WAYNE MILLER: I sold a silver dollar about three years ago for $525,000.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: The Book of Matthew says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Wayne Miller takes that scripture seriously.

WAYNE MILLER: I have a concern for these people when they go up, and I believe in a heaven and a non-heaven, when they go up there how are they going to explain, you know, what they’ve done with their money?

SEVERSON: Miller knows about money. He’s made enough of it. His little coin shop in downtown Helena, Montana has done more than $325 million in business since it opened 45 years ago. This is his son, Dave.

DAVE MILLER: Seriously, when they get any money their first thought is who can we bless? Who can we give this money to? I say that out of every $1,000 my dad gives $999 of it away without even thinking.

SEVERSON: Over the years, Miller has given away millions of dollars to charities all over the world, especially to the people of Helena. He knows that some have taken advantage of his and his wife’s generosity but says they would rather err on the side of love.

WAYNE MILLER: God doesn’t ask you about your ability or your inability. He asks you about your availability, and we happened to be available at a time when people were wanting to start a shelter.

SEVERSON: They called it God’s Love, and as homeless shelters go this one stands apart.

ANN MILLER: Unconditional love—you know, everybody talks about that, but what that means to us is that before they ever walk in the door the first time, we already love them. We don’t wait to see who they are or how they act or what their problem is or if they’re lazy. We already love them.

SEVERSON: Joe Wojton, one of God’s Love managers, has worked in other shelters around the country.

JOE WOJTON: Everybody who comes through our door are people with problems, not problem people, and we treat everybody with love when they come through our door because we realize the people we’re seeing—some have never been homeless before. This is a very scary experience, and we try to love them up the best we can.

SEVERSON: The shelter usually accommodates about 40 homeless downstairs and has rooms for nine families upstairs. But most of the people they feed here are not homeless. They have jobs and live in the community.

DAVE MILLER: People rely on us in the middle of the month to eat down here. They know the food stamps and the food boxes are only going to make it a couple of weeks, so they rely on us to come down, on their ability to come down and eat.

ANN MILLER: It doesn’t take a lot of misfortune to be on the street these days. I think everybody in America knows that right now.

SEVERSON: Dave Miller runs God’s Love and gives 10 percent of his salary back to the shelter.

DAVE MILLER: Yeah, we’ve seen a big change. Every day we have families that come in and say, “My husband had a great job making a lot of money. He got laid off. We can’t make next month’s rent.” Unfortunately, it used to be just couples. Now we’re seeing them with children.

SEVERSON: People like John and Krista Loweman, who is pregnant. Both were employed in South Carolina until they lost their jobs and came west looking for work and landed here.

(speaking to John Loweman): So you came here looking for work?

JOHN LOWEMAN: Yes, looking for work, anything, just a better life for me,my wife and my baby.

SEVERSON: But there was no jobs?

JOHN LOWEMAN: No, sir.

KRISTA LOWEMAN: Nothing, not even for me, and I’ve been to school.

ANN MILLER: We tell them that they can have three days no questions asked, just rest, eat, do their laundry, but after that they have to have a plan, and their plan usually is to find a job. But they can’t find a job.

SEVERSON: But if they can’t find a job, it doesn’t mean they have to leave, as long as they keep looking.

JOHN LOWEMAN: You have to put in five applications a day at least, and I do that every day but, you know, it’s kind of hard.

KRISTA LOWEMAN: It’s better than living in a car, though.

SEVERSON: Better than living in a car. You lived in a car for how long?

KRISTA LOWEMAN: Six weeks.

SEVERSON: Darcy Pfeiffer and her husband and baby boy live here. He works but can’t afford the rent. Brenda Rutecki’s husband died a year ago. She had no income, couldn’t get a job, came here while she attended school to become a certified nursing assistant.

BRENDA RUTECKI: You can’t get a job if you don’t have a phone. You can’t get a job if you don’t have a car. You can’t get a job if you don’t even have an address. So this is like our holding spot. We’re all good families. We’re all good people, but you’ve got to have a start, and that’s what they give us.

SEVERSON: One of the first things the Millers did was create a park next door to God’s Love just for the homeless. Having a homeless shelter and a park near the center of town was not exactly pleasing to local businessmen. But Toby DeWolf, owner of Bert and Ernies, says any opposition has faded away.

TOBY DEWOLF: I’ve been here 25 years, and I have never seen a better run shelter. I don’t think there’s a problem. I don’t think that anybody has seen an issue with any kind of violence or crime or anything by any means with having a shelter down here.

SEVERSON: The Millers both graduated from Catholic University in Washington, DC with master’s degrees. They have nine children, four of them adopted, and all of them, according to their father, are involved in one charity or another. There was a time when Wayne Miller, who is an expert on silver dollars, was measuring his life by the increasing value of his personal coin collection.

WAYNE MILLER: You know, I open up these catalogs, and they’ve got coins there, $30,000 or $40,000, $50,000 coins that I would dearly love to have, and I look at them and I say okay, I chose my path. If I did that I would be obsessed with that, and again, my whole measurement would be how advanced is your coin collection? And I didn’t want that to be.

SEVERSON: It doesn’t mean the Millers live in poverty. They travel, eat in the best restaurants, live in a very nice home with a swimming pool, but customers often wonder how successful a man can be if he rarely wears shoes.

WAYNE MILLER: People say can’t you afford to wear shoes, and I say I can afford not to have to wear shoes.

SEVERSON: He provides the bulk of the funding for God’s Love, millions of dollars over the years, but the shelter also receives a federal grant, money from the United Way and from other private donors.

WOJTON: It’s amazing when I go out to a church or to the local college, and I speak, and I hear from people, and they say, “Oh, we just thought the Millers pay for everything,” and that’s not the case. Wayne and Ann are wonderful, and Wayne donates a lot of money to God’s Love, but we need the entire community effort to keep God’s Love up and operating every year.

ANN MILLER: And I think over the years we’ve learned to love God more and more, and he’s always been there for us. When we were thinking that maybe we weren’t going to have enough money or whatever, he’s always supplied it. It’s been wonderful—abundance, just like the Bible says.

SEVERSON: The Millers are also helping in various ways about 150 Helena families who don’t live in the shelter. Altogether, he gives away about one-third of his gross income and is firmly convinced that it’s what God wanted him to do.

WAYNE MILLER: I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like. I’m fascinated to learn what it’s going to be like, but I am as certain as I can be that there is an afterlife and that I’m really going to have fun.

SEVERSON: The truth is he’s having a pretty good time right now.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Helena, Montana.

KATE SEELYE, correspondent: On the outskirts of Cairo, members and supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood celebrate the start of a new political era. With nearly half the seats in parliament, the party is set to wield significant influence in Egypt. Newly elected deputy Azza al Jarf calls Egypt’s first free election in decades historic.

The Brotherhood has been waiting a long time for this moment. Formed in 1928 to promote Islam, it was later banned in Egypt and its leaders repeatedly imprisoned. But as secular autocrats have collapsed from Tunisia to Egypt, Islamist parties have stepped into the political vacuum, and groups like the Brotherhood are now riding a wave of popular support with their calls for social and economic justice. On election day in a poor Cairo suburb, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Beltagy spelled out the party’s goals.

MOHAMED BELTAGY: We were oppressed and intimidated for 80 years, but today we are about to embark on a long journey to meet the needs of the people.

SEELYE: Beltagy and his party weren’t the only Islamists voted into parliament. The Noor Party, which advocates a more fundamentalist agenda, won nearly a quarter of the seats. Together, Egypt’s Islamists make up more than 70 percent of the new parliament. Liberal and youth parties account for the rest. Blogger Mahmoud Salem, who ran and lost in a district of Cairo, says youth candidates like himself didn’t stand a chance against the better known and funded Islamists.

MAHMOUD SALEM: The issue is that if you’re a party that only started three months ago you don’t have the chance to create the groundwork that is necessary. You know, as opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood who’s been around for 80 years, you know. So people vote for whoever they see in front of them.

SEELYE: It was young, secular Egyptians like Salem who sparked last year’s protests with their demands for justice and freedom. They were been sidelined in these elections, but Salem say he has no regrets.

SALEM: Now we get to play the role of the opposition, which is so much more fun, you know: Hey, Islamists, you wanted power? Fantastic. I want social justice now. Get it done.

SEELYE: But others worry democracy has been hijacked by parties they say have little respect for personal rights and freedoms.

PROFESSOR SAID SADEK (Professor of Political Science, The American University in Cairo): It is scary on many issues, especially the social issues, minorities, Christians. Also the status of women, civil liberties, personal liberties in general. What are they going to do with them?

SEELYE: Sadek says Egyptians have legitimate concerns about this parliament’s intentions, given the poor human rights records of Islamist-run countries like Sudan and Iran.

SADEK: Islam has many variety of readings and many interpretations. If they are going to adopt a moderate version, we all support them, but if they are going to adopt a very strict interpretation and they want to impose it on others, we’ll have trouble.

SEELYE: But in this working-class Cairo neighborhood, shoppers have other things on their mind. Many are struggling to get by. At this local food bank shoppers are snap up macaroni and lentils at wholesale prices provided by the Muslim Brotherhood. Nearly half of Egypt’s more than 80 million citizens live on less than two dollars a day, and economic despair fueled last year’s anti-government protests. For decades, the Brotherhood has provided for the poor, offering free health care, education, and other services. Now voters are hoping that the Brotherhood’s history of charitable work and its promises to improve people’s lives will lead to real change.

RAMADAN (Man at Food Distribution): The past government was dishonest. We hope the future will bring reforms.

SEELYE: Egypt faces many challenges. Buildings burned during last year’s protest are reminders of the country’s ongoing instability. Investment is down dramatically, as is tourism, which employs more than 10 percent of the population. Unemployment is surging. Corruption is rife. Given the country’s deep problems, the Brotherhood’s leaders say their priorities will be rebuilding Egypt’s economy and infrastructure, not pushing religion. Ossama Yassin is a Muslim brotherhood deputy in parliament.

OSSAMA YASSIN (Member of Parliament): We don’t want what’s known as a religious state. We want a modern, civil, democratic state belonging to the people.

SEELYE: Sensitive to concerns about an Islamist agenda, the Brotherhood has been moderating its religious language and emphasizing its respect for the rights of other religions and groups.

YASSIN: There is no basis for the liberals’ fears. The state we seek will guarantee freedoms and rights, like the freedom of religion and speech, the right to form groups and political parties, and the right to demonstrate.

SEELYE: By contrast, the Noor Party is calling for a religious state. This summer many of its fundamentalist supporters, known as Salafists, gathered in Cairo to demand an Islamic caliphate. Salafists once shunned democracy, claiming it gave the laws of man precedence over those of God. But today democracy offers them a chance to press for harsh religious legislation. Tarek Shaalan is a founding member of the Noor Party and holds a PhD from the University of Central Florida. He says his party seeks social justice and the strict application of Islamic law, including banning alcohol and segregating the sexes on Egypt’s beaches.

TAREK SHAALAN: The reason I want to make it segregated so I want to make the woman feel more comfortable, you understand me? Don’t look at Islam that we’re bringing a problem. No, we bring the solution, not the problem, okay?

SEELYE: Hard-line Salafist views have proliferated on religious channels here. It’s not uncommon to hear preachers like Yasser Borhami, a founder of the Noor Party, accuse Christians and Jews of being infidels. This kind of talk deeply worries Egypt’s Coptic Christian community of more than four million. Over the past several years, attacks on their community have grown. Churches have been burned and Copts killed. Salafists have been blamed for inciting sectarian violence, a charge Shaalan denies.

(speaking to Tarek Shaalan): You acknowledge that there have been growing attacks on Christians in this country?

SHAALAN: Well, I don’t want to see it this way. It’s not because of religion. It’s because of lots of other things, you know?

SEELYE: The Noor Party’s positions have been criticized by the Muslim Brotherhood. The two Islamist parties are rivals, but in Cairo cafes where Egyptians debate the future, some worry that Noor’s ultraconservative agenda may pull the Muslim Brotherhood to the right. The best protection for minority and women’s rights lies in the drafting of Egypt’s new constitution, according to Coptic community leader Mona Makram Ebeid, who is also an advisor to Egypt’s ruling military authority.

MONA MAKRAM EBEID (Member of Advisory Council to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces): I think the biggest battle now that we all must focus on is the constitution.

SEELYE: Makram Ebeid says parliament will appoint an assembly this spring to draft the constitution. She insists it must address the concerns of all of Egypt’s communities.

MAKRAM EBEID: I hope that the majority of the Muslim brothers, who are much more moderate and much more professional, will be able to have a fair constitution which takes into consideration the rights of every individual in this country, of every citizen in the country, whether it’s economic rights, social rights, political rights, religious rights, cultural rights.

SEELYE: In Tahrir Square, where the protests began just over a year ago, demonstrators continue to demand those rights. Democracy is very fragile here. Egypt is now run by a heavy-handed military which took over when Mubarak stepped down. The generals say they’ll transfer power after presidential elections this summer, but some have doubts. Nevertheless, Islamists long banned in Egyptian political life have new responsibilities and a new sense of accountability. And Makram Ebeid believes that will have a moderating effect.

MAKRAM EBEID: So I don’t think that they will be able so much to impose their own views or change the personality of Egypt as they wish, because I think that this will make them lose their popularity. The more there is an opening to democracy, the more the process of democratization will be, will go ahead, and the more they will come more to the center.

SEELYE: While some might disagree, few dispute the importance of Egypt’s democratic opening. The test will be safeguarding the process so that future voters can choose to re-elect their parliamentarians or not.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Kate Seelye in Cairo.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: For decades, religious organizations such as the National Council of Churches, the Catholic bishops, and others have been working with labor organizers to try to improve conditions for farm workers, and there’s been some success, most recently in the tomato fields of south Florida, where immigrants harvest nearly all the winter tomatoes this country grows. Our report is from Saul Gonzales in Immokalee, Florida.

SAUL GONZALEZ, correspondent: Florida may be better known for its oranges, but it’s tomatoes that rule in the farm fields surrounding the small town of Immokalee. In fact, during the winter months, nearly all of America’s domestically grown tomatoes, still green when they are picked, come from this part of south Florida, and it’s a large and poor immigrant workforce that’s essential in getting that crop from plant to plate.

Tomato harvesting is still very much a “by hand” work? There is no machine that exists that does this?

STEVE MCHAN: That is correct.

GONZALEZ: Steve McHan is harvesting manager for Pacific Tomato Growers, a major producer in Florida.

MCHAN: The production volume from here is somewhere around 1,200 to 1,400 boxes per acre, and we pack 25-pound boxes is what we’re averaging.

GONZALEZ: So it’s industrial scale?

MCHAN: Industrial scale, correct.

GONZALEZ: However, Florida’s tomato industry is a business that’s long been accused of exploiting its workforce through overwork, underpay, and mistreatment. That’s turned these fields into the frontlines of a high profile national campaign to improve the lives of farmworkers.

JORDAN BUCKLEY: People who work in agriculture are among the least paid, least protected workers in the whole country.

GONZALEZ: Jordan Buckley and his colleagues are with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, CIW, and the Interfaith Action Network, which works with faith groups to help farmworkers.

BRIGITTE GYNTHER: For people of faith, for us this is a moral issue. You know, how the people who pick our food our treated.

GONZALEZ: Now to understand the plight of farmworkers you have to know something about their place in America’s industrial food economy.

BUCKLEY: They are some of the poorest workers here in our country, and yet not for a lack of hard work. It’s not some dearth of industriousness. In fact, the reason is because the increasing consolidation of purchasing among retailors. So where you have the fast food and food service and supermarkets squeezing their suppliers and demanding ever cheaper costs for their tomatoes, that’s resulted in growers squeezing their farmworkers, and that’s why farmworkers haven’t seen a real wage increase in upwards of three decades.

GONZALEZ: Florida’s tomato workers are usually paid by how much they pick, traditionally getting about 45 to 50 cents for every 32-pound bucket they fill. That means to make a day’s minimum wage, each worker has to pick two-and-a-half-tons of tomatoes a day. What does that kind of work pay mean for the daily lives of farmworkers and their families? Twenty-eight-year-old Darinal Sales struggles to support his wife and two girls on what he makes in the fields. Because four other farmworkers live in the same dilapidated trailer, his whole family shares one small room.

GONZALEZ: Ustedes viven aqui?

DARINAL SALES: It’s because of the situation at work that we live like this. Our pay just doesn’t last and allow us to live in better way.

GONZALEZ: Immokalee is a town full of young men from Mexico, Central America, and Haiti, many undocumented, who have come here to scratch out a better life for themselves by harvesting Florida’s tomato crops. Some of them end up victims of the industry’s worst abuses, including incidents of modern day slavery.

BUCKLEY: There have also now been nine federally prosecuted slavery operations in just the last 14 years here in Florida agriculture.

GONZALEZ: Slavery?

BUCKLEY: Yeah, literal slavery. Right here on Third and Boston we go down four blocks. That’s the site where workers were locked in the back of a cargo truck, literally shackled. We saw bruises on their wrists where they had been literally restrained by their employers.

GONZALEZ: Yet despite the dangers and pay, farmhands are eager to work. To see how eager, you’ve got to get up very early. Every morning in the pre-dawn hours this parking lot in downtown Immokalee becomes a giant open-air labor market. Hundreds of farmworkers come here looking to make contact with labor bosses. If they’re lucky they’ll be picked for another hard day of work in the tomato fields. The men and women selected are the ones boarding buses that take them to the fields. It’s in this parking lot that we met Aurelia Hinajosa, who’s worked in Immokalee’s tomato fields for nearly 30 years.

AURELIA HINAJOSA: Americans really like their vegetables and fruits, and who is going to pick it? The people born in this country have better kinds of work, and they’re not going to go to the fields.

GONZALEZ: But things are slowly starting to get better for Florida’s tomato field workers. Last year, after more than a decade of patient organizing work, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers reached a landmark agreement with growers and corporate tomato buyers like McDonalds and Burger King. The agreement gives farmworkers a penny more for every pound of tomatoes they pick. Now that doesn’t sound like much, but that one cent increase translates into an additional 32 cents for every bucket picked by workers. That in turn will boost each farmhand’s pay by about $5,000 a year.

BUCKLEY: We are basically on the threshold of entering into this new industry in having rights protected and their being this consensus among buyers that we demand humane labor conditions in our supply chain.

GONZALEZ: The agreement has also made some in Florida’s powerful tomato industry question their past actions and attitudes.

SARAH GOLDBERGER: Historically, it has not been the poster child for good behavior and good treatment of its workers.

GONZALEZ: You admit to that?

GOLDBERGER: Yes.

GONZALEZ: Sarah Goldberger is a spokesperson for Pacific Tomato Growers. She says the agreement between workers and the tomato industry has replaced tension with cooperation.

GOLDBERGER: It has been so non-adversarial. It is a pleasure, quite honestly.

GONZALEZ: That’s a big change?

GOLDBERGER: Yes.

GONZALEZ: Other changes in the fields, like this one owned by Pacific Tomato, include greater access to drinking water and more rest periods, regular bathroom breaks, and a zero tolerance for verbal abuse and sexual harassment by field bosses. Now that the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and it allies have an agreement, they’re spreading the word about it. The small community radio station they run in Immokalee regularly tells workers listening about their rights, pay, and future organizing plans.

Radio (In Spanish): The campaign to improve the work conditions and pay in the state of Florida.

GONZALEZ: Worker advocate and former field hand Lucas Benitez met us at the early morning labor gathering to talk about how important these changes are to the men and women who pick America’s tomato crop.

LUCAS BENITEZ: That’s what we want, work with dignity. Where every worker, every person who goes to the fields feels pride in being part of the agricultural industry that is putting food on millions of tables every day and that the worker is getting paid enough to put food on the table of his own home.

GONZALEZ: However the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and its allies in religious and faith groups say they have much work left to do. That includes a new national campaign focused on  supermarket chains which have declined to  participate in the penny-per-pound pay agreement.

BUCKLEY: There are three principal sectors of tomato retail: fast food, food service, and supermarkets, and now the leaders of the fast food industry are on board. The leaders of the food service industry are on board. All that remains are the supermarkets.

GONZALEZ: To keep pressure on the stores and to make sure gains are protected, farmworkers regularly reach out to religious leaders and congregations.

And so I’m joined by Darinal and Oscar from the CIW.

GONZALEZ: This morning, Jordan and workers from Immokalee, including Darinal Sales, are addressing a Presbyterian church in Naples, Florida. These speaking engagements are part of a sustained campaign to get people of faith thinking about their fairness and justice when they sit down to eat. Brigitte Gynther of Interfaith Action has been working in Immokalee for eight years on behalf of workers.

GYNTHER: You know, there are many times when we say grace we are grateful for the food on our plates. But where did that food travel? Who picked it? How did it get to us? And that is something we don’t often think about. But I think as people of faith we are called to think about the connections between us and the people who toil in the fields day in and day out to put food our plates.

GONZALEZ: For the men and women who pick Florida’s tomatoes their most important harvest has been some measure of justice and respect.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly I’m Saul Gonzalez in Immokalee, Florida.

BOB ABERNETHY (Host): Welcome. I’m Bob Abernethy. It’s good to have you with us. Our panel of top reporters looks to the year 2012, and the top religion and ethics stories they see ahead. Kim Lawton is managing editor of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Kevin Eckstrom is the editor-in-chief of Religion News Service. And E.J. Dionne is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a professor at Georgetown University. Welcome to you all, and Happy New Year.

ALL: Happy New Year.

ABERNETHY: E.J., the Iowa caucuses take place in just a few days. What do you see there and what is the role of religious conservatives in the Republican campaign?

E.J. DIONNE (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution): Well, in the Iowa Republican caucuses religious conservatives always play an important role. And what’s been striking for most of this campaign is how fragmented they’ve been. There’s been a real argument among them about who the better candidate is. There’s no national champion as we talked about last week, Mike Huckabee, four years ago really emerged as a unifying candidate for Christian conservatives. Some of that also I suspect has to do with other forces in the Republican Party. There is the Tea Party which includes a lot of evangelical Christians, one should say, but is a kind of different thrust and you have a campaign built much more around economics and the role of government than around the issues that specifically inspire religious conservatives, such as abortion and issues related to gay marriage. So I think that there is not going to be the kind of clarity about their role this time as there was four years ago.

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly): And of course, we do have two Mormon candidates and that’s still an issue. It hasn’t been front and center this time around for evangelicals as much as it was last time around but there has been talk about Mormonism is a cult or Mormons aren’t Christians and that’s a prevailing attitude among many voters which makes them maybe in a primary a little more hesitant to vote for a Mitt Romney or a Jon Huntsman. One interesting comment last time, a couple months ago, was from when Cain was getting all the support but then all the allegations starting coming forward about him and one evangelical pastor said so, our choices are we vote for a Mormon who’s had one wife, we vote for a Catholic, Newt Gingrich, who’s had several wives or we vote for an evangelical, Herman Cain, who apparently had a whole harem. So, you know, they’re not liking their choices.

DIONNE: You know what’s interesting this time compared with the last time is Mitt Romney ran into I think some real anti-Mormon prejudice the last time. The Latter Day Saints church has really made a very aggressive effort this time to kind of fight against that by explaining its faith. I was at a session that they organized by the Poytner Institute over at the Pew Forum where they were talking about here’s who we are and here’s who we’re not and I think it’s obviously very useful for the church but I actually think it’s a useful way to combat religious prejudice generally.

KEVIN ECKSTROM (Editor -in-Chief, Religion News Service): One of the things I’ve been struck by and may be worth watching is the difference it seems of the Mormonism between Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Everyone knows that Mitt Romney is a Mormon and an outspoken one. He was the equivalent of a church pastor for a long time. He built a temple in Boston. He’s very Mormon. Jon Huntsman is also Mormon but to a different kind of way. It’s almost like oh yeah and he’s Mormon, too. And so I think it will be interesting to watch to see if Huntsman actually goes anywhere whether or not he will face the same sort of Mormon scrutiny that Romney has.

ABERNETHY: Why should he be considered not as great a Mormon as Romney?

ECKSTROM: Well I think it’s mostly because people just don’t know much about him or don’t even know who he is. I think he’s a relative unknown. It’s not that he’s any less devout or any less of a good Mormon that Romney. But, Romney, I think took the brunt of the anti-Mormon sentiment.

DIONNE: But I also think Romney was a real leader in the church. I think that’s right. And I think this is a very important part of his identity and he’s been very clear about that.

LAWTON: And we should say too that while evangelicals in the primaries might say I don’t know if I want to vote for a Mormon, if you put a Mormon up against Barack Obama, they’re going to vote for the Mormon most likely, because there’s so much anti-Barack Obama sentiment out there within conservative voters. And so I do think that it’s more of an issue in the primaries than it would be in a general election.

ABERNETHY: Has there emerged yet what looks like a great underlying theme for the election of 2012? Is it going to be jobs? Is it going to be the role of government? What do you see?

DIONNE: Well, the economy is always an issue in American elections. And when the unemployment rate is this high and when you’ve gone through such a terrible economic time since 2008, since the crash of 2008, it’s inevitable that the economy is a central issue. But I thought one of the most interesting events of the year in terms of speeches that politicians give was Barack Obama’s speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, where Teddy Roosevelt, a hundred and one years ago, gave his New Nationalism speech which set him up for his run as a progressive third party candidate in 1912. And I think Obama was really sending a signal there that he wants this election not just to be a referendum on the past and he has some interest in that because the economy is still, even if it improves, is going to be less than people want. But he wants it to be about the future and about the role of government in the economy, what should government do to make opportunity available to the middle class? What should the rules of the economy be? And I think that, I happen to like the speech, whether you like the speech or not, I think it set a really interesting framework for the election because the Republicans in this election will clearly but running as much more pure free market candidates without government interference, lower taxes, less regulation. I think there could be a clarity to this campaign and to the argument that we haven’t seen in a long time.

LAWTON: And religious groups have been involved in these economic debates and in the economic campaigning, political campaigning, as well, on both sides, which makes it interesting to have that moral injection on both ends of the debate and so you have people from a more moderate, more liberal standpoint talking about the immorality of hurting people who are already vulnerable, cutting programs that would hurt the poor, cutting programs for foreign aid and so there’s been a lot of concern about that which is translating into politics. But you also have it in the conservative side. It’s immoral to leave a lot of debt to our children. A lot of that kind of language and that is seeping into the campaigning as well.

ABERNETHY: It’s interesting that, E.J., maybe you can note this. It’s not winner take all, is it, this year? Is it? Can’t you come in second and still have a lot of delegates and be influential at the convention?

DIONNE: Historically, Democrats got rid of winner take all which is one of the reasons why the ’08 race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went on so long. Republicans have, at the front end, have tended to get rid of winner take all though there is some of it still at the back end of this process. But it could mean that the Republican race will last longer this time.

LAWTON: Or never end.

DIONNE: Yes, or maybe never end. I mean it’s the first time I’ve heard talk of a brokered convention which journalists love because that would be fun but it never happens. And I still don’t think it will happen.

ABERNETHY: I wanted to ask you about that.

DIONNE: If no one gets a clear majority, in other words, if there were at least three candidates with significant blocks of delegates, I still don’t think it will happen, but it’s more plausible it seems, at this moment, more plausible than it’s been in a long time.

ABERNETHY: What about somebody being nominated who is not now running?

DIONNE: Well, there are a lot of Republicans who long for that. I have been very struck by some of my conservative friends who are genuinely unhappy with the make-up of this field. And, I’ve been reminding people, maybe just showing that I’m getting older, there was a write-in campaign for Henry Calbot Lodge that carried the New Hampshire primary way back in 1964. And you wonder if something like that will happen. Again, still unlikely but this has been such a strange contest I don’t rule anything out anymore.

LAWTON: And I’m going to be watching too, on the other side, the Democratic side, how President Obama is going to reach out to people of faith. That was a huge issue in the 2008 election. President Obama had mounted a campaign of faith-based outreach, unprecedented for a Democratic candidate in a really long time. And, you know, is he going to continue that? Is that going to be as robust? And how are people of faith feeling about him? And I know you’ve also looked at the fact that there is some dissatisfaction with him.

ECKSTROM: Right, both on, obviously on the right, but also on the left. There’s a lot of progressives who saw him as the knight in shining armor who was going to come in and right all the ills of the world and obviously that hasn’t happened. And so I think the President’s biggest challenge is, when it comes to religion, is not speaking in Catholic terms, or Jewish terms, or mainline Protestant terms or anything like that, but is getting anybody out to vote for him. I mean, getting his base and getting just any of his supporters, whatever faith they may be, getting them motivated enough to go out and vote for him.

DIONNE: And I think you saw in 2010 that Democrats on the progressive side really fell down in terms of their organizing among religious people compared to what they did in 2008. And they have some ground to make up now.

ABERNETHY: What about gridlock in Washington? Is there any possibility, any even remote possibility, that in this election year coming up there will be any change in that?

DIONNE: Do you believe in miracles?

LAWTON: This is a religion show.

DIONNE: It is a religion show.

ABERNETHY: But look, there is a new poll, Pew poll, I think, that says there’s the greatest disapproval of Congress now that there has ever been in the past. So where does that lead? How does that affect the election?

DIONNE: First of all, those of us who are journalists can be grateful to Congress because somebody can poll lower than we do. I mean, my sense is that the only way you really could see some systematic breaking down of the gridlock is if it looks like President Obama is going to win the election, in other words, if by the middle of the year, he got what looked like a reasonably big lead a lot of the Republicans in Congress who have wanted to block his programs say wait a minute. He’s going to win. We’ve got to get reelected. We’ve got to start working with him. That happened with Bill Clinton in 1996 where the gridlock broke up. If, on the other hand, the election continues to look competitive in the middle of the year, as if you were to place a bet, that’s probably where you would place it, then I’m not sure there’s a lot of political interest on either side in sort of making concessions. I think they will fight it through to the end and then see what happens.

ABERNETHY: What do you imagine the future to be for the Occupy movement?

ECKSTROM: Well it will be interesting a, whether they can make it through the winter. It’s cold out there. But then b, sort of what do they become? One of the big sort of criticisms of this movement has been that nobody quite knows exactly what they want or what they stand for or what they’re even demanding. And so I think the big challenge for them in 2012 is going to be saying OK this is what we need to happen. It’s an election year, there’s a lot of people paying attention, so they probably have a better chance than not. But, the questions that they raise, the moral questions about fairness and equity and corporate responsibility, those aren’t going away, whether or not the movement is able to harness that into something kind of tangible, I think, is still a little unclear.

ABERNETHY: It’s been seen as very secular movement even though religious people have helped it in many ways.

LAWTON: Well, that’s what I want to watch. That’s exactly what I want to watch. Because it does have this perception that it’s a bunch of you know secular, I don’t know, unemployed people hanging around but there’s a strong religious current in it. And that was growing toward the end of 2011 and so you saw African American clergy getting involved, wanting to liken it to the Civil Rights Movement. You had a lot of mainline Protestant, Catholic, other church leaders providing support on the edges. Some of them told me that they didn’t want to be too out front, they didn’t want to look like they were high jacking the movement, but they are there and how is that going to affect what they do, what the rhetoric is, and is that going to continue.

ECKSTROM: It’s also worth noting that one of the most iconic images from this movement was when they paraded around a golden calf, modeled on the bull of Wall Street. When the marched that around lower Manhattan and here in Washington, D.C. That’s clearly a Biblical image so it’s not a completely secular kind of loosey goosey movement.

DIONNE: God and mammon is a rather old theme.

ABERNETHY: What about the extremely interesting cases that are going to be coming down from the Supreme Court, beginning with Obama’s healthcare? The Supreme Court’s going to hear that case and hand down a decision about it right in the middle of the election campaign.

DIONNE: And there’s some much speculation about how a court that often goes five to four in a conservative direction but doesn’t always go five to four in a conservative direction will rule. And, some of the judges in the circuit court who have upheld the healthcare plan have been conservatives and they were, in some ways, you felt they were writing to justices like Scalia and Thomas and Roberts and Alito and saying wait a minute it would not be conservative to overthrow this law. Then the other debate is which way would Republicans or President Obama be better off? Would it be a stinging defeat for Obama and therefore hurt him or would it take this issue off the table or even allow him to go on the offensive and say well we do need a national healthcare plan again so it is going to be an extraordinary day when the court rules on that.

ABERNETHY: Are religious groups involved in that, have they got appeals going for them?

ECKSTROM: Quite a few, especially from the conservative side. One of the first, original challenges to this healthcare law came out of Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell. But there’s a lot of conservatives who, not only for their conservative political ideology, but their religious ideology, don’t like the idea of the government telling them you have to have insurance. And, that’s really what the fight is over is the mandate to purchase individual health insurance or pay a fine. So there’s a lot of conservative groups who are against it. But there’s also a lot of progressive groups who are very much in favor of this, in fact don’t think it went far enough. The interesting group to watch is actually going to be the Catholic bishops because the bishops fought tooth and nail over provisions of this law but then after it was passed and signed into law they said well, we’re not going to fight to remove it.

DIONNE: And then you also have the Catholic Health Association which runs a very large share of hospitals in the United States, a minority, but they have a vast system and there other religious hospitals, religiously sort of affiliated hospitals, in the country who in general supported the healthcare reform because it would expand coverage of poorer Americans, working class Americans, who use their facilities.

LAWTON: But, one of the more contentious parts of that, sort of a lesser aspect, was coverage of contraception. And the Catholic Church was very concerned about being forced to cover things they don’t agree with, such as contraception. And so, that was a battle that’s still going to be played out on some of the local levels.

ABERNETHY: The Supreme Court is also going to consider and hand down an opinion, presumably, about immigration.

LAWTON: Well this has been a really difficult issue, especially for a lot of people in the religious community. A lot of people of faith have been actively helping immigrants and some of the laws, the Arizona law is going to be up before the Supreme Court, there was also a law in Alabama that a lot of religious groups were involved in. And people of faith are helping immigrants, they don’t want it to be criminalized to help immigrants, they are also don’t want the people that they are trying to help be considered criminals. I am interested that even evangelicals seem a little divided on this issue. Technically they tend to me more law and order people and therefore against loosening up on immigration. On the other hand, you have a lot of evangelical congregations that are seeing an influx of Latinos in the pews. And, so it’s a personal issue for a lot of these people. And you know, the kids in the youth group might be, their parents might be undocumented. So you’re seeing some wiggle room in the religious community.

DIONNE: Latinos, immigrants, illegal as well as legal, are among the most vibrant parts of both the evangelical world and the Catholic world. And I think you, the truth of the matter is a lot of the churches are in competition with each other to try to win the allegiance of Latinos which I think helps explain why a lot of Christian groups, regardless of their views on other matters, have tended to be more open to immigrants cause these are the people in their congregations.

ECKSTROM: And speaking of courts, another case to watch, it’s not at the Supreme Court level just yet, but the Prop 8 battle in California. In 2008, voters passed basically an end to same-sex marriage and it’s gone through the courts so far. Federal court has ruled against Proposition 8, saying that it’s unconstitutional. Now it’s going to the federal appeals court and regardless of what the federal appeals court decides, which could very well come in 2012, it’s probably going to go to the Supreme Court very soon after so this is going to be a crucial decision to watch for where that debate’s going to go.

LAWTON: And speaking of gay issues, we have in 2012 a couple of mainline Protestant denominations that are going to be meeting and this has been a tough issue for them and it’s going to continue to be tough in 2012. The United Methodists will be meeting and one of the issues before them is going to be can they marry, can their clergy marry same-sex couples in the states where that is legal. They can’t do that right now. There has been a group of retired United Methodist ministers that is doing that because active ministers could face penalties or the possibility of being defrocked. And, so that’s going to be up for grabs. In the Episcopal Church, you still see this slow breaking apart in the whole worldwide Anglican Communion over some of these issues, interpretation of scripture, and there are a lot of court battles and individual congregational battles going on there too.

ABERNETHY: And E.J., the Pope is scheduled to go to Mexico and to Cuba.

DIONNE: You know, the Vatican’s relationship with Cuba has been fascinating. I happen to be in Rome when Pope John Paul’s trip to Cuba was announced and there have been some interesting differences of opinion. The Vatican has tended to be in favor of a gradual, peaceful transition from the Castro regime. And the fact that the Pope is willing to go there speaks to this desire for a gradual change. Some of the Cuban community in the United States, the Catholic Cuban community one should say, are very uneasy about this. They would like a sort of harder push to get that regime out. So there have been some arguments over the years between our Cuban community, particularly in South Florida, and the Vatican. It will be fascinating to see how exactly, what Pope Benedict says about alterations in that regime and religious freedom. Castro himself, is a dictator, he also has had this kind of lifelong fascination with religion. He seems to be an atheist “but”. Maybe the “but”’s getting bigger as the years go by.

ABERNETHY: Folks, our time is almost up and in the couple minutes remaining I want to ask you, in addition to what we’ve just been talking about, what else are you watching? What are you really keeping an eye on that you think is going to be happening in 2012?

DIONNE: Well I’m looking in the campaign, I think it could be a very good campaign or a really terrible campaign. The good campaign, as I said, is because the parties will probably be as philosophically divided as they have been since 1964. We could have a really fundamental debate where we decide on a direction for the country for some time ahead and that could be a great thing. I also worry that with all of this advertising, the money that can be spent by outside groups because of the Citizens United decision, we may have more outright lying on the air and I know a lot of people think well campaigns are full of lies. It could be much much worse this year and I am very worried about what that’s going to do to us and what it might, how people will feel about this process at the end.

ABERNETHY: Kevin, are you looking at anything that might be a little brighter than more lies?

ECKSTROM: Well, actually I was going to say the end of the world because in 2011, Harold Camping famously said that the world was going to end on May 21st and then it was October 21st. It didn’t happen. 2012 apparently is supposed to be the year that the world will end according to the Mayan calendar so I don’t expect it to happen.

ABERNETHY: Mayan?

ECKSTROM: Yes, the ancient Mayan calendar. So, a lot of people are wondering if that’s actually going to happen. I don’t think it will but doomsday stories are always fun.

DIONNE: That’s the boldest prediction I’ve ever heard on this show.

ECKSTROM: That’s right.

ABERNETHY: Kim?

LAWTON: Well, I’ll take it back to a more serious note, hopefully, I don’t know. That was pretty serious. Another case before the Supreme Court is a church state case that looks at who gets to define who is a minister. Does a congregation get to decide who their ministers are? Or does the government have an input? And this makes a difference when you talk about clashes between religious beliefs and civil rights law. So, for example, if you are a congregation that believes only in a female pastor does that violate gender, anti-gender discrimination laws? And so, there’s been a lot of differing opinions in the court and how broadly does the definition of minister go. If you perform ministry in the church by running the screen in the front, does that make you a minister? If you are the janitor, some people say that’s a ministry, does that make you a minister? And what was really surprising to a lot of religious groups was that the Obama administration argued that there should be no exceptions. That religious groups should not be exempted from these civil rights laws and that had a lot of religious groups upset so I’m going to be watching that and especially the reaction to that decision.

ABERNETHY: Our time is almost up. Is up now. Thanks to Kevin Eckstrom, to E.J. Dionne and to Kim Lawton. Happy New Year to you all and to all our viewers. I’m Bob Abernethy.

BOB ABERNETHY: As 2011 draws to a close we take our annual look back at what we think were the most interesting and important religion and ethics stories of the year. We begin with a reminder from Kim Lawton of what some of those stories were.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: As the gap between rich and poor widened this year, people of faith stepped up their efforts to help those hard hit by the recession. Some, especially conservative, activists supported massive cuts to the federal budget, arguing that it was immoral to leave debt to future generations. But a broad-based interfaith coalition argued that it was immoral to make spending cuts that would hurt already-vulnerable people. Thousands participated in a prayer and fasting campaign to protect programs that help the poor in the US and around the world. When frustration about the economy spilled out into the streets with the Occupy Movement, many religious groups provided spiritual and material support. Local congregations led interfaith worship services and offered sanctuary to evicted protesters. Theologians debated whether Jesus would have camped out with the Occupy movement.

The role of religion in American politics remained controversial. GOP presidential hopefuls courted religious voters, especially evangelicals who are very important in the primaries. Many candidates made explicitly religious appeals. While some concern about the idea of a Mormon president lingered, especially among evangelicals, issues of character and marital fidelity appeared to generate more attention.

In several parts of the Arab World, popular uprisings toppled regimes and reignited debates about the role of Islam and government. New political successes for Islamist political parties raised concerns about human rights and especially the situation for dissenters and religious minorities. In Egypt, Muslims and Christians protested side-by-side in Tahrir Square, but there were several dramatic attacks against the nation’s Coptic Christian community. In Syria, protesters were met with a brutal crackdown from government forces.

American ethicists and religious leaders debated the morality of military intervention in Libya. Some said US participation in the NATO action was justified on humanitarian grounds, but others argued that it did not meet the criteria of the Just War doctrine. The killings of Osama bin-Laden and extremist American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki generated ethical debate about the US use of force in noncombat zones. There was also debate about the growing US use of weaponized unmanned drones.

American religious groups were divided over the Palestinians’ request for official UN recognition as a state. Many Jews and Evangelical Christians opposed the statehood bid. But some Christian and Muslim groups supported the idea, saying it was time for Palestinians to have their own state.

The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks prompted new examination of the state of interfaith relations. Many Muslim-Americans complained of a continuing rise of anti-Islamic discrimination. On Capitol Hill, Republican Congressman Peter King sponsored hearings on what he called the “radicalization of American Muslims.” There was acrimonious debate in several communities over proposed bans against shariah or Islamic law. At the same time, the 9/11 anniversary highlighted many projects where diverse faith communities have come together in new ways.

Several humanitarian disasters stretched the resources of faith-based groups. Religious organizations continued efforts in Haiti after last year’s devastating earthquake and cholera epidemic, and they offered aid in the wake of the Japanese earthquake. Many faith-based groups mobilized to help millions affected by a major famine in East Africa. There were also challenges here at home with deadly tornados, severe flooding, and a rare East Coast earthquake that caused as estimated $15 million dollars’ worth of damage at Washington National Cathedral.

But 2011 brought some occasions for celebration as well. Christians commemorated the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. And in Rome, on a record-breaking timetable, Pope John Paul the Second was beatified, bringing him one step closer to sainthood.

ABERNETHY: Kim a great summary. Kim Lawton is managing editor of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Kevin Eckstrom is the Editor-in-Chief of Religion News Service and E.J. Dionne is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a columnist for the Washington Post and a professor at Georgetown University. Welcome to each of you.

ALL: Thank you.

ABERNETHY: I guess my pick for the year would be the Arab Spring and everything that flowed out of it leading to the Occupy Movement all over the United States. E.J. what do you make of that?

E.J. DIONNE (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution): Well I think the Arab Spring is one of those events that could have longest term impact on the nature of the world. I mean when you’re thinking about how many Arab and Muslim countries were transformed by this. We don’t know where this is going yet, but it was striking that this movement was a very broad alliance of people some who were Islamists, some who were secular, some from the Christian minority all saying we’re sick and tired of corruption and dictatorship. Now, it’s playing out differently in different places, we don’t know where it’s going but it sure was a very liberating moment. I’m not sure it led to the Occupy Wall Street, although some of the Occupy Wall Streeters talked about an inspiration, but it was a year in which protestors of a lot of different kinds changed the world.

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly): And it really did bring up this whole question about when you have a democracy then what is the role of religion? And many countries obviously have been wrestling with this, we wrestle with it, but in Islamic countries that’s a question and how do you form a new government, write a constitution that acknowledges Islam but then what does that mean in terms of the laws and the people and the treatment of minorities and women. And so all of those issues are being debated and people are watching because there are a lot of Muslims countries that, that have been struggling with this issue.

ABERNETHY: And the irony that democracy might lead to a lot of things that we don’t like.

DIONNE: Right and I think Kim put her finger on something, which is you know we’ve had Christian democratic movements in western countries for a long time where there was some kind of linkage with, between religion and the state and yet an acknowledgement of the importance of religious freedom and democracy. There are religious parties inside Israel that compete with secular parties and so the real question, or one of the real questions is whether similar developments will take place in Arab world, in the Arab world and I think and we’ve seen certainly in countries like Indonesia where you can have parties that are Islamic but also democratic.

KEVIN ECKSTROM (Religion News Service, Editor-in-Chief): And I think what’s interesting here at home on the Occupy movement was it’s not a religious movement per say, although there has been religious involvement, but it prompted a lot of really heavy religious and moral arguments about fairness and equity and how we spread wealth or how we hold people accountable. And so there for some fairly profound, I think, moral questions that were raised by the Occupy movement.

ABERNETHY: And E.J. a year ago we were all preoccupied with the Tea Party movement the year passed and we are all preoccupied on the left with the Occupy movement. What happened?

DIONNE: Well I think what the two movements had in common is that a lot of people in the country are unhappy with the results of the economic downturn on the state of the economy right through the 2010 election the inclination, the strongest organizing was on the side that said this is all the government’s fault and we have to tear down government. I think Occupy really changed our political debate in fundamental ways. A lot of people had been talking about rising economic inequality, which has really been happening over a 30 or 40 year period. It took this movement with a certain kind of media savvy to grab all kinds of people’s attention to get all kinds of people including conservatives to talk about what rising inequality means and whether we ought to do something about it.

LAWTON: I’m intrigued by the amount of religious participation there is in the Occupy movement just as there is in the Tea Party movement. There were a lot of Evangelicals that had some, you know, still do, that have some affinity with the Tea Party. On the religious left there’s a lot of participation, not just with chaplains, which they do have in the, in the movement but, but in, in talking about some of the language and helping behind the scenes with some of the strategy and also in some of the rhetoric that’s being used. You see, you hear things like greed is evil. That’s a moral kind of a calculation you know and inequality and the gap between the rich and poor, that’s wrong, it’s evil. Those are all moral issues and that’s the influence I think of the religious community. African American clergy have joined in on this and want to get more involved and they see it as an extension of the Civil Rights movement.

DIONNE: And this is the 25th anniversary of the Catholic Bishops’ very important statement at the time, economic justice for all. And some of us at Georgetown went back and were talking about this and in a lot of ways that statement from 25 years ago parts of it could be a manifesto for this movement demanding economic justice.

ABERNETHY: But do you hear in all this something that not only protests what we have, but that goes on to say that we ought to change it, fundamentally change the system, the political system, the economic system. Is that in there, too or not?

DIONNE: Well I think the I mean the Occupy movement has been very consciously not about particular demands, some people have criticized them for that, although I think historically a lot of movements change things not by putting up a program but by saying we need to move in a different direction. But I think a lot of these movements are more reformist than they are uh revolutionary.

ABERNETHY: Right.

DIONNE: There’s clearly a lot of frustration with Congress and the way Washington is working, but I still think even some of the more radical elements of some of these movements um are not looking to overturn the system, they just think it needs to be a whole lot better than it is.

ABERNETHY: Yeah. Meanwhile there’s been this amazing campaign on the Republican side for the nomination for president and in that Mitt Romney’s Mormonism comes up as you pointed out Kim in your piece. Is that going to hurt him?

ECKSTROM: I think it will be a challenge for him to get through the primaries. If he can make it through the primaries and gets the nomination and can get to the general election I think it’ll be less of an issue. But I think at this point in the last couple weeks what we’ve seen is that it’s not his Mormonism that’s Romney’s Achilles heel, it’s the conservative distrust of him. And you’ve seen it, you know, Romney has stayed fairly stable in the polls, he never gets above 20, 23% and everyone’s looking for a Plan B or another option but they’re not really falling in love with any of them so I think his problems are more about him and less about his Mormonism right now.

ABERNETHY: What’s been the role of religious conservatives in the republican campaign?

DIONNE: Well I think religious conservatives have been fragmented in this election. I think they kind of wanted to rally behind someone and it’s, their situation is much like that of other conservatives in the party, te- including Tea Party conservatives where a potential champion, for example Rick Perry, who soared in the polls after he got into the race and looked like he might be the person who could unite Tea Party conservatives, religious conservatives and other kinds and then had a whole series of problems and then he sort of collapsed again. Michele Bachmann was a favorite of some of them for a while. Now Newt Gingrich has picked up some of that support. So think that, you know, this election has been different say than the last one where a very large number of religious conservatives rallied behind Mike Huckabee some I think for anti-Mormon reasons but other simple because Huckabee was an Evangelical leader.

LAWTON: Well, but I think that it took them a while last time around for them to rally behind Mike Huckabee, which was one of his frustrations and that’s been the case this time around too that they haven’t been able to coalesce around one candidate and they are very important in this primary season as we’ve said. Last time around about 40 percent, more than 40 percent of all GOP primary voters were Evangelicals and in early states like Iowa and South Carolina that goes to 60 percent. And so if want to be the GOP candidate, you’ve got to get a significant number of those votes. And yeah, there’s something about that they haven’t done around Mitt Romney. Some of them like Ron Paul so-

DIONNE: It’s very interesting the first three states, you’ve got Iowa where the caucuses have a very high white Evangelical participation, then you’ve got New Hampshire which is a somewhat more secular and quite a bit more secular libertarian state and then you go back to South Carolina next which is again a place where Evangelicals are important.

ABERNETHY: 2011 was the 10th anniversary of 9-11, what do we know about U.S. attitudes toward Muslims and how has that changed over this time, Kevin?

ECKSTROM: They haven’t really gotten much better. I think that’s the simple answer. You saw this year about the hearings that Kim mentioned about radicalization on Capitol Hill, the brouhaha we’ve seen in the last couple weeks over a Muslim reality TV show. A lot, the anti-Muslim sentiment actually creeped up a little bit after Bin Laden’s death in May. A lot of people said well if we get rid of Bin Laden maybe people will feel better about Muslims and actually the opposite happened. So things continue to be tense I think what’s been really interesting to watch in the last couple weeks has been this kind of counter backlash to the Muslim reality TV show where Lowe’s, the hardware store, pulled its ads from conservative pressure and now everyone’s threatening to boycott Lowe’s ‘cause they, they don’t think that the show is getting a fair shake and that Muslims aren’t getting a fair shake. So there is a bit of sympathy I think to some degree for Muslims being under attack.

ABERNETHY: What do you make of the efforts going on in many states to whip of fear of Sharia, of Islamic law?

DIONNE: Well you know I think one of the disconcerting things that’s happened in attitudes towards Muslims is that overtime it’s become more of a partisan and ideological issue, which was not the case in the days immediately after 9-11, partly because President Bush made some very strong statements about Muslims being Americans, being our brothers and sisters but now you’ve seen this issue become more politicized so it tends to me in very conservative states, paradoxically often states with very, very small Muslim populations. But I think in a way that we are as a country trying to deal with Muslims as a new reality in our country in much the same way that we dealt with Catholic immigrants a hundred years ago or more as a new reality in our country. My colleagues at Brookings and the Public Religion Research Institute did a poll this year and we found overwhelming support for religious freedom and the rights of minorities – 9 Americans in 10 – but on particular questions about Muslims nearly half were uncomfortable with mosques in their neighborhood, nearly half thought that Muslim and American values are incompatible. A lot of the same things that are said about Muslims were said about Catholics, that Catholics owed allegiance to a foreign power, that they weren’t fully democratic. I take some of these numbers in a more positive way that you see quite a bit of movement toward toleration and embrace, but still some holding back I think it’ll take a long time. Younger Americans are much more open than older Americans.

LAWTON: And so much of many Americans views on Muslims and Islam have been tied to the war on terror. And so that’s an additional complication. That also then brings in foreign policy and lots of politics as well. So that’s been a complicating factor that many American Muslims are frustrated about – that they’re broad-brushed with a whole bunch of people around the world that they have nothing to do with.

ABERNETHY: The last U.S. troops from Iraq have been coming back. What do you make, what do you all make of the welcome that they’ve received and people’s feelings generally about the end of the Iraq War?

LAWTON: I’ve been surprised at the fact that prior to our entry into the Iraq War in the religious community this was a huge debate. Is this a just war? Should we be doing this? There were protests in the streets and now that’s it’s winding down I haven’t heard as much moral conversation from ethicists and religious leaders about what did it all mean now that it’s done and what did we leave behind? People were talking about do we have an ethical responsibility to that country and I don’t hear it being framed in that way and I found that interesting.

ECKSTROM: And I think it’s a very different reception of the troops coming home from Vietnam obviously got and I think a lot of people are happy about that. They’re proud that their veterans are coming home, but I’ve been surprised at how muted the reaction has been. I think along with what Kim has been saying it’s almost like you don’t know that it’s happening out there.

DIONNE: You know I’m struck by how on the one hand the reaction is very different than the reaction of World War II where we had a very clear victory, we announced it. On the other hand it’s also not like a Vietnam where we saw folks evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the embassy. I think Americans decided that they wanted to get out of this war several years ago and the Obama Administration decided that the only way to get out was in a slow and responsible way. So I’m not surprised by the quiet reaction, but you’re absolutely right, it is a reaction to the veterans and an appreciation is so much greater now. We did a terrible job as a country in sort of honoring the service of Vietnam veterans. It took us years to honor what they did for the country.

LAWTON: And we have seen a lot of religious involvement in working and ministering to some of these returning troops and you know not only some of those who were wounded physically but emotionally and spiritually, those wounds linger. And so I have seen a lot of religious energy put into that as well.

ABERNETHY: Kevin it’s been almost 10 years since the terrible scandal broke about the Catholic sex abuse of children. Where does that stand? Bring us up to date on that. What happened this year?

ECKSTROM: Well it had a couple things. One you saw this process enter the criminal justice system, the secular system. So you had a grand jury in Philadelphia indict a top church official for shuffling priests from one place to another. In Kansas City you had the first bishop ever criminally indicted for not reporting a known abuser. The other interesting thing that happened was it spread, in a way to Penn State. You know the church has long argued that it’s not just a church problem, that it’s a problem in schools and in universities and in boys scouts and wherever else. And this was the first big sort of example of that we saw. But what was what I think most interesting was mid-year the bishops put out a long anticipated report on what they called the causes and contexts of this problem, what went wrong basically. And they couldn’t really come up with a simple, you know, decisive answer. What they did essentially was the whole culture got off track in the 60s and the church got really swept up in that. And that’s sort of the big problem that they could point to, but there’s no single cause that they could find.

LAWTON: And the headlines on that were “Woodstock Made Me Do It” made them do it, and of course that’s not what the church wanted for PR.

ABERNETHY: And the media.

LAWTON: Well that was the media too, but still that was what some people took away.

DIONNE: And of course the problem on the scandal was not the 60s culture. I think what it created was a crisis of authority inside the church because a lot of the anger was not simply at the abuse itself as much as there was anger at that, but how long it took for the church to come to terms with it. But again the Penn State thing, the Penn State events suggest a very similar pattern of institutions being slow to respond.

ABERNETHY: What about immigration and the churches? What’s going on there, what’s been going on this year?

ECKSTROM: Well in Alabama you had one of these get tough immigration laws that was passed that took effect and the United Methodist bishop of Alabama.

ABERNETHY: And Arizona.

ECKSTROM: And in Arizona, but the Methodist bishop in Alabama said it is the meanest immigration law in the country. There were great fears that it would penalize churches for assisting immigrants whether they’re legal or not. Now certain parts of that law were thrown out and they’re on appeal so the churches right now are in the clear. But there’s a great concern in the religious community that their hands are being tied in their ability to minister to immigrants of one stripe of another.

ABERNETHY: Our time is almost up, but I don’t want it to run out without asking you as you look back on the year, what was the most intriguing story that you saw or one that got the least attention that should’ve gotten a lot more. Who wants to begin? E.J.?

DIONNE: What I was much taken by the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission on Peace and Justice’s critique of the economy that made you wonder is Pope Benedict going to show up at one of these encampments of Occupy Wall Street? Because it was a very tough critique of capitalism. It didn’t say get rid of the market system, but it raised a series of moral questions and I’d like to think and this has happened in other traditions as well, I’d like to think that we can have, at the end of this downturn and serious moral conversation about how you create and just and competitive economic system.

ABERNETHY: Kevin what do you, what do you see?

ECKSTROM: I was really struck by the sale of the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California. You had this institution that went bankrupt and I think it’s a microcosm of sort of the shifts that are going on in the American relig–

ABERNETHY: And It was a symbol of—

ECKSTROM: Protestant dominance. Yeah. And it’s symbolic of the shifts that are going on in the American religious landscape where white mainline aging Protestants are literally losing ground, literally, to Catholics primarily fueled by Hispanic immigration, it’s fascinating.

ABERNETHY: Kim?

LAWTON: I was struck by the number of religious successes I saw in the pop culture world. We had several books on the New York Times bestseller lists about heaven and hell including one that created a huge amount of controversy within the Evangelical community by an Evangelical pastor who had a more expansive view of who’s going to hell. We saw the Book of Mormon on Broadway sweeping the Tony’s. We had a movie called Courageous by a church in Georgia making over 33 million dollars and that’s still making money every day. And you know just stuff like that and of course who could forget Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos quarterback who make kneeling in prayer a sort of cultural phenomenon, generated a lot of controversy but still got a lot of people talking about the public display of religion.

DIONNE: And he won a lot of games.

LAWTON: Well…

ABERNETHY: Our time is up I’m sorry to say. Happy Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all our viewers and to Kevin Eckstrom, E.J. Dionne and Kim Lawton. I’m Bob Abernethy.

BOB ABERNETHY: One important lobby is the Christian group Bread for the World, which fights hunger here and abroad. Reverend David Beckmann, a Lutheran pastor, is president of Bread for the World. David welcome.

DAVID BECKMANN (President, Bread for the World): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: Bring us up to date, how many hungry people are there in the United States?

BECKMANN: It’s now 1 in 7 Americans who lives in a household that runs out of food.

ABERNETHY: Runs out of food what? Each month or?

BECKMANN: The typical pattern is the last 2 or 3 days of the month, people run out of food. So the kids may not eat for the last couple days, the mom may not eat for 4 days, it’s 1 in 4 children under the age of 5 who lives in one of those households and that kind of moderate under nutrition does permanent damage to children.

ABERNETHY: Now the supercommittee in Congress failed this week to come up with any plan about the long term control of the deficit. What does that mean for you and the people who are trying to fight hunger? There was to be an across the board cut that was gonna kick in if there was this failure. Is it going to kick in and if so what does that mean for hungry people?

BECKMANN: Well, Bread for the World and other faith groups have been fighting for a circle of protection around funding for hungry and poor people because we can reduce deficit spending without making hungry people hungrier. And we were able to secure in the Budget Control Act that established the super committee and these automatic cuts a provision that will exempt some of the low income programs from cuts if those automatic cuts go into effect. So I would have liked to see the super committee reach a deal but the automatic cuts aren’t necessarily a disaster for poor people.

ABERNETHY: Because of the exemption?

BECKMANN: Yeah, and because people of faith pushed for it.

ABERNETHY: What about overseas? What’s going on there with American food aid?

BECKMANN: Well we were terrified earlier this year because the House of Representatives voted on a deep cut in food aid. Their cut would have thrown 14 million of the world’s most desperate people off food aid rations this year. So we really sounded an alarm about that, we talked to Mr. Boehner’s office, we talked to the President himself and in the final bill which passed this week they backed away from that really disastrous cut for hungry people.

ABERNETHY: A few weeks ago we heard that there were 7 billion people on Earth and the forecast was this would be going up to 9 billion by 2050. Can all those people be fed?

BECKMANN: Well I think we need to curtail population growth, but those people can be fed, and the key is an expansion of the productivity of poor farmers in poor countries. They can grow more to feed their own families, to raise their incomes. That’s where the food will come from for poor countries.

ABERNETHY: You mean rather than have it grown here and shipped someplace else?

BECKMANN: I think expanding demand for food will also be good for US agriculture but the bulk of the supply needs to come from the expansion of poor country, poor farmer agriculture.

ABERNETHY: And this week you came out with a proposal to change the system between the government and farmers in this country. What do you want to do?

BECKMANN: Well, we think it’s possible to develop a system that would be better for farmers especially small medium scale farms, fruit and vegetable growers, better for hungry people, better for a healthy food supply and that would cost the government less money. So this is an area where we want to support cuts but we don’t want the cuts to come from the nutrition assistance to poor people that’s included in the farm bill. On all these things basically we have to create the political will to overcome hunger. When we’ve had that political will to reduce poverty we’ve been able to do it in our country, and that’s what we need to mobilize now.

ABERNETHY: If all the federal aid for hunger, to prevent hunger, went away, could private charities pick up the slack?

BECKMANN: No, absolutely not. People think that but in fact all the food that we collect from all the churches and synagogues in the country, all the food banks, it’s important but it all amounts to 6% of the food that poor people get from the federal food programs. That’s food stamps, school lunches, WIC. So if Congress decides to cut the federal food programs by 6%, 12%, there’s no way that churches and charities can pick up the gap. We need to also get our government to do its part to end hunger.

ABERNETHY: David Beckmann of Bread for the World. Many thanks.

BOB FAW, correspondent: We are very good at measuring what we make in this country and the services we provide. It’s called the gross national product. But 43 years after Robert Kennedy complained that the gross national product “measures everything except that which matters most,” economists like Carol Graham say maybe there should be an additional barometer.

CAROL GRAHAM, Brookings Institution: We need more metrics to fully understand human well-being and human welfare and how to advance it.

FAW: In other words, happiness, the subject of a torrent of recent books from the Dalai Lama to Harvard’s ex-president. Even in the academic world, “happiness” has become a cottage industry.

GRAHAM: There’s a search for a new paradigm with the financial crisis and the sense of were our fundamental’s wrong? Were we chasing the right goals?

FAW: The tiny country of Bhutan now actually uses “gross national happiness,” a survey that measures the quality of life there. France and England are also trying to include “happiness” when assessing their economies. International business consultant and author David Rothkopf:

DAVID ROTHKOPF: Something like happiness, it sound frivolous, but it’s not frivolous. The purpose of society is to create a better quality of life for all the people. It’s not to create the highest amount of aggregate wealth.

FAW: From the sublime moment of an artist in a performance, to children playing blissfully, to church-going ladies displaying their Sunday-best, we know what happiness looks like. But what exactly is it? For the last eleven years Carol Graham has tried to measure happiness.

GRAHAM: We’re getting a handle on this. There’s a new science of measuring it. We haven’t cracked all the codes and it’s not an exact science by any means but we do find some very consistent patterns.

FAW: By surveying thousands of people about how they view their lives, if they smiled that day or were worried, Carol Graham found that money doesn’t necessarily guarantee happiness, that anxiety actually diminishes it, and that people of faith tend to be happier than people without.

GRAHAM: One of the things that surprised me when I got into this enterprise was how common the determinants of happiness were around the world. People actually get happier as they age, as long as they’re healthy.  Health is incredibly important, stable employment. Friendships and family tend to matter. Income matters but only up to a point.

FAW: The fabulously successful internet pioneer and sports team owner Ted Leonsis had to learn what brings happiness the hard way. As a young man, he literally made a fortune, and found it was not enough.

TED LEONSIS, entrepreneur : Maybe you’re lucky and you can start your own business and take it public and sell it, make a lot of money, and declare victory. And I did that in a really compact amount of time, and you get there and think: Is that it? Is that what the dream was all about? It’s not as fulfilling as you were told it would be.

FAW: So after a near-crash in an airplane, Leonsis vowed to seek not wealth, but happiness.

In his book, Leonsis outlines five steps to happiness. One of them: Empathy. For example, after making a harsh statement about his cleaning crew.

LEONSIS: I called a meeting and I said, “Look, I apologize. Teach me what your job is. I want to clean the building. I want to walk a mile in your shoes.”

FAW: So on the same day that President Obama attended a game…

LEONSIS: I’m sitting next to President Obama. ESPN reports on it live, first time a sitting president has gone to a game. Game ends, president leaves. I’m feeling like a million bucks. And now it’s, let’s go clean the women’s bathroom.

FAW: Leonsis says he did it to show empathy for the clean-up crews.

LEONSIS: It really taught me a lot. It’s a year later. No one in our company of 1500 people ever talks about me sitting next to the president of the United States. But they all reference when I cleaned the women’s bathroom and showed empathy.

FAW: Leonsis says what he has also found is that truly happy people recognize what he calls “a higher calling.” To leave in this world more than you take.

LEONSIS: People who give back, who are self-reflective of their role in society, they tend to be the people that are role-modeled, that are remembered, that are loved.

FAW: Father Jonathan Morris, vicar at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City, has also written a book about happiness.

FATHER JONATHAN MORRIS, St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral: Part of finding out who we are and flourishing at the deepest levels of who we are, has to do with helping my neighbor. And that’s part of really tapping into this notion of a search for meaning and purpose and the pursuit of happiness.

FAW: From the beatitudes of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, philosophers and poets agree true happiness is rooted in a higher calling. That is possible only, says Father Morris, through “a union with god.”

FATHER MORRIS: Which means connecting to my very origin, my essential origin and somehow developing a relationship with him that gives us purpose, a special type of purpose, and then gives us joy.

FAW: In his blueprint for happiness, even Ted Leonsis, hardly an avid church-goer, says stay in touch with a higher being.

LEONSIS: Some people interpret that as meditation, some interpret that as your inner voice, some people interpret that as prayer. Regardless of how you personally internalize and make an outcome of it, I think that is a very, very important part of the process of finding what makes you happy.

FAW: All that research on happiness does have real-world implications. For example, if a lack of medical care causes anxiety, shouldn’t government pay more attention to health care than, say, general prosperity? Or, maybe we should do what they’re trying in Bhutan.

GRAHAM: It’s hard to imagine increasing contentment being a goal that we would agree on as a public policy objective, at least not in the United States, which is a very opportunity-focused society. But I do think we could agree that giving more people the opportunity to lead fulfilling lives is an objective of public policy that fits with everything our country is about.

FAW: After all, despite our enormous wealth, in quality of life surveys taken in various countries by Newsweek and Gallup, the US doesn’t even make the top ten.

ROTHKOPF: What could we do to improve the quality of people’s lives? Is it education, health care, rewarding jobs, environment? You find there are a lot of measures of quality of life and you find the countries that do better than we do, in terms of those metrics of quality of life, actually have an approach towards government where government sees its role as providing those things.

FAW: Even hard-headed businessman Leonsis agrees we should focus less on things like the gross national product and concentrate more on what really matters.

LEONSIS: You don’t necessarily win if you’re successful. There’s lots of miserable wealthy people. There’s way more people who if they focused on their communities, their giving back, they’d be much happier in their life.

FAW: Happiness then has many faces. And what all the books, and all those academic studies suggest is that happiness is elusive, is a process, not an end-point. After all, said Albert Einstein, everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Bob Faw in Washington.

KIM LAWTON, Correspondent: For the Occupy Wall street protesters in New York’s Zuccotti Park, it’s become a familiar sight—religious groups offering spiritual and moral support.

VOICES AT SERVICE: We represent. We represent. The New York City communities of faith. The New York City communities of faith.

LAWTON: Growing numbers of leaders from across the religious spectrum have been supporting Occupy Wall Street’s protest against greed and economic inequity.

REV. MICHAEL ELLICK, Judson Memorial Church, NY: This is not just a jobs issue. This is not only a health care issue or a pension issue. This is also a spiritual issue of the nature of what has happened in the United States and how we function as a people together. And that is very, very, much a matter of moral concern, not only to my Christian tradition but to Islam, and to Judaism, to Buddhism.

LAWTON: There have been regular interfaith prayer services at the park. And religious groups are also providing practical help by donating tents, food and money. They’ve been opening their facilities to the protesters, giving logistical advice and helping to get the message out.

ELLICK: Churches are an excellent place to organize this kind of information because we’re under the radar of commerce or of government.

LAWTON: Many say there is a prominent spiritual dimension to what’s been happening. Inside Zuccotti Park is a makeshift community altar, where protestors of all faiths come to pray or meditate. In several cities, protest chaplains—many of them seminary students—minster to the protesters.

ERICA RICHMOND, Protest Chaplain: We are here to provide a religious presence. We are here to listen to people, to hear what’s on their hearts. And we’re here to pray with people. And people do come up to us and ask us to sit with them in prayer, because people are in crisis and that’s why we are all here.

LAWTON: On this Sunday, United Methodists led a communion service. Participants said concern for economic justice is a core teaching of their faith.

REV. K KARPEN, Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, NY: The Bible is all about just a fairer shake for people and God’s concern for all of God’s children, not just a small segment of the population.

LAWTON: Some religious conservatives have criticized the faith-based support of Occupy Wall Street calling it a 60’s style, leftist effort to redistribute wealth. The Family Research Council urged its members to pray that God would prevent what it called “these radical organizers from stirring revolution.” But faith leaders at the Wall Street protests deny any political agenda.

KARPEN: It’s a broad movement of religious groups to support what’s going on and really to support the conversation, not to take a particular side or another side, but just to say these are the things that we need to talk about.

And they say it’s only going to spread.

ELLICK: What’s very, very real is the frustration. And if people don’t think that’s real, if people don’t think that reflects a real existential reality for the majority of Americans, the faith communities see it. Because we are who they come to when mom can’t pay rent, when the immigration officers steal grandma and there’s no one home. I mean, we’re who they come to. So for us it is an obvious, immediate, moral imperative.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.