, which do not diminish their humanity. Gospel house music has become a refuge for those gay men who still value their Christian faith, and the clubs allow them to create their own family connections and worship spaces. The music allows them to maintain

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their connection to God, but bypass the tension with traditional values that generally ostracize and marginalize them. The Christian moral codes regarding the sanctity of the body, control of physical passions through monogamous, married sexuality have been part of the fabric of American values throughout the nation’s existence, and yet as we have seen, it has been thoroughly challenged by popular music of the blues, R&B, rock and roll genres, and sub-genres for at least a century. Conservative Christians have tried to preserve what they perceive as a certain sanctity to life, and where they have felt challenged they have pushed back. One of the ways that has been effective is the establishment of the music rating system in 1985, which requires that explicit music of any genre be labeled as such. This was a move by the Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC), a group led by Tipper Gore, wife of senator and later Vice President, Al Gore, with a mission to educate and inform parents about the music their children were listening to. They connected growing trends in teen violence, pregnancy, and suicide, to song lyrics with explicit references to sex, drug use, and violence, particularly in songs performed by hard rock bands and rap artists. Like the mainstream parents of earlier decades, the PMRC claimed that “the change in rock music was attributable to the decay of the nuclear family in America.” Gore asserted that “families are havens of moral stability which protect children from outside influence, and that without the family structure rock music would infect the youth of the world with messages they cannot handle” (Gore 1987). The group was also concerned about Satanic or occult, anti-Christian teachings being integrated into music to subconsciously influence teen listeners. Artists such as Pink Floyd, Ozzy Osbourne, and Led Zeppelin were accused of backmasking, or adding contents to music that could only be heard if the record was played backwards. The PMRC met with a backlash from many musicians who affirmed their right to freedom of expression, and protests against censorship. Today, the PMRC is not as vocal or public as they once were; however, perhaps they do have the last word, because explicit lyric labeling is now a standard in the music industry. Rock music and Christian ethics have often been at odds in American culture. We have seen that there has been a push-pull relationship since the music form and its sub-genres emerged in the 1950s. Then and now, the hottest points of contention have been centered on social, cultural, and religious values, specifically sexual morality. The music itself continues to reflect the internal struggle of America and this homegrown art form. At once we may be enticed by the infectious rhythms and sense of freedom the music promotes, and simultaneously repelled by the lyrics we hear and the behaviors we see. Both the music and Christian values continually propel us in American culture to examine and re-examine who we are, and what we actually value. See also World Religion Aesthetics. Further Reading: “All Things Considered.” National Public Radio, January 11, 2005; Altschuler, Glenn C. All Shook Up: How Rock and Roll Changed America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003: 23; Associated Press Newswire, May 27, 2001; The Observer (UK publication), April, 2004; Fikentscher, Kai. You Better Work: Underground Dance Music

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Rock Music and Christian Ethics in NYC. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 2000; Gore, Mary Elizabeth (Tipper). Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society. New York: Bantam Books, 1987; Reed, Teresa. The Holy Profane: Religion in Black Popular Music. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003: 152; “Senate committee hearing on the recording industry.” Sept 20, 1985; Shaw, Arnold. Honkers and Shouters: The Golden years of Rhythm and Blues. New York: Macmillan, 1978: xvi–xx, 34; Ward, Brian. Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Race Consciousness and Race Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998: 39, 241.

Darnise C. Martin

S SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Same-sex marriage is a major civil rights issue that has been heavily debated on legal, political, moral, and religious grounds. Clashing views of personal rights, competing definitions of marriage and its purpose, and differing moral and religious beliefs on sexuality and gender are the driving forces behind this issue. BACKGROUND Same-sex marriage is one of the most hotly contested political issues in the twenty-first century. Quite possibly, no other social issue today has been more passionately debated in churches, courtrooms, state houses, and living rooms across the nation. The federal government continues to weigh in on the topic, although most legal experts agree that it is a states’ rights concern. Schools, popular culture, health and religious institutions, families, and communities have all played important roles in shaping cultural perceptions about same-sex marriage, and about homosexuality and sexual identity more generally. Gay celebrities such as Rosie O’Donnell, Melissa Etheridge, and Elton John have announced their weddings to the press, setting an important public precedent for other same-sex couples. While there is a great deal of disagreement among gay rights’ activists about the merits of marriage privileges for lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (LGB), many claim same-sex marriage as one of their primary goals. Opponents claim that marriage has been, and should continue to be a sacred commitment exclusively between a man and a woman. The administrations of William J. Clinton (1992–2000) and George W. Bush (2000–present) have publicly supported legislation opposing same-sex marriage, and conservative religious sectors continue to oppose it, 439

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and homosexuality more generally. Why the controversy? Why so much dissent within, and among groups about the importance of securing or prohibiting samesex marriage rights? Differing moral and religious beliefs on sexuality and gender, as well as divergent perspectives on the role of the state in regulating people’s private lives, contribute to the controversy. While some claim that allowing samesex marriage would contribute to the erosion of family values in the Unites States, proponents argue that same-sex marriage would help to establish equality under the law for gays and lesbians. Broadly speaking, public opinions about same-sex marriage, and about the institution of marriage in general, underscore broader debates on citizenship, religion, and what it means to be a “proper” American. WHAT IS MARRIAGE? Marriage rights include a range of laws and policies, and concern legal as well as moral and religious dimensions. A civil marriage is typically a ritualized ceremony of commitment between two people to share a life together that is legally sanctioned by the state. The marriage license, issued by local government authorities, becomes a binding contract that provides access to numerous government protections and benefits that ensure financial and social security for couples and their children if they choose to create a larger family unit. Marriage is considered a core institution in the United States, and is often considered important for social well-being and stability. Over 1,000 federal laws and benefits alone are tied to marriage. Marriage is also considered a core institution in religious communities, and religious institutions are very often the places that civil marriages are performed in conjunction with religious ceremonies based on church traditions. This intersection of church and state creates a contested terrain where conflicts arise on how marriage is defined, who has the right to define it, and ultimately who has the right to marry. SUPPORTERS OF SAMESEX MARRIAGE Many liberal ideologies view the right to marry as a basic civil right that is denied same-sex couples based on discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals as a class of citizens. This view holds that marriage is a secular institution that should not be denied any citizen who wishes to claim this right. The argument continues that the denial of the right to marry interferes with an individual’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and violates a person’s right to equal protection under the law. The 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving et Ux. v. Virginia (1967), which found laws banning interracial marriage as unconstitutional, is often used as a comparison to the banning of same-sex marriage today. Justine Warren wrote in the majority decision, “marriage is one of the basic civil rights of men [sic]” and the freedom to marry is “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men [sic]” (Loving et Ux. v. Virginia 1967). While many gay rights activists support same-sex marriage, some believe that legalizing same-sex marriage would not in itself bring equality to gays

Same-Sex Marriage | 441 FAMOUS CASE 1 On February 12, 2004, Del Martin, age 84, and Phyllis Lyon, age 81, became the first legally married same-sex couple in U.S. history when, on the twelfth day in office, Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, California instructed the County Clerk to allow same-sex marriages. Mayor Newsom interpreted the marriage ban to be discriminatory and in violation of the equal protection clause in the California State Constitution. Intimate partners for over 50 years, Martin and Lyon’s legally sanctioned marriage was short lived when on August 12, 2004, the California State Supreme Court declared that Mayor Newsom did not have the legal authority to change state marriage laws. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon founded the first national lesbian rights organization, Daughters of Bilitis, in 1955. On May 15, 2008, the Supreme Court of California overturned the state’s ban on samesex marriage. Beginning June 16, 2008, same-sex couples could legally marry in the state of California.

and lesbians, because it does not challenge the exclusionary nature of the institution of marriage, nor the state’s role in regulating sexuality. For example, some scholars argue that marriage creates selective legitimacy as it necessarily privileges some couples over others and so, by definition, is discriminatory. Yet others argue that there are other more important issues to address than same-sex marriage: hate crimes and antigay violence, job discrimination, social and economic policies that privilege heterosexual over gay families, and lack of access to health care are just some of the issues that create additional daily inequalities and hardships for lesbian, gay and bisexual people according to this view. DEFENDERS OF TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE More conservative ideologies view marriage as a fundamental institution protected by the state to support a union between a man and a woman. In this view, marriage is seen as an institution that furthers procreation, protects the rearing of children, ensures the caretaking of families based on traditional gender roles, and creates financial security for the stability of society. For some religious traditions, marriage is viewed as an institution based in religious principles and ceremonies that do not support the right of same-sex couples to marry. Not all religious communities ban same-sex marriage, and heated debates have taken place within, and among religious communities about their views and institutional policies on same-sex marriage. There is a lack of consensus on this issue. Currently, some large churches that support same-sex marriage include the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Episcopal Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The United Church of Christ has over one million members and is considered to be the first major U.S. Christian denomination to support same-sex marriage. The case for denying same-sex marriage is often based in religious beliefs that view homosexuality as morally

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wrong and against biblical teachings. The Christian Coalition, one of the most powerful conservative lobbying organizations in the nation, has developed an explicit political agenda to counter the same-sex marriage movement. According to conservative Christians, allowing same-sex marriage is considered an attack on traditional Christian notions of family values and on the institution of marriage; an institution they perceive as already unstable due to high divorce rates, single-parent families, and pregnancy without marriage. STATE AND FEDERAL RESPONSES Federal and state governments have played important roles in shaping the debate over same-sex marriage. It became a topic of significant national debate in 1993 when the Supreme Court of Hawaii in Baehr v. Miike (formerly known as Baehr v. Lewin) ruled that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples was sex discrimination. This ruling fueled national fears that same-sex couples would marry in Hawaii and then return to their home states and expect their marriages to be recognized. In reality, states had the legal right to deny these marriages. The underlying debate was primarily a moral one about who should have the civil right to marry. Religious institutions wanted to maintain the power to decide this question for themselves and for society at large, and politicians began to see this as a possible wedge issue between conservatives and liberals to be exploited for political gain. As it turned out, same-sex marriages were never granted in Hawaii, because a state constitutional amendment passed after the ruling that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. This ruling, however, set the stage for the national dialogue that continues until today. Because of the Hawaii ruling, and other cases that were making their way through state court systems, a few states began to pass legislation that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. This type of legislation, known as defense of marriage legislation, continues to be pushed as a way to disallow same-sex marriage legislation from being passed. While the federal government had historically taken the position that marriage law was a states’ rights issue, it decided to enter the dialogue. In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which President William J. Clinton (1992–2000) signed into law. DOMA defined marriage, for federal purposes, as a union between one man and one woman. It also allowed states to not recognize the marriage laws of other states that grant same-sex marriage. As same-sex marriage proponents pointed out, this second clause was not necessary, as states already had this right. At the time the federal Defense of Marriage Act passed, no states allowed samesex marriages. Nonetheless, following its enactment, a flood of states began passing their own state-level Defense of Marriage bills. Currently, 41 states have such laws. This appears to be a strong reaction to a hypothetical situation, but the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act represented the social sentiment that homosexuality is an illness, deviant and/or sinful, and that gay people do not deserve this right. In addition, to further reinforce this, numerous states went on to amend their constitutions to define marriage as a union between one man

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and one woman. To date, 19 states have amended their constitutions (National Conference on State Legislatures 2006). Many states also have strong citizen movements organized to oppose these legislative initiatives. SAMESEX MARRIAGE AND CIVIL UNIONS Thus far, two types of legal partnership frameworks have been proposed for same-sex couples: marriage and civil unions. Same-sex couples currently are denied the right to legally marry in almost every state, although in some states they are allowed to form civil unions. The Massachusetts law came into effect in 2003, following the legal case of seven couples that were refused marriage licenses by city or town clerks and challenged the state law. In November 2003, Goodridge v. Mass. Department of Public Health was ruled on by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The court ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage violated the state’s constitution by denying due process and equal protection under the law to same-sex couples. The court argued that civil marriage is a governmentcreated secular institution that all citizens have a right to benefit from, and that central to the state’s legal definition of personal freedom and security is the assumption that the laws of the state will apply equally to all citizens. Based upon this ruling, the state legislature initially passed a “separate but equal” civil union law that conferred state rights and benefits to same-sex couples. Later, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that a “separate but equal” civil union created second-class citizenship, and that it was not constitutionally acceptable. Rather, the court argued, only civil marriage would meet the standard set by the court (Goodridge v. Mass. Department of Public Health 2003). On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first and only state to grant same-sex couples the right to marry. Obtaining the right to marry in Massachusetts was a historic moment for LGB people and their supporters. For the first time ever, same-sex couples had equal legal status with heterosexual couples, and in this regard it was seen as a civil rights’ victory by supporters of same-sex marriage rights. However, the backlash from the Massachusetts decision is significant, and continues today. Many same-sex marriage opponents fear that a case may someday be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court that will universally overturn the ban on same-sex marriage. As a result of this decision, President George W. Bush and other conservative politicians are calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to further define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. In January 2005, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee passed a resolution to amend the federal constitution. In the spring of 2006, First Lady Laura Bush indicated in public statements that she does not believe a constitutional amendment defining marriage between a man and a woman should be used as a campaign strategy in the mid-year election cycle, illuminating how significant of a wedge issue same-sex marriage is between conservative and liberal politicians and their supporters. At the same time, the Majority Leader of the Senate, Republican Bill Frist, called for a debate of the full Senate on the constitutional amendment resolution. He claims an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is important in order to stop the attack on marriage by “activist judges” who are overturning defense

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FAMOUS CASE 2 May 17, 2004 marked a historic day in the expansion of civil rights for same-sex couples when the first legally sanctioned marriages were performed in the state of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts State Supreme Court ruled in November of 2003 that the laws prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying violated the state constitution. Seven couples had sued for the right to marry. Massachusetts and Connecticut are the only states that currently allow same-sex couples to marry. A State Supreme Court decision in Vermont requires same-sex couples to have access to the same benefits that married couples are given; creating a separate but equal status called a civil union. Do such unions promote equality? Should they be viewed as equivalent to marriage?

of marriage laws in states. Although such a resolution has not yet progressed through Congress at the time of this writing, President Bush and other conservative politicians and religious sectors continue to support it. Opposition to same-sex marriage also continues at the state level, where there has been a significant push to amend state constitutions to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In some cases, those amendments also void domestic partnership laws. Currently, 19 states have successfully amended their constitutions; a victory for opponents who fear that the institution of marriage will deteriorate if marriage rights are extended to gay and lesbian couples. Proponents point out that these defense of marriage laws have had unintended consequences for same-sex as well as heterosexual couples. For example, in the state of Ohio, the constitutional amendment effectively banned same-sex marriage, and all domestic partnership arrangements in the state. This more encompassing attack made void, among other things, domestic violence laws that protected intimate partners in nonmarital relationships, and domestic partner laws and policies for heterosexual couples. Seven additional states currently have amendments to ban same-sex marriage on their ballots. CONCLUSION The debate over same-sex marriage will likely continue into the foreseeable future. It is difficult to determine what the outcome will be in the legal and public policy arenas. To date, most state and federal legislation continues to ban same-sex couples from marriage laws. Only two states have granted this right, and perhaps one or two more will grant this right in the near future. While numerous municipalities (over 60) have set up domestic partnership registries that offer recognition to same-sex and opposite-sex partners, states play the leading role in making major public policy decisions in this arena. At the same time, federal politicians opposing same-sex marriage continue to push for more significant federal action by amending the U.S. Constitution. While Americans have increasingly shown more support for same-sex marriage in general population

Sanctuary Movement

surveys, the votes still show a largely divided public on the issue. However, the majority of Americans do not feel the U.S. Constitution should be amended to ban same-sex marriage. And so, the debate continues. See also Homosexuality; Marriage, Sexuality, and Celibacy. Further Reading: Boswell, John. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980; Brandzel, Amy. “Queering Citizenship? Same-Sex Marriage and the State.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 11, no. 2 (2005): 171–204; Cahill, Sean. Same-Sex Marriage in the United States: Focus on the Facts. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004; Chambers, D. 2001. “What If? The Legal Consequences of Marriage and the Legal Needs of Lesbian and Gay Male Couples.” In Queer Families, Queer Politics: Challenging Culture and the State, eds. Bernstein and Reimann. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001: 306–337; Chauncey, G. Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today’s Debate Over Gay Equality. Basic Books, 2004; de Sève, Jim. Tying the Knot. Outcast Films, 2005; Epstein, Steven. “Gay and Lesbian Movements in the United States: Dilemmas of Identity, Diversity, and Political Strategy.” In The Global Emergence of Gay and Lesbian Politics: National Imprints of a Worldwide Movement, eds. Barry D. Adam, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and André Krouwel. Temple University Press, 1999: 30–90; Eskridge, William. The Case for Same-Sex Marriage: from Sexual Liberty to Civilized Commitment. Free Press, 1996; Gerstmann, Evan. Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution. Cambridge University Press, 2004; Glassman, Anthony. “United Church of Christ Endorses Marriage Equality.” Gay People’s Chronicle, Cleveland, Ohio, July 8, 2005; Goldberg-Hiller, Johnathan. The Limits to Union: Same-Sex Marriage and the Politics of Civil Rights. University of Michigan Press, 2002; National Conference on State Legislatures. “Same Sex Marriage Policy Information.” 2006. http://www.ncsl.org/ programs/cyf/samesex.htm; Sullivan, Andrew. Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con. Knopf Publishing Group, 2004; United Church of Christ Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns. 2006. http://www.ucccoalition.org; Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. Harvard University Press, 1999; Wolfson, Evan. Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right To Marry. Simon and Schuster, 2004.

Jack Balswick and Judith K. Balswick SANCTUARY MOVEMENT In the 1970s and 1980s undocumented Central Americans fled civil war and brutal conflicts in their home countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua for the United States. These people were not officially recognized as refugees by the United States’ government. The Sanctuary Movement is a grassroots, religious-based, ecumenical coalition that provides support and advocacy for these undocumented people. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the U.S. economic and foreign policies that changed in its wake, the Sanctuary Movement continued to be a group advocating for the just and equitable treatment of immigrants. The movement continues today to work for change in U.S. foreign and domestic policy toward illegal immigrants and migrant workers. The Sanctuary Movement began in the early 1980s as a response to several different events. The first, the assassination of Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980,

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brought the unstable political situation in El Salvador home to many American Catholics, Jews, and Protestant peace tradition churches. Romero’s assassination was followed in December 1980 by the brutal rape and murder of three U.S. nuns and a lay worker in El Salvador. While the Reagan administration was largely silent on these issues, these events mobilized American churches and synagogues. In addition, an influx of immigrants across the borders of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas caused a humanitarian crisis on the border, and the tremendous human suffering and anguish spurred action by churches in order to aid in the plight of those undocumented immigrants. On March 24, 1982, the second anniversary of Romero’s assassination, Rev. John Fife of Southside Presbyterian church in Tucson, Arizona, along with five churches in Northern California, issued a declaration of public safety, and stated that their churches and synagogues were safe havens for Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees. Through this network of churches, the Sanctuary Movement worked to raise public awareness of the situation in Central America, and to find legal means to help the undocumented migrants. The Sanctuary Movement sought to rectify a failure in U.S. immigration policy toward people who the U.S. government had classified as undocumented workers. Instead, the Sanctuary Movement understood these people as refugees seeking political asylum, and sought to change U.S. immigration law accordingly. The Sanctuary Movement believed that answering the humanitarian need of these refugees was a higher law than the U.S. policy that did not recognize Central Americans seeking political asylum. Moreover, the Sanctuary Movement put itself at risk as the U.S. government referred to the refugees as illegal immigrants, and helping those immigrants enter the country, or providing them with support was illegal. Many of these religious people were moved by the plights of the refugees, who told stories of torture, disappearances, and brutality. Within the movement, however, there was tension over the issue of what kind of relationship the churches should have toward the official U.S. policy, and to what extent the movement should challenge the law. While many churches understood their work on the behalf of Central Americans as civil disobedience, others understood churches to have a responsibility to protest and actively disregard laws that were unjust or violated human rights. Many sanctuary workers held the U.S. position on Central America to be a violation of its own laws, and therefore conceived of their actions as a necessary response to the unjust and hypocritical position of the Reagan administration. Sanctuary workers argued they were upholding humanitarian laws the United States had put into place years before, to deal with Vietnamese and Laotian refugees. Others understood their work with the refugees to be a kind of religious practice, born from their faith, and in response to Leviticus 19:33–34, which was a central part of the declaration of the Sanctuary Movement. “Remember that you were a stranger, and do justice by the stranger, for remember you were strangers in the Land of Egypt. When a stranger resides with you in your land do him no wrong. Treat him as you would treat yourself, for remember you were strangers in the Land of Egypt.” This division led to a separation of foci within the movement itself.

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There are two different orientations within the Sanctuary Movement. The first is humanitarian. This perspective understands the goal of the churches to be one that is upholding basically good but inadequate immigration and amnesty laws. Rather than understanding their support of Central Americans as critical of the United States’ policies, this perspective believes their actions are enforcing a policy that has been misinterpreted, and will eventually return to the interpretation that recognizes undocumented Central Americans as refugees. The second orientation is political, and understands the Sanctuary Movement’s actions as acts of civil disobedience, which they identify as “civil initiative,” against the unjust and indefensible policies of the U.S. government. The political perspective seeks an alliance that will build a coalition among refugees from all parts of the world (for example, Haiti), and among social justice movements, regardless of faith perspective. The founders of this movement are Quaker Jim Corbett (1933–2001), Rev. John Fife of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, and Fr. Ricardo Elford, a Roman Catholic priest. From a Quaker heritage, Corbett had been working on social justice issues for most of his life. He dedicated the latter years of his life to help Central American refugees seek legal support from the United States’ government and, when that support was not forthcoming, helped refugees stay in the United States illegally. The goals of the Sanctuary Movement were to provide assistance to detainees who were applying for political asylum, to provide social services for refugee communities, to actively protest human rights abuses in Central America by writing and sending telegrams to Congress, to organize press conferences, and, through selling Central American arts and crafts, raise public awareness about the plight of those Central Americans. From these origins three centers emerged—the Arizona borderlands, Northern California, and Chicago. By declaring churches subject to a higher law, movement workers hid refugees, and eventually helped them relocate through the underground railroad that developed though the efforts of churches and synagogues committed to the movement. The Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America (CRTFCA) eventually became coordinator for the underground railroad that helped Central American refugees resettle in the United States or Canada. The Tucson Ecumenical Council (TEC) focused on getting immigrants into the United States and acted as a legal advocate for them. While TEC and CRTFCA initially worked together, eventually the two groups became irreconcilably divided over issues of how to treat the political usefulness of refugees to achieve policy change in the United States. The Chicago group decided to strategically focus on high-profile immigrant cases that would be more likely to sway public opinion, allowing other immigrants who, for one reason or another, could not stand the public scrutiny, to be deported. The Tucson group, on the other hand, was committed to settling all immigrants who came to them for help, regardless of the publicity. The two groups evolved into a national grassroots resettlement effort (TEC and San Francisco and Bay area churches and synagogues), on the one hand, and a national network of antiwar activists (CRTFCA) on the other. This distinction was based primarily on proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border, and the immediacy of the humanitarian crisis brought on by the challenges of border crossing.

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At its height in the mid-1980s, the Sanctuary Movement included 200 religious orders and congregations across the United States, and more than 600 religious organizations, including the National Federation of Priests’ Councils (representing more than 33,000 Catholic priests). Notably, the National Association of Evangelicals did not sign the Sanctuary Declaration, and distanced itself from the movement. In 1984, Jim Corbett was awarded the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award on behalf of the movement. The first effort in the Sanctuary Movement was to bail out people who had been held in detention centers in the Southwest. Corbett, along with other pastors in the Southwest, raised $100,000 to bail out a hundred refugees who had been abandoned in the desert and left to die in the harsh conditions. However, even after that bail out, many were sent back to El Salvador, even though they had reason to believe that their lives were in danger if they went back. There were two methods that members of the Sanctuary Movement used to help people find a safe haven in the United States. The first method involved helping Central Americans cross the Mexico-U.S. border and bringing them to member churches who would offer them help with legal fees in order to apply for asylum, acquire housing, and other kinds of support. This was the most legally risky for members of the movement, because it openly violated the U.S. law forbidding aid to illegal immigrants. The second method involved U.S. sanctuary workers traveling to Central America in order to accompany Central Americans to the Mexico-U.S. border. This avoided the legal risks of transporting illegal aliens in the United States, because they did not actually cross but just helped them too the border, but was very dangerous for the Americans in El Salvador, Guatemala, or Nicaragua, who could be targeted by governmental or paramilitary groups who caused the refugees to flee in the first place. The members who traveled to Central America and helped refugees come to the United States were subject to suspicion in Central America, and possible detention or imprisonment in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Mexico as they made the journey north with the refugees. In 1985 the Department of Justice (DOJ) brought charges against 14 members of the Sanctuary Movement, though ultimately only 11 faced trial. The majority of the defendants in the DOJ case against the Sanctuary Movement came from the TEC. The DOJ had infiltrated the Southside Presbyterian Church through an informant, and put together a case against the movement. The DOJ charged the Sanctuary Movement members with alien smuggling, conspiracy, recruiting, transporting, and harboring illegal aliens. Over 100 persons were listed as un-indicted coconspirators. The government argued that the undocumented Central Americans were criminals, illegally entering the United States for economic prosperity and not because of political persecution. During the trial, the government sought to differentiate religious action and political action, accusing the Sanctuary workers of conflating the two, and taking immigration law into their own hands. While the defendants were optimistic that the movement would be vindicated, the focus of the trial was not on the reason for the illegal immigration, or even the definition of refugees versus illegal immigrants, but rather, the prosecution focused on the efforts of movement members to evade

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or circumvent U.S. law. The judge banned testimony about persecution in the refugees’ home countries and the defendants’ motives for providing sanctuary. In the end, eight of the sanctuary workers were convicted. They were sentenced to probation, and forbidden to participate in any further Sanctuary Movement activities. The Reagan administration’s official position was that Central American immigrants were not refugees but were “seeking a better life for themselves by finding better employment” in the United States, according to Elliott Abrams in 1983 during his tenure as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. From the point of view of the Reagan government, to grant Central Americans asylum would be tantamount to admitting those people were in fact persecuted, and would expose the involvement of the U.S. government in that persecution. The Reagan administration saw the Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants as illegal aliens who should be deported. The Reagan administration minimized the human rights’ violations in El Salvador and Guatemala, emphasizing instead the leftist leanings of the guerrillas in those countries. The crux of the debate about the Sanctuary Movement hinges on this issue. If the immigrants are illegally entering the United States as economic immigrants aided by U.S. citizens, as the Reagan administration argued in the trial, then those citizens are breaking the law. The Sanctuary Movement’s defense hinged on the interpretation of United States law regarding political asylum and refugees. They argued that the U.S. government had laws that protected people seeking political asylum, and in the case of El Salvador and Guatemala, the government was ignoring that law. The Sanctuary Movement argued that they were not committing acts of civil disobedience, but civil initiative, upholding laws their government disregarded. The Sanctuary Movement attorneys argued that the workers were not “smuggling,” because their immigrants were refugees who had legitimate asylum claims. Despite the trial and the criminalization of their activities, the Sanctuary Movement continued to help Central American refugees throughout the 1980s. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the Sanctuary Movement often worked with refugees from Africa. They also continued their work with illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central and South America. Currently, the New Sanctuary Movement has expanded, and includes legal and humanitarian agencies as well as churches and synagogues across the country. The movement is self-consciously faith-oriented and maintains a strong connection to Christian social justice initiatives. The New Sanctuary Movement website pledge includes this statement: “The New Sanctuary Movement is a coalition of interfaith religious leaders and participating congregations, called by our faith to respond actively and publicly to the suffering of our immigrant brothers and sisters residing in the United States” (www.newsanctuarymovement. org). Recognizing the complex economic and historical context of immigration in the United States, the New Sanctuary Movement seeks to change legislation that discriminates against immigrants, and to protect immigrants from hate, discrimination in the workplace, and forced deportation.

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In conjunction with several border-area churches, including the American Friends Service Committee, Southside Presbyterian Church supports humanitarian aid programs such as No More Deaths (No Mas Muertes). No More Deaths is an organization whose “mission is to end death and suffering on the U.S./Mexico border through civil initiative: the conviction that people of conscience must work openly and in community to uphold fundamental human rights” (www.nomoredeaths.org). The organization was given the Oscar Romero Award for Human Rights in Houston, Texas on April 2007. This award recognizes the organization’s contribution to humanitarian aid along the U.S.Mexico border. The award was presented to Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz, who were arrested for offering medical aid to migrants in the Sonora Desert. Because the United States has no official policy regarding humanitarian aid on the border, activists such as Strauss and Sellz are in danger of being charged for violating federal laws regarding transporting and harboring illegal aliens. Strauss and Sellz were charged with transporting undocumented migrants in 2005, when they transported three severely ill migrants to a hospital. In September 2006 the charges were dismissed. The case against Strauss and Sellz drew international attention to the region and the problems of the U.S.-Mexico border area. What remains to be seen is the future of such sanctuary movements. With the rise of border vigilantism like the Minutemen, and the current rhetorical invective against illegal immigration coming from conservatives and even some Democrats, the future looks uncertain for these movements. It is difficult to see how movements concerned with humanitarian issues can stand against the new rise of nationalist xenophobia that has dominated the nation’s discourse. The 2005 failure of immigration reform, showed the power of these anti-immigrant forces. What will remain are small groups and churches who will focus on the needs of these people regardless of the vagaries of politics or law. They will continue to follow their “higher law.” See also Bible and Poverty; Immigration. Further Reading: Coutin, Susan Bibler. “The Culture of Protest: Religious Activism and the U.S. Sanctuary Movement.” In Conflict and Social Change Series, eds. Scott Whiteford and William Derman. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993; Coutin, Susan Bibler. “Smugglers or Samaritans in Tucson, Arizona: Producing and Contesting Legal Truth.” American Ethnologist, vol. 22, no. 3 (August 1995): 549–571; Davidson, Miriam. Convictions of the Heart: Jim Corbett and the Sanctuary Movement. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1988; Golden, Renny and Michael McConnell. Sanctuary: The New Underground Railroad. New York: Orbis Books, 1986; Lorentzen, Robin. “Women in the Sanctuary Movement.” In Women in the Political Economy Series, ed. Ronnie J. Steinberg. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991; No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes. http://nomoredeaths.org; Sanctuary Movement Homepage. http://www.new sanctuarymovement.org/pledge.htm; Southside Presbyterian Homepage. http://www. southsidepresbyterian.org; Tomsho, Robert. The American Sanctuary Movement. Austin, TX: Texas Monthly Press, 1987.

Laura Ammon

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SCHOOL FUNDING The issue of public funding of religious institutions in education is bound up with the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has struggled through a variety of decisions to define what the appropriate level of relationship is between public schools and religion. Today, with voucher programs and Faith-Based Initiatives it is clear that the problem is still unresolved. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION Any discussion of the relationship between public education and religion must begin in 1791 with the Bill of Rights and the antiestablishment clause of the First Amendment. According to the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” It is this right of freedom of, and from religion that is the cornerstone upon which the entire debate about public support for religious education is founded. This is often referred to as the separation of church and state. The two components require freedom for religious practice on the one hand, but also freedom from the state supporting or establishing religion on the other. In practical terms, the issues of religion and the public school are categorized in two ways in much of the debate: promotion of religious activities in school, and the use of tax dollars to support parochial institutions. A close examination of the record of the Supreme Court on these issues demonstrates congruence with the above categories. This chapter will focus specifically on state funding for parochial schools. With the decision in the Oregon case in 1925 (Pierce v. Society of Sisters) the right of parents to choose private parochial schools in lieu of public schools was established (www.findlaw.com). From that point on, however, it became an open question as to what degree the state might support activities in these institutions. MILESTONE DECISIONS BY THE SUPREME COURT In Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education (1930), the Court established the child benefit doctrine (www.findlaw.com). This doctrine held that private schools could be supported by the state provided it benefited only the child, and not the sectarian mission of the school. The State could then provide money for lunches, textbooks, and health services. This ruling was expanded in Everson v. Board of Education in 1947 to include providing buses for transporting parochial students (www.findlaw.com). In this ruling, however, the Court also placed some limitations on the scope of the Everson decision. First, the State could not be compelled to provide transportation for parochial schools, but could at its option elect to do so. Second, nonreligious private schools must be included if religious schools were included. In 1965, the federal government created a major increase in public financing of education with the enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education

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Act of 1965. This law was targeted specifically at low-income schools to provide books, materials, and services. It was significant, however, in that it was not exclusively applicable to public schools, but included private and parochial schools as well. Perhaps the most important decision regarding religion and the classroom is Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). In this case the Court instituted a three-part test for the constitutionality of any law pertaining to public assistance to religious schools. The Lemon test asked: (1) Does the law have a secular purpose? (2) Is the primary effect of the law to advance religion? (3) Does the law foster excessive government entanglement of religion? The purpose of the Lemon test was to define the meaning of establishment for the Court. It became the dominant measure of the constitutionality of relationships between church and state (www.findlaw.com). The result of the Lemon test was a clear differentiation of acceptable public support of religious education from unacceptable support. In Tilton v. Richardson, decided the same year as Lemon, the Court held that the state could provide money for the building of facilities that had a secular purpose (www.findlaw. com). However, in the Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist (1973) the Court struck down a law that would have provided money for general facilities upkeep for religious schools on the grounds that there was no way to separate what was religious (unacceptable use) and what was secular (acceptable use) (www.findlaw.com). Likewise, Nyquist held that payments to parents of parochial school children in the form of either tuition payments or tax deductions were unconstitutional, as there was no way of limiting the funds to strictly secular purposes. Nyquist was struck down because it failed the Lemon test’s first and second principles—the law did not have a secular purpose, and its effect was the furtherance of religion, even if unintentional. The majority of the Court’s decisions since Lemon have adhered to the same standard. Those expenditures that are not for strictly secular purposes or cannot be controlled (for instance, state funding of field trips), are deemed to violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. However, the principle of Cochran (the Child Benefit Doctrine) still holds, and the state can fund things that are secular and benefit the child. The Court reaffirmed this position in 1985 in Aguilar v. Felton (www.findlaw. com). According to Aguilar, while Title I funds were designated for both private and public schools, public school teachers could not be assigned to teach students remedial subjects in private schools. Aguilar was seen to violate the third Lemon test of excessive entanglement. Schools then proceeded to do such instruction off-campus. However, in 1997, the Supreme Court reversed its decision on Aguilar in Agnostini v. Felton. The Court now held that public teachers could teach such classes in private schools provided there was “pervasive monitoring” and “administrative cooperation” (www.findlaw.com). The basis of the Court’s reversal in Agnostini was found in its ruling on disabled students in parochial schools. In Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, the Court found that the district was required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to provide a deaf student attending a Catholic

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school with an interpreter. The majority held that the presence of the interpreter would not “add to the religious environment” and therefore did not constitute either excessive entanglement or promotion of religion (www.findlaw.com). Additionally, in Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind, the Court held that a tuition grant could be given to an individual who wanted to go to a Christian college without violating the establishment clause. Using the Lemon test, the Court found that because the aid was going to the individual, the state was supporting the individual, not the institution. Therefore, even if a religious school ultimately benefited, the purpose of the program was secular in intent, did not create an entanglement between church and state, and did not support religion. Thus, the program did not violate the establishment clause. The combination of Zorbrest and Witters’ decisions gave the Court license to allow public school teachers to teach in private schools in Agnostini. More recently, the Court has continued in the permissive tradition of Cochran and Lemon in Mitchell v. Helms (2000) (www.findlaw.com). The Court here once again asserted the ability of the states to provide material for religious schools. However in Helms, the latitude of the states was significantly expanded to include computers, and other instructional materials. The majority was divided on how broadly its decision was applicable, with Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy arguing for a very open policy of government support, while O’Connor and Breyer were more restrained in their concurring opinion (www.findlaw.com). VOUCHERS In 2002, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of vouchers with a suit that tested the constitutionality of a voucher program established in Cleveland, Ohio (www.findlaw.com). The Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program (CSTP), ratified by the Ohio Legislature in 1995, is a voucher program that provides parents a voucher that can be used to pay for tuition at private or religious schools. The program is need-based, giving those families whose income is below 200 percent of the poverty level 90 percent of tuition costs or $2,250 (whichever is less). Families above 200 percent of the poverty level received 75 percent or $1,875 (whichever is less). These figures have since been raised, and are now linked to the Consumer Price Index. Originally the program included only K-8th grade students in the Cleveland Municipal School District (though only students who did not require separate special education), but was expanded in 2003 to 2004 to include 9th grade and above. Since the Court ruled, the program has been made statewide. This established the first largescale voucher program. The program allowed parents to use the vouchers to enroll their children in private charter schools. The majority of schools affected by the voucher program were in fact religious schools. The law was challenged on the grounds that it provided monetary support of religious institutions, thus violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

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The first opinion was from a three-judge panel from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had ruled against the Cleveland voucher program. In SimmonHarris v. Zelman the majority ruled “there is no neutral aid when that aid principally flows to religious institutions.” However when the Supreme Court reviewed the ruling it took a quite different approach (www.findlaw.com). It would seem that the controlling decision for such a case such as Zelman would be Lemon. However the recent events had made it clear that Lemon might ultimately be sidelined. The request of the Bush (Sr.) administration to review the Lemon decision, indicated that conservatives felt the Lemon test was too restrictive. Justice Rehnquist had also noted that Lemon was not as solid as it once had been, and had been questioned at various points by a variety of justices and ignored in some key establishment cases. Likewise, when it came to the issue of public funding of parochial schools, the history of the Court was much more unpredictable. In Agnostini v. Felton the majority consisted of Justices O’Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy. This five to four decision showed that the Court had changed its thinking on the establishment clause. Justice O’Connor’s comments in her opinion are very telling, “What has changed since we decided Ball and Aguilar is our understanding of the criteria used to assess whether aid to religion has an impermissible effect.” In Agnostini the answer to that question was clearly it did not create an “impermissible effect” (www.findlaw.com). The issue of vouchers is much akin to both Agnostini and Witter. If vouchers are given to the parents and not directly to religious schools, the logic of Witter would prevail. By the Court’s current understanding of the Lemon test, such aid would not be seen to infringe on the establishment clause. The combination of the conservative block on the Court, coupled with the moderates of O’Connor and Kennedy, could very well have been expected to find vouchers constitutional. Clearly the major issue, as court history might indicate, is whether this was another attempt at public funding for religious institutions. As the appeals’ court quote above indicates, that court concluded it was, and therefore found it unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, however, took a different view. It ruled that the program was secular in its intention; it provided parents of the Cleveland schools an opportunity to choose to send their children to a number of schools; public, private, and religious. That Cleveland has a large number of religious schools, and therefore a large number of parents who availed themselves of the program (82%) sent their children to private religious schools, was ultimately immaterial. As Justice Rehnquist said in his opinion, To attribute constitutional significance to the 82% figure would lead to the absurd result that a neutral school-choice program might be permissible in parts of Ohio where the percentage is lower, but not in Cleveland, where Ohio has deemed such programs most sorely needed. (www.findlaw.com) In her concurring opinion Sandra Day O’Connor addressed the math of this decision explicitly. Reiterating that there are in fact a number of options aside from private religious schools, Justice O’Connor notes,

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When one considers the option to attend community schools, the percentage of students enrolled in religious schools falls to 62.1 percent. If magnet schools are included in the mix, this percentage falls to 16.5 percent. (www.findlaw.com) Additionally, the fact that only partial scholarships are provided for religious institutions, while magnet and charter schools are provided full funding, is more evidence that the establishment clause has not been violated because money as an incentive was clearly focused on nonreligious options. Justice Rehnquist wrote the opinion of the court. The basis of the decision for him was not Lemon, but was ultimately based on those precedents where the court had focused on individual choice (Muller v. Allen, Witters v. The Washington Dept. Services for the Blind, and Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District). In each of these cases, Rehnquist argues, the right of individual choice trumps the challenge to the establishment clause. As long as individuals make the choice where the money is spent, and there are nonreligious alternatives, there is no violation of the establishment clause to be found. While Justice Rehnquist did not find Lemon relevant in his decision, Justice O’Connor did. In her concurring opinion she argues that the court was, in fact, still upholding Lemon as modified by subsequent cases. Instead, Justice O’Connor talks about a “refinement” of Lemon by reiterating Justice Rehnquist’s theme of “choice.” What the Court clarifies in these cases is that the Establishment Clause also requires that state aid flowing to religious organizations through the hands of beneficiaries must do so only at the direction of those beneficiaries. (www.findlaw.com) It is the beneficiaries who choose where the state money may go, and thus it does not create a constitutional violation. Since the Courts’ decision in Zelman a number of states have started their own local voucher programs, though most are small pilot programs. Ohio leads the nation once again by establishing the first state-wide voucher program. Nonetheless, the benefits of voucher programs in terms of student achievement are still highly debated. The studies that have been done have found mixed results, and have been hampered by the small sample size of most voucher programs. At this point, the battle over vouchers has shifted to the state courts, where they have been ruled unconstitutional in two states (Florida and Colorado). Other states, however, may soon join the fray, and congress looks to take up a national program sometime soon. There is no doubt that the issue of vouchers will continue to be important in the United States debate on education. FAITHBASED INITIATIVES The other issue that pertains to the issue of public funding of religious institutions is President George W. Bush’s program of government support for faith-based charities engaged in social services work. Starting in 2001,

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President George W. Bush signed a series of Executive Orders that brought into being the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Office. These orders also established Faith-Based and Community Initiative centers throughout the various departments of the executive branch (Justice, Education, HUD, Labor, etc.). The goal of these orders was to break down barriers restricting the application of government monies to faith-based organizations for community service. Importantly, from the perspective of public education, the requirement of the No Child Left Behind legislation that mandated supplemental educational services (such as after-school tutoring, summer intensive programs, etc.) for failing schools, has now become an available venue for faith-based organizations. The legal history of this program has been mixed, with lower courts deciding for the Bush administration in late 2005, but the Faith-Based Initiative Office was forced to suspend another grant program because of the threat of a lawsuit (Cooperman 2005, A25). No cases have made it as high as the Supreme Court yet. However, the question of the program’s constitutionality remains. It is possible the court will find the program constitutional in the end. The argument for deciding this was laid out by Justice Rehnquist in his dissent in Edwards v. Aguillard (www.findlaw.com). There, Rehnquist argued that motivation was not a determinant in deciding establishment. Rehnquist, in fact, makes this argument in regards to social services when he says, “We surely would not strike down a law providing money to feed the hungry or shelter the homeless if it could be demonstrated that, but for the religious beliefs of the legislators, the funds would not have been approved. Also, political activism by the religiously motivated is part of our heritage.” Provided that bureaucratic structures are in place that insulate the proselytizing functions from the social functions, it is possible that this program would pass the Lemon Test. However, two additional considerations should be noted. First, the Supreme Court has had a history of divining intentions behind a law. In the Louisiana Balanced Treatment Act (which allowed teaching creationist alternatives to evolution in the public schools), the legislature had discussed at length in hearings the constitutional issues, and specifically formulated the law in an attempt to avoid those issues. The Court, nevertheless, determined that the true intent was the promotion of a religious belief, not the offering of “all the evidence.” While the facts in the case of President Bush’s program would certainly be different, if the Court thought that the intent of the program was the advancement of religious institutions, it may well rule that the program violated the establishment clause. Second, exclusive aid of religious institutions was specifically banned in Everson. This decision included both the privileging of one group over another, or the help of religion in general. Much of the controversy regarding Bush’s program is vis-à-vis different religious groups. For instance, will the Nation of Islam be included despite its leader’s comments on Jews? Will neo-pagan groups, like the Wiccans who many Christians see as a satanic threat, be eligible? Any attempt to distinguish between prima facie religious groups may quickly run afoul of the establishment clause.

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With the change in the makeup of the court from the Rehnquist court to the Roberts court, any prediction regarding the constitutionality of Faith-Based Initiatives becomes difficult. However, it is worth noting that the GAO’s report on Faith-Based Initiatives in 2006 shows that governmental departments are not making the necessary distinctions that the Court has in the past required (GAO 2006). Appropriate safeguards were mandated in the Executive Order 13279 in 2002. However, the GAO’s report indicated that such safeguards have not been explicitly given to Faith-Based Organizations participating in the program and that much confusion remains. It may be that ultimately it is this that becomes the grounds upon which the program is challenged. CONCLUSION The battle over the establishment clause continues on in American public discourse and jurisprudence. The handful of words provided by the framers of the Bill of Rights has actually produced a host of court cases, as the practical meaning of those words is defined and redefined by the Supreme Court. The makeup of the Court continues to be important in what sort of decisions it ultimately reaches. With new members joining the Court it remains to be seen whether the path the Rehnquist Court took will continue. With the continued criticisms of public schools that have followed the passage of the No Child Left Behind law, the turn to private alternatives may increase. The decision on vouchers still shows that while the Court has previously been reluctant to give carte blanche to public funding of religious schools, it has opened the door to see them as an alternative, particularly in districts that are considered failures. What future decisions will hold, remain to be seen. See also Homeschooling; Separation of Church and State. Further Reading: The text of all Appellate and Supreme Court decisions may be found at http://www.findlaw.com; Belfield, Clive R. “The Evidence on Education Vouchers: An Application to the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program.” National Center For The Study of Privatization in Education. January 2006; Black, Amy E., Douglas L. Koopman, and David K. Ryden. Of little faith: the politics of George W. Bush’s faith-based initiatives. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2004; Bush, George W. “Rallying the armies of compassion.” Washington, D.C.: Executive Office of the President, 2001. http://www.purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS18666; Cooperman, Alan. “Bush’s Faith Plan Faces Judgment.” Washington Post, October 20, p. A25; Eastland, Terry ed., Religious liberty in the Supreme Court: the cases that define the debate over church and state. Washington, DC : Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1993; Government Accountability Office. “Faith-Based and Community Initiative: Improvements in Monitoring Grantees and Measuring Performance Could Enhance Accountability.” GAO-06–616. June 19, 2006; Moe, Terry M. Schools, vouchers, and the American public. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001; Noll, James Wm. ed., Taking sides. Clashing views on controversial educational issues. Introduction by James Wm. Noll. Guilford, CT: McGraw Hill/Dushkin, 2004; Peterson, Paul E., Bryan C. Hassel, eds. Learning from school choice. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998; Pulliam, John D., and James J. Van Patten. History of Education in America. 7th ed. Columbus, OH: Prentice Hall, 1995, 1999; The White House. “Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based

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Science Fiction and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs.” Washington, D.C.: The White House, 2001. http://www.purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS16590.

Randall Reed

SCIENCE FICTION Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic, Frankenstein, tells the story of a man who aspired to play God and a creature in search of his own existence, expresses the themes of man’s relationship with God, and demonstrates the conflict of the spiritual (or supernatural) versus the material and the sense there is a greater order and purpose in the universe have captivated authors and readers alike for generations. Publisher’s Weekly reports that interest in religiously oriented science fiction (SF) has been steadily increasing, prompting many publishers to reprint past titles that have long been considered classic SF–religion hybrids such as A Canticle For Leibowitz (see the following section “Apocalyptic SF Visions”). Publisher’s Weekly also observed that perennial titles such as Frank Herbert’s Dune trilogy and Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass series continue to be popular with each new generation of readers (McKee 2007, xi). Both of these popular series explore the battle of good versus evil, our search for the meaning of our human existence, and the search for salvation. Novels such as Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and Children of God, which chronicle the adventures of Jesuit priest Emilo Sandoz on the planet Rakhat, or the Left Behind series by evangelist minister Tim LaHaye and writer Jerry B. Jenkins, have religion or religious characters as the focus of their story. Many literary pundits have declared that religious themes have no place in science fiction and that when religion becomes a dominant element in a story, it leaves the realm of speculative “science” (the argument being that science and religion are incompatible) and moves into fantasy—it can be argued that in many ways the two are inextricably intertwined. In fact, many science fiction novels and short stories center around the battle between science and religion. “Science fiction creates a mystic point of view that doesn’t deny the other side of the world, the devil’s madness,” says Greg Bear, a top-selling science fiction author (Winston 2001, 35). What is our quest to reach for the stars, or our need to explore the unknown, if not a search for a better understanding of our place in the universe, the meaning of our existence, and our relationship with God? “SF peers into the mystery of the unknown,” Gabriel McKee argues, “bringing our most ancient cosmic questions into the future and anticipating the answers we may uncover. Whether the gods we find are powerful aliens, immortal versions of ourselves, or vast cosmic minds, the future is certain to hold countless secrets to surprise and inspire us” (McKee 2007, 20). THE BATTLE OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION In the West, science and religion (a.k.a. the secular and divine) have been at each other’s throats for over a millennium, and for much of this antagonistic

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history, the Church used an iron fist to quash anything that might reek of heresy or contradiction to its teachings, especially when it came to the nature of the universe or the creation of the Earth. In the Age of Enlightenment, science and secularism fought back with ardent fervor, the most obvious result being a separation of church and state. This era also created an attitude within the scientific community that there was no place for religion in science; that, in fact, religion was the enemy of science. Reason and not faith should dictate truth. Not surprisingly, many authors of science fiction have made this conflict the centerpiece of their stories. Some have taken the not so subtle position that science is indeed evil, possibly in league with Satan himself. Much of this stems from an identification of science as representing not only humankind’s focus on the material world but also our hubris at believing we are the center of the universe. Others have explored the premise that because the existence of God cannot be scientifically proven, God cannot possibly exist; not necessarily a direct challenge to faith, but a claim that the two are forever separate. Another group of SF stories explore the idea that faith and religion are not only compatible with science but also indeed intertwined. Some stories offer speculation that science might one day be able to prove the existence of an intelligent force that could be called God, others warn that God can never be proven by science. Only faith can prove God’s existence, confirming the famous Buddhist expression, “if you meet Buddha on the road, kill him,” which somewhat dramatically expresses the notion that the divine can only be seen through the eyes of faith, and will never be manifest in the material world. As Gabriel McKee states, “[s]cience can determine the value of an empirical theory, but not a spiritual experience, just as theology is of little practical use in the questions of chemistry or physics” (McKee 2007, 154). Arthur C. Clarke’s famous 1953 short-story The Nine Billion Names of God gives the somewhat chilling warning that if we were able to scientifically prove the existence of God, it would probably mean the end of our own existence. The unapologetic Christian author C. S. Lewis is best known for his fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia, an allegorical expression of faith and salvation. Lewis also penned the classic science fiction trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945), which while directly portraying science as aggressively evil and contrary to Christian ideals, simultaneously puts forth the notion that scientific exploration may end up confirming the existence of Christ. In the first book, Out of the Silent Planet, we are introduced to Edwin Ransom, a philologist (a language historian) who is kidnapped by an evil scientist and finds himself on another planet. The scientist and his industrialist partner have brought Ransom to offer him up as a human sacrifice to the local indigenous people in the hopes of securing the rights to mine their valuable natural resources. Ransom escapes and finds himself among a primitive but kindly race that takes him in and gives him shelter. Because of his skills as a linguist, he is quickly able to communicate with them. Soon, he is introduced to the spiritual leader of the indigenous people who is, at least to Ransom, a manifestation of Jesus Christ. Ransom is able, with the help of this manifestation, to defeat the evil scientist and save the planet from exploitation. In the second novel, Perelandra, Ransom again must do battle against his nemesis, now on a

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planet, Perelandra, that is just beginning to awaken to the presence of God. This time, however, the scientist is outright possessed by Satan, and an epic battle for the souls of the inhabitants of Perelandra ensues and Ransom barely survives. In the final installment, That Hideous Strength, the battlefront is taken to Earth itself (a.k.a The Silent Planet). Satan’s minions are now in control of scientific and technological development, preparing to ensnare humankind’s souls through their dependence on their inventions. In the end, the faithful (led by Ransom) are able to defeat evil and save the world. A similar if more secular view is explored in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle (1963). Through hubris, greed, and the quest for power, “ice-nine” is inadvertently unleashed upon the world, freezing solid all liquid and any organic organism that it comes in contact with. The result is a bleak world with a dwindling population of humans whose only refuge is Bokononism, a wry and cynical religion/philosophy, that exposes for its followers the folly of man’s efforts but unfortunately does nothing to forestall the inevitable destruction of Earth. Much of Vonnegut’s intent is to make us painfully aware of a journey driven by aggressive technology at the expense of improving our own enlightenment. In Ben Bova’s The Grand Tour series, religious fundamentalists control the world while governments and scientists struggle under severe restrictions to conduct explorations of other planets. This time the religious faithful are the villains. While the New Morality movement allows the exploration of other planets, it condemns any science that may contradict their literal interpretation of the Bible, which includes any research into alien life because the discovery of other life forms would be in direct opposition to the creation story in Genesis. The hero-scientists of Bova’s series are constantly battling the close-minded government authorities, putting themselves at risk in the cause of advancing science. A common theme in SF, however, is the harmonious melding of both science and faith. This is the case in Philip Jose Farmer’s Jesus on Mars (1979), where astronauts in the near future discover an entire civilization living in underground caverns on Mars. The inhabitants are a mixture of an extraterrestrial race called Krsh and humans whom the Krsh had taken from Earth in the year 50 c.e. Included in that group of humans was Matthias, the so-called 13th Apostle, who replaced Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:24–26). Matthias converted not only his fellow passengers on the Krsh’s spacecraft but also the Krsh on Mars to the belief that Jesus was the Messiah foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. What the modern astronauts discover is a society founded on strict first-century Jewish law (like Judaism on Earth, it has evolved and adapted over the centuries, but in a very different way than its terrestrial counterpart) including purity and food restrictions, as well as a form of early Jewish Christian beliefs. Like first- and second-century believers, however, the Kirsh consider themselves Jewish yet believe Jesus was the true Messiah chosen by God but not a divine being himself. At the same time, these Martians are literally light years ahead of the earthlings technologically, and they see no conflict in their belief system and their scientific research. In fact, they firmly believe that science is a true gift from The Merciful One, and is almost a form of worship. Of course, the greatest surprise of all for the astronauts is the fact that Jesus—or a form of Jesus—is still present on Mars!

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THE EPIPHANY OF PHILIP K. DICK In 1974 prolific science fiction author Phillip K. Dick, best known for his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) from which the classic science fiction film Blade Runner (1982) was based, had an experience that changed his life and the focus of his work—a close encounter with God. After being administered sodium pentothal during a routine wisdom tooth extraction he sat at home in a daze and in pain. When a young girl delivered pain medication to his home, she was wearing a goldfish charm around her neck, which, she explained, was a symbol worn by early Christians. Dick had a sudden epiphany and a period of intense revelation was put into motion. Dick referred to this as 2-3-74 (February–March of 1974), which prompted him to spend the rest of his life writing an 8,000-page journal he called Exegesis. It also spawned a trilogy of novels VALIS (1981), The Divine Invasion (1981), and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982). Dick also believed he was given certain revelations, including knowledge the cause of his infant son’s illness. His work is considered by some scholars to be much like Augustine’s in the sense that he was not afraid to document his internal dialogue, fearlessly exploring his struggle to understand his soul, warts and all, in order to grasp the divine. Dick, however, had always been interested in the spiritual and Christianity. Much of his earlier work explored or integrated religious themes or icons. Eventually the voices faded and the quest for the meaning of his religious experience began to lose some momentum. While he continued to write the Exegesis journal, he was never able to find any definitive answers, nor did he really expect or perhaps even want any.

MESSIAH OF THE FUTURE Messiah figures (or literary stand-ins for Jesus) are surprisingly prominent in many SF novels. As the story progresses in Farmer’s Jesus on Mars, we discover a Jesus that is based on the Gnostic model of Christ; a being of energy that has manifested itself in the body of the earthly Jesus. Richard Orme, captain of the astronauts and a devout Baptist, struggles to reconcile his understanding of the Christ his faith professes versus the Jesus he now meets on Mars. As Jesus prepares for his second coming to Earth, Orme finds himself struggling with his doubts while desperately wanting to believe this Christ is the savior foretold in scripture. In Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet, we are also introduced to an extraterrestrial Christ, called Oyarsa, although his identity is more obscured than Farmer’s Jesus. Oyarsa has been charged with protecting Malacandria (a stand-in for Mars), and explains to Ransom that each planet has its own Oyarsa assigned to it. The Oyarsa of Earth, however, has turned evil and Ransom is appointed by the Malacandrian Oyarsa to rescue it. Ransom, of course, does not find himself worthy but is persuaded that he is Earth’s only hope for salivation. He reluctantly returns to his home planet, ready to shoulder the task appointed to him.

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Not all SF messiah’s, however, are heroic. Walter Tevis’s classic 1963 novel, The Man Who Fell to Earth, tells the tale of an alien sent to Earth to save his dying planet. In the course of his stay, he becomes corrupted by all the human weaknesses available to him, which are substantial, causing him to eventually go mad and ultimately fail to rescue his planet from destruction. Another flawed messiah is portrayed in Robert Heinlein’s Hugo Award– winning Stranger in a Strange Land, which chronicles the adventures of one Michael Valentine Smith, a human raised on Mars by the native Martians, who returns to Earth bringing the Martian religion. On Earth he establishes The Church of All Worlds, which promotes free love, man’s own divinity, and other controversial tenets that eventually cause the authorities to condemn him as a false prophet. Arguably, the most famous messiah of the future is Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in a time when Earth (certainly the United States) was in desperate need of hope and salvation. In the first 1938 issue of Action Comics, Superman takes on corrupt government officials. Throughout his long popular life in comic books, Superman battled criminals and helped guide the mythical city of Metropolis toward a moral code (“truth, justice, and the American way”). The parallels to Superman (or his Krypton name, Kal-el—a pseudo-Hebraic phrase that can be roughly translated as “all that is God”) and the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels is striking. He is sent to Earth by his father not only to save him from the destruction of his planet, Krypton, due to the hubris and stubbornness of its leaders but also in the hopes that he can save another planet that is bent on destroying itself. “They can be a great people, Kal-el,” his father tells him. “They wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them to you, my only son.” Over the years, Superman has continued in popularity, spawning several feature films, long-running television shows, and Saturday morning cartoons. During the last 70 years Superman has adapted to each current age and accompanying crisis but always maintains his code of ethics, never wavering in both physical and moral strength. “There are inherent messianic qualities in the SF concept of the superhero,” McKee says. “An individual with exceptional abilities who sacrifices part of his or her life for the greater good” (McKee 2007, 143). In other words, we long for a hero of superior abilities or intellect who will save us from our own apocalypse, a subject that is also prominent in science fiction APOCALYPTIC SF VISIONS Perhaps no other literary genre is more preoccupied with eschatology (i.e., the end of the world) than science fiction. In many ways the apocalyptic sensibility may well be the defining trait of SF and “is also the key to understanding not only how religious themes are explored in SF, but how all SF is religious. The contemplation of the world as it should be (or how it must not be) is at the core of all SF, and this utopian impulse parallels the goals of human religion” (McKee 2007, 240). Walter Miller’s inventive A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) chronicles a monastery during three distinct eras. The first part takes place in the postapocalypse of

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our own time, where the monks studiously copy the documents of St. Leibowitz, still puzzling over many of arcane and obscure fragments, including a shopping list. They are constantly wondering how and why the “ancients” disappeared, oblivious to the obvious (unlike the reader) that the world was brought to the brink of destruction by a nuclear holocaust. The second part follows the rise to a new civilization through the eyes of the church authorities as they scramble for power and control much like the medieval church did. The third and final section of the book finds the monks on the verge of another nuclear holocaust, and the church powerless to stop it. Clearly a product of the fear and concern of the 1950s and 1960s that the world was at the brink of nuclear war, Miller sought to remind the reader that unless we learn the mistakes of the past, we are inevitably doomed to repeat them. CONCLUSION While some may argue that religion is not compatible with science fiction, the brief survey above does much to dispel that theory. Science fiction has always provided an insight into our own time, and gives us insight into the consequences of our present actions. “Whether the futures it presents,” McKee argues, “are bleak or bright, SF is always concerned with salvation. By warning us of our current folly or presenting paradises of the future, SF hopes to improve the human condition” (McKee 2007, 128). See also Aliens; Cosmology. Further Reading: Bertonneau, Thomas, and Kim Paffenroth. The Truth Is out There: Christian Faith and the Classics of Science Fiction. New York: Brazos, 2006; Clarke, Arthur C. The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Orb Books, 2002; Farmer, Philip Jose. Jesus on Mars. Los Angeles: Pinnacle Books, 1979; Heinlein, Robert A. Stranger in a Strange Land. New York: Putnam, 1961; Lewis, C. S. Out of the Silent Planet. New York: Scribner, 2003; McKee, Gabriel. The Gospel According to Science Fiction: From the Twilight Zone to the Final Frontier. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007; Miller, Walter M. A Canticle for Leibowitz. New York: Bantom Spectra, 1959; Oropeza, B. J. The Gospel According to Superheroes: Religion and Popular Culture, ed. B. J. Oropeza. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005; Schenck, Ken. “Superman: A Popular Culture Messiah.” In The Gospel According to Superheroes: Religion and Popular Culture, ed. B. J. Oropeza, 33–48. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005; Shippey, Tom, ed. The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003; Winston, Kimberly. “Other Worlds, Suffused with Religion.” Publisher’s Weekly, April 16, 2001, 35–39.

Remi Aubuchon SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND It is sometimes said that the United States is a secular nation with the soul of a church. That cliché has grown out of the colonial experience of European settlers coming to North America seeking religious freedom. Many had a fervent desire

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to escape the corruptions of European Christendom, and to establish faithful religious communities in a new world. These early settlers brought their different forms of Christian faith with them. Anglicans predominated in the first colony in Virginia. The Puritans, with their distinctive Covenant Theology, settled in New England. The Quakers, pursuing their holy experiment of love and religious tolerance, founded Pennsylvania and invited other peace-church groups such as the Mennonites and Dunkers to join them. Catholics, as a persecuted English minority, founded Maryland. A few Jews were also among the earliest European settlers. We dare not forget that Native Americans had followed their own indigenous religious beliefs and practices for thousands of years before the first European immigrants arrived. Though they were tragically misunderstood and almost annihilated by the Europeans, their religious traditions, involving a deep reverence for nature, persisted and contributed to our American religious landscape. Soon, African slaves were being transported to the colonies, bringing their distinctive forms of African religiosity with them. American religious communities would be much poorer without their contributions to our music, communication, and human relationships. The United States was religiously pluralistic from its earliest colonial history, even though various expressions of Protestant Christianity dominated in the first centuries. Consequently, it has always had a complicated national religious identity. A dominant early strand of American religious identity is rooted in the Covenant Theology of the early Puritan settlers in New England, who saw themselves as God’s chosen people in a new world. Yet another is the more secular Anglo-Saxon social tradition involving the political philosophy of John Locke, which greatly influenced American founders with ideas of natural rights, liberty, and the private ownership of property. Such enlightenment philosophy was adamantly opposed to the political establishment of any religion in the United States, partly because of the sad history of protracted religious wars in Europe. Free-church minorities such as the Quakers and Baptists also fought for religious freedom. In any case, the reality on the ground was that we were a diverse nation of immigrants who have brought their own religious and cultural traditions to their adopted land. Consequently, the formal separation of church and state was a foregone conclusion when the Constitution of the United States was written in the summer of 1787. The First Amendment guaranteed freedom of religion and separation of church and state with the statement, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” SECULAR AND SACRED Religious and secular strands of national identity coalesced into a unique American understanding of its manifest destiny to conquer the wilderness and create a distinctly new society (often referred to as American exceptionalism) in its restless westward expansion as a young nation. This self-identity informed the drive to create American institutions of political democracy, economic

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capitalism, and religious freedom. Using a biblical metaphor, Americans have always seen their nation as a city on a hill serving as an example to other nations. Even though there was religious freedom and no formal establishment of religion, few questioned that the United States was a Christian nation with a distinct Protestant identity. Throughout American history, religious and secular traditions have interacted with each other, often supportively, and sometimes antagonistically. The energetic young country gained ever more territory and global influence, even as it disavowed imperialist interests. This injected an intense religious quality into our American national identity. It operates even more effectively because it is defined as secular in American liberal ideology, rather than being identified with a particular religion. RELIGION AND POLITICS Even though there is a formal separation of church and state in the United States, religion has always had significant influence, both for good and for ill, in the public life of our nation. It has often been recognized that religious ethics, such as honesty and self-sacrifice, undergird the republican virtues that make a functional democracy possible. Without such virtues, the slide toward some form of totalitarianism is inevitable. Conversely, religion has been used by those preaching social intolerance and military adventures against supposed national enemies. Politicians have always been tempted to use religion for such less than honorable ends, and religious leaders have always been tempted by the perks that come from the cozy association with such political power. The separation of church and state in America has been designed to counter the negative effects of a too cozy relationship between politics and religion in our public life. Alexis de Tocqueville, an astute nineteenth-century French commentator on democracy in America, has observed how religious American society is in comparison to European societies. He concluded that this was actually a result of the separation of church and state, because a too close association with political power is detrimental to religion. The close association of church and state in Europe has tied European Christianity to the hated excesses of authoritarian states (Tocqueville 1969). Some have taken this to mean that there should be an impermeable wall of separation between church and state, or religion and the public square. They seek to relegate religion to the private sphere. Others insist that such a position misinterprets the intent of the First Amendment and weakens American democracy by stifling religious voices in public debate. They point to the contributions of religious movements to past advances in social justice. For examples, the early labor movement, and the civil rights’ movement grew out of, and depended on religious communities and religious leaders in America. There has always been a healthy tension between those who seek to limit religious expression in the public square, and those who welcome its participation in a vibrant democracy. How do we promote religious freedom and yet respect the intent behind the separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution?

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CIVIL RELIGION As noted above, messianic religious sensibilities inform some of the worst traits associated with American imperialism and notions of manifest destiny. Nevertheless, a judicious public theology is needed to undergird republican virtues, and to facilitate working together for the common good. It is sobering to recognize that much of what is good and what is bad in American history is rooted in our public theology. Astute sociologists acknowledge the function of religion in the creation and maintenance of human society and a habitable world. A temperate and constructive public theology recognizes the transcendent, and does not see the nation-state or any other human construct as an end in itself. That which is most alarming and worrisome about American public theology or civil religion is the tendency to see the nation itself as the ultimate point of reference. Robert Bellah (1980) has characterized the fault line in American public life as the antithetical tensions between republicanism undergirded by self-sacrificial virtues and liberal constitutionalism that thinks the good society can be achieved by citizens motivated by self-interest alone. These tensions were already present in the founding of the United States as an independent nation. The presence of active American religious communities that promote moral virtues and practice the common good has helped to counteract the self-interest of liberal constitutionalism. The end of such self-interest can only be the corruption of republican virtue, and will end in some form of totalitarianism. Bellah was concerned that American society had already traveled far down that path in the last half of the twentieth century, and worried about the future of America as a republic (Bellah 1980). The recent war against terrorism and the related focus on homeland security bring up the same issues in a more dramatic way. The gradual curtailment of civil liberties for the cause of national security poses a real and alarming threat to our democratic way of life. In the middle of the past century, Will Herberg, another perceptive student of religion and society in America, reflected on the transition of the United States from a predominately Protestant society, to one that he characterized as Protestant-Catholic-Jew (Herberg 1983). The 1950s was a highpoint in American religious life; more people were church members than ever before in our history. Yet, at the same time, America was becoming increasingly secular in its social outlook. Herberg was fascinated by that contradiction, and probed more deeply into the social transition that was taking place (Herberg 1983). President Eisenhower was a quintessential American when he declared, “Our government makes no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith— and I don’t care what it is” (Herberg 1983, 85). That statement would have been nonsensical in the not too distant past, but it now made complete sense to the average American. Herberg argued that it made sense because the prevailing religion was what he called the American Way of Life—an individualistic, optimistic, and pragmatic faith in all things American. The various denominations and religious groups were understood as distinct expressions of that American civil religion.

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Especially troubling was the tragic divorce between religions faith and public morals in American society. The majority of Americans said that their private religious beliefs were personally meaningful, but had no real effect on their politics or their business practices. And they were united in their opposition to godless Communism, which was the much vilified American national enemy. Herberg saw this as a great reversal of historic Christian and Jewish faiths (Herberg 1983). Insofar as they spoke of God, it was with reference to the God who sanctioned the American Way of Life. The secularization of religion in America was complete. Nevertheless, American religion was close to the people, and had a vigor that offered some hope that it could perhaps still serve a more critical and constructive function in American society. CHRISTIAN WITNESS TO THE STATE Christians have traditionally recognized that the state serves a necessary Godgiven function of encouraging the good and restraining evil (Romans 13:1–7). Nevertheless, Christians have also recognized that the state is prone to become its own final authority. Such idolatry usurps the place of God, and leads to the abuse of its power in ways that are self-serving and destructive. Its authority can influence people to thoughtlessly carry out horrendous atrocities and violations against human dignity (Revelation 13:1–4). Not only crude forms of fascism or totalitarianism embody that kind of idolatry. It is true every time that a nation sees itself as the unique bearer of manifest destiny, or claims the right to act unilaterally. Participants in this controversy need to remember that the state is not an abstraction; it is individual elected government officials, teachers, bureaucrats, police officers, judges, and soldiers serving in assigned roles. Together, these people become a corporate entity that enables humans to live together in community. The Bible speaks of such corporate entities as the “powers” that structure our lives (Colossians 1:15–17). The Bible also teaches that the “powers” have a shadow side (Ephesians 6: 12). Every known state includes a greater or lesser degree of oppression and injustice that concerned citizens need to struggle against. And every state ultimately claims the sole prerogative to use lethal force within its territory. Christians argue that the church is also not an abstraction; it is individual members, pastors, teachers, service workers, and bishops or conference pastors. Together, all these people become a different type of corporate entity that is also political in its own way. GROWING RELIGIOUS PLURALISM IN AMERICA The United States has always been a nation of diverse people bridging the ethnic, cultural, and religious differences from their countries of origin. At first that was commonly thought of as people from different European backgrounds. The Native Americans, Blacks and Asians among us were routinely marginalized and ignored. Even so, the challenge was always recognized as seen on the

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motto of the Great Seal of the United States printed on the loose change in our pockets: E Pluribus Unum—From Many One. Two questions immediately arise: “Who are the many? How do we define the one?” Those related questions have shaped much of the social, cultural, and religious discourse in our country. Each wave of new immigration raised fears the pluribus was too great and would destroy our unum. When floods of Irish and Eastern European immigrants began arriving on our shores in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some Protestant church leaders were sure that Catholics were antidemocratic and could not make good Americans. Prejudiced Americans known as nativists were especially hostile toward Catholics, Jews, African Americans, and Asians. Hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan sprang up, strict limits were placed on the immigration of Jews, and a movement was even started to return blacks to Africa. The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1882. Finally, the Johnson Reed Act in 1924 effectively closed immigration from outside of Western Europe. The unum in this exclusive interpretation meant WASPs—White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. A more tolerant response to the pluribus is seen in the vivid image of America as a melting pot assimilating the many into the one. Newcomers would shed their native customs and cultures to fit into the new American nation that was being created. The image begs the questions of how much difference could be assimilated, and the nature of the one being created. Would each language, culture, and religion contribute to the “one” or was it predetermined by the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture of the first settlers? Some argued that a more perfect unity would be achieved by drawing on the gifts and energies of those from all parts of the world. When the immigration quotas based on national-origins was lifted in 1965, it opened the door to immigration from Asia and other places. Since then, according to religious scholar Diana Eck, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others have arrived from every part of the globe, forever changing the religious landscape of America (Eck 2001). We have now become the world’s most religiously diverse nation. It is still too early to tell if these new religious traditions will be fully assimilated into the American Way of Life as Protestants, Catholics, and Jews have been. Might it be possible that they will contribute new life and that, together, we can forge a more critical and constructive relationship with American society? Perhaps Will Herberg’s hope for such a revitalized American religious community may still become a reality. See also Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion. Further Reading: Bellah, Robert N. and Phillip E. Hammond. Varieties of Civil Religion. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980; Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1967; Cherry, Conrad, ed. God’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny. Revised ed. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998; Eck, Diana L. A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Now Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001; Herberg, Will. Protestant-Catholic-Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983; Marty, Martin. Pilgrims in the Own Land: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America. New

Separation of Church and State York: Penguin Books, 1984; Stephanson, Anders. Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995; Stout, Jeffrey. Democracy and Tradition. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004; Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Translated by George Lawrence. Edited by J.P. Mayer. New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1969; Williams, William Appleman. Empire as a Way of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980; Wink, Walter. Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992; Wuthnow, Robert. Christianity and Civil Society: The Contemporary Debate. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996; Yoder, John Howard. The Christian Witness to the State. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2002.

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T TERRORISM Terrorism and religion have become linked in many people’s minds, probably because so many recent examples of terrorism have been conducted by people claiming religious motives. Prominent religious skeptics have seized upon these recent episodes to charge that religious faith causes terrorism. Recognized religious leaders vehemently deny the charge, pointing to the many official statements they have issued condemning terrorism as a heinous sin. But many terrorists themselves have justified their actions based on their faith. Given the intense emotions surrounding the practice of terrorism, by terrorists and potential targets alike, it is not easy to get a clear picture of religion’s role in terrorism. One of the first problems is defining terrorism clearly enough so we can identify it when it happens. Without a clear definition of terrorism, it becomes a label anyone can use to criticize their enemies’ violence and portray them as demons. If one cannot move beyond one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter terrorism is nothing more than violence someone disapproves of. Political scientists insist terrorism is a specific form of violence, with its own roots and dynamics. While scholars have offered over 100 different definitions of terrorism, among all the variations in the details there is a reasonably clear consensus on its central features. Terrorism is lawless violence directed at noncombatants in order to generate fear as a means to a political goal. This definition leaves some questions unsettled (such as whether the violence needs to be directly lethal, or the cause unjust, or even whether governments can be terrorists), but it captures the main features of terrorism.

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Although terrorist violence is a crime, terrorism as defined here, is clearly distinguished from general criminal violence, since criminals are motivated by personal gain or revenge, not political goals. Terrorism is also distinguished from warfare because the violence is lawless and directed at noncombatants, whereas war is primarily conducted by governments under the legal authority granted them by their constitutions, and is generally focused on opponents’ armed forces. A careful definition of terrorism also helps clarify some of the complex dynamics of various forms of political violence. For example, it is important to be clear about who is the ultimate target of a terrorist act. The destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was not primarily aimed at the people working there. The attackers apparently did not care about any of the specific individuals in the buildings. The main goals were to change how Western governments relate to the Muslim world: reducing support for Israel, reversing the spread of Western secular and Christian ideas into Muslim lands, disrupting the economy, and so on. The attackers wanted people to die, horribly and on-camera, so the rest of us would be shocked and scared into changing our attitudes and actions. That is the hallmark of terrorism—the people who do the dying are not the real targets of the action. They are useful to the terrorists only as vessels of conspicuous suffering, dramatic tools with which to capture the world’s attention. Under this definition, assassination of political leaders is not always terrorism. If the intent is focused on eliminating the leader, as when Lee Harvey Oswald shot U.S. President John F. Kennedy, there is very little terroristic about the act. But if the assassination is intended to spread fear and thereby influence the actions of other government officials, then the act can be treated as terrorism, even if the specific leader killed was also a target. For example, the assassinations of a series of leaders in Lebanon in the first decade of the twenty-first century are appropriately labeled as terrorism, since their purpose was clearly to intimidate other potential leaders. Nor are acts of war generally terrorism. The main objective of attacking soldiers is to kill them and thereby weaken the enemy’s forces. Any spillover fear affecting policymakers on the other side is usually a secondary consideration, although sometimes operations against soldiers are designed with these secondary effects in mind. But the dynamics are different when the targets of violence are themselves in the business of inflicting lethal force. The impact on civilians and their policy-making leaders is buffered by the specialized status soldiers have as people prepared to risk their lives in lethal conflict. Terrorists recognize this, too, which is why civilians are chosen for their attacks. If civilians going about their normal routines can be reached by a terrorist, then other citizens cannot console themselves that only soldiers are at risk. RELIGIOUS VIEWS CONCERNING THE ETHICS OF TERRORISM Leaders in every major religion have denounced terrorism. There are no major proterrorism faiths.

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However, there are many faiths, and many authorities within faiths, which honor or endorse revolutionary violence at least under some conditions. Endorsement might be explicit and direct, in the form of statements from church leaders, major conferences, or sermons. Or it might be implicit, such as the display of photos or other “hero” treatment for the revolutionaries. And if the revolution succeeds, those who fought are eligible to become national heroes, part of the pantheon of greats who helped found the nation or defend the faith. The line between revolutionary violence and terrorism can be hard to draw, particularly if the definition of terrorism includes any reference to the justness of the cause. Generally, the justice of the cause does not matter to scholars in labeling activity as terrorism, which is why it is excluded from the consensus definition cited above. But this is not always reflected in how religious communities respond to the violence around them. All human groups have trouble seeing their own actions objectively, and tend to endorse some violence committed by their own communities that they would condemn if committed by others. But religious groups may have an extra layer of incentive to defend violence done in their behalf: they see themselves as defending God as well as themselves. If God is the sovereign creator—a belief shared by a wide variety of faiths— God has the authority to order actions that would be outside the authority of any human agency, including governments. If God gives us all life, God can define the terms of the gift, and revoke it, in ways humans have no right to do to each other. If God’s purposes require the slaughter of civilians, humans are not in a position to second-guess. This introduces a justification for terrorism that is unavailable to someone not acting on God’s behalf: that God commands it. Conceivably, someone who is convinced that God is commanding the placement of a bomb might do so even if, up to the moment of receiving the command, the bomber thought such acts were heinous crimes. After all, radical obedience to God is a central teaching of a wide variety of faiths. If a possible terrorist comes to believe that God endorses an act of violence against civilians—that a terrorist attack is part of a holy war—he may be more likely to take an action that would normally be unthinkable. Nonbelievers have noted this, and used it to buttress claims that religious belief encourages terrorist violence. However, there are factors in religious faith that also discourage terrorism. For example, some believers are pacifists, especially among Christians and Buddhists, but also in other faiths. Pacifists generally believe all lethal violence is wrongful, which would include terrorist violence. Other restraints on violence apply even to nonpacifist believers. Most Christian groups teach a just war ethic, which permits war only if several conditions are met, including: 1. The war has a just cause—including defending against an attack by an enemy, or coming to the aid of an ally who has been attacked.

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2. The motive for going to war is just—generally including self-defense or correction of clear injustice, but not including vengeance, territorial expansion, or other enrichment. 3. The war is initiated by a proper authority, meaning as authorized by the constitution of a legitimate sovereign government. 4. The war is the last resort. All nonlethal means of accomplishing the goals of the war must have been tried and found unavailing. 5. The means employed in the war are proportionate to the issue at stake. A nation cannot take a small offense as pretext for a large war. 6. The war is conducted justly. Noncombatants cannot be the primary targets of any attack, and are to be protected from the killing insofar as possible. 7. The war has a reasonable chance of success. Because people will die, war may not be undertaken unless the deaths are likely to accomplish some greater good. There is no room in just war theory for heroic stands against all odds, because honor is never a good reason to kill an enemy. Islam also has restraints on violence, including the principle of the rule of law, which forbids killing an innocent person, or anyone not properly convicted by a competent court. Suicide bombing also violates the Islamic prohibition on suicide. The Koran also contains passages that encourage Muslims to live peacefully with those of different faiths. Furthermore, Muslims consider their faith overall to be a religion of peace, noting that Islam (meaning submission) and salaam (meaning peace) are connected at the heart of the faith. But both Christianity and Islam illustrate some of the complexity of discerning whether a faith is, on the whole, encouraging or discouraging to terrorism. The classic formulation of just war requirements is not universally accepted among nonpacifist Christians. Some Christians are drawn to what amounts to a modern version of holy war, and would emphasize radical obedience to God over human-made standards such as just war criteria. Furthermore, Christianity is not monolithic, with hundreds of denominations and sects. The Bible includes texts on violence that different groups interpret in different ways. Many Christian denominations are created when groups split over these different interpretations. The most radical Christian groups tend to be isolated organizationally and socially from the mainstream of Christianity, so that the firm statements against terrorism issuing from the main centers of the faith have little or no bearing on these fringe groups. Islam is perhaps even more decentralized, lacking the hierarchy of most Christian denominations. The Koran’s teachings are read differently by various schools of Islamic thought. Imams at various mosques may follow one or another of these schools of thought, which may attract or repel worshippers considering attending that mosque, but there is not the kind of strict enforcement of denominational doctrines found in most of Christianity. The result in Islam is a sort of marketplace of ideas, with leaders gaining or losing influence based on how appealing Muslims find their teaching to be. Judaism, with its three broad divisions of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed, and smaller groups and debates within these divisions, also includes

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radical groups who accept some terrorism as acceptable. Hinduism, with its inherent diversity arising from its relative nonexclusivism, also has generated among its vast diversity some groups willing to kill civilians for political and religious ends. In fact, all the largest religions share this feature of diverse interpretation of the teachings of their faith, including about violence. This means the interplay is complex in each faith between influences encouraging terrorist violence and those discouraging it. Perhaps faiths with fewer members and more organizational unity ought to find it easier to corral those who might be tempted to endorse terrorist violence, steering them back toward more orthodox views, and preventing extremist groups from forming in their ranks. Yet there are several examples of smaller religious groups turning to terrorist tactics, such as the Sikhs in India, who staged spectacular assassinations of government officials, or the tiny Aum Shinriko sect in Japan, responsible for an attack on Tokyo subways. RELIGIOUS INSIGHTS INTO COMBATING TERRORISM Although religion’s official doctrinal stance against terrorism has not been entirely successful in steering believers away from the practice, religion does suggest some avenues for understanding and addressing the causes of terrorism. Terrorism can be analyzed as a spiritual problem. One approach sees terrorism as an example of spiritual deformation. Religious leaders speak of spiritual formation as the process by which a person’s spiritual life grows toward a healthy ideal. Terrorism, by contrast, involves the deformation of the terrorist’s soul into something twisted and monstrous. Terrorism has its roots in a corrosive grievance. The potential terrorist suffers from an ongoing sense of having been wronged. Over time, as the sense of victimization persists without resolution in forgiveness or justice, the grievance intensifies, and cuts its way toward the center of the personality. The potential terrorist allows his life to be dominated by his obsession about the grievance, and whoever he sees as responsible for it. He begins to see his entire life story as orbiting around the wrongs done to him. A myth grows up around his grievance, that is, a powerful story (much of which may be true) that explains where the grievance came from and what caused it. Thus begins the spiritual deformation of the terrorist. His bitterness becomes his idol. Even his relationship with God is filtered through his grievance, which explains how the divine call to peace is missed, and everything in his faith that steers toward violence is magnified. Corrosive grievance leads to another form of spiritual deformation, dehumanizing hatred of the perceived enemy. The myth surrounding the grievance requires at least one villain, some malevolent person or being who is seen as having unjustly caused the suffering. Once a villain has been identified, accounts are developed explaining the villain’s incentive and power to create such misery. The more pervasive the corrosive grievance in the life of the potential terrorist, the more menacing the villain becomes. Typically, the potential terrorist begins

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to dehumanize his villainous enemy in two ways. First, he sees the enemy’s motives as far simpler, and more purely evil, than any real human being. Actions that spring from complex motives in most humans are seen as springing entirely from the villain’s extraordinary depravity and malice toward the victim and his community. Thus the villain is seen as subhuman, with fewer and more guttural motivations than real humans. Second, the potential terrorist sees the villain’s influence in events that begin to stretch well beyond the actual reach of the villain’s power. Aggrieved Palestinians, for example, often say that the United States could just order the Israelis to end their occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, remove the Israeli settlements in those areas, and sign a peace agreement favorable to Palestine. When these things do not happen, the blame is laid squarely at the feet of the United States for not snapping its fingers to bring them about. So the United States becomes superhuman, and thus no longer requiring empathy for weaknesses, indecision, mixed motives, or good intentions gone awry. A superhuman villain gets what it wants, so everything bad that happens to the potential terrorist must have been chosen by the superhuman. A villain that is superhuman or subhuman (or both) has ceased to be human at all. Thus, the spiritual scarring of corrosive grievance can interfere with the potential terrorist’s ability to see humanity in others. Seeing himself in an overwhelming unjust world surrounded by subhuman and superhuman enemies, the potential terrorist has seriously degraded his potential for empathy and reconciliation so central in so many religious faiths. Once under the influence of corrosive grievance and dehumanizing hatred, the potential terrorist turns into an active terrorist when he succumbs to political despair (the belief that there is no remedy for his situation through conventional political channels), and embraces the myth of effective violence (the belief that important things can get done—maybe only can be done—through violence). Finding in violence an avenue for accomplishing change denied him through conventional politics, the terrorist begins planning his attack. Working under religious models of terrorism in this vein, believers have designed strategies for preventing and combating terrorism. To forestall the growth of corrosive grievance, believers have worked toward early intervention in areas of poverty, hunger, and lack of education. Dehumanization has been eased with personal contacts among potential adversaries, including everything from evangelistic teams, to relief projects and sports’ competitions. Believers trying to live up even in part to their faiths’ commands to love others, have accelerated these service and rehumanization projects, delving deeper into the needs and perceptions of those living in what we might call preterrorist conditions. There have been repeated calls among various faiths for efforts like these to be expanded as quickly and widely as possible. In Western countries, where governments are kept legally, organizationally, and mostly financially separate from religious groups, the believer’s work of preventing and combating terrorism falls to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) founded by members of the faith.

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CONCLUSION While no leading religious group has ever officially endorsed terrorism, the picture is muddied by the dissenting voices of extremists, and the inability of some religious groups to recognize terrorism in the violence of those fighting on their behalf. The charge that religion feeds terrorism is plausible if one focuses on the unique dynamics involved in acting for, or defending God, but there is counterevidence that religion dissuades some from using violence. Furthermore, faith offers a powerful vehicle for understanding terrorism that has led to significant efforts to prevent it. See also Nationalism, Militarism, and Religion. Further Reading: Carr, Caleb. The Lessons of Terror. New York: Random House, 2002; Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror In the Mind of God. Berkeley: University of California, 2000; McKeogh, Colm. Innocent Civilians: The Morality of Killing in War. New York: Palgrave, 2002; Mock, Ron. Loving Without Giving In: Christian Responses to Terrorism and Tyranny. Portland, OR: Cascadia Press, 2004; Pillar, Paul. Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001; Reich, Walter, ed. Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998.

Ron Mock

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U UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE AS RELIGIOUS ETHICAL ISSUE Universal health care is a broad concept that denotes health care coverage that is extended to all citizens, typically of a country or region. Universal health care coverage programs vary widely, and are typically discussed in terms of their economic costs and benefits. For instance, in terms of health care access, the absence of adequate health insurance due to lack of affordability remains the primary obstacle to acquiring health care services. At any given time, at least 44 million Americans lack health insurance. This issue has a particularly urgent appeal among religions, since service to, and advocacy for those people whose social condition puts them at the margins of society and makes them particularly vulnerable to discrimination, are directives many traditions share. THE BASIS OF THE PROBLEM Traditionally, universal health care is a concept often rejected by society. Most often, this objection has to do with the economic factors that a move to such a system would entail. Individuals worry about the cost of such a move, and the impact that it may have on taxes and services they receive. However, many of these objections may stem from an individualistic approach to universal health care. An appeal to universal health care as a religious ethical issue provides a different way of recognizing the social nature of humans, and a commitment to a health care that moves beyond the economic impact. Universal health care often involves confusion, particularly in regards to one’s political, moral, and cultural goals. Clearly, there has not been a single, clear

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blueprint for such a move, either sponsored by the government or a member of a community. As such, the confusion that people feel around this topic is understandable. To understand health care access in terms of its social dimensions, one must understand the reality of health care in the United States. For instance, it is often the case that people in the United States believe that universal access to health care would be too costly. In fact, however, recent data reveals otherwise. The United States spends at least 40 percent more per capita on health care than other industrialized nations with universal health care. Further, federal studies by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office show that single payer universal health care would save $100 to $200 billion per year, despite covering all the uninsured and increasing health care benefits. Another myth that many Americans believe is that universal health care would deprive them of needed services. However, studies have revealed that citizens in universal health care systems have more doctor visits and hospital stays than in the United States. In fact, around 30 percent of Americans have problems accessing health care due to payment problems or access to care, far more than any other industrialized country. About 17 percent of the U.S. population is without health insurance. About 75 percent of ill, uninsured people have trouble accessing/paying for health care. PRINCIPLE OF HUMAN DIGNITY Many religious traditions incorporate some notion of human dignity, which stresses the intrinsic worth that inheres in every human being. From the Catholic perspective (among other Christian perspectives), the source of human dignity is rooted in the concept of Imago Dei, in Christ’s redemption, and in our ultimate destiny of union with God. Human dignity therefore transcends any social order as the basis for rights, and is neither granted by society, nor can it be legitimately violated by society. In this way, human dignity is the conceptual basis for human rights. While providing the foundation for many normative claims, one direct normative implication of human dignity is that every human being should be acknowledged as an inherently valuable member of the human community and as a unique expression of life, with an integrated bodily and spiritual nature. In Catholic moral thought, because there is a social or communal dimension to human dignity itself, persons must be conceived of, not in overly-individualistic terms, but as being inherently connected to the rest of society. Because the tradition emphasizes the integral nature of our body and spirit, the human body takes on a great deal of significance and value. Therefore, issues of health, and access to health care take on greater importance. The implications of this conception of human dignity impacts religious traditions as it pertains to a range of human life issues, including universal health care. For example, the principle is foundational for an understanding of the common good, justice, and ultimately the right to health care. Other perspectives, both religious and secular, may conceive of human dignity in similar terms, with a similar sense of its inherent worth or value.

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Evangelical bioethicist Nigel M. de S. Cameron (2005) sees religion as an important part of a universal access to health care. He draws upon the notion of biblical anthropology—the Christian idea of what it means to be human—and its roots in Scripture to note this involvement. The foundational elements of human dignity are found in the Book of Genesis, and offer a radical starting point for every discussion of human dignity and rights. This application within the context of universal health care offers a radical assertion of the unity and common dignity of the human race in the “Maker’s” image. Drawing on these notions, it is apparent how different religious traditions may impact the argument for universal access to health care. This task may draw on those concepts developed though Tradition (i.e., justice) or those found in Scripture (i.e., creation). In either case, many religious traditions may find a common voice with regard to health care access that draws upon the values outlined by physician and theological bioethicist Daniel Sulmasy: human dignity, compassion, solidarity, and invoking the common good. HUMAN RIGHTS Many religious traditions appeal to human rights. These can be understood as the basic claims that persons have on society simply due to their being human. Grounded in the concept of human dignity, no individual or institution can legitimately fail to recognize and respect these claims or rights, which makes them absolute rights. According to Catholic social teaching, human rights are claims to the minimum conditions necessary for life in community, and which allow one to fulfill one’s moral responsibility in life, for instance, universal access to health care. Although some rights imply duties on the part of the right-holder, all rights imply duties on the part of others. In terms of universal health care, there exists, then, a duty for governments to provide this right (to health care) to all persons. Human rights are closely linked to the concept of justice. Without some notion of justice, there is neither a basis for deciding which claims or rights must be respected, nor to determine which are of the utmost importance. Further, since human rights are claims that persons have on society, the concept of human rights is also closely linked to the concept of the common good. THE RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE From the perspective of Catholic moral teaching, the right to health care for all is not an optional stance. Rather, the right to health care is a human right founded on human dignity and the common good. Considered as such, health care is more than a commodity, in so far as it is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity that ought to be provided for, and to everyone. This absolute right to health care, however, should not be understood as an unlimited entitlement, but as a right that carries with it corresponding duties regarding justice, stewardship, and the common good.

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PRINCIPLE OF RESPECT FOR PERSONS All individual human beings are presumed to be free and responsible persons, and should be treated as such in proportion to their ability in the circumstances. Individuals who are particularly vulnerable, are entitled to appropriate protection, which includes access to health care. This principle may be given different content, depending on one’s conception of personhood. From the Catholic perspective, there are a number of anthropological considerations that have significant implications for this principle. For example, human persons are integrated body-spirit beings created in the image and likeness of God, with four integrated dimensions of human life: biological, psychological, social, and spiritual. The human person, then, can be understood in four interrelated ways: as a bodily subject, that is, we are not merely spirits that possess bodies, but we are body as much as we are spirit; as a knowing subject for which knowledge is a good, both as an end in itself, and as a means to fulfillment; as a social subject whose primary context is that of person situated in community; and as a self-transcendent subject, insofar as we are related to God in our created nature, through God’s loving creation, and in our ability to participate in that creation. As a subject, and not merely an object, a human person must be treated with respect in such a way that recognizes his or her human dignity, which includes access to health care. PRINCIPLE OF THE COMMON GOOD In general, the common good consists of all the conditions of society and the goods secured by those conditions, which allow individuals to achieve human and spiritual flourishing. The social teaching of the Catholic Church insists that the human community, including its government, must be actively concerned in promoting the health and welfare of every one of its members, so that each member can contribute to the common good of all. This teaching is encapsulated in the principle of the common good, and its corollary principle of subsidiarity. According to this understanding, the principle of the common good has three essential elements: (1) respect for persons; (2) social welfare; and (3) peace and security. All three of these elements entail the provision of health care in some way as an essential element of the common good. Insofar as the common good presupposes respect for persons, it obligates public authorities to respect the fundamental human rights of each person, in this instance, health care. Society should allow each of its members to fulfill his or her vocation. Insofar as it presupposes social welfare, the common good requires that the infrastructure of society is conducive to the social well being and development of its individual members. In this respect, it is the proper function of public authorities to both arbitrate between competing interests, and to ensure that individual members of society have access to the basic goods that are necessary for living a truly human life; for example, food, clothing, meaningful work, and education, and health care.

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JUSTICE Justice is a crucial notion to reflect upon in the context of access to health care. Justice helps move beyond the individualistic orientation, which can permeate this discussion. The object or purpose of justice is that we give each person his or her due, and give each person those goods and services he or she rightly expects from us. Justice is about duties and responsibilities, about building the good community. Justice is not simply a question of what we might like to do for people, not a question of how we might be generous to others. Rather, it is a question of what we simply must do for others on the basis of our common humanity. When considering the concept of justice, it is important to distinguish between five different types of justice: (1) commutative justice, which refers to that which is owed between individuals, for example, in conducting business transactions; (2) contributive justice, which refers to what individuals owe to society for the common good; (3) legal justice, which refers to rights and responsibilities of citizens to obey and respect the rights of all, and the laws devised to protect peace and social order; (4) distributive justice, which refers to what society owes to its individual members, such as, the just allocation of resources; and (5) social justice, which appeals to the values of human dignity and human flourishing. Theological bioethicist Gene Outka offers a classic example of how justice may be used in distributing health care resources (Outka 1988). Outka rejects merit, social worth, and ability to pay as grounds for health care decisionmaking. His rejection of these three factors as the basis for decisions regarding health care, are widely accepted by scholars of justice. Using one’s ability to pay as the basis for health care seems to dispute the basic premise of distributive justice. Likewise, the merit of a person and their contributions to society are inadequate basis, within this distributive framework, on which to make health care decisions. Both sinners and saints can get seriously ill, and health care needs may arise before or after someone is socioeconomically useful (such as the very young or very old). Additionally, the question of universal access to health care may be linked to aspects of social justice. This organic approach to societal needs emphasizes the wholeness of the human person within her community, and resonates with issues of solidarity. In the context of access to health care, this emphasis on social justice tends to be defined in terms of an obligation to furnish basic health care to those in need. Such a notion draws out the dynamic vision for an integrated society in which we are all responsible, even co-responsible for one another. Certainly, then, it makes sense to work out this notion in terms of providing health care access to all on the basis of social justice. Closely aligned with this social justice theme is a preferential option for the poor. The Catholic social tradition, clearly affirms a responsibility to this concept. This is especially true in health care and structural justice that ensures access for all. For instance, the U.S. Catholic bishops in their Resolution on Health Care Reform (1993) assert, “every person has a right to health care. This right flows from the sanctity of human life and the dignity that belongs to all human

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persons, who are made in the image of God.” They draw upon the notion of social responsibility and stress “the biblical call to heal the sick and to serve ‘the least of these,’ the priorities of social justice and the common good,” the “virtue of solidarity” and “the option for the poor and vulnerable.” Such a notion of social justice opens the way to critique, and challenges institutions that are part of today’s economic systems and their concern about the bottom line. See also AIDS; Health Reform Movements. Further Reading: Battista John R. and Justine McCabe. “The Case for Single Payer, Universal Health Care for the United States.” Connecticut Coalition for Universal Health Care. 4 June, 1999. http://www.cthealth.server101.com/the_case_for_universal_health_ care_in_the_united_states.htm; Cahill, Lisa Sowle. “Bioethics, Relationships, and Participation in the Common Good.” In Health and Human Flourishing: Religion Medicine, and Moral Anthropology, eds. Carol Taylor and Roberto Dell’Oro. Washington. D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006; Cahill, Lisa Sowle. Theological Bioethics: Participation, Justice, Change. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2005; Curran, Charles E. Directions in Catholic Social Ethics. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1985; Daniels, Norman. Just Health Care. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995; de S. Cameron, Nigel M. “The Sanctity of Life in the Twenty-first Century.” In Toward an Evangelical Public Policy, eds. Ronald Sider and Diane Knippers. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005; Keane, Philip. Health Care Reform: A Catholic View. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1993; Keane, Philip. Catholicism and Health-Care Justice: Problems, Potential and Solutions. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2002; Kelly, David F. Contemporary Catholic Health Care Ethics. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2004; Mouw, Richard. He Shines in All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001; Outka, Gene. “Social Justice and Equal Access to Health Care.” In On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives on Medical Ethics, eds. Stephen Lammers and Allan Verhey. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998; U.S. Bishops. “Resolution on Health Care Reform.” In Origins 23, no. 7 (1993); Walzer, Michael. Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Robert V. Doyle

V VEGETARIANISM AS RELIGIOUS WITNESS Many Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina religious groups advocate vegetarianism as an important aspect of religious practice. Additionally, many nonreligious organizations advocate vegetarianism as an expression of compassion for animals and the environment. Christians regard vegetarianism as an expression of humility. In many parts of the world, meat is generally associated with wealth and high living. Medieval religious orders of the Catholic Church regarded vegetarianism as an important expression of asceticism, including the Cappadocians and Cistercians. Today, the Trappists maintain a largely vegetarian diet, in accordance with the Rule of St. Benedict (ca. 530), chapters 36:9 and 39:11. During the nineteenth century, many American Protestant movements advocated a vegetarian diet to encourage cleanliness and health. For several years, Brigham Young (1801–1877) observed vegetarianism. The Mormon text, Word of Wisdom, transmitted by Joseph Smith in 1833, advocates consumption of meat only in winter, or at times of famine. The Seventh Day Adventists, founded by Ellen White (1827–1915), promote vegetarianism, and are known for their longevity and good health. In 1864, she wrote: “God gave our first parents the food He designed that the race should eat. It was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken. There was to be no death in Eden. The fruit of the trees in the garden was the food man’s wants required.” John Harvey Kellogg (1852–1943), the inventor of corn flakes and promoter of vegetarianism worldwide, was a Seventh Day Adventist. A 2001 study at Loma Linda University showed that “the life expectancy of a 30-year-old vegetarian Adventist

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woman was 85.7 years, and 83.3 years for a vegetarian Adventist man. This exceeds the life expectancies of other Californians by 6.1 years for women and 9.5 years for men.” Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) championed Christian vegetarianism, writing that “how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!” (Tolstoy) In addition to health benefits, many Christians consider vegetarianism an important way to reduce dependence on fossil fuel and to conserve water (see below). Among Christian youth, some are adapting a straight edge lifestyle that rejects tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and the consumption of meat. Hindu vegetarianism developed within India more than 2,500 years ago, primarily among followers of Krishna. Although the earliest texts of Hinduism, the Vedas, do not specify a particular diet, the cow eventually became sacred within Hinduism, and the consumption of beef was forbidden. The Mahabharata, a religious epic, includes several chapters on the benefits of vegetarianism, stating that “Nonviolence is the highest religion (dharma)” and that “those who renounce the eating of meat gain great merit.” Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) followed a vegetarian diet scrupulously as part of his campaign to unseat the British through staunch adherence to the principles of nonviolence, truthfulness, and his belief that “there is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” Though Indian cuisine might include chicken and mutton, a significant portion of Hindus follow a lacto-vegetarian diet, drawing protein from milk products including yogurt and cheese, and a complement of rice and legumes. Perhaps the most famous activist Hindu vegetarians are the Bishnoi community. Founded by Jabheswara (1451–1536) in 1485, this movement advocates protection of both trees and animals throughout Rajasthan in western India. He composed 29 rules to be followed by all members of this community, which include the following: 18. to be compassionate towards all living beings; 22. to provide common shelter for goats and sheep to avoid them being slaughtered in abattoirs; 23. to not castrate bulls; 28. to not eat meat or nonvegetarian dishes. In another of his works, the Jambha Sāra, he lays out six rules to avoid violence, including prohibitions against animal sacrifice, releasing water creatures back into the water, making certain that the firewood and the cow dung used for fuel do not have any creatures or insects that might be accidentally burnt, avoiding harm to bullocks by not sending them to the butcher, and protecting the deer in the forest. As vegetarians, they eat only a lacto-vegetarian diet, and have supported and inspired environmental activism throughout India. In modern times, Bishnoi have established the All India Jeev Raksha Bishnoi Sabha, a wildlife protection organization, and the Community for Wildlife and Rural Development Society. They maintain an active Web site, which includes the posting of an award winning film about their movement, Willing to Sacrifice (www.bishnoi.org).

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Buddhists, particularly in China, practice vegetarianism because of a firm belief in reincarnation. The Buddha (566–486 or 490–410 b.c.e.) included stories of his past lives in many of his sermons. He told of his adventures in animal and plant births, including when he lived as a tigress, a crow, and several times as a monkey. The Lankavatara Sutra, a Mahayana Buddhist text popular in China, proclaims that “we have been born and reborn so many times that there is not one animal among us who in some past birth has not been our relative, whether mother or father, sister or brother.” Buddhists in Southeast Asia generally subsist on alms for food, and will accept whatever is given. The Japanese diet relies heavily on fish, and in Tibet’s rugged climate, people, even Buddhist monks, eat Yak meat to survive. However, in Chinese Buddhist temples where the monks grew their own food, a tradition of vegetarian food with heavy reliance on tofu developed. Many American Buddhists follow a vegetarian diet. Zen teacher Philip Kapleau (1912–2004) claimed that to cherish all life is the hallmark of a true Buddhist. Jainism, of all the world’s faith traditions, holds most assiduously to vegetarianism as a core tenet of its religious teachings. The earliest known Jaina teacher, Tirthankara Parshvanath, lived around 800 b.c.e. in northeast India. According to Jainism, the soul, which is particular to each individual, and eternal, has become encrusted with karma through the course of countless rebirths. The practice of Jainism entails sloughing off all karma, which in this tradition has the physical character of being colorful and sticky. Acts of violence cause one’s karma to thicken and adhere more tightly to the soul, hence constricting and concealing its true nature as energy, consciousness, and bliss. By purposeful acts of nonviolence, including the observance of a vegetarian diet, one is able to gradually release karmas and advance toward the goal of liberation (kevala). The Jaina diet generally includes milk products, but many contemporary practitioners have adopted a no-dairy vegan diet. From the secular side, organizations such as the Humane Society and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have included vegetarian advocacy as part of their mission. With the rise in awareness about the deleterious effects of climate change and the limited resources of fossil fuel, a renewed secular advocacy of vegetarianism has emerged. According to the United Nations, 18 percent of all greenhouse gases come from livestock, more than from cars and airplanes. The rearing of livestock requires vast tracts of land both for grazing and for growing fodder. Fodder crops (corn, alfalfa, and soybeans) require huge amounts of water and petroleum-based fertilizer. According to a study at the University of Chicago, the average meat eater in America generates 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide each year that could be avoided by following a vegetarian diet. For reasons of one’s personal health, and for the health of the environment, many people are reducing or eliminating their consumption of flesh foods. See also Health Reform Movements. Further Reading: Adams, Carol. The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critique. New York: Continuum, 1989; Bishnoi Movements. http://www.bishnoi.org; International

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| Vegetarianism as Religious Witness Vegetarian Union. http://www.ivu.org; Lappe, Frances Moore. Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantyne Books, 1991; Seventh Day Adventists. http://www.adventist.org; Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New York: Avon Books, 1975; The Meatrix. http://www. themeatrix.com; Waldau, Paul and Kimberley Patton, eds. A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Christopher Key Chapple

W WESTERN CINEMA Religious themes have found expression in art throughout the history of mankind in paintings, sculpture, literature, and theater, so it should come as no surprise that the medium of the motion picture, invented in the late nineteenth century, would also be influenced and inspired by religion. In observing religious art throughout the ages, it becomes evident that the artist’s own social location influences the way in which an artist portrays a particular religious theme, and the same is true for the medium of film, especially in Western cinema, where the portrayal of Jesus reflects the cultural zeitgeist of each decade. Often the most successful Christ-themed films have been those that have not overtly portrayed the person of Jesus, but rather have come from a sideways viewpoint, such as Babette’s Feast or Jesus of Montreal, or tell the Gospel story using an historical character other than Jesus as the protagonist, such as Barabass or The Robe. Sometimes, it has been safer for the film-maker to use stories from the Old Testament such as David and Bathsheba or famously, The Ten Commandments. In other seemingly secular films, especially those who have a lone hero as the protagonist, the story of Jesus may unconsciously be its inspiration, such as Platoon or even Resident Evil. It has even been argued that George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, is heavily laced with religious symbolism! JESUS IN FILM Before it even premiered, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) was caught in a maelstrom of controversy. The strident public dialogue around Mel Gibson’s film highlighted the already deep divisions in America between secular 489

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and religious, becoming a galvanizing element for the culture war that had been raging in politics for a decade. While Conservative Christians hailed it as the most authentic portrayal of Jesus on film, Jewish advocacy groups condemned it as an anti-Semitic screed. Other public groups protested that it was overly bloody and violent; gore hiding behind the sacred portrayal of Christ’s death. A large and ever-growing base of conservative Catholic and Evangelical Christian savvy in the ways of the Internet also contributed to the success of the film, by making it their cause celeb, urging churches around the country to encourage members to attend the film, almost as a way of defending the faith against the faithless. Jewish bloggers also jumped onto the electronic bandwagon, condemning it for the film’s less than flattering portrayal of the Jews, implying that they were directly responsible for Jesus’ death, and playing down the role of the Roman authorities. Adding fuel to the flame was Mel Gibson’s father declaring to the media that the Holocaust never happened. The rhetoric rose in volume as the date of the premiere came closer and closer, propelling the subject of the film onto the front pages of every major newspaper in the United States, assuring that the film would become a blockbuster at the box office, grossing more than $350 million between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. While it is possible to view The Passion, in spite of its graphic portrayal of the torture and execution of Jesus, as just another in a long line of Passion Plays that had appeared since the invention of the moving picture itself, it also stands as the most current example of how religious cinema affects and reflects the culture and era that it was produced in. Filmic Realism has become an important box office draw in the last decade, and much of the promotion for The Passion billed it as the “real” version of Jesus’ suffering and death. By using the term real the filmmakers did not necessarily mean that it was based on some heretofore unknown source other than the gospels, but rather that the depiction of how he was treated, how his wounds were inflicted, and how he died was realistic. The box office success of movies claiming to be “based on a true story,” the ever-increasing demand for realistic depiction of violence (ironically aided by technical advances in special effects), and the film-going public’s apparent taste for stark drama, all served as the platform by which Gibson was able to present his version of the events. At the same time, there were many political and religious upheavals that also served to make The Passion both controversial and profitable. This was not the only time, however, that the portrayal of Jesus on film created both adulation and ire. The first popular religious film to be shown in the United States was the Passion Play of Oberammergau in 1898, which had been performed every ten years in Bavaria since 1634. The film ran for 20 minutes and consisted of 23 scenes, but even this Jesus film was surrounded in controversy. Having declared itself an authentic recreation of the centuries old traditional passion play, the New York Herald reported the film was not shot in a Bavarian village as promoted, but on a rooftop in New York City with professional actors! This revelation, however, had absolutely no negative effect on the public, which flocked to see it all over the Northeastern United States, and then it was eventually purchased by an itinerant preacher who showed it all over the

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country at revival meetings. Many versions of the Christ story were made in the early years of cinema, and all were assured box office success, but perhaps the most successful and critically acclaimed filmic portrayal of Jesus in the silent era was D.W. Griffith’s three and a half hour epic, Intolerance (1916). The Jesus story is one of four parallel stories, but stands as not only spectacular, but equally controversial to Mel Gibson’s Passion in its portrayal of the Jews, but unlike Gibson, gave into Jewish groups and refilmed the crucifixion scenes with Roman soldiers instead. Each generation and culture has brought its own version of Jesus to the screen, each claiming to be an authentic portrayal, but it usually ends up reflecting the time and place that the film was produced. All of them have had their share of controversy. Martin Scorsese’s filmic adaptation of Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) was widely condemned by Christian organizations for its depiction of Jesus as neurotic and indecisive, yet one could easily argue that the decade of the self-focused 1980s created an introspective Jesus. Scorsese explained that his desire to make the film was born out of his own personal belief in Jesus as fully human and fully divine, hoping to show what that struggle must have been like. He assumed most believers would see the film as an extension of the same temptation Jesus was subjected to in the dessert. He never expected the negative reaction the film received. As Scorsese explains: Over the years I’ve drifted away from the Church, I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, and I’ve questioned these things. Kazantzakis took the two natures of Jesus, and Paul Moore, the Episcopal Bishop of New York, explained to me that this was Christologically correct: the debate goes back to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 c.e., when they discussed how much of Jesus was divine, and how much human. I found this an interesting idea, that the human nature of Jesus was fighting Him all the way down the line, because it can’t conceive of Him being God. I thought this would be great drama and force people to cake Jesus seriously—at least to re-evaluate His teachings. Most non-Christians also misunderstand the importance many believers give to images of Jesus . . . through the Kazantzakis novel I wanted to make the life of Jesus immediate and accessible to people who haven’t really thought about God in a long time. (Thompson and Christie 2004, 124) Though both were originally stage musicals born in the late 1960s, Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) and Godspell (1973) had very little in common with each other. Godspell featured Victor Garber as a hippie-mime Jesus. The music was upbeat and hopeful, and in many ways the text was truer to the Gospels than other Jesus films. In contrast, Norman Jewison’s brooding Superstar was filmed in and around Israel, and captured the tension of the conflicts in the Middle East using modern images (not always successfully) juxtaposed with traditional representations of first century life. It also featured a racially diverse cast, and Carl Anderson’s powerful presence as Judas brought a great amount of heartfelt gravitas to a role usually played with much mustache-twirling. The Weber-Rice rock opera score (by then well known) was oddly disquieting when played against the

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backdrop of the Judean desert. While commercially successful, it stirred up an enormous amount of controversy from many sides. Jewish groups condemned it as anti-Semitic. Equality groups considered the casting of a black actor as Judas to be racist. Conservative Christian groups considered the portrayal of Jesus as a superstar to be just too much. The 1960s featured handsome and hip Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus in Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings (1961), which has sometimes been derisively subtitled by critics, I Was A Teenage Messiah partly because of Ray’s previous cult hit A Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Hunter’s good looks. With a running time of three hours, the story was a pastiche of the gospels’ accounts combined with imagined scenes and characters, which most reviewers considered flabby and boring. It was, in fact, a box office disaster. Another Jesus of the 1960s was portrayed by the Swedish actor Max Von Sydow, in George Stevens’s The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Stevens claimed that he was going to make an “authentic” version of the Jesus story, but as many critics pointed out, Stevens ultimately succumbed to a more traditional, almost tableau (i.e., pageant) presentation. Possibly the most powerful Jesus film in the 1960s (or, arguably, for all time) was The Gospel According to Matthew (1964) by avowed atheist and member of the Italian Communist Party, Pier Paolo Pasolini. While viewers today may not appreciate its raw, sometimes jarring cinematic style, it is imbued with an urgent energy that is certainly not present in its languid contemporaries. Passolini was attracted to what he perceived as a revolutionary spirit present in Matthew, proclaiming that he was the most “worldly” of all the evangelists. Further, he says he had in mind “to represent Christ as an intellectual in a world of poor people ready for revolution” (Stern, Jefford, and Deboua 1999). Pasolini made a controversial choice casting non-actors in many of the key roles, most notably Jesus portrayed by Enrique Irazoqui, a 23-year-old student from Spain, who in contrast with the usual placid portrayals of Christ, is at times, restless, impatient, and often just plain angry. Since Pasolini had the reputation of being Italy’s enfant terrible, critics were expecting the worst prior to its release. Police were stationed in front of the theatre the night of its premiere, expecting angry protesters to disrupt the showing, but reaction was fairly contained and mild. While it was no darling of conservative Catholics, many were impressed with the respectful portrayal of the Matthian narrative. Pasolini even dedicated the film to Pope John XXIII. Denny Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal (1989) deserves special notice. It is not a strict portrayal of the life of Jesus, yet comes closest to possibly the most honest representation of the Christ story. Ostensibly about a troupe of French Canadian actors staging a somewhat controversial version of the Passion Play, it follows Daniel, the actor who portrays Jesus, as he becomes profoundly affected by the experience, eventually leading to his death (ultimately resurrected as many of his donated organs save the lives of others in an incredibly affecting montage at the end of the movie) thus changing the lives of his action troupe. Arcand’s secondary theme of the degradation of art, often influences his choices in the use of biblical text and history. Perhaps one of the most brilliant moments of the film

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is when Daniel interrupts a commercial audition at a theatre by destroying the video equipment, much like Jesus overturning the money-changer tables in the Temple. This thematic intertwining and the off-center portrayal of Jesus (e.g., an actor playing Jesus) gives enough distance so that the charge of irreverence can never be charged. As can be seen from the above-abbreviated survey, portraying Jesus in film has been a risky business for filmmakers. When attempting a pious, traditional representation, a movie often falls into a wooden iconic portrayal, usually boring the audiences. As Adele Reinhartz argues, “[t]he irony is that whereas the Gospels have inspired profound ideas and beliefs that have shaped Christian spirituality through the two millennia since Jesus’ lifetime, their transformation on the silver screen almost always results in a superficial, shallow, simplistic representation of Jesus, his life and his significance for humankind” (Reinhartz 2006, 3). If, on the other hand, the filmmaker attempts a nontraditional rendering of Jesus, such at Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ, the film is immediately branded as disrespectful, or worse, heretical. But not all films with religious themes are about the life of Christ. Most, in fact, are allegorical canvases reflecting current events and social sentimentalities, as was the case in postwar America in the 50s. SAND, SANDALS, AND APPLE PIE The decade of the 1950s was fraught with worldwide tension and uncertainty. The Korean War, the Soviet expansion into neighboring countries and their acquisition of the atom bomb that created a fear of an all-out nuclear holocaust, and the paranoia created by the activities of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities, certainly contributed to the tension during the decade. At the same time, the United States experienced a boost in its economy, and with that, along with a triumphant end to WWII, came a certain sense of national identity that had heretofore not been present. At the same time, the 1950s gave us an unprecedented amount of religious spectaculars such as The Robe (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956), Quo Vadis (1951), David and Bathsheba (1951), The Silver Chalice (1954) and Ben Hur (1959), that became huge box office favorites. Given the uncertainty and anxiety of the times, this was no mere coincidence. Gerald Forshey argues in his book, American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars, these films were not-so-subtle reflections of current issues. The unyielding Ramses in The Ten Commandments, and the erratic but dangerous Nero in Quo Vadis and Silver Chalice could easily have their counterparts in Hitler, Stalin, and Khrushchev of the contemporary world. “The use of history in religious and biblical spectaculars serves to keep us aware of our traditions and responsibilities,” Forshey says, “imparting a sense of identity as both Americans and Judeo-Christians” (Forshey 1992, 10). This, according to Forshey, blurs the line between patriotism and religion, often using “faith” as a stand-in for “freedom.” When these so-called Sandal and Sand epics are viewed though the lens of political commentary, certain themes make themselves clearer. The story of Moses fighting the tyranny of a totalitarian dictator leading his people to a land of free-

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dom. The 1959 version of Ben Hur differs significantly in its allegorical content from its earlier predecessor made in 1923 in its concern for the then current issue of the tensions in the newly established state of Israel and its Arab neighbors. Forshey observes that the protagonists of these films were skeptical, burnt out, perpetually in a crisis of faith, much like the returning WWII veterans now disenchanted with the power of their nations and the global political landscape (Forshey 1992). In other words, what was our sacrifice all about? Most of the biblical epics’ themes center around a very American-centric view of international affairs: often a righteous hero or force (America) transforming an unrighteous nation (the Soviet Union). Often even the publicity would blatantly state this agenda outright. In speaking of Quo Vadis, the studio press release stated that it wanted to make a film that “would carry a message of beauty and inspiration to the people of the earth” (Forshey 1992, 34). While there was much in these films to satisfy secular tastes (love and romance, epic battles and action sequences, and lush, exotic locations) most of these stories focused on the religious conversion of the unbeliever, and his rejection of the values of a powerful but corrupt government, leading ultimately to the hero’s dedication in joining the forces of good to fight against the evil empire. This combination translated into great box office success for almost a decade and a half. THE CHRIST STORY IN WESTERN CINEMA Up until now, we have been discussing the actual depiction of the life of Jesus, and epic stories from the Bible, or those centered in biblical times. Consciously or unconsciously, however, Western Cinema popularizes the notion of a lone hero who sacrifices himself/herself for the greater good, or for an individual who represents humankind and has therefore been influenced by the story of Christ. Joseph Campbell identifies this as the mono-myth in The Hero with a Thousand Faces wherein he includes the Christ story as part of the collective myth of birth and rebirth (George Lucas famously used Campbell’s study when writing Star Wars) (Campbell 1949). There are so many examples of Christ figures in films that it is beyond the scope of this article to present a comprehensive list. Instead, it might be easier to set criteria for deciding just what constitutes a “Christ” figure. I suggest five: 1. 2. 3. 4.

A mysterious figure that arrives in a crisis. Some kind of gift is offered; either teaching, affection, or example. Sacrifice; usually themselves. Resurrection. This is a key element just as it is a key theological element in Christianity. It is not a Christ story without a resurrection. 5. Encounter with the figure is salvific or life-changing.

While there are many “save the day” hero-films, the list gets a little narrower and, frankly, interesting, when adhering to the above list. Here are a few recent examples: Sermon on the Battlefield: Platoon (1986)

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Oliver Stone’s Academy Award–winning film about a young innocent, Private Chris Taylor, caught between the forces of good and evil (Sgt. Barnes) in the jungles of Vietnam in the form of two Platoon sergeants, Elias (who represents the Christ figure) and Barnes (evil incarnate). Taylor, baptized by his first wound, finds himself attracted to the animal fierceness of Barnes, yet greatly affected by the natural humanity of Elias. Eventually Elias sacrifices himself to prevent Taylor from following the same path as Barnes. Initially, Barnes appears to have killed Elias, but as the platoon is helicoptered out of the combat zone, Taylor witnesses Elias still alive—after Barnes had reported Elias had been killed by the enemy—running away from the advancing enemy, and eventually is gunned down, splayed on the ground, in a crucified position. Taylor looks over at Barnes, realizing the truth, breaking free of Evil’s grip and illusion. The resurrection is subtle, but present: earlier in the movie, Elias tells Taylor he plans to come back as “wind, or fire—or a deer . . . yeah, a deer,” and at the end Taylor wakes up to find a gentle deer watching from the edge of the forest. Taylor, through Elias’s sacrifice, has learned the true nature of war and evil. The Food of Salvation: Babette’s Feast (1988) A mysterious French woman arrives on the desolate shores of an isolated Danish Island employed as a cook by two elderly sisters who have been isolated against the sensual joys of life such as food, love, and happiness by a restrictive religious code taught to them by their father, a fire and brimstone preacher. Slowly, Babette introduces the unworldly sisters to the pleasure of good food, which breaks down the rigid beliefs inherited by their strict father. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death, the sisters decide to hold a dinner, and Babette begs the sisters to allow her to prepare the feast. Babette, who has won the lottery and can finally leave the tiny Danish village for her beloved France, sacrifices all her money on the ingredients for the meal, which puts the sisters, and their church followers, in a state of harmonious ecstasy. Babette’s resurrection comes in the form of the meal itself; she is reborn as the great restaurateur that she was in France, once again able to fulfill her role as one who can enlighten the senses and thereby cleanse the soul. Her salvific power is evident in the bonding of the church members, and at the end of the film, dancing as if they were children again. Saving the Future of Mankind: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) The old Terminator model, having been reprogrammed, returns from the future as the protector of the young and reluctant John Connor (who will eventually lead the rebels against the machines) against the seemingly unstoppable new threat of a new Terminator model sent to destroy him. During the course of the film, he gives future leader Connor, lessons in how to survive and, more importantly, how to believe in something worth fighting for. The Terminator eventually sacrifices himself in order to save Connor, and thus saves the future of the human race. The resurrection is subtle and convoluted, since the Terminator dies in the past but is created in the future; he will come again to rescue Connor.

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The Sacrifice of Love: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) In the first installment of this trilogy, Will Turner is found at sea by Elizabeth Swann. Upon first sight, he is instantly in love with her, and throughout the three films is constantly risking his life for her, eventually sacrificing his mortality in the third installment to save Elizabeth and his father. Through his sacrifice, evil is vanquished and everyone gets their moral compasses reset. He is resurrected as the new Davy Jones, charged with ferrying souls to the other world. CONCLUSION Religion and religious themes have played an important role in the imaginations of artists since recorded history, but those themes have arguably become much more visceral, and therefore more powerful since the invention of the motion picture. Very often these films become reflections of our own time and social location, mirroring the current political climate, moral attitudes, or our collective fears, as we have seen from Griffith’s Intolerance to Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Interestingly, the most powerful religious themes are often hidden in films that seem anything but religious, due in large part to our culture’s unconscious assimilation of the Christ story into our every-day imagination. This phenomenon is not limited to Western cinema, but plays a role in Indian Films (even the Bollywood Spectaculars) and other world cultures. Indeed, there is a good chance we can find the sacred in any expression of art if we look hard enough. See also Prime Time Religion; World Religion Aethetics. Further Reading: Baugh, Lloyd. Imagining the Divine: Jesus and Christ-Figures in Film. Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 1997; Beck, Avent Childress. “The Christian Allegorical Structure of Platoon.” In Screening the Sacred, eds. Joel W. Martin and Conrad E. Ostwalt. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1995: 44–54; Bergesen, Albert J., and Andrew M. Greeley. God in the Movies. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2000; Butler, Ivan. Religion in the Cinema. Edited by Peter Cowie. The International Film Guide Series. New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1969; Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1st ed. Bollingen Series. New York: Pantheon, 1949; Cawkwell, Tim. The Filmgoer’s Guide to God. London: Darton, Longman, Todd, 2004; Dwyer, Rachel. Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2006; Exum, J. Cheryl, ed. The Bible in Film—the Bible and Film. Boston: Brill, 2006; Forshey, Gerald. American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1992; Landres, J. Shawn, and Michael Berenbaum, eds. After the Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2004; Locke, Maryel, and Charles Warren, eds. Jean-Luc Godard’s Hail Mary: Women and the Sacred in Film. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993; Martin, Joel W., and Conrad E. Ostwalt, eds. Screening the Sacred. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1995; May, John R, ed. New Image of Religious Film. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1997; May, John R, and Michael Bird, eds. Religion in Film. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982; Paffenroth, Kim. Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006; Paietta, Ann C. Saints, Clergy, and Other Religious Figures on Film and Television, 1895–2003. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland and Co., 2005; Plate, S. Brent, ed. Representing

World Religion Aesthetics | Religion in World Cinema: Filmmaking, Mythmaking, Culture Making. Vol. 2, Religon/ Culture/Critique. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003; Reinhartz, Adele. “History and Pseudo-History in the Jesus Film Genre.” In The Bible in Film—the Bible and Film, ed. J. Cheryl Exum. Boston: Brill, 2006: 1–17; Silk, Mark. “Almost a Culture War: The Making of the Passion Controversy.” In After the Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences, eds. J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2004: 348; Stern, Richard C., Clayton N. Jefford, and Guerric Debona, O.S.B. Savior of the Silver Screen. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1999; Stichele, Caroline Vander, and Todd Penner. “Passion for (the) Real? The Passion of the Christ and Its Critics.” In The Bible in Film—the Bible and Film, ed. J. Cheryl Exum. Leiden: Brill, 2006: 18–36; Tatum, W. Barnes. Jesus at the Movies: A Guide to the First Hundred Years: Revised & Expanded. 2nd ed. Santa Rosa, CA: Polbridge Press, 2004; Thompson, David, and Ian Christie. Scorsese on Scorsese: Revised Edition. London: Faber and Faber, 2004; Wright, Melanie J. Religion and Film: An Introduction. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007.

Remi Aubuchon WORLD RELIGION AESTHETICS the image per se is neither God nor any angel, but merely an aspect or hypostasis (avasthā) of God, who is in the last analysis without likeness (amūrta), not determined by form (arūpa), trans-form (para- rūpa). (Coomaraswamy 1995, 129). Divine representation in Hinduism is a highly complex subject and requires a great deal of discussion and nuance. It is possible to describe, in broad terms, some of the key ideas that relate to the material religious image, however. At first sight, one may be impressed by the sheer number and variety of images associated with Hindu worship. Yet, the multiplicity of divine images in Hinduism may be derived from a synthesis of images and names that stammer toward apprehension of the divine. It is māyā, or delusion, to adhere to a particular image as if it were in fact, the Ineffable. Brahman is thought to give devotees sight of divinity (darsan) in order to please and bless worthy worshipers. Before darsan is granted, the worshiper entreats the divine to enter in the sacral image (murti). At the end of the ritual, the worshipper bids the deity farewell, and thus renders the object profane. Interestingly, despite the preponderance of divine images in Hinduism and Bollywood productions, religious animation in India is a rather recent phenomenon. In the Japanese religious aesthetic tradition, the Void is a formless Reality that flows through time and space—and it is apprehended in between, in a state of mindlessness (mushin). Richard B. Pilgrim, reflecting on the concepts of between (ma) and emptiness (kū), observes that they relate to Shinto, Buddhism, and the Tao Te Ching, and that they are variously understood. According to Pilgrim’s analysis of the Japanese tradition, artistic ability is dependent on the artist’s aesthetic intuition and receptivity to experience (Pilgrim 2006). Nature is spiritualized and approached by those who empty themselves of self. A religious ideal and aesthetic is to experience immediately the flow between time, space, and

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the spiritual. However, it is necessary to use visual or spoken language to refer to the Formless. Consequently, Zen Buddhists use religious imagery to ritualize Reality. For other Buddhists, shrine statues more closely mediate the reality they represent. Pilgrim quotes the Japanese poet Basho: “To learn [in this art] means to submerge oneself within the object, to perceive its delicate life and feel its feeling, out of which a poem forms itself ” (Pilgrim 2006, 153). It may be that multimedia anime engenders something of the immediacy and holistic experience idealized in traditional Japanese religious aesthetics. If long exposure to cartoons (and other forms of multimedia) does in a sense entertain us to death, might a new form of mindlessness be fostered through what may at times be a religious art form? If so, how does this square with the traditional self-emptying, or kenotic, ideal? Islam does not take such an ambiguous stance towards the arts and theology. In fact, the Qur’ ān and hadith writings condemn attempts to depict God and foster artistic stylization of all living things. Lois Isben al Faruqi relates Islamic theological aesthetics to the doctrine of tawhid (Isben al Faruqi 1995). This monotheistic teaching regards God as absolutely holy and above all of creation. Nothing is to be compared with God, and all figural art is forbidden. As such, Islamic art is intentionally symbolic and ordered to illustrate ideas. In particular, through beautiful patterns, Islamic art attempts to broker mere insights or intuitions into God, and intimate who the human person is in relation to God. Sufis, alone, mystically view all things and persons as symbolic of the Numinous. Recently, an Islamic artist introduced figural cartoons (not animated) to represent each attribute of Allah (see also Isben al Faruqi 1995). His aim is to provide material suited for the religious education of modern children. Understandably, this has been a controversial move, and it remains to be seen whether or not these characters will be seen in an animated feature. A study of Jewish theological aesthetics is sensitive to the seemingly divergent views in the Torah. Against the biblical prohibition to make or worship an image (Exodus 20:3–5) are injunctions to decorate cultic space and objects (Exodus 25:18–22). God even gifts, inspires, and commissions Bezalel “for workmanship of every kind” for one of these religious art projects (Exodus 31:3–5). There are scriptural indications that Solomon’s ornate temple was adorned with figural images (1 Kings 7:27–37, 8:6–7) as well. Archeological findings in Dura Europos (modern day Iraq) and at Bet Alpha, a sixth-century synagogue, also reveal figural art—in addition to Greek influence—in Jewish liturgical space. In fact, Jewish artisans who signed their work at Bet Alpha, depict God’s hand stretched toward Abraham. Figural art and Hellenistic symbols are evident at the burial sites of prominent rabbis too. Interpreting this and other ancient data to reflect ambivalence in Jewish theological aesthetics, the Altshulers suggest that “norms regarding idolatrous imagery” varied from one community to another (Altshuler and Altshuler 1995). While there may be plurality in artistic form and content, however, Jewish usage seems more consistent. Torah, in fact, only proscribes images for profane use, not for sacred space. Torah further indicates what spirit is required for crafting cultic art. Might these distinctions actually serve catechetical and liturgical, doxological

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ends? Does Disney’s animated Prince of Egypt cohere within the norms for imagery established by the Torah? Are its religious symbols within this medium fixed within profane or sacred “space”? Where is that space, in fact, located? By whom, how, and to what purpose is animated religious imagery usage determined? Are these things determined by the viewer, television/theater, virtual space (if posted online), the production company, agents, commercial sponsors, culture(s), the originating scriptural tradition, and/or others, collectively? Theological aesthetics has been, at least at some point in history, a topic of interest to all major Christian denominations. The Bible attests to the perennial human desire to see God. Paul explicitly refers to the beauty of Christ, God Incarnate, if only fleetingly. Drawing on scriptural (particularly John 1:18; 2 Corinthians 4:18; 1 John 1–3), philosophical, and other historical sources, Patristic reflection on aesthetics is seminal, tangential, rather than sustained. The earliest systematic Christian treatise on this topic is Pseudo-Dionysius’s The Divine Names, written around 650 c.e. Later, Justin Martyr refutes iconoclastic claims of idolatry with his First Apology. Other significant apologetic works are The Divine Institutes by Lactantius and some letters of Gregory the Great. In the Medieval East, there is lengthy, positive treatment of the icon by John of Damascus and Theodore of Studios. Western theologians of the period, notably John Scotus, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Nicholas of Cusa, Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St. Thierry, and Meister Ekhart developed Patristic themes such as beauty and goodness, and the vision and praise of God through the arts. Dallas G. Denery II’s study correlates late Western Medieval enthrallment with, and suspicion of, perspectivist optics with its conception of the human person, the imago dei (Denery 2005). Iconoclast polemic and conciliar documents of the Reformation period reveal a divergent spectrum of Christian theological aesthetics; Jean Calvin’s writings place him and his followers at the apophatic extreme, whereas the Catholic Church maintains its more kataphatic, sacramental approach to the arts. Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli maintain more moderate positions. Later in the United States, Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards writes enthusiastically and extensively on the beauty of God, nature. Edwards presents virtue as both beautiful and beatifying. Another American theologian, Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, highlights the partial quality of individual manifestations of the Beautiful. John Henry Newman sees apprehension of beauty and its motivational power as something distinct from the visio dei grasped by human conscience. Newman also describes human conduct in terms of beauty. Aesthetics developed by philosophers Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, and Søren Kirkegaard significantly contribute to the theological discussion. It is not until the twentieth century, however, that interest in theological aesthetics explodes. Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen notes that theology has had to contend with World Wars I and II, nihilism, secularism, and is now contextualized by a period remarkable for its lack of common, definitive values. In this postmodern or even post-postmodern time, theological reflection delves further into such topics as imagination, creativity, art, faith, and seeing God, who reveals Godself as the Beautiful One. Artistic style, technique, and even movements, too, range over an

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unprecedentedly broad spectrum. Even everyday life is “aestheticized,” according to Thiessen, and she asserts that art displays have somewhat displaced traditional sacred spaces in brokering kinds of contemplative experiences (Thiessen 2004, 203–204). Whereas the Impressionists tried to discover and memorialize the ephemeral flash of a moment, disclosing their contemplative insights into reality, animated film exploits these moments, not singly but by rolling directed, constructed scenes together. How are cartoons, then, a “disclosure of truth”—to use David Tracy’s phrase? Where is the locus of truth in religious animation: the originating message and its Origin, the animator, the animation, the inspired viewer, or some complex interplay among them? What is the faith dimension of religious animation itself? Pope John Paul II, aware of new psychology and language evident in, and engendered by the modern cultural milieu, calls for a New Evangelization, one that will integrate these phenomena in rendering the Gospel message intelligible to modern people (Pope John Paul II at the beginning of the Third Millennium, http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jpmil3.htm). At the same time, the Vatican is critical of the secularism, “suggestive power,” and value content of the media that is incompatible with that of the “culture of the Beatitudes” and Christ himself (Pontifical Council for Culture 1999, 10). Church documents speak explicitly of the evangelizing and catechetical value of beautiful art. Nowhere are cartoons explicitly mentioned, though the documents do not outright deny their religious potential. Thinkers such as Harvey Cox advise against taking a theological, highbrow approach to art over and above popular culture. As such, it will be important to specifically consider the theological aesthetics of cartoons, and religious animation in particular. This evaluation should grapple not only with their storytelling potential and value content, but also attempt to confront the kind(s) of psychology associated with these products. How does this psychology compare to that of conversion, faith, and contemplation in children and adults? How will Christian communities be intentionally responsive to this new psychology in order to foster personal encounter and decision necessary for discipleship? How will these communities contend with anti-religious sentiment and syncretism evident at times in products such as South Park and some anime? See also Graphic Arts; Western Cinema. Further Reading: Altshuler, David and Linda Altshuler. “Judaism and Art.” In Art, Creativity, and the Sacred, 1995: 155–63; Baugh, Lloyd. Imagining the Divine: Jesus and ChristFigures in Film. Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 1997: 8–9; Beck, Avent Childress. “The Christian Allegorical Structure of Platoon.” In Screening the Sacred, eds. Joel W. Martin and Conrad E. Ostwalt. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1995: 51; Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1st ed. Bollingen Series. New York: Pantheon, 1949: 349; Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. “The Origin and Use of Images in India.” In Art, Creativity and the Sacred, ed. Diane Apostolos-Cappadora. New York: Continuum International, 1995: 127–37; Denery, Dallas G., II. Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology, and Religious Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Forshey, Gerald. American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1992; Isben al Faruqi, Lois. “An Islamic Perspective on Symbolism in the Arts.”

World Religion Aesthetics | In Art, Creativity, and the Sacred, 1995: 164–78; Landres, J. Shawn and Michael Berenbaum, eds. After the Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2004; Paffenroth, Kim. Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006; Pilgrim, Richard B. “ReligioAesthetic Tradition in Japan.” In Art, Creativity and the Sacred, 1995: 138–54; Pontifical Council for Culture. Toward a Pastoral Approach to Culture, May 23, 1999 (10); Pope John Paul II. Theological Aesthetics, 203–4; Redemptoris Missio (37); Reinhartz, Adele. “History and Pseudo-History in the Jesus Film Genre.” In The Bible in Film—the Bible and Film, ed. J. Cheryl Exum. Boston: Brill, 2006; Stern, Richard C., Clayton N. Jefford, and Guerric Debona, O.S.B. Savior of the Silver Screen. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1999: 191–92; Stichele, Caroline Vander and Todd Penner. “Passion for (the) Real? The Passion of the Christ and Its Critics.” In The Bible in Film—the Bible and Film, ed. J. Cheryl Exum. Leiden: Brill, 2006: 23; Tatum, W. Barnes. Jesus at the Movies: A Guide to the First Hundred Years: Revised & Expanded. 2nd ed. Santa Rosa, CA: Polbridge Press, 2004: 3–4; Thiessen, Gesa E. Theological Aesthetics: A Reader. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004; Thompson, David, and Ian Christie. Scorsese on Scorsese. Revised ed. London: Faber and Faber, 2004: 124.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Breger, Marshall J. Public Policy and Social Issues: Jewish Sources and Perspectives. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Brockopp, Jonathan. “Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War, and Euthanasia.” In Studies in Comparative Religion. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. Campolo, Tony. Red Letter Christians: A Citizen’s Guide to Faith and Politics. Ventura, CA: Regal, 2008. Cohen, Cynthia. A Christian Response to the New Genetics: Religious, Ethical, and Social Issues. New York: Rowen and Littefield, 2003. Curran, Charles. Catholic Moral Theology in the United States: A History. Moral Traditions. Washington DC: Georgetown, 2008. De la Torre, Miguel. Doing Christian Ethics From The Margins. New York: Orbis, 2004. Dorff, Elliot. Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Dorff, Elliot. Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics. New York: Jewish Publication Society of America, 2003. Fasching, Darrell J., and Dell Dechant. Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001. Greenspahn, Frederick. Contemporary Ethical Issues in the Jewish and Christian Traditions. New York: KTAV, 1986. Hashmy, Sohail H., ed. Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism, and Conflict. Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. Heyer, Kristin. Prophetic and Public: The Social Witness of U.S. Catholicism. Moral Traditions. Washington DC: Georgetown, 2006. Jung, Patricia Beattie, and Shannon Jung. Moral Issues and Christian Responses. 7th ed. Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 2002.

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Bibliography Paris, Peter J. The Social Teaching of the Black Churches. Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress Press, 1985. Pearson, James M., and Kelly Hahn. Minefields in the Marketplace: Ethical Issues Christians Face in the World of Business. Schuler, NE: BMH Books, 2005. Rasmussen, Larry L., and Bruce Birch. Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life. Minneaspolis: Augsburg, 1989. Rispler-Chaim, Vardit. Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century . Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993. Sajoo, Amyn. Muslim Ethics: Emerging Vistas. London: I.B. Taurus, 2008. Sanders, Cheryl J. Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1995. Snyder, T. Richard. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Punishment. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000. Stassen, Glen H. Just Peacemaking: The New Paradigm for the Ethics of Peace and War. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2008. Stivers, Robert L., Christine E. Gudorf, Alice Frazer Evans, and Robert Evans. Christian Ethics: A Case Method Approach. 3rd ed. New York: Orbis, 2005. Stott, John R.W., John Wyatt and Roy McCloughry, eds. Issues Facing Christians Today. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006. Zoloth-Dorfman, Laurie. Health Care and the Ethics of Encounter: A Jewish Discussion of Social Justice. Studies in Social Medicine. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS Daniel L. Smith-Christopher is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. Dr. Smith-Christopher specializes in Biblical Theology, especially Biblical and Theological issues in relation to contemporary issues of social justice and peace. He also serves as Director of Peace Studies at LMU. Among his most recent books is Subverting Hatred: The Challenge of Nonviolence in World Religions (1997, 2007), and a book on reading the Bible for Peace and Justice titled: Jonah, Jesus, and Other Good Coyotes: Speaking Peace to Power in the Bible (2007). Laura Ammon (PhD Claremont) is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Florida. Dr. Ammon teaches and conducts research in Patristic and Medieval Christianities, Christianities in the Early Modern World, Theories of Religion, and Women in Christianity. Remi Aubuchon, in addition to his current work in Theological Studies, is an accomplished American screenwriter. He is a respected theater director who trained under an American Film Institute Directors Fellowship, but found himself in demand as a screenwriter. He wrote segments for HBO’s miniseries From the Earth to the Moon. He created, wrote, and produced the television series The Lyon’s Den. He served as the executive producer of Summerland, a co-executive producer and writer for the second season of 24, and is co-creator and wrote the pilot for the Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica. Jack Balswick (PhD Iowa) has taught at Fuller Theological Seminary since 1982. His research in marriage and family issues, and religious mental health, has led to more than 50 articles, monographs, and books, the more recent of which are Family Pain (1997) and The Family: A Christian Perspective of the Contemporary Home

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(1999). Jack’s newest book is Parenting for Life: Building Family Relationships that Last, coauthored with his wife, Judy, and with Boni and Don Piper (2003). Judith K. Balswick is Senior Professor of Marital and Family Therapy in the Department of Marriage and Family, School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. Gerald Beisecker-Mast is Professor of Communications at Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio. Among his most recent books are Separation and the Sword in Anabaptist Persuasion: Radical Confessional Rhetoric from Schleitheim to Dordrecht (2006), and Teaching Peace: Nonviolence and the Liberal Arts, co-edited with J. Denny Weaver (2003). Paul Boudreau is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Norwich, CT. After his graduate studies at Bl. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, MA, he was a parish priest and taught Pastoral Scripture Studies at Sacred Heart University’s Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Studies in Bridgeport, CT. Along with his work as an award-winning feature writer for U.S. Catholic magazine, and a monthly columnist for Today’s Parish Minister, he is author of Between Sundays: Daily Gospel Reflections and Prayers (2001), and is coauthor with Alice Camille, MDiv., of The Forgiveness Book (2008). Elizabeth Brinkmann, R.S.C.J. (PhD Boston College) is chair of the Religious Studies and Philosophy Department at the College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York. Dr. Brinkmann teaches and writes in the fields of sexual and biomedical ethics. Publications include articles in Scripture Today and New Theology Review as well as Rhetoric and a Consistent Ethic of Life: Some Ethical Considerations in a forthcoming volume of essays on the Consistent Ethic of Life. Christopher Key Chapple (PhD Fordham) is the Navin and Pratima Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A specialist in the religions of India, he has published twelve books, including Karma and Creativity, a co-translation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra (2002), Nonviolence to Animals, Earth (1995), and several edited volumes on Religion and Ecology, including Hinduism and Ecology and Jainism and Ecology (2000). In 2002 he established the Yoga Studies program at LMU Extension’s Center for Religion and Spirituality. Charles Conniry Jr., PhD is Dean and Vice President of George Fox Evangelical Seminary, a graduate school of George Fox University. Academic background: BA, American Christian School of Religion; MDiv, Bethel Theological Seminary; Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary. Expertise and research interests include Christian Spiritual Discernment; American Religious History; Postmodern Philosophy; Postmodern Theology; Systematic Theology; and Praxisbased pedagogy. Robert V. Doyle, MA is a doctoral candidate in Health Care Ethics (with a focus on Catholic Health Care) at Saint Louis University (St. Louis, MO). He recently received a Master’s degree in Bioethics from Loyola Marymount University (Los

About the Editor and Contributors |

Angeles, CA) where he previously completed an MA in Theology, specializing in Christian Ethics. His Master’s thesis, entitled Framework for a Christian Common Good: Toward a Shared Ethic, explored an ecumenical approach to the common good, culminating in universal health care access. Mara Einstein (PhD New York University) is an Associate Professor of media studies at Queens College, as well as adjunct Associate Professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University. She has worked as an executive at NBC, MTV Networks, and at major advertising agencies. Her first book, Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership and the FCC (2004), was the cause for much debate when research from this work was used by the FCC as the basis for redefining the media ownership rules. She is the author, most recently, of Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age (Routledge, 2008). Joel B. Green holds a PhD in New Testament Studies and has also done graduate work in neuroscience at the University of Kentucky. He has written extensively at the interface of theology and science, including his book, Body, Soul, and Human Life (2008). Green is Professor of New Testament Interpretation and Associate Dean for the Center for Advanced Theological Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary. Ed Higgins (PhD Union Institute) is Professor of Writing/Literature at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. He is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist with a wide range of writing publications. He also is a part-time farmer, who draws much of his writing inspiration from his back-to-the-land experiences. His teaching specialties include fiction writing, science fiction, the contemporary novel, and values issues in literature. Gerald Iversen served as the National Coordinator of Alternatives for Simple Living, 1995–2007 (SimpleLiving.org). A Minister of Music for 25 years, he is an Associate in Ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). He also served as a Development Director for Public Radio for 18 years. He holds masters’ degrees in journalism and music, and two national music certifications. Dwight J. Kimberly, M.S., is Associate Professor of Biology at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. Nicholas J. Kockler, M.S., PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Bioethics Institute of Loyola Marymount University. He also serves as a clinical bioethics consultant for a Catholic health care organization in Los Angeles. Candace Lev (AAS, BSN) is currently enrolled at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, where she is pursuing a degree in Religious Studies. Darnise C. Martin earned a PhD in cultural and historical studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She is currently Visiting Professor of African-American Studies at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. She is the author of Beyond Christianity: African Americans in a New Thought Church (2005).

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Ron Mock (JD Michigan) is Associate Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon, and serves as Director of the University Scholars Program and is Prelaw Advisor. Among his most recent works is: Loving Without Giving In: Christian Responses to Terrorism and Tyranny (2004), and he also collaborated with others to coauthor When The Rain Returns: Toward Justice and Reconciliation in Israel and Palestine (2005), a study highlighting Quaker responses to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lourdes E. Morales-Gudmundsson is Professor of Spanish Language and Literature at La Sierra University. Her doctorate from Brown University is in the area of religion and literature with a specialization in Golden Age Spanish literature. Her most recent book, I FORGIVE YOU, BUT . . . (2007), is available in English and Spanish. T. Vail Palmer Jr. (PhD Chicago) is a recorded minister in Freedom Friends Church, Salem, Oregon. He has been clerk of the Center for Christian Studies at Reedwood Friends Church, Portland, Oregon. He has also been editor of Quaker Religious Thought, and Professor of Philosophy and Religion, and Chairman of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, at Rio Grande College (in Ohio). Deborah Pavelek (MA Loyola Marymount University) currently teaches Religious Studies at Blanchett Catholic High School in Salem, Oregon. Pavelek studied media and ministry and the theology of communication under Rose Paquette, FSP and Joanna Puntel, FSP. She has participated in National Film Retreats and City of Angels Film Festivals. Stephen Potthof is Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio. His primary research interests include religion and ecology, indigenous traditions, and dream and visionary experience. Randall Reed (PhD Chicago) is Assistant Professor of Religion at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. He teaches Religion and Social Theory and New Testament Studies. His latest book is A Clash of Ideologies: Marxism, Liberation Theology and Apocalypticism in New Testament Studies (2008). Jonathan Rothchild (PhD Chicago) is Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Dr. Rothchild analyzes contemporary moral issues and social and legal structures through the lenses of Christian theology and ethics. Stephen Sauer, S.J. (STD Catholic University) is Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. Fr. Sauer teaches in the areas of sacramental theology and liturgy, with special interests in the areas of lay ministerial preparation, and contemporary approaches to the celebration of, and discourse on the sacraments. Elizabeth Shaw is a Political Science and Peace Studies student, and immigration activist, who has lived near the U.S.–Mexico border while growing up in Glendale, Arizona, and going to Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

About the Editor and Contributors |

Elizabeth has worked in recent years with the Office of Peace and Justice Catholic Charities, No More Deaths, and the Arizona Interfaith Network. Jeffrey S. Siker (PhD Princeton) is Professor of Theological Studies and Chair of the Department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Dr. Siker teaches and publishes in the area of New Testament studies. He is the author of Disinheriting the Jew: Abraham in Early Christian Controversy (1991) and Scripture and Ethics: Twentieth Century Portraits (1996). He is also the editor of Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate (2006). Phil Smith (PhD Oregon) specializes in Ethical Theory and Religious Studies. He is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Department of Religion and Philosophy at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier (PhD Boston College) is Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Dr. Tiemeier’s teaching and research interests include Hinduism, comparative theology, contemporary theological anthropologies and identity politics, Asian and Asian American theologies, feminist theologies, and post-colonial theory. James J. Walter is the Austin and Ann O’Malley Professor of Bioethics and chair of the Bioethics Institute at Loyola Marymount University. He received his PhD in ethics from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, and he has published widely in the field of bioethics. Earl Zimmerman (PhD Catholic University) has been the Assistant Professor of Bible and Religion at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, and a Pastor at Shalom Mennonite Congregation. He recently published Practicing the Politics of Jesus (2007).

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INDEX ABC (Abstinence, Being, Condoms), 19 – 20 Abduh, Muhammad, 293 Abortion: aspects of, 1; bioethical issues on, 5 – 7; causes of, 8 – 9; court judgments pertaining to, 6 – 7; on demand, 3; effects of, 8 – 9; legalities of, history and, 2; political governing of, 7; purpose of, 1 – 2; societal factors and, 8 – 9; statistics of, current, 1. See also Birth control; Theological debate Active vs. passive euthanasia, 142, 143 Acute rejection, 376 Addiction: alcoholism as a disease, treatment of, 11 – 14; economic motives of, influential, 14 – 15; organizations used for treatment of, 13; recovery from, 16; recovery industry, approach to treatment of, 10; religious views on, 10 – 11, 15 – 16; societal views on, 10 – 11; theological debate pertaining to, 13, 16 Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse, 105 Adventists, 240, 241 Advertising and religion, 324 Afghanistan, 402 – 3 Africa, 42, 249, 366 African Americans: death penalty and, 82; entrepreneurships of, 347; Fard Muhammad, role of, 343; Malcolm X, importance of, 341, 344 – 45; Million Man March, role of, 346; Muslims, 334 – 35; Muslims, role of, 341 – 42; nationalist movements for, 341 – 42; Nation of Islam (NOI), role of, 341 – 47; racism, forms of, 342; religion and civil disobedience,

100; rock music, 433 – 34; values of, 343 – 44 AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome): birth control and, 69 – 70; causes of, 22 – 23; defined, 17; drugs, treatment and cost of, 18, 21; economic conditions related to, 23; history of, 17 – 18; organizations for treatment of, 19; prevention of, 23; religious concerns for, 17; societal conditions related to, 23. See also Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Al-Afghani, 292 – 93 Al-Banna, Hasan, 294 Alcoholics Anonymous: alcoholism as a disease and, 11 – 14; concerns regarding, 13; controversies regarding, 12 – 13; founding of, 11; monitoring, role of, 13 – 14; religious organizations, commitment to, 15 – 16; Twelve Step program of, 11 – 12, 15 – 16 Alcoholism as a disease: addiction, treatment of, 11 – 14; Alcoholics Anonymous, 11 – 14; attitudes, changes in, 11 – 14; history of, 11; organizations for treatment of, 11; political advocacy pertaining to treatment of, 14; societal views on rising statistics of, 11 – 14; theological debate pertaining to, 11. See also Alcoholics Anonymous Aliens: astrobiology, search for, 26 – 27; belief in, history of, 29; Christianity, ancient assumptions of sky and, 24, 29; conceptualization of, 28; cosmotheology, study of, 27, 29; habitable planets,

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Index potential, 25; religious response to, 23 – 24, 28, 29 – 30; science fiction/religious themed novels about, 27, 28 – 29; scientific theory of, 28; technology, development of, 27, 29, 30; theological debate concerning, 24, 27, 28 – 29. See also Theological debate Ali, Noble Drew, 341 – 42 Alternative medicine, 243 American Catholic Church, 104 American exceptionalism, 464 American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), 355, 357 American Party, 50 American Protestant Association, 52 Amish: authority and, 34 – 35, 36 – 37; civil society vs., 34 – 37; cultural separation vs. civil subordination, 30 – 31; divisions of, 31 – 32; education system and, 35 – 36; health care system and, 36; home schooling, role of, 252; military system and, 35; Old Order vs. change-minded, 32 – 34; origin of, 31 – 32; political system and, 35, 37; religion, beliefs of, 34; Social Security System and, 36; technology, development of, 33 – 34 Anesthesia, 374 Anglo-Israelism, 430 Animal intelligence, higher: Africa, role of, 249; apes, study of great, 246 – 48; Bible and, 246; bonobos, study of, 246 – 47; bushmeat, illegal trade of, 249 – 50; chimpanzees, study of, 244, 246 – 47; Christianity, traditions of, 245 – 46; communication with, forms of, 247 – 49; cruelty to, 245 – 46; Declaration on Great Apes and, 248; economic implications of, 249 – 50; evolutionary theory and, 245; exploitation of, 245; gorillas, study of, 247; guilt by association and, 250; Judaism, traditions of, 245 – 46; philosophical issues concerning, 250 – 51; political implications of, 249 – 50; primal research, types of, 247; religious issues concerning, 250 – 51; research concerning, 244; rights of, 251 – 52; scholarly skepticism and, 248 – 49; sentient species and, 244; species loyalty and, 244; third category of, 251 – 52 Animal sacrifice: abandonment of, persistence and, 41 – 42; Africa, practice of, 42; animals, role and importance of, 38, 43; Buddha, rejection of, 41; Christianity, rejection of, 42; classifications of, 39 – 40; contemporary debates pertaining to, 42 – 43; criticism of, 42; cultic slaying and, 38; essential elements of, 38; governmental interventions pertaining to, 42 – 43; Islam, rejection of, 41; Judaism, rejection of, 41 – 42; phenomenon of, 37, 40; purpose of, 39 – 40; religious views of, tensions over,

37 – 38; rituals of, 40 – 41, 43; theories of, 40 – 41; types of, 39; Western debates pertaining to, 42 – 43 Animals, role and importance of, 38, 43 Animation: animators of, popular, 45; anime, genre of, 46 – 47; art, history of, 44; dialogue, use of, 45; evolution of, 44; film, use of, 45; flip books, use of, 44 – 45; God, role of, 47; history of, 44 – 47; media, type of, 44; religious debates concerning, 46 – 47, 48; shadow theater, use of, 44; single-frame exposures, use of, 45; slide projection, use of, 45; sound tracks, use of synchronized, 45 – 46; television, production of, 46; theological debates concerning, 47 – 48; Walt Disney, producer of, 45 – 46 Animators, popular, 45 Anime, 46 – 47 Anthropocentrism, 130, 131, 132 Anthropological presuppositions, 209 – 11 Antibiotic-resistant diseases, 243 Anti-Catholicism: discrimination, defined, 49; history of, 49 – 52; immigration and, 50 – 51; organizations associated with, 50 – 51, 52; politics and, 49 – 53; publications about, 51; solidarity and, 52 – 53; theological debates concerning, 51 – 52 Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 429, 431 Antitobacco movement, 241 Apes, study of great, 246 – 48 Apocalyptic eschatology, 208, 209 Apocalypticism: cataclysm and, 58; Christianity and, 54; Cold War, role of, 58 – 61; dates, setting of, 55; history of, 54 – 56; King James Version Bible, proliferation of, 56; Martin Luther and, 55; Middle Eastern conflict and, 59; New Testament and, 54; nuclearism and, 59 – 60; 1000 C.E., importance of, 55; Protestantism and, 54, 55; publications pertaining to, 59 – 60; Puritan Revolution and, 55 – 56; rapture and, 57; theology of, 54, 60. See also Dispensationalism Aquinas, Thomas, 121 – 22 Arab nationalism, 294 Archdiocese, role of, 106 – 7 Art, history of, 44 Artificial birth control, 69, 71 – 74 Artificial contraception, 189 Artists, famous music, 434 – 35 Asia, 366 Asian immigration, 285 Astrobiology, 26 – 27 Attitudes, changes in: alcoholism as a disease, rise of, 11 – 14; controversies pertaining to, 12 – 13; economic motives and, influential, 14 – 15; important factors of, 11 – 12; religious organizations, addiction and use of, 15

Index | 513 AZT, 21 Azuza Street Revival, 156 Babette’s Feast (film), 495 “Baby Fae,” 377 Bakker, Jim, 272 – 73 Balfour Declaration, 93 Baptists, 464 Battlestar Galactica (television series), 396 – 97 Beagle Channel dispute, 406 Beisner, E. Calvin, 219 – 21 Bellah, Robert, 466 Bible: animal intelligence, higher, 246; creationism, role of, 177, 178; evangelical, truths of, 157; homosexuality, interpretation of, 259 – 60; immigration, ancient, 283 – 84; poverty and, 63 – 68; prison, history of, 299; Promise Keepers, unification of, 164; religious publishing and, 412 – 13. See also Poverty Big bang cosmology: defined, 120; design argument of, 122 – 23; first cause argument of, 120 – 22; infinite regress, notion of, 121; religious debates concerning, 120; theories of, 120; Thomas Aquinas, role of, 121 – 22; universes, types of, 123 Biocentric equality, 128 – 29, 130, 131, 132 Biodiversity, 132 Bioelectromagnetic medicines, 243 Biological treatments, 243 Birth control: AIDS and, 69 – 70; artificial, 69, 71 – 74; Catholicism and, 188; Catholicism, beliefs of, 71 – 72, 73; condoms, form of, 69 – 70; family planning and, 69 – 74; history of, 69 – 70; Humanae Vitae, publication of, 72, 73 – 74; justification of, 74; legal debates concerning, 70; methods of, 69; morality of, 72 – 73, 74; pill, invention of, 69 – 70; regulation of, 74; religious debates concerning, 69; rhythm method of, 73; technology, advances in, 69 Black Death, 239 Blasphemy: Abner Kneeland, role of, 232; controversies of, 235; defined, 231; freedom of expression vs., 234 – 36; graphic arts and, 229 – 36; laws of, modifications of, 231; pronouncements of, 231; religious laws concerning, 231; state laws concerning, 231 Boff, Leonardo, 311, 312, 313, 317 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 102 – 3 Bonobos, study of, 246 – 47 The Book of Daniel (television series), 394 – 95 Border Patrol, 288 Bova, Ben, 460 Bracero Program, 285 – 86 Brain-machine interfaces, 360, 361 – 62 Brain reading, 359, 362 Brain transplants, 377 – 78 Branch Davidian religious movement, 428

British, 101 British Israelism, 430 Bruderhof, 275, 276 Buddhism: animal sacrifice, rejection of, 41; Buddhist activism and, 382; engaged, concept of, 382; homosexuality, views of, 261; pacifism, 379 – 80; pacifism, role of, 379 – 80; self-transformation of, 381 – 82; vegetarianism, 485, 487 Buddhist activism, 382 Buildings, funding for, 452 Burial sites, controversies concerning, 356 Bushmeat, illegal trade of, 249 – 50 California, 333 – 34 Cameron, Nigel M. de S., 481 Camp David Accords, 94 Capitalism: advantages of, 83; disadvantages of, 83; ethics of, 88; market, legitimacy of, 84 – 86; minimum wage debate and, 88; neoclassical economics of, 84 – 85; socialism vs., 83 – 88; theological debates pertaining to, 83, 86 Capital punishment: criminology and, 78; ethics of, 82; evangelical, opposition to, 157; execution, methods of, 77; history of, 77 – 78; types of, 79. See also Death penalty Capitol Rotunda, 348 Captive audiences, 389 Carter Center, 408 Carter, Jr., James (Jimmy) Earl, 408 Casas, Bartolomeo de las, 213 – 14 Casino, disadvantages of, 203 Cataclysm, 58 Catastrophism, 176 – 77 Catholic Church, 104 – 5 Catholicism, 21 – 22; American Catholic Church and, 104; bankruptcy, declaration of, 110; birth control and, 188; birth control, beliefs of, 71 – 72, 73; Catholic Church, crisis of, 104 – 5; charity and, 188; clergy sex abuse scandal, role of, 104, 112; cloning, role of, 117; community outreach programs and, 188; condoms, beliefs of, 21 – 22; condoms, use of, 21 – 22; contraception, artificial, 189; faith-based health care, role of, 184; healing, role of, 186 – 87; health care, role of, 187 – 89; homosexuality, 261 – 62, 266; immigration, response to, 285; Jesus, ministry of, 186 – 87; just war theology, 309; liberation theology, 311, 317; marriage, 331; morals, guidance of, 188; pregnancy and, 189; pregnancy due to rape and, 189; Roman, 185, 186 – 87; Roman Catholic Church and, 104; Safe Environment programs, role of, 113; separation of church and state, 464; sexual abuse of minor and, 111; sexual assault and, 189; sexual ethics of,

514

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Index 188 – 89; sponsorship and, 185; sterilization and, 189; universal health care, 483 – 84. See also Anti-Catholicism Celibacy, 325, 326 – 27 Cells, institution of, 300 Center for Democratic Renewal, 429 Chapel, prison, 301 Charity, 188 Charity simplicity, 227 Child benefit doctrine, 451 Children: divorce, effect of, 136 – 37; Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), infection of, 22; Hutterites, induction of, 277; religious publishing, marketing to, 413 Chimpanzees, study of, 244, 246 – 47 China, 237 Chinese Exclusion Act, 285 Christian Booksellers Association (CBA), 415 Christian Coalition, 442 Christian Identity movements, 426, 430 – 31 Christianity: aliens, ancient assumptions of sky and, 24, 29; animal intelligence, higher, 245 – 46; animal sacrifice, rejection of, 42; apocalypticism and, 54; Christian America, establishment and division of, 154, 155 – 56; clergy sex abuse, role of, 104; cloning, role of, 116; condoms, beliefs of, 20; conservation, conversion to, 403 – 4; contraception, beliefs of, 20 – 21; conversion, conflicts concerning, 400; creationism, role of, 178 – 79; death penalty, beliefs of, 81; deep ecology, 128; divorce, approach to, 138 – 40; evangelicalism, America and, 153 – 59; evangelical, role of, 153; evolution, role of, 178 – 79; evolution, teaching of, 155; faith, aspects of, 401; female subordination, debates concerning, 194, 196; gambling, role of, 200 – 202; genocide, role of, 213 – 14; Gospel of Prosperity, role of, 224 – 25; Great Awakening and, 154; health reform movements, history of traditions of, 237, 238 – 39; homosexuality, 261 – 64; hucksterism, 269; immigration, response to, 283 – 84, 289 – 90; jailhouse conversions, 301; just war theology, 309; liberalism, conversion to, 403 – 4; liberation theology, 311 – 12, 313 – 14, 317; marriage, 328; missionary religion of, 401 – 2; missionary work of, 400, 401 – 2; muscular, 162 – 63; Nation of Islam (NOI), 341; neuroethics, 363; new religious movement (NRM), 366; New Testament, interpretations of, 401; pacifism, 379 – 81, 383, 384; Pentecostalism and, 156, 157 – 58; prayer, public schools, 390; prime time (television) religion, 394 – 95; prison, role of, 299 – 300, 302; rationalism, German, 155 – 56; religion, 351 – 52; religion and civil disobedience,

role of, 98, 99; religious conversion, role of, 400 – 404; religious diplomacy, 408; religious publishing, 413 – 15; right-wing extremism, 431; rock music, ethics of, 432 – 37; Second Great Awakening and, 154; separation of church and state, 464. 467; sexuality, conceptions of, 327; terrorism, 474; United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and, 400; vegetarianism, 485; violence and, 402; women, role of, 160 – 61, 193 – 94; world religion, 499. See also Christian Zionism Christian Living, 413 – 14 Christian Peace Conference (CPC), 408 – 9 Christian programming, 393 – 94 Christian Zionism: criticism of, 94 – 95; dispensationalism and, 89 – 90, 92, 93, 94; ethics of, 95; evangelicalism and, 92 – 93, 94; history of, 92; Holocaust and, 89, 91; Israel, expansion of, 89, 92, 94, 95; Jerusalem, conquering of, 93; Jewish Zionism vs., 89, 90 – 92; Middle East Road Map and, 94; Occupied Territories and, 95; Palestinian Christians, abandonment of, 89; state of, 93 – 94. See also Zionism Chronic rejection, 376 Church leaders, scandals, 270 – 73 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 240 Church of Scientology, 369, 370 – 71 Citizenship, 287, 333 Civil disobedience, 447; defined, 97; focus of, 97; God, devotion to, 97; ignorance and, 97; laws, violation of, 97; motives for, 97; purpose of, 97; warfare and, 97. See also Religion and civil disobedience Civil religion, 466 – 67 Civil society vs. Amish, 34 – 37 Civil unions, support for, 443 – 44 Civil war, 97 Class system, 67 – 68 Clemency, 82 Clergy sex abuse: allegations of, 109 – 10; archdiocese, role of, 106 – 7; bishops response to, 105 – 6, 108 – 9, 111, 112; Christianity, role of, 104; clergy following, issues with reassignment of, 106; Dallas meeting concerning, 107; gender, role of, 110, 111; Gilbert Gauthe, role of, 104 – 5; John Geoghan, role of, 106; John Paul II, role of, 107; molestation of minors and, 104; morality, acknowledgment of, 105 – 6; National Review Board (NRB) report pertaining to, 107, 108 – 9; non-Christians religions and, 104; parents, role of, 112; pedophiles and, 110; preemployment screenings, elimination of, 106; priests, role of, 111 – 12; Protestant Christians, role of, 104; punishment for, 113; rabbis, role of,

Index | 515 104; reporting of, 111; Safe Environment programs, prevention of, 109, 113; scandal, 104 – 13; scope of, 107 – 9; sexual abuse of minors and, 105, 109 – 10, 111; sexual harassment and, 104; victims of, restitution for, 105, 108, 110, 112 – 13. See also Catholicism Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program (CSTP), 453 – 54 Cloning: ban on, 119; biomedical research and, 118 – 19; Catholicism, role of, 117; Christianity, role of, 116; defined, 114; ethics of, 114 – 15, 117 – 19; infertility and, 114; In Vitro Fertilization, role of, 116; medical research, expansion of, 114; morals of, 114; purpose of, 115; scientific research, expansion of, 114; scriptural themes of, 115 – 16; stem-cell research vs., 115; theological debates concerning, 115 – 17; types of, 117 – 19 Coercion, 240 Cohabitation, 134, 329 Cold War, 58 – 61 Columbus, Christopher, 213 Common good, principles of, 482 Communal living vs. individual freedom, 274 – 81 Communication with animal intelligence, 247 – 49 Communidades eclesiales de base (CEBs), 313 – 14, 315, 317 Community of Sant´ Egidio organization, 406, 407 Community outreach programs, 188 Commutative justice, 483 Complacency, 240 Compulsory attendance laws, 253 – 54 Condoms: birth control, form of, 69 – 70; Catholicism, beliefs of, 21 – 22, 70; Christianity, beliefs of, 20; HIV, prevention of, 22; Islam, beliefs of, 20; Judaism, beliefs of, 20; marriage, use of, 20; Vatican, beliefs of, 70 Conservation, 403 – 4 Conservatism, 243 Consolidation, 415 Constructive synthesis, 308 – 9 Consumerism, 132 Contemporary evangelicalism, 153 Contraception: artificial, 189; Christianity, beliefs of, 20 – 21; marriage, use of, 20 – 22 Contributive justice, 483 Controlled Substance Act, 148 Conversion, 400 Conversion rights debates, 402 Cornwall Alliance: challenges of, 219; Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship and, 219; E. Calvin Beisner, role of, 219 – 21; economic growth and, 218;

environment, importance of improving, 218; ethic of dominion and, 219 – 20; global warming and, 217 – 23; Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship, role of, 217; New Monastic movement, role of, 219; Prosperity and, 219; Prosperity Theology and, 218 – 19; publications concerning, 221 – 22 Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, 219 Corrosive grievance, 475, 476 Cosmology: analogy of, 124; big bang, 120 – 23; defined, 119 – 20; weak anthropic principle (WAP), role of, 123 – 24 Cosmotheology, study of, 27, 29 Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, 410 Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), 426 Council of Trent, 111, 239 Countermovement of evangelical, 157 Covenant marriage, 330 Creation care, 168 Creation environmentalism, 171 – 73 Creationism: Bible, role of, 177, 178; catastrophism and, 176 – 77; Christianity, role of, 178 – 79; court cases concerning, 179 – 81; Creationism Act and, 179 – 80; evolution vs., 174 – 81; fossils, study of, 176 – 77; God, existence of, 174 – 75, 178; history of, 174 – 76; philosophers of, 175; public schools and, 174 – 81; science, role of, 177, 180; types of, 174, 176. See also Christianity Creationism Act, 179 – 80 Criminal disobedience, 97 Criminology, 78 Cruelty to animal, 245 – 46 Cultic slaying, 38 Cults, 368 Cultural separation vs. civil subordination, 30 – 31 Curricula for home schooling, 257 Dallas meeting concerning clergy sex abuse, 107 Dance, contemporary, 436 Danish cartoon controversy, 233 – 34 Darby, John Nelson, 56 – 57 Darfur, 212 Darwin, Charles, 178 – 79 Dates, setting of, 55 Death, 141, 145, 373 Death penalty: abolishment of, 78, 79, 82; advocates of, 77; African Americans and, 82; Christianity, beliefs of, 81; constitutionality of, 79–81; court cases regarding, 79–80; economic debates pertaining to, 82–83; economy, galvanized, 78; justification of, 78, 79; legalities of, 79–81; legal representation,

516

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Index adequacy of, 83; legitimacy of, 79; means of, utilization of, 80–81; morality of, 80; moratorium on, 80; opponents of, 77; philosophical debates pertaining to, 83; physicians and views on, assistance of, 81; racial prejudices and, 82; rehabilitation and, 79; reinstatement of, 78; religious debates pertaining to, 83; social class and, 82; social debates pertaining to, 82–83; state provisions to, 79; theological debates pertaining to, 81–82; types of, 79 Deceased-donor organ transplants, 377 Declaration of Independence, 100 Declaration on Great Apes, 248 Deep ecology: anthropocentrism and, 130, 131, 132; biocentric equality and, 128 – 29, 130, 131, 132; biodiversity and, 132; Christianity, role of, 128; concept of, 127; consumerism and, 132; contemporary form of, 128; critiques of, 130 – 32; defined, 127, 128; ecocentric perspective of, 127 – 28, 131; environmental destruction, causes of, 131; industrialization, environmental policies of, 129, 130; natural world and, 131 – 32; philosophy of, 127; platform of, 129 – 30; principles of, 128 – 31; radical environmentalism and, 127 – 32; self-realization and, 128, 129; social injustice and, 132; Western, 131; wildlife, preservation of, 131 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 330 Dehumanizing hatred, 475 – 76 Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, 441 Democracy, 427 Design argument of big bang cosmology, 122 – 23 Deterrence, 79 Dialogue, use of, 45 Dick, Philip K., 461 Diet and nutrition medicine, 243 Diplomacy, defined, 405 – 6 Direct vs. indirect euthanasia, 143 Discrimination, defined, 49 Disease: alcoholism as a, 11 – 14; causes of, 238; economic motives and, 14 – 15; monitoring of, 13 – 14 Dispensationalism: apocalypticism and, 54, 56 – 58, 59; background of, 168; benefits of, 168 – 69; Christian Zionism and, 89 – 90, 92, 93, 94; concept of, 56; ecological ramifications of, 169; environmentalism and, 167; evangelicalism, history of, 155, 167, 168 – 70; factors of, 57 – 58; fallenness, doctrine of, 169; global warming and, 169 – 70; Holocaust, role of, 93; Israel, establishment of, 169; Israel, founding and importance of, 58; Israel, state of, 92 – 93; John Nelson Darby, importance of, 56 – 57; Judaism and, 57; Judaism, conversion to, 93;

nuclearism and, 59; Palestine, restoration of, 93; publications pertaining to, 59 – 60, 61; purpose of, 168; rapture and, 57; rise of, 54; salvation and, 170; theology of, 61; vision of, 61; Zionism and, 92 – 93 Distributive justice, 483 Divine providence, interpretations of, 207 Divinity, 351 Divorce: causes of, 135 – 36; children, effect on, 136 – 37; Christianity, approach to, 138 – 40; cohabitation and, 134; culture of, 135; defined, 133; demographics factors of, 134 – 35; education and, 135; ethnics and, 135; failure and, 139; four-stage sequence of, 136; gender and, 135; heterogeneous marriage and, 135; Jesus, role of, 139; long-term adjustment to, 137 – 38; no-fault policy on, 135 – 36; process of, 136; rate of, decline, 134; religion and, 135; remarriage and, 140; rise of, 329; spirituality and, 139; teenage marriage and, 134 – 35; United States, statistics of, 134 Dobson, James, 173 Dominion, 219 – 20 Dualism, 239 Dying, process of, 141, 145 Educational benefits argument, 390 – 91 Education system, 35 – 36, 135 Egypt, 403 Electric chair, 80 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 451 – 52 Embracement, 216 Emerging church movement, rise of, 157, 158 Engaged Buddhism, 382 Entrepreneurships, 347 Environmental destruction, causes of, 131 Environmentalism: Cornwall Alliance, importance of improving, 218; creation, 171 – 73; creation care, 168; dispensationalism and, 167; evangelical, 167 – 73; Evangelical Environmental Network, role of, 172; evangelicalism, relationship with, 168; global warming and, 173; James Dobson, role of, 173; James Watt, role of, 170 – 71; Paul Tsongas, role of, 171 – 72; Ronald Reagan, role of, 170 – 71; Sandy Cove Covenant and Invitation, establishment of, 172 – 73. See also Evangelicalism Eschatology, 207, 208 – 9 Establishment clause, 418 – 20, 451 Eugenic genetic engineering, 206 European colonialism, 292 European immigration, 284 – 85 Euthanasia: active vs. passive, 142, 143; alternatives, fair availability and access to, 151; banning of, 148; Controlled Substance

Index | 517 Act and, 148; court cases concerning, 148; death, process of, 141, 145; defined, 141; direct vs. indirect, 143; distinctions of, 142 – 44; dying, process of, 141, 145; ethics of, 143, 144 – 46; felony and, 147; freedom and, 145; handicapped, severely, 146; harm, prevention of, 145 – 46; health care profession, protection of, 151; Hippocratic Oath and, 141 – 42; human dignity and, 144 – 45; institutionalization of, 151; legal issues concerning, United States, 147 – 48; legalization of, 151; marginalized groups, protection of, 146, 151; medicine, advancement and integrity of, 142, 146; Michigan, role of, 147 – 48; Oregon, role of, 147; physician-assisted suicide and, 141 – 51; public policies concerning, 151; referenda’s for, 147; religious perspectives of, 142, 149 – 50; self-rule and, 144 – 45; slippery slope argument, elements of, 146; societal perspectives of, 149 – 50; terminal sedation, practice of, 143 – 44; treatment, refusal of, 148; voluntary vs. involuntary, 142, 145; worthiness and, 144. See also Theological debate Evangelical: Bible, truths of, 157; capital punishment, opposition to, 157; Christianity, role of, 153; countermovement of, 157; defined, 153, 158; evolution of, 153; Incarnation and, 157; Jesus, resurrection of, 157; left, rise of, 156 – 57, 158; National Association of Evangelicals, role of, 159; neo-, 153; North America, role of, 153. See also Christianity; Environmentalism; Men’s movements Evangelical Christianity. See Christianity; Evangelicalism Evangelical environmentalism, 167 – 73 Evangelical Environmental Networks, 172, 222 – 23 Evangelicalism: Billy Graham, role of, 156; Christianity, America and, 153–59; Christian Zionism and, 92–93, 94; contemporary, 153; defined, 153; dispensationalism, history of, 155, 167, 168–70; diversity of, present-day, 157–58; emerging church movement, rise of, 157, 158; emerging culture of, 157; environmentalism, relationship with, 168; flagship schools, promotion of, 157; Focus on the Family, role of, 159, 173; fundamentalists, rise of, 155–56, 157, 159; Great Awakening and, 154; history of, 153–57; misperceptions of, 158–59; modernists, rise of, 155–56; National Association of Evangelicals, role of, 159; new, rise of, 156; Pentecostalism, rise of, 156, 157–58; perspectives of, 153–57; philosophy of, 154; postmillennialism of, 155; postmodern age of, 157; Puritanism, rise of,

154, 157; religious right and, 158–59; Second Great Awakening and, 154, 168; secondwave revivalism, rise of, 154, 157; Traditional Values Coalition, role of, 158–59; Zionism vs., 92–93. See also Christianity Evangelical men’s movements, 160 – 67 Evangelism, 153, 316 Evolution: Charles Darwin, role of, 178 – 79; Christianity, role of, 178 – 79; court cases concerning, 179 – 81; creationism vs., 174 – 81; fundamentals of, 176; God, existence of, 174 – 75; history of, 174 – 76; Islamic nationalism, 291; nationalism, 349 – 50; philosophers of, 175; public schools and, 174 – 81; religious debates concerning, 180; Scopes Trial, role of, 179; teaching of, 155; theistic, 177; theory of, 175 – 76. See also Christianity Execution, methods of, 77 Exodus, Egypt and, 283 – 84 Exotheology, 27, 29 Exploitation of animals, 245 Expressive Egalitarian vs. Promise Keepers, 166 Extrasolar planets, discovery of, 27 Extraterrestrials (ETs). See aliens Extreme pacifism, 383 Extremists, characteristics of, 427 – 29 Faith: Christianity, aspects of, 401; Muslims, 336; religion and civil disobedience, 99, 100; science fiction, melding of, 460 Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Office, 456 – 57 Faith-based health care: Catholicism, role of, 184; healing, goal of, 183; identities of, 183, 184; individualization and, 184; institutional polices, role of, 183 – 89; Judaism, role of, 184; nature of, 183; organizational identity and, 184; professional practice and, 184; religious morality of, 183 – 89; sponsorship, role of, 183. See also Religion Faith Movement, 225 Fallenness, doctrine of, 169 Family allowance system, 88 Family planning and birth control, 69 – 74 Farmer, Philip Jose, 460 Farrakhan, Louis, 345 – 46, 347 Felony, 147 Female subordination: Christianity, debates concerning, 194, 196; contemporary debates concerning, 196; theological debates concerning, 191. See also Women Film, animation, 45 Finney, Charles Grandison, 268 – 69 First Amendment: prayer, public schools, 386, 387; religious conversion and, 399; religious symbols and, 418; school funding, 451

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Index First cause argument of big bang cosmology, 120 – 22 Flagship schools, promotion of, 157 Flip books, animation, 44 – 45 Focus on the Family, 159, 173 Foreign policy, 402 Forgiveness, 216 Fossils, study of, 176 – 77 Fourteenth Amendment, 418 – 19 Fourth Clean Living Movement, 242 – 43 France, 338 Freed, Alan, 432 – 33 Freedom, 145, 364 – 65 Freedom of expression vs. blasphemy, 234 – 36 Free Exercise Clause, 418 Free Officers, 295 Free publicity, 320 Free will, 364 Funerals of political leaders, 348 Gambling: casino, disadvantages of, 203; Christianity, role of, 200 – 202; controversies of, 200; defined, 199 – 200; economic benefits of, 199, 203; Indian gaming and, 204; irrational, 202 – 3; Islam, role of, 201; Judaism, role of, 201; lottery, 200; medicalization of, 202 – 3; morality of, 204; Native American, rise of, 199, 203 – 5; opposition to, 202 – 3; pathological, 202 – 4; problem, 202 – 4; sinful, 202; social benefits of, 199, 203, 204; state-sponsored, 199; types of, 199; Western history and philosophy of, 202 Gandhi, Mohandas (Mahatma), 101 – 3, 384–85 Gantry, Elmer, 267 – 68 Gauthe, Gilbert, 104 – 5 Gay rights activists, support of, 440 – 41 Gender: clergy sex abuse and, 110, 111; divorce and, 135; Promise Keepers, politics of, 165 Genetic engineering, enhancement of, 206 Genetic manipulation, types of, 207, 209 Genetic research: anthropological presuppositions of, 209 – 11; eugenic genetic engineering and, 206; genetic engineering, enhancement of, 206; genetic manipulation, types of, 207, 209; germ-line gene therapy and, 206; Human Genome Project, role of, 206; methods of, 206; morality of, 207, 209; Paul Ramsey, role of, 209; religious presuppositions of, 207 – 9; somatic cell therapy and, 206 Genocide: Bartolomeo de las Casas, role of, 213 – 14; Christianity, role of, 213 – 14; Christopher Columbus, role of, 213; conquest of America and, 213 – 14; Darfur and, 212; embrace and forgiveness of, 216; exclusions, features of, 215 – 16;

human atrocities of, twentieth century, 211 – 13; International Criminal Court, establishment of, 215; international law, safeguards and, 212 – 13; perspectives of, religious, 213 – 14; preconditions of, 211; religion vs., 211 – 12, 214; response to, 215 – 16; Truth and Reconciliation Commission, establishment of, 215; types of, 211 – 12; violence and, 214 Geoghan, John, 106 Germ-line gene therapy, 206 Global poverty, 222 Global warming: Cornwall Alliance and, 217 – 23; dispensationalism and, 169 – 70; environmentalism and, 173; ethic of dominion and, 219 – 20; Evangelical Environmental Networks, role of, 222 – 23; global poverty and, 222; green evangelical creation care movement and, 217; Prosperity Theology and, 217 – 23; Protestant Christianity, role of, 217; religion, role of, 221. See also Cornwall Alliance Goal oriented eschatology, 208 God: actions of, 207 – 8; alienation of, 100; animation, role of, 47; civil disobedience, devotion to, 97; command of, 100; creationism, existence of, 174 – 75, 178; evolution, existence of, 174 – 75; existence of, argument purporting, 120 – 21, 122 – 23; humanity, fall of, 209, 210 – 11; humans, cocreaters of, 210; human sinfulness, fall of, 210 – 11; image of, 210 – 11; interpretations of, 207 – 8; law conflict and, 99; prayer, public schools, 390; religion and civil disobedience, 98, 99, 100, 102 – 3; religion, relationship with, 351; religious views of, 210 – 11; social contract theory and, 98; stewardship and, 210; submission and, 99; terrorism, beliefs of, 473; theological debates concerning, 65 – 67; Truth and, 99, 102 – 3; two-kingdom approach and, 100 Godless Communism, 467 Godspell (film), 491 – 92 Goncalves, Dom Jaime, 407 Gorillas, study of, 247 The Gospel According to Matthew (film), 492 Gospel blues, 434 Gospel music, 434 Gospel of Abundance, 224 Gospel of Prosperity, 65; Christianity, role of, 224 – 25; Douglas John Hall, role of, 226 – 27; Elwood “Woody” Rieke, role of, 225 – 26; Gospel of Abundance and, 224; importance of, 224; Joel Osteen, role of, 225; preachers of, 224 – 27; theological debates concerning, 225 – 27; voluntary simplicity, types and standards of, 227 – 28

Index | 519 Graham, Billy, 156 Graphic arts, 229 – 36, 231; controversies of, 236; Danish cartoon controversy and, 233 – 34; defined, 231; George Grosz, role of, 232; Gerhard Haderer, role of, 232 – 33; international scandals, involvement of, 229; Islam, role of, 231; Judaism, role of, 231; mass dissemination of, 230; religion vs., 229 – 30. See also Blasphemy, contemporary use of Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 356 Great Awakenings: Christianity and, 154; evangelicalism and, 154; health reform movements, 239 – 40; revivals, 239 – 40 Great Britain, 338 The Greatest Story Ever Told (film), 492 Green evangelical creation care movement, 217 Grosz, George, 232 Group solidarity, 351 Guilt by association, 250 Gutiérrez, Gustavo, 311 – 12, 313, 314, 317 Habitable planets, potential, 25 Haderer, Gerhard, 232 – 33 Haggard, Ted, 267, 273 Hall, Douglas John, 226 – 27 Handicapped, severely, 146 Hare Krishna—movement schools, 104 Hate groups, characteristics of, 427 – 29 Healing: Catholicism, role of, 186 – 87; faith-based health care, goal of, 183; religion, goal of, 183 Health care system: Amish, 36; Catholicism, role of, 187 – 89; euthanasia, protection of, 151 Health insurance, role of, 479 Health reform movements: Adventists, role of, 240, 241; alternative medicine and, 243; antibiotic-resistant diseases and, 243; antitobacco movement and, 241; Black Death, role of, 239; China, role of, 237; Christianity, history of traditions of, 237, 238 – 39; Council of Trent, role of, 239; disease, causes of, 238; dualism and, 239; Fourth Clean Living Movement, role of, 242 – 43; Great Awakenings, role of, 239 – 40; holistic, 243; human body, caring for, 238; human dignity, protection of, 239; Jackson era of, 240 – 41; Jesus, healings of, 238; Judaism, history of traditions of, 237 – 38; magic, form of treatments, 238, 239; Middle Ages, counterreformation of, 239; Mormonism, role of, 240, 241; New Age movement and, 242 – 43; pagan ascetiscisim and, 239; phases of, 240; prayer, healing through, 239; preventative medicine and, 242; revivals of twentieth century, 239 – 40; saints, healing

of, 239; sin, cause of illness, 238 – 39; spirituality and, 241 – 42, 243; superstition and, 239; Temperance Movement, role of, 241; Third Clean Living Movement, role of, 241 – 42; veneration of relics and, 239; Western Health Reform Institute, role of, 240 – 41; women’s rights movements and, 241 Heart failure, 374 Heart transplants, 375, 376 Hebrew Scriptures, 327 Herberg, Will, 466 Heterogeneous marriage, 135 Hinduism, 485, 486, 497 Hippocratic Oath, 141 – 42 Holistic health reform movements, 243 Holocaust, 89, 91 Home schooling: Amish, role of, 252; compulsory attendance laws and, 253 – 54; curricula for, 257; defined, 253 – 54; ideological, 254 – 55; legal aspects of, 253 – 54; market resources for, 257; outcomes of, 256; partnership-focused, 255; pedagogical, 254 – 55; point-focused, 255; public education, alternative to, 252, 256; purpose of, 254 – 56; religious motivation of, 255 – 56; resource vendors for, 257; social effects of, 256; statistics of, 252 – 53; teachers, qualifications of, 254; value-based motivation of, 255 Homogeneous marriage, 135 Homosexuality, 258; biblical interpretation of, 259 – 60; Buddhist views of, 261; Catholicism, traditions of, 261 – 62, 266; Christianity, traditions of, 261 – 64; defined, 260; modern debates concerning, 260; Protestantism, traditions of, 262 – 64, 266; reformation of views on, 265 – 66; Roman Catholics, traditions of, 261 – 62, 266; same-sex relationships, 259; sexual orientation and, 262 – 63, 266; sexual preference, language of, 265 – 66; transgender, defined, 264 – 65; transsexual, defined, 264 – 65 House music clubs, 436 – 37 Hromadka, Josef, 408, 409 Hucksterism: Aimee Semple McPherson, role of, 270; awakenings of, 267 – 70; Charles Grandison Finney, role of, 268 – 69; Christianity, role of, 269; church leaders, scandals, 270 – 73; Elmer Gantry, role of, 267 – 68; Jim Bakker, role of, 272 – 73; Jimmy Swaggart, role of, 272 – 73; Mormonism, role of, 270; Oral Roberts, role of, 271; Peter Popoff, role of, 270 – 71; religious scandals of, 267 – 73; revivals of, 267 – 70; Ted Haggard, role of, 267, 273; televangelists, role of, 271

520

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Index Humanae Vitae, publication of, 72, 73 – 74 Human body, caring for, 238 Human cloning project, 117 Human dignity: euthanasia and, 144 – 45; principles of, 480 – 81; protection of, 239 Human existence, 363 – 64 Human Genome Project, 206 Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV): causes of, 17, 22 – 23; children, infection of, 22; condoms, prevention of, 22; defined, 17; marriage, use of contraception, 20 – 22; prevention of, 19 – 20; testing for, controversies pertaining to, 18; transmission of, 18; women, infection of, 22 Humanitarianism, 209, 210 – 11, 447 Human rights, 481 Human sinfulness, 210 – 11 Humility, expression of, 485 – 86 Hungary, 275 Hutterites: anabaptist origins of, 274 – 76; authorities of, community, 279 – 80; baptism of, 277; Bruderhof and, 275, 276; children, induction of, 277; colonies, organization of, 276 – 77; communal life of, 276 – 78; communal living vs. individual freedom, 274 – 81; controversies of, 274; family life of, 276 – 78; history of, 274; Hungary, communal living of, 275; Jacob Hutter, role of, 275; legal rights of, 279 – 80; liberal vs. communal societies and, 280; marriage of, 277; Moravian, 275; North American, establishment of, 276; patriarchal authority structure of, 277; Prairieleut and, 276; priorities of, 277 – 78; routines of, 277 – 78; Russia, communal living of, 276; schisms of, 274 – 76; Schmiedeleut brotherhood and, 279 – 80; spiritual discipline of, 278; spiritual freedom vs. communal identity, 278 – 79; traditional farming communities vs. communal land ownership of, 280 – 81; Transylvania, communal living of, 275 – 76 Hutter, Jacob, 275 Hyper acute rejection, 376 Identity, self, 348 – 49 Ignorance, 97 Illegal immigration, 286 – 87 Immigration: anti-Catholicism and, 50 – 51; Asian, 285; Bible, ancient, 283 – 84; Border Patrol, role of, 288; Bracero Program and, 285 – 86; Catholicism, response to, 285; Chinese Exclusion Act and, 285; Christianity, response to, 283 – 84, 289 – 90; citizenship and, 287; defined, 283; economy, positives vs. negatives of, 286 – 87, 288; effects of, 283; employment and employers, benefits of, 288; European,

284 – 85; Exodus, Egypt and, 283 – 84; global effects of modern, 284; illegal, 286 – 87; Islam, response to, 290; Jesus, role of, 289; Judaism, response to, 283 – 84, 290; Muslims, 335; North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and, 285; Old Testament, teachings of, 289; Operation Gatekeeper, role of, 286, 287 – 88; opposition to, 288; phenomenon of, 283; political issues concerning, 287; rejection, history of, 284 – 85; religious response to, 289; Sensenbrenner-King Bill, role of, 286; United States, history of, 284; United States vs. Mexico, 285 – 88, 289 – 90 Immigration Act, 285 Immunosuppressant drugs, purpose of, 376 Incapacitation, 79 Incarnation, 157 Independent religious publishing, 414 – 15 Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA), 355 Indian gaming, 204 Indians, 101 Individualization, 184 Individuation, 5 – 6, 116 Industrialization, environmental policies of, 129, 130 Infertility, 114 Infinite regress, notion of, 121 Intelligent Design (IV), 174, 177 – 78, 180 Intent, stated, 39 Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship, 217 International Criminal Court, 215 In Vitro Fertilization, 116 Iqbal, Muhammad, 293 – 94 Iraq, 308 Iron John, 161 – 62 Irrational gambling, 202 – 3 Islam: animal sacrifice, rejection of, 41; condoms, beliefs of, 20; conservation, conversion to, 402 – 3; conversion rights debates and, 402; defined, 99; gambling, role of, 201; graphic arts, role of, 231; immigration, response to, 290; jailhouse conversions, 301; liberalism, conversion to, 402 – 3; missionary religion of, 402; Muslims, role and conflicts of, 333, 334 – 36; prison, 302; religion and civil disobedience, role of, 98, 99 – 100; religious conversion, role of, 400 – 404; terrorism, 474; world religion, 498 Islamic nationalism: Al-Afghani, role of, 292 – 93; concept of, 291; European colonialism and, 292; evolution of, 291; Free Officers, role of, 295; Hasan al-Banna, role of, 294; history of, 291 – 92; modernists of, 292 – 94; Muhammad Abduh, role of, 293; Muhammad Iqbal, role of, 293 – 94; Muslim Brothers, role of, 294 – 96; Muslim

Index | 521 League of Nations and, 294; Muslims, role of, 291, 292 – 94; Muslim World League and, 296; nationalism, concept of, 291; national loyalty, introduction to, 291; Sayyid Qutb, role of, 295; Society of Muslim Brothers and, 294 Israel: Christian Zionism, expansion of, 89, 92, 94, 95; dispensationalism, founding and importance of, 58, 169 Jackson era of health reform movements, 240 – 41 Jailhouse conversions: chapel, benefits of, 301; Christianity, role of, 301; Islam, role of, 301; Malcolm X, importance of, 301; Muslims, role of, 301; prison gangs and, 301; punishment, goal of, 301; racial groupings and, 301; recidivism, rate of, 302; religion, role of, 301 – 2; repentance and, 301; special favors, controversies with earning of, 302. See also Prison Jaina, 485, 487 Japan, 497 – 98 Jerusalem, 93 Jesus: Catholicism, ministry of, 186 – 87; divorce, role of, 139; evangelical, resurrection of, 157; health reform movements, healings of, 238; immigration, role of, 289; poverty, servant of, 64; Promise Keepers, honoring of, 164; Western cinema, story and role of, 492, 494 – 96; women, treatment of, 191 – 92 Jesus Christ Superstar (film), 491 – 92 Jesus of Montreal (film), 492 – 93 Jewish Zionism: Christian Zionism vs., 89, 90, 92; evangelicalism and, 92 – 93; history of, 92; Jerusalem, conquering of, 93; Judaism and, 92. See also Zionism Joan of Arcadia (television series), 395 Judaism: animal intelligence, higher, 245 – 46; animal sacrifice, rejection of, 41 – 42; condoms, beliefs of, 20; dispensationalism and, 57; faith-based health care, role of, 184; gambling, role of, 201; graphic arts, role of, 231; health reform movements, history of traditions of, 237 – 38; immigration, response to, 283 – 84, 290; neuroethics, 363; religion and civil disobedience, role of, 99, 102; religion, sponsorship and, 185 – 86; right-wing extremism, 431; separation of church and state, 464; terrorism, 474 – 75; world religion, 498 – 99; Zionism and, 92 Justice, 64, 483 – 84 Justice simplicity, 228 Just war theology: Catholicism, role of, 309; Christianity, role of, 309; conflicts, justified conduct in, 305 – 6; constructive synthesis of, 308 – 9; ethics of, 306; Iraq, role of, 308;

Martin Luther, role of, 306 – 8; Menno Simons, role of, 306 – 8; morality of, 306 – 8; notion of, 305; origins of, 305 – 6; pacifism and, 308 – 9; pacifism, concept of, 380 – 81; principles of, 305 – 6; proportionality of, 306; rejection of, 305; terrorism, ethics of, 473 – 74; tradition of, 305; war, justification of, 305 Kantians, 97 – 98 Khan, Abdul Ghaffar, 102 Kidney transplants, 375 Killing, human instinct of, 351, 379 King James Version Bible, proliferation of, 56 King, Jr., Martin Luther: religion and civil disobedience, 100, 101 – 2 King of Kings (film), 492 Kneeland, Abner, 232 Know-Nothings Party, 50 Ku Klux Klan, 51, 425 – 26 Land, importance of, 355 – 56 The Last Temptation of Christ (film), 491 Latin America, 314, 317 Latin American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM), 313 Left evangelical, 156 – 57, 158 Legal justice, 483 Lemon v. Kurtzman, 452 Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (LGB), goal of, 439 – 40 Lethal injection, 80 – 81 Lewis, C. S., 459 – 60 Liberal vs. communal societies, 280 Liberalism, 314, 402 – 4 Liberation theology, 65 – 67; Catholicism, role of, 311, 317; Christianity, role of, 311 – 12, 313 – 14, 317; communidades eclesiales de base (CEBs), role of, 313 – 14, 315, 317; defined, 311; evangelization and, 316; focus of, 314; founding of, 314; Gustavo Gutiérrez, role of, 311 – 12, 313, 314, 317; instructions of, 316; John Paul II, role of, 315 – 16; Jon Sobrino, role of, 311, 312; Juan Luis Segundo, role of, 311, 312; Karl Marx, role of, 314; Latin America, role of, 314, 317; leading figures of, 311 – 12; Leonardo Boff, role of, 311, 312, 313, 317; liberation, defined, 314; Marxism, rejection of, 314; Medellín conference and, 313 – 15; poverty and, 65 – 67; praxis and, 311 – 12, 313, 317; preferential option for the poor and, 311; Protestantism, role of, 311; Puebla conference and, 315 – 16; Santo Domingo conference and, 316 – 17; themes of, 314 – 15; theology of liberation and, 313; tone of, 315; Vatican II, response of, 312 – 13, 316 Life beyond Earth, 24

522

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Index Living-donor organ transplants, 377 Lost (television series), 396 Lottery, 200 Lundskow, George, 164 – 67 Lung transplant, 375 Lutheranism, 185 Luther, Martin: apocalypticism, 55; just war theology, 306 – 8 MADD (Mothers against Drunk Driving), 13 Magic, 238, 239 Majoritarian argument, 389 Malcolm X: African Americans, importance of, 341, 344 – 45; jailhouse conversions, 301; Muslims, 334 Manifest destiny, 464, 466 Manual healing, 243 Marginalized groups, protection of euthanasia, 146, 151 Marketing religion: advertising and, 324; capitalism, legitimacy of, 84 – 86; controversies of, 319 – 20; direct, church and church organizations, 320 – 21; economy, effects of, 319; free publicity and, 320; history of, 321 – 23; home schooling, resources for, 257; media and, 324; The Passion of the Christ, importance of, 319, 321; proliferation of, 323 – 25; publishing industry and, 323, 325; religious publishing, 411 – 12; standardization’s of, 323; television and, 324 – 25; Wal-Mart, sales of, 323 Marriage, 325; Catholicism, role of, 331; Christianity, role of, 328; cohabitation, rise of, 329; condoms, use of, 20; contraception, use of, 20 – 22; covenant, 330; Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), role of, 330; defined, 440; divorce, rise of, 329; Hebrew Scriptures, depiction of, 327; Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), use of contraception, 20 – 22; Hutterites, 277; Muslims, beliefs of, 335; New Testament, sanctity of, 328; same-sex, debates regarding, 330 – 32; sexual intercourse and, 20; sexuality, commitment to, 326; theological debates concerning, 327, 331 – 32; theological traditions of, 328 – 29. See also Sexuality Marxism: liberation theology, rejection of, 314; poverty, concept of, 67; socialism and, 85 Marx, Karl, 314 Masculinity, 161 Massachusetts, 443 – 44 Mass dissemination of graphic arts, 230 Matter, defined, 39 McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union, 422 – 24 McPherson, Aimee Semple, 270

McVeigh, Timothy, 427 Means, identification of, 39 Medellín conference, 313 – 15 Media: glorification of, 350 – 51; marketing religion and, 324; types of, 44 Medicalization of gambling, 202 – 3 Medical tourism, 377 Memorial Day, 348 Memory-enhancing drugs, 361 Men’s gatherings, 162 Men’s movements: Evangelical, 160 – 67; history of, 162 – 63; Iron John, role of, 161 – 62; masculinity and, 161; men’s gatherings and, 162; patriarchalism and, 162; psychological revolution of, 161; religion, role of, 162 – 63; sexuality and, 161; women, role of, 160 – 61 Mercy, 63 – 64 Messiah figures of science fiction, 461 – 62 Michigan, 147 – 48 Middle Ages, 239 Middle Eastern conflict, 59 Middle East Road Map, 94 Militarism, 347; Amish, 35; defined, 350; killing, human instinct of, 351; media, glorification of, 350 – 51; military vs., 350; nationalism vs., 349 – 50, 352 Military vs. militarism, 350 Militias, 426, 428 Million Man March, 346 Mind-body interventions, 243 Mind reading, 359, 362 Minimum wage debate, 88 Missionary religion, 401 – 2 Missionary work, 400, 401 – 2 Molestation of minors, 104 Moon, Sun Myung, 370 Moorish Science Temple Movement, 341 – 42 Moral persuasion, 240 Moratorium, 80 Moravian Hutterites, 275 Mormonism: health reform movements, role of, 240, 241; hucksterism, 270 “Morning after pill,” 8 Movements, defined, 367 Mozambique, 406 – 7 Muhammad, Elijah, 343, 345 Muhammad, Fard, 343 Muhammad, Warith, 345 Multicultural Man, 166 – 67 Muscular Christianity, 162 – 63 Muslim Brothers, 294 – 96 Muslim League of Nations, 294 Muslims: African American, 334 – 35; African Americans, 341 – 42; American, modern, 336; California, home of, 333 – 34; citizenship of, 333; conflicts concerning, 335 – 36; Europe, role of Western, 332, 337 – 39; faith of, 336; France, role of, 338;

Index | 523 Great Britain, role of, 338; immigration of, 335; Islamic nationalism, 291, 292 – 94; Islam, role and conflicts of, 333, 334 – 36; jailhouse conversions, 301; Malcolm X, importance of, 334; marriage, beliefs of, 335; Nation of Islam (NOI), 341; North America, history of, 333 – 34; prison, 302 – 3; religious conversion, 403; September 11th, 2001 attacks, 336 – 37; terrorism and, 336 – 37; women, role of, 336; worship of, American, 336 Muslim World League, 296 National Association of Evangelicals, 159 Nationalism, 347; concept of, 291; defined, 349; evolution of, 349 – 50; identity, self, 348 – 49; ideology of, 349; militarism vs., 349 – 50, 352; nation-state and, 349; religion vs., 351 – 52; statehood vs., 349. See also Militarism; Religion Nationalist movements, 341 – 42 National loyalty, introduction to, 291 National Review Board (NRB) report, 107, 108 – 9 Nation of Islam (NOI), 341 – 47; Christianity, role of, 341; controversial teachings of, 341, 344; defined, 341; Elijah Muhammad, role of, 343, 345; entrepreneurship and, 347; founding of, 341 – 42; Louis Farrakhan, role of, 345 – 46, 347; Muslims, role of, 341; teachings of, 343 – 44; United States, presence of, 345 – 46; values of, 344; Warith Muhammad, role of, 345. See also African Americans Nation-state, 349 Native American Church (NAC), 357 Native Americans: American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), purpose of, 355, 357; burial sites, controversies concerning, 356; challenges of, 353; federal recognition of, 357 – 58; gambling, rise of, 199, 203 – 5; Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, purpose of, 356; history of, 353 – 55; Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA), purpose of, 355; land, importance of, 355 – 56; Native American Church (NAC), role of, 357; new religious movement (NRM), 366; peyote, use of, 353, 356 – 58; prison, 302; religious freedom of, 353 – 58; reservations, limited, 354; separation of church and state, 464; United States vs., 353 – 55 Natural world, 131 – 32 Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), 342 Neo-evangelical, 153 Neurobiology, 359 Neuroethics: bioethics of, 358, 359; brainmachine interfaces, 360, 361 – 62; challenges of, 358 – 59; Christianity, role of,

363; ethics of neuroscience, 363 – 65; freedom, human, 364 – 65; free will and, 364; human existence and, 363 – 64; Judaism, role of, 363; memory-enhancing drugs, 361; neurobiology and, 359; neurological enhancement, 359, 360 – 62; neuroscience, ethics of, 358, 359 – 62; offlabel use of drugs, 361; privacy, 362 Neurological enhancement, 359, 360 – 62 Neuroscience, ethics of, 358, 359 – 62 New Age movement, 242 – 43 New evangelicalism, 156 New Monastic movement, 219 New religious movement (NRM): Africa, role of, 366; Asia, role of, 366; Christianity, role of, 366; Church of Scientology, role of, 369, 370 – 71; court cases concerning, 368 – 70; cults and, 368; defined, 365 – 68; ethnicity of, 368; financial activities of, 369; growth industry, expansion of, 365 – 71; movements, defined, 367; Native America, role of, 366; prosperity and, 371; public, general, 370 – 71; recruitment, issues concerning, 370 – 71; solicitation of funds, issues concerning, 370 – 71; Sun Myung Moon, role of, 370; timeline of, 367; Western beliefs of, 367 New Testament: apocalypticism and, 54; Christianity, interpretations of, 401; marriage, sanctity of, 328; women, role of, 191 – 93 No-fault policy, 135 – 36 Non-Christianity, 104 Non-Christian markets, 414 Non governmental organizations (NGOs), 476 Nonviolence pacifism, 379 Nonviolent direct action pacifism, 379 North America: evangelical, role of, 153; Hutterites, establishment of, 276; Muslims, history of, 333 – 34; Muslims, modern, 336 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 285 North Korea, 407 – 8 Nuclear energy and weapons, development of, 407 Nuclearism, 59 – 60 Obedience, role of, 97 – 99 Occupied Territories, 95 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 454 – 55 Off-label use of drugs, 361 Old Earth Creationism (OEC), 174, 176 – 77 Old Order vs. change-minded Amish, 32 – 34 Old Testament, 289 On demand abortion, 3 1000 C.E., importance of, 55 Operation Gatekeeper, 286, 287 – 88 Oregon Death and Dignity Act (DDA), 147 Organ donors, demand for, 376 – 77

524

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Index Organ failure, 373 – 74 Organ transplants: anesthesia and, 374; “Baby Fae” and, 377; brain transplants, 377 – 78; death, causes of, 373; deceased-donor, 377; defined, 374; ethics of, 376; heart failure and, 374; heart transplants, 375, 376; immunosuppressant drugs, purpose of, 376; kidney transplants, 375; living-donor, 377; lung transplant, 375; medical tourism, 377; organ donors, demand for, 376 – 77; organ failure and, 373 – 74; rejection of, types of, 374 – 75, 376; surgery and, 374; timeline of successful, 375; xenotransplantation and, 377 Orthodox Christianity, 116 Osteen, Joel, 225 Outka, Gene, 483 Out of the Silent Planet (film), 461 Pacifism: alternative service, engagement of, 384; Buddhism, 379 – 80; Christianity, role of, 379 – 81, 383, 384; conscientious objectors of, 384; extreme, 383; history of religious, 379 – 80; just war, concept of, 380 – 81; just war theology and, 308 – 9; killing, refusal of, 379; Mahatma Gandhi, role of, 384 – 85; nonviolence, 379; nonviolent direct action, 379; political nonviolence vs. personal, 379 – 86; Protestantism, role of, 381; religious movements, role of, 384 – 86; twentieth century, 383; violence, beliefs of, 379. See also Buddhism Pagan asceticism, 239 Palestine, 91, 93 Palestinian Christians, 89 Pardons, 82 Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC), 437 Parliament of the World’s Religions, 410 Parochial schools, 454 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (2003), 7 Partnership-focused home schooling, 255 The Passion of the Christ (film), 319, 321, 489 – 91 Pathological gambling, 202 – 4 Patriarchal authority structure, 277 Patriarchalism, 162, 164 – 65 Paul II, John: clergy sex abuse, role of, 107; liberation theology, 315 – 16; world religion, 500 Pauline Epistles, 192 – 93 Pedagogical home schooling, 254 – 55 Pedophiles, 110 Pentecostalism, 156, 157 – 58 Personal simplicity, 227 Peyote, use of, 353, 356 – 58 Pharmacological treatments, 243 Physical death, 148 – 49 Physician-assisted suicide, 141 – 51

Physicians, assistance of death penalty, 81 Pill, invention of, 69 – 70 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (film), 496 Plan B, 8 Pluralism, 467 – 68 Poetics of Promise Keepers, 166 Point-focused home schooling, 255 Political nonviolence vs. personal pacifism, 379 – 86 Political Research Associates, 429 Popoff, Peter, 270 – 71 Positive Confession Movement, 224 Postmillennialism of evangelicalism, 155 Poverty: analyzing structures of, 67; Bible and, 63 – 68; biblical themes on, 63 – 64; class system and, 67 – 68; defined, 65 – 66; equality and, 67 – 68; Jesus, servant of, 64; justice and, 64; liberation theology and, 65 – 67; Marxism, concept of, 67; mercy and, 63 – 64; salvation and, 64; societal obligations and, 63; suffering and, 64; theological debates concerning, 65 – 67; vision of, 64 Prairieleut, 276 Praxis, 311 – 12, 313, 317 Prayer, healing through, 239 Prayer, public schools: arguments concerning, 389 – 90; captive audiences and, 389; Christianity, role of, 390; Christian nation argument, 389; controversies concerning, 388 – 92; debated concerning, 386 – 92; educational benefits argument, 390 – 91; employees, restrictions of, 389; First Amendment, history of, 386, 387; God, existence of, 390; majoritarian argument, 389; misperceptions of, 389; Protestantism, role of, 390; religious accommodation argument, 390, 391; religious community argument, 390, 391; religious leaders, restrictions of, 389; religious symbols, 419; Supreme Court cases concerning, 388 Pregnancy: Catholicism and, 189; due to rape, 189 Presbyterianism, 185 Preventative medicine, 242 Priests, 111 – 12, 196 Primal research, 247 Prime time (television) religion: Battlestar Galactica, importance of, 396 – 97; The Book of Daniel, importance of, 394 – 95; Christianity, role of, 394 – 95; Christian programming and, 393 – 94; Joan of Arcadia, importance of, 395; Lost, importance of, 396; religious-based programs and, 393; Rescue Me, importance of, 395 – 96; salvation, role of, 395 – 96; Saving Grace, importance of, 396; 7th Heaven, importance of, 394; Sleeper Cell,

Index | 525 importance of, 395; television, role of, 393; theological debates concerning, 393; Touched By An Angel, importance of, 394 Prison: Bible, history of, 299; cells, institution of, 300; Christianity, role of, 299 – 300, 302; Islam, role of, 302; jailhouse conversions and, 299 – 303; ministries of, experimental, 302 – 3; Muslims, role of, 302 – 3; Native Americans, role of, 302; prisoners, reformation of, 300 – 301; Prison Fellowship, establishment of, 302; radical recruitment and, 303; radicalization of, 303; recidivism of, 303; reformation of, 303; religion, history and concerns of, 299 – 301, 303; solitary confinement and, 300; statistics of system, 299 Prisoners, reformation of, 300 – 301 Prison Fellowship, 302 Prison gangs, 301 Privacy and neuroethics, 362 Problem gambling, 202 – 4 Procreation, importance of, 326 Promise Keepers: attendance of, statistics, 163; biblical unity and, 164; budget of, 163; church, commitment to, 164; Evangelical men’s movements, role of, 160, 163 – 67; Expressive Egalitarian vs., 166; founding of, 163; gender, politics of, 165; George Lundskow, role of, 164 – 67; ideology of, 164; Jesus, honoring of, 164; Multicultural Man, role of, 166 – 67; muscular Christianity, role of, 163; origins of, 160; patriarchalism and, 164 – 65; Poetics of, 166; promises of, seven, 1564; purities of, commitment to, 164; Rational Patriarch vs., 165 – 66; servant-leader, concept of, 165; Stand in the Gap march, role of, 163; Tender Warrior, role of, 166 Prophetic eschatlogy, 208, 209 Prosperity, 371 Prosperity and Cornwall Alliance, 219 Prosperity Theology, 217 – 23 Protestant. See evangelical Protestant Christianity, 104, 217 Protestantism: apocalypticism and, 54, 55; homosexuality, 262 – 64, 266; liberation theology, 311; pacifism, 381; prayer, public schools, 390; separation of church and state, 464 Psychological death, 148 – 49 Psycho pharmacology, 360 Psycho surgery, 359 – 60 Pubescence, 110 Public schools: creationism and, 174 – 81; evolution and, 174 – 81; home schooling, alternative to, 252, 256. See also Prayer, Public schools Puebla conference, 315 – 16 Punishment, goal of, 301

Puritanism, 154, 157, 464 Puritan Revolution, 55 – 56 Puritans, 499 Quakers, 464 Qutb, Sayyid, 295 Rabbis, role of, 104 Racial groupings, 301 Radical recruitment, 303 Racism, 342, 427 Radical environmentalism, 127 – 32 Radicalization, 303 Rahman, Abdul, 402 – 3 Ramsey, Paul, 209 Rapture, 57 Rationalism, German, 155 – 56 Rational Patriarch vs. Promise Keepers, 165 – 66 Reagan, Ronald, 170 – 71 Rebellion, 97, 433 Recidivism, rate of, 302, 303 Recipient(s) of sacrifice, 39 Refugees, plights of, 446, 449 Rehabilitation, 79 Rejection, history of, 284 – 85 Rejection of organs, types of, 374 – 75, 376 Religion, 347, 351 – 52; divinity and, 351; faith-based health care, role of, 183 – 89; genocide vs., 211 – 12, 214; global warming, role of, 221; God, relationship with, 351; graphic arts vs., 229 – 30; group solidarity and, 351; healing, goal of, 183; identities of, effect on health care, 187 – 89; jailhouse conversions, 301 – 2; Judaism, sponsorship and, 185 – 86; Lutheranism, sponsorship of, 185; morality of, 184; nationalism vs., 351 – 52; organizational identity, role of, 184; Presbyterianism, sponsorship of, 185; school funding, history of, 451; science fiction vs., 458 – 60; Seventh-Day Adventism, sponsorship of, 185; sponsorship and, health care, 183, 185 – 87; transcendents and, 351. See also Catholicism; Christianity, role of Religion and civil disobedience, 99 – 101; Abdul Ghaffar Khan, role of, 102; African Americans and, 100; approach to, 101 – 3; British, role of, 101; Christianity, role of, 98, 99; Declaration of Independence, rebellion of, 100; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, role of, 102 – 3; ethics of, 98, 103; faith and, 99, 100; Indians, role of, 101; Islam, role of, 98, 99 – 100; Judaism and, 99, 102; kantians and, 97 – 98; Martin Luther King, Jr., role of, 100, 101 – 2; Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, role of, 101 – 3; obedience, role of, 97 – 99; philosophy of, 98; politics and, 102; resolution of, approaches to, 100; role of, 97;

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Index social contract theory and, 97, 98; Truth and, 101 – 2; umma, breaking of, 98; utilitarians and, 97. See also God Religious accommodation argument, 390, 391 Religious-based programs, 393 Religious community argument, 390, 391 Religious conversion, 400 – 404; Abdul Rahman, role of, 402 – 3; Afghanistan, role of, 402 – 3; conflicts concerning, 400; Egypt, role of, 403; First Amendment and, 399; foreign policy, issues concerning, 402; human rights of, 399 – 400; missionary work and, 400 – 401; Muslims, role of, 403; religious freedom and, 399 – 400; United Nations, freedom of, 400 – 401. See also Christianity; Islam Religious diplomacy: Beagle Channel dispute and, 406; Carter Center, role of, 408; Christianity, role of, 408; Christian Peace Conference (CPC), establishment of, 408 – 9; Community of Sant´ Egidio organization and, 406, 407; conflicts, resolutions of, 406 – 8; Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, establishment of, 410; diplomacy, defined, 405 – 6; Dom Jaime Goncalves, role of, 407; international cooperation concerning, 408 – 10; Josef Hromadka, role of, 408, 409; Mozambique, role of, 406 – 7; North Korea, role of, 407 – 8; nuclear energy and weapons, development of, 407; Parliament of the World’s Religions, establishment of, 410; World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP), establishment of, 409 – 10; World’s Parliament of Religions, establishment of, 409; Zionists, role of, 408 Religious freedom, 399 – 400 Religious publishing: Bible, 412 – 13; children, marketing to, 413; Christian Booksellers Association (CBA), role of, 415; Christianity, role of, 413 – 15; Christian Living, 413 – 14; consolidation, factors of, 415; growth of, 412; independent, 414 – 15; international conglomerates of, 414 – 15; marketing of, 411 – 12; non-Christian markets and, 414; segmentation of, 412 – 14; surge of, 411 Religious response to aids: concerns pertaining to, 17; educational teachings and, 18 – 19; marriage, use of contraception, 20 – 22; prevention and, 19 – 20 Religious right, 158 – 59 Religious symbols: courts, role of, 419 – 20; Establishment Clause, interpretations of, 418 – 20; First Amendment and, 418; Fourteenth Amendment and, 418 – 19; Free Exercise Clause, 418; governmental role of, 419 – 20; government property and, 417 – 25; laws concerning public displays of, 424 – 25;

school prayer, laws and, 419; Supreme Court cases, 420 – 21; Supreme Court Justices, role of, 420, 423; Ten Commandments, laws and cases concerning, 419, 421 – 24 Religious Zionism, 91 – 92 Remarriage, 140 Repentance, 301 Replacement theology, 92 Reproductive technology debates, 71 Rescue Me (television series), 395 – 96 Reservations, limited, 354 Resource vendors for home schooling, 257 Respect for persons, principles of, 482 Retribution, 79 Revolutionary violence vs. terrorism, 473 Rhythm and blues, 433, 436 Rhythm method of birth control, 73 Rieke, Elwood “Woody,” 225 – 26 Right-wing extremism: anti-government, views on, 427; Branch Davidian religious movement, siege of, 428; characteristics of, 427 – 29; Christian Identity movements, role of, 426, 430 – 31; Christianity, role of, 431; Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) and, 426; defined, 426 – 27; Democracy, views on, 427; extremists, characteristics of, 427 – 29; groups, types of, 425 – 26; hate groups, characteristics of, 427 – 29; history, conspiracy view of, 427; identity of, 427; ideologies of, 425; Judaism, role of, 431; Ku Klux Klan, role of, 425 – 26; membership of, 426 – 27; militias of, 426, 428; organizations of, limitations of activities, 429; racism and, 427; Randy Weaver, member of, 428; Southern Poverty Law Center and, 426; Timothy McVeigh, growth of, 427; universalism and, 431; war, good vs. evil, 430 Roberts, Oral, 271 Rock music: African Americans, role of, 433 – 34; Alan Freed, role of, 432 – 33; artists of, famous, 434 – 35; Christianity, ethics of, 432 – 37; dance, contemporary, 436; gospel blues, 434; gospel music, 434; history of, 432; house music clubs, role of, 436 – 37; Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC), 437; push pull dynamic of, 435, 437; rebellion, promotion of, 433; rhythm and blues, role of, 433, 436; secular music and, 434, 435; Tupac Shakur, role of, 435 – 36; underground dance sub-genre of, 436 Roman Catholicism, 104, 185, 186 – 87, 261 – 62, 266 Russia, 276 Ryan, George, 78 Sacrifice, 39 Safe Environment programs, 109, 113

Index | 527 Saints, healing of, 239 Salvation, 64, 170, 395 – 96 Same-sex marriage: background of, 439 – 40; Christian Coalition, role of, 442; civil unions, support for, 443 – 44; conservative ideologies of, 441 – 42; debates regarding, 330 – 32; defense of marriage legislation, control of, 442 – 43; Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, 441; family values and, 440; gay rights activists, support of, 440 – 41; lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (LGB), goal of, 439 – 40; liberal ideologies of, 440 – 41; marriage, defined, 440; Massachusetts, legalities of, 443 – 44; opposition to, 444; state/federal responses of debate concerning, 442 – 43 Same-sex relationships, 259 Sanctity of life, 150 – 51 Sanctuary Movement: civil disobedience and, 447; court cases concerning, 448 – 49; efforts of, 448; founders of, 447; future of, 450; history of, 445 – 46; humanitarianism and, 447; orientations of, 447; political asylum and, 449; refugees, plights of, 446, 449 Sandy Cove Covenant and Invitation, 172 – 73 Santo Domingo conference, 316 – 17 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 86 Saving Grace (television series), 396 Schmiedeleut brotherhood, 279 – 80 Scholarly skepticism, 248 – 49 School funding: buildings, 452; child benefit doctrine and, 451; Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program (CSTP), role of, 453 – 54; Elementary and Secondary Education Act, role of, 451 – 52; establishment clause and, 451; Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Office, role of, 456 – 57; faith-based initiatives of, 455 – 57; First Amendment and, 451; Lemon v. Kurtzman, importance of, 452; parochial schools, 454; religion, history of, 451; Sandra Day O’Connor, role of, 454 – 55; secular purpose of, 452; Simmon-Harris v. Zelman, importance of, 454, 455; Supreme Court cases concerning, 451 – 52; vouchers for, 453 – 55 Science fiction: apocalyptic visions of, 462 – 63; authors of, 459; Ben Bova, role of, 460; C. S. Lewis, role of, 459 – 60; faith, melding of, 460; Kurt Vonnegut, role of, 460; messiah figures of, 461 – 62; Out of the Silent Planet and, 461; Philip Jose Farmer, role of, 460; Philip K. Dick, role of, 461; religion vs., 458 – 60; Stranger in a Strange Land and, 462; Superman, 462 Science, role of creationism, 177, 180 Scopes Trial, 179 Second Coming of Christ, 240

Second Great Awakening, 154, 168, 241 Second-wave revivalism, 154, 157 Secular music, 434, 435 Secular vs. sacred identity, 464 – 65 Segundo, Juan Luis, 311, 312 Self-determination, importance of, 66 Self-realization, 128, 129 Self-rule, 144 – 45 Self-transformation, 381 – 82 Sensenbrenner-King Bill, 286 Sentient species, 244 Separation of church and state: Baptists, role of, 464; Catholicism, role of, 464; Christianity, role of, 464, 467; civil religion, role of, 466 – 67; godless Communism and, 467; history of, 463 – 64; Judaism, role of, 464; manifest destiny of, 464, 466; Native Americans, role of, 464; pluralism, growth of, 467 – 68; political ethics of, 465; Protestantism, role of, 464; Puritanism, role of, 464; Quakers, role of, 464; religious ethics of, 465; Robert Bellah, role of, 466; secular vs. sacred identity and, 464 – 65; wall of separation and, 465; Will Herberg, role of, 466 September 11th, 2001 attacks, 336 – 37 Servant-leader, concept of, 165 SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) project, 26 Setting, identification of, 39 7th Heaven (television series), 394 Seventh-Day Adventism, 185, 240 Sexual abuse of minors, 105, 109 – 10, 111 Sexual harassment, 104, 189 Sexual intercourse, 20 Sexuality: celibacy and, 326 – 27; Christianity, conceptions of, 327; functions of, 325, 326; marriage, commitment to, 326; men’s movements and, 161; procreation, importance of, 326; theological debates concerning, 326 – 27 Sexual orientation, 262 – 63, 266 Sexual preference, language of, 265 – 66 Shadow theater, use of, 44 Shakur, Tupac, 435 – 36 Simmon-Harris v. Zelman, 454, 455 Simons, Menno, 306 – 8 Sin, cause of illness, 238 – 39 Sinful gambling, 202 Single-frame exposures, use of, 45 Six Day War, 93 Sleeper Cell (television series), 395 Slide projection, use of, 45 Slippery slope argument, 146 Sobrino, Jon, 311, 312 Social contract theory, 97, 98 Social injustice, 132 Socialism: advantages of, 83; capitalism vs., 83 – 88; disadvantages of, 83; market,

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Index legitimacy of, 85 – 86; Marxism and, 85; minimum wage debate and, 87 – 88; theological debates pertaining to, 83, 86, 87; types of, 85 Social justice, 483 Social Security System, 36 Society of Muslim Brothers, 294 Solicitation of funds, issues concerning, 370 – 71 Solidarity, 52 – 53 Solitary confinement, 300 Somatic cell therapy, 206 Sound tracks, use of synchronized, 45 – 46 South American Bishops Conference, 315 – 17 South Dakota, 5 Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 426, 429, 431 Sovereignty, 150 Special favors, controversies with earning of, 302 Species loyalty, 244 Spiritual death, 148 – 49 Spiritual formation, 475 Spiritual freedom vs. communal identity, 278 – 79 Spirituality, 139, 241 – 42, 243 Sponsorship: Catholicism and, 185; faithbased health care, role of, 183; religion, health care, 183, 185 – 87 Stand in the Gap march, 163 Statehood vs. nationalism, 349 State-sponsored gambling, 199 Stem-cell research vs. cloning, 115 Sterilization, 189 Stewardship, 210 Stranger in a Strange Land (film), 462 Submission, 99 Subsidiarity, principles of, 66, 482 Suffering, 64, 149 – 50 Superman, 462 Superstition, 239 Supreme Court Justices, 420, 423 Surgery, 374 Swaggart, Jimmy, 272 – 73 Teachers, qualifications of, 254 Teenage marriage, 134 – 35 Televangelists, role of, 271 Television, 46, 324 – 25, 393 Temperance Movement, 241 Ten Commandments, 419, 421 – 24 Tender Warrior, 166 Terminal sedation, practice of, 143 – 44 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (film), 495 Terrorism: Christianity, role of, 474; combating, 475 – 76; corrosive grievance and, 475, 476; defined, 471 – 72; dehumanizing hatred and, 475 – 76; discouragement of, 473 – 74; God, beliefs of,

473; Islam, role of, 474; Judaism, role of, 474 – 75; justifications of, 473; just war ethics of, 473 – 74; Muslims and, 336 – 37; non governmental organizations (NGOs), role of, 476; religious ethics of, 472 – 75; revolutionary violence vs., 473; spiritual formation and, 475 Theistic evolution, 177 Theological debate: on abortion, 2 – 5; addiction, 13, 16; alcoholism as a disease, 11; aliens and, 24, 27, 28 – 29; animation, 47 – 48; anti-Catholicism, 51 – 52; birth control, pertaining to, 71 – 74; capitalism, 83, 86; Catholicism and, 3 – 4; Christianity and, 3; cloning, 115 – 17; cosmotheology, study of, 27, 29; critiquing of, 2; death penalty, 81 – 82; death, process of, 148 – 49; euthanasia and, 148 – 51; female subordination, 191; general views on, 2 – 3; Gospel of Prosperity, 225 – 27; Islam and, 4 – 5; Judaism and, 4 – 5; life beyond Earth, 24; marriage, 327, 331 – 32; poverty, 65 – 67; prime time (television) religion, 393; sanctity of life and, 150 – 51; science fiction/ religious themed novels, 28 – 29; sexuality, 326 – 27; significance of, 2; socialism, 83, 86, 87; sovereignty and, 150; suffering and, 149 – 50; women, 194 – 96 Theological eschatlogy, 208, 209 Theology, defined, 30 Theology of liberation, 313 Thiessen, Gesa Elsbeth, 499 – 500 Third Clean Living Movement, 241 – 42 Third Great Awakening, 241 Touched By An Angel (television series), 394 Traditional farming communities vs. communal land ownership of, 280 – 81 Traditional Values Coalition, 158 – 59 Transgender homosexuality, 264 – 65 Transsexual homosexuality, 264 – 65 Transylvania, 275 – 76 Truth, 99, 102 – 3 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 215 Truth force, 101 Truth-seeking process, 101 Tsongas, Paul, 171 – 72 Twelve Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, 11 – 12, 15 – 16 Two-kingdom approach, 100 Umma, breaking of, 98 Underground dance sub-genre, 436 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 400 – 401 United States: divorce, statistics of, 134; immigration, history of, 284; Mexican immigration, 285 – 88, 289 – 90; Nation of Islam (NOI), presence of, 345 – 46; Native Americas vs., 353 – 55

Index | 529 Universal health care: Catholicism, role of, 483 – 84; common good, principles of, 482; concept of, 479; confusion regarding, 479 – 80; Gene Outka, role of, 483; health insurance, role of, 479; human dignity, principles of, 480 – 81; human rights and, 481; justice, principles of, 483 – 84; myths regarding, 480; Nigel M. de S. Cameron, role of, 481; objection to, 479; religious ethical issues of, 479 – 84; respect for persons, principles of, 482; rights to, 481; social dimensions of, 480; social justice and, 483 Universalism, 431 Universe big bang cosmology, 123 Utilitarians, 97 Value-based motivation, 255 Van Orden v. Perry, 422 – 24 Vatican, 70 Vatican II, 312 – 13, 316 Vegetarianism: Buddhist, role of, 485, 487; Christianity, role of, 485; Hinduism, role of, 485, 486; humility, expression of, 485 – 86; Jaina, role of, 485, 487; organizations, support of, 487; religious ethics of, 485 – 87; rules of, 486 Veneration of relics, 239 Violence, 214, 379, 402 Voluntary vs. involuntary euthanasia, 142, 145 Voluntary simplicity, 227 – 28 Vonnegut, Kurt, 460 Vouchers, 453 – 55 Wall of separation, 465 Wal-Mart, 8, 323 Walt Disney, 45 – 46 Warfare and civil disobedience, 97 War, good vs. evil, 430 War, justification of, 305 Watt, James, 170 – 71 Weak anthropic principle (WAP), 123 – 24 Weaver, Randy, 428 Western cinema: Babette’s Feast and, 495; Godspell and, 491 – 92; The Gospel According to Matthew and, 492; The Greatest Story Ever Told and, 492; Jesus Christ Superstar and, 491 – 92; Jesus of Montreal and, 492 – 93; Jesus, story and role of, 492, 494 – 96; King of Kings and, 492; The Last

Temptation of Christ and, 491; The Passion of the Christ and, 489 – 91; Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and, 496; Terminator 2: Judgment Day and, 495; zeitgeist culture and, 489 Western deep ecology, 131 Western Europe, 332, 337 – 39 Western Health Reform Institute, 240 – 41 Wildlife, preservation of, 131 Women: Christianity, role of, 160 – 61, 193 – 94; Church, importance of, 195 – 96; female subordination and, 191 – 96; health reform movement and, 241; Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), infection of, 22; Jesus’ treatment of, 191 – 92; men vs., natural sexual differences of, 194 – 96; men’s movements, role of, 160 – 61; Muslims, role of, 336; New Testament, role of, 191 – 93; Pauline Epistles, role of, 192 – 93; as priests, ordination of, 196; religious leadership of, 192; theological debates concerning, 194 – 96 Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Act, 5 World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP), 409 – 10 World Faith Movement, 224 World religion: aesthetics of, 497 – 500; Christianity, role of, 499; Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, role of, 499 – 500; Hinduism, role of, 497; Islam, role of, 498; Japanese, role of, 497 – 98; John Paul II, role of, 500; Judaism, role of, 498 – 99; Puritans, role of, 499 World’s Parliament of Religions, 409 Worthiness, 144 Xenotransplantation, 377 Yom Kippur War, 92, 93 – 94 Young Earth Creationism (YEC), 174, 176 – 77 Zeitgeist culture, 489 Zionism: advocates of, 91; Christian vs. Jewish, 90 – 92; dispensationalism and, 92 – 93; evangelicalism vs., 92 – 93; history of, 90 – 92; Holocaust and, 91; Judaism and, 92; Palestine, restoration of, 91, 93; Religious, 91 – 92; Yom Kippur War and, 92 Zionists, 408 Zoroastrianism, 41