BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Coming up, if a religion doesn't require a belief in God, can it be considered a true religion? The state of Texas versus Ethical Culture.

Also, a vision of hell. Critic Martha Bayles with her appreciation of a new dramatization of "Dante's Inferno."

And meet Tom Beaudoin, author, Catholic theologian and rock musician, a missionary to the world of generation X.

Mr. TOM BEAUDOIN (Young Adult Minister): One of the most common marks of this generation is its interest in tattooing and piercing, and I think there's also a spiritual dimension.

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ABERNETHY: Welcome back. I'm Bob Abernethy. It's good to have you with us.

There were the beginnings of a possible new detente with Islam and Christianity this week, as Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, a Muslim cleric, visited Italy and the Vatican. Throughout the trip, Khatami called for better relations between the two faiths. He also expressed hope for what he called the final victory of monotheism. Vatican officials said the private meeting between Khatami and Pope John Paul II was based on a spirited

dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

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BOB ABERNETHY: Here in the United States this week, the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, is considering dramatic changes in the equal opportunity standards

for the country's nearly 2,000 religious broadcasters. The revisions would allow some religious broadcasters to discriminate on the basis of religion in their hiring practices. But as Paul Miller reports, some groups believe the FCC's proposed definition of a religious broadcaster is too narrow.

Unidentified Disc Jockey: There's a message in every song. WGTS, 91.9.

PAUL MILLER: WGTS is a contemporary Christian music station, licensed to a Seventh Day

Adventist college. That meets the proposed FCC definition of religious broadcasters allowed to hire only members of the faith, those closely affiliated with the church, synagogue or other religious entity.

Unidentified Woman: You know, the Scriptures says `Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart.'

MILLER: WAVA-FM is a commercial religious talk station with no church affiliation, so it would not meet the FCC definition. The National Religious Broadcasters group wants the definition broadened to include all religious stations. Its president says the stations willingly employ minority group members and women.

Dr. BRANDT GUSTAFSON (President, National Religious Broadcasters): We feel that we ought to have a full complement of people from these various segments of working society. However, we feel that we should be able to discriminate on the basis of religion in the matter of who we would hire for our stations.

MILLER: The NRB says its stations do more than entertain and people of faith are needed to help them teach, minister and inspire. The FCC used to require stations to set aside jobs for non-believers. A federal court said that was an unconstitutional quota for a significant group of stations.

Religious broadcasters have become part of the mainstream of the industry. The number of radio and TV stations carrying religious programming grew again last year and so did the audience.

Religious broadcasting is now the third most popular radio format, with 1,600 radio stations and almost 250 TV stations. The FCC must decide how many will operate under different employment rules. I'm Paul Miller in Arlington, Virginia.

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BOB ABERNETHY: In the state of Texas, there's a dispute under way over how to define a

religion. Does a belief system have to include God in order to qualify as a religion? If not, where does that leave the Ethical Culture society? Our reporter is Bob Currie in Austin.

Mr. DAVID BAGLEY (Ethical Culture Fellowship): I came from part of the Catholic tradition, studying the Catholic Church.

Unidentified Woman: I was brought up on the front row of the Methodist Church choir.

Unidentified Man: The person I was essentially raised as an atheist, a humanist.

BOB CURRIE: It's a Sunday morning in Austin, Texas, so what's an atheist doing in this

congregation? The answer, just like others gathered here, he's come to practice a religion that doesn't require theology, a belief in any particular God.

Mr. BAGLEY: This group does not require that you believe in Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad or whatever.

Mr. MICHAEL BHALLA (Ethical Culture Fellowship): We all agree about ethics being central, but as far as theology, there's quite a wide range.

CURRIE: The fact that Ethical Culture does not require a belief in God has put it at odds with the Texas state controllers office, which says that it can't be considered a religion and is therefore not exempt from state taxes because Ethical Culture does not meet a dictionary definition, which says that religion is, quote, "an organized system of beliefs and rituals centering on a super-natural being."

Professor ED SHIRLEY (St. Edward's University): I thought it was odd that they would just simply look in a popular dictionary for a definition and were applying things this way. I mean, I -- my students couldn't get away with that.

CURRIE: Professor Shirley has been a witness before the Texas comptroller in a similar case involving a Buddhist group which was also denied tax exemption.

Prof. SHIRLEY: In terms of the supreme being question, if you were to apply that, basically, it knocks out--I mean, just first of all, knocks out a good number of Hindus. It knocks out Taoists. It knocks out all Buddhists, because Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. So the Dalai Lama, as I

understood, could not be considered a religious leader in Texas.

CURRIE: At one point last year, the comptroller's office relented and agreed to consider Ethical Culture as a religion, but reversed its decision in less than 48 hours.

Ms. SU ARMSTRONG (Ethical Culture Fellowship): We're not a godless group, but once that headline came out, I think that in Texas, any politician who wants to get elected is gonna have to come out publicly and strongly against anything that's termed godless.

Unidentified Announcer: Now passing in review, the first woman in history to be elected to the Texas comptroller, Carole Keeton Rylander.

CURRIE: Carole Keeton Rylander, who won last fall's election for state comptroller, agrees with her predecessor's decision. She declined to be interviewed, but gave RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY this statement which reads, quote, "Making them tax exempt not only cheats the taxpaying families of Texas, but makes a mockery of our Judeo-Christian heritage."

Mr. BHALLA: If you start defining religion in terms of Judeo-Christianity, you wind up filtering all religions except those two.

CURRIE: In the 13 states where Ethical Culture has filed for tax exemption, only Texas has denied them religious status. In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that belief in a supreme being is not a necessary criterion for religion, and in a footnote, cited the case of Ethical Culture.

Mr. BAGLEY: Religion, simply and basically defined, is something which you follow to make your life better. Now if Ethical Culture doesn't meet that definition, then we've got a serious problem.

CURRIE: The Ethical Culture Fellowship belongs to the American Ethical Union, founded over 120 years ago in New York City by Felix Adler, a social reformer, college professor and son of a prominent rabbi. He saw a need for a religion based on the basic ethical principles underlying the world's major religions, minus the cultural and ethic traditions that divided their followers. Belief in God was left up to members according to their own religious backgrounds.

Over the years, Ethical Culture members have been prominent in social issues, helping start the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, advocating child labor laws, women's suffrage and the formation of the American Civil Liberties Union. The group has, in fact, turned to the ACLU to represent it in a lawsuit to force Texas to confer tax exemption and make it easier for the group to raise money for its own building and to pay for group activities.

Mr. BHALLA: We feel that, in a sense, we're being discriminated against for our beliefs, and we feel that that's not the American way.

Prof. SHIRLEY: We have to be willing to defend positions that we do not hold, in fact, that we might actually be opposed to, because if we don't, the next person they come after may be us.

CURRIE: Ethical Culture could, in effect, circumvent Texas politics by applying to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a non-profit organization. But members feel that would be avoiding the key issue, whether living a life of ethics with or without God qualifies as a religion in the Lone Star State. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Bob Currie in Austin.

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BOB ABERNETHY: New developments this week in mainline churches' divisive struggle over

homosexuality. A court of the Presbyterian Church USA found a Connecticut congregation not guilty of breaking church law by installing a gay man as an elder. The denomination does not consider gay sexual orientation a sin, but does condemn homosexual practice. The elder had refused to answer specific questions about his sexual activities.

And the presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church received a stern letter from Anglican bishops in seven other countries demanding that he bring his denomination in line with worldwide Anglican resolutions barring the ordination of gays.

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BOB ABERNETHY: On our Persecution Watch, two Buddhist monks were arrested in Tibet and several others confined to their monasteries in a crackdown on observances of the 40th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. From exile in India, the Dalai Lama marked the day with a prayer service and a rally attended by 4,000 people. In his speech, the Dalai Lama called for new dialogue with China. His appearance was an interruption of two weeks of doctor-ordered bed rest, reportedly for pneumonia.

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BOB ABERNETHY: The winner of this year's Templeton Prize for progress in religion is Ian

Barbour, a physicist and theologian, professor emeritus at Carleton College in Minnesota. Professor Barbour was honored for his life's work, seeking common ground between science and religion, and for encouraging dialogue between theologians and scientists about new moral issues such as the implications of cloning and genetic engineering. The Templeton Prize, announced Wednesday in New York, is the largest cash award in the world. This year, $1.24 million. After the ceremony, I asked Dr. Barbour how he thinks the debate is going between those who say reality is all material and those who see it as both material and spiritual.

Professor IAN BARBOUR (Templeton Prize Winner): I think it's still a minority of scientists, but a significant minority that realizes that science doesn't have all the answers. I think particularly, when it comes to ethical issues, you find many scientists who recognize that science raises questions that it doesn't itself answer. I mean, something like human cloning, for

example. The scientists can tell you what's possible but not what's desirable, not what one might want to do, and--and this is where I think the religious community has an important input, because it--it has upheld values of human dignity and of the family, and I think it's got an important voice here.

ABERNETHY: Professor Barbour plans to give away $1 million of his prize to the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, California, with smaller gifts to Carleton College and to his church.

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BOB ABERNETHY: Now a new look at hell. At least, a hell as imagined by Dante Alighieri in

his divine comedy in the early 1400s. A play that's been running in Los Angeles is based on the acclaimed translation of "Dante's Inferno" by Robert Pinsky, the poet laureate of the United States. Our critic, Martha Bayles, explored with Pinsky how Dante ranked the circles of hell and the variety of sin.

MARTHA BAYLES: I'm standing outside the new Getty Center in Los Angeles. Below me are seven levels of parking that spiral down into the Earth, and reserving a spot there is hard. But if I were standing in Dante's Italy, things would be different. There'd be a lot more below me than a parking garage. There would be nine circles of hell, the inferno. And reserving a spot there would be easy.

Here at the Getty recently, a theater group performs themes from Dante's great poem, the "Inferno." Taped by the Jewish Television Network, the performance was based on the award-winning translation by the poet laureate of the United States, Robert Pinsky. I asked Robert Pinsky what he thought about while translating into crisp and vivid English a 700-year-old poem about a citizen of Florence who, guided by the Roman poet Virgil, spends a week journeying

through hell.

Mr. ROBERT PINSKY (Poet Laureate of the United States): It may be a sad commentary on me, but I didn't think about hell. I thought about rhyme and sentences and juicy words.

BAYLES: Is the "Inferno" about punishment?

Mr. PINSKY: No, I don't think so. Punishment's not so interesting. The "Inferno" is about a much more interesting subject. It's about despair or depression as a self-inflicted wound.

BAYLES: The despairing have a place in Dante's hell, as do suicide. Their fate is to be immobilized as trees, trees that feel pain.

Unidentified Actress: (From play) Why did you break me? Why have you torn me? Have you no pity then?

BAYLES: Dante does have pity. He weeps for many of the souls he encounters. Yet in his medieval Christian universe, they're all, including the suicides, sinners. To us, that can feel pretty alien.

Mr. PINSKY: He invented a planet. He invented a world. And it has, as one of its features, an intensity of -- what is the word? -- retribution. But he doesn't use the word, he uses contrapasov, which is a more or less an invented word. And it means that way in which what I do hurts me. Why do I do it?

BAYLES: We hurt ourselves, yes, but we also hurt others. And even though the "Inferno" is of uncertain size, it has plenty of room and a different kind of suffering for every wrong. The lustful, like the famous lovers, Paolo and Francesca, are blown about by winds as potent as their passions. Yet sins of the flesh and of feeling are not treated as harshly as those of the mind and

the will. Seducers and flatterers are goaded by demons and buried in filth. The bodies of thieves fuse with those of serpents.

In the very pit of hell, where everything is ice, lie the betrayers, those who return evil for good. And there, Dante and Virgil meet Satan, who must be grappled with.

Mr. PINSKY: When they are grasping the harry flanks of the devil with their faces right up against the ice-matted hair and they climb laboriously till they reach the middle of his body -- the poem says where the haunches are at their thickest, whether it's his genitals or his belly button or the devil's anus, that's the center of gravity of the Earth, the place where all weight

goes. And painfully, they turn around -- that action is a recapitulation of the action of the whole poem, which is to go into the evil, to go close to it in order to try to penetrate through it to the other side.

BAYLES: And so ends the "Inferno." With the wisdom of Virgil, the grace of heaven and every ounce of courage we possess, it is possible to return from hell. Maybe Dante's universe is not so alien after all. For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Martha Bayles.

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BOB ABERNETHY: If there's one segment of our population that might be considered un-churched, it's that group generally referred to as generation X, roughly the children of

the baby boomers. They were growing up when pop culture exploded and while their parents were often questioning their own value systems. Gen Xers may not trust religious institutions, yet they're clearly looking for spirituality. But how to penetrate the apathy and cynicism? A young Catholic theologian thinks he has found the way. From Boston, Judy Valente reports.

JUDY VALENTE: They grew up in a bland and sometimes broken suburbia, watching music videos and mastering cyberspace, the first to experience virtual reality. They express themselves in unique styles of fashion and in the socially tolerant culture of their time. Sociologists dub them generation X, babies born roughly between 1961 and 1981, some 80 million Americans. For churches, it is an age group that remains largely an enigma, one with a deep hunger for

meaning but a keen suspicion of institutions.

Mr. TOM BEAUDOIN (Young Adult Minister): Not that we love God but that God loved us.

VALENTE: Enter Tom Beaudoin, a 30-year-old Catholic theologian and rock musician and author of a recent and controversial book on the spirituality of generation X.

Mr. BEAUDOIN: It occurred to me the more I attended to my own life in the popular culture as someone who would watch MTV or VH1, as someone who played in rock bands, as someone who was an avid purchaser and listener of popular music, that there were certain themes that seemed to resonate on a generational level. And it also occurred to me, through my own spiritual

search, that the church was not doing a very good job responding as an institution to many of the needs of my generation that were, to me, clearly evident by way of the popular culture.

VALENTE: Beaudoin sees evidence of a deep yearning for religion beneath the more worldly trappings of popular culture. He is now on a mission to help churches use popular culture to get their message out to generation X.

This is a generation largely unschooled in religious tradition, and with a highly personalized approach to moral question. Because of this, churches have found it difficult to reach out to this age group, and some have called on Tom Beaudoin and his unique perspective to help them connect with this generation.

Ms. ERIN DUFF (Age 25): I lived my life -- Iím nice to other people and I follow my own code of ethics, but I don't, you know, go to a place every Sunday and listen to someone else tell me what they are, you know what I mean? Because I just don't find any proof in that.

Mr. TODD RUDER (Age 30): I know that I kind of shy away a little bit from the religion because it seems to be, you know, too structured and too dictatorial sometimes, even.

VALENTE: Do you know what votive candles are?

Ms. CHRIS BUCKLEY (Age 30): Yeah. They're the candles that you light if you're a Catholic and you go to church. They're devotional candles. And nowadays, they don't use these. Nowadays, you put $2 into a machine and a little lightbulb lights up.

VALENTE: Beaudoin's approach is to use the religious imagery rampant in the music videos and fashion of popular as a way of leading typically suspicious generation Xers toward a path of spiritual truth.

Mr. BEAUDOIN: It is possible as a Catholic, I would say, to look for traces of God in the every day. One of the most common marks of this generation is its interest in tattooing and piercing, that the experience of being pierced, the experience of being marked is some kind of experience of permanence.

VALENTE: Andy Crouch of Harvard University is, like Beaudoin, a young adult minister.

Mr. ANDY CROUCH (Young Adult Minister): I think Tom's thoughts on tattooing are some of his most profound and on-the-money points. It is a religious act to try to get in touch with something permanent. The question, of course, is, does it ultimately work? I'd say, no, it doesn't ultimately work. It's a sign of what we want, but it can't ever give us what we want.

VALENTE: Beaudoin agrees that symbols are only the starting point. The focus, he says, has to be unwaveringly on Jesus.

Mr. BEAUDOIN: One of the tasks of ministering with young people today is to take the radical Jesus seriously, to take Jesus radically seriously. There's a sense that Jesus knows something the church doesn't. If we get back to Jesus, then we'll get back to a more authentic practice.

VALENTE: Beaudoin travels the country to churches like this one, Holy Family Parish outside of Chicago, by invitation, speaking and holding workshops in an effort to teach both the church and young adults how to identify Jesus in the every day and how to connect with one another.

According to Beaudoin, this generation considers tolerance essential to its spirituality, so Gen Xers are unwilling or reluctant to form moral judgments and resist challenges to their chosen lifestyles. Because of this, Beaudoin stresses that the church must present more carefully a message which still remains true to its values.

Mr. BEAUDOIN: There is a certain amount of self-centeredness, self-absorption, of narcissism that's at work today, that's really there. OK? I don't want to ignore that. At the same time, one has to say that the themes that the church as an institution chooses to talk about and the way it chooses to talk about them can be alienating or not alienating. The church has often chosen the alienating route.

VALENTE: The answer, Beaudoin says, is for the church to help young adults develop what he calls a rightly formed conscience. A principal tool in this is the formation of small faith groups modeled on Cairos, a ministry he co-founded with other young adults at The Paulist Center in Boston. For many Gen Xers, these groups are meeting a critical need.

Ms. KAREN STOCKERT (Age 36): I was intrigued by the idea of a group of people getting together--like-minded people getting together and talking about some of the difficult questions about being Catholic, because I have, you know, found myself wondering if I belong somewhere else.

Unidentified Man: One thing that encompasses everything...

Unidentified Woman #1: Yeah.

Man: ...it could be something that you love, you know, out of a whole list of things.

Woman #1: If I can only choose one thing, I feel like it has...

Man: That's right.

Woman #1: ...to be fairly all-encompassing, I would say life.

Unidentified Woman #2: The first thing that comes to my mind is like sunshine, because -- I know it sounds like really Pollyanna, but it just seems to me like a metaphor for other things. You feel the warmth of the sun can very much be like the love of God. It can be a presence of grace.

Mr. CHASE ORSELLO (Age 27): What I was missing was connections with other people regarding these issues, like social justice, like what the church says about love versus what I think about love; what the church says about homosexuality vs. what I think about homosexuality.

VALENTE: Beaudoin's strongest inspiration comes from the New Testament, from one who pointed to features of his own culture in order to illustrate his enduring evangelical message.

Mr. BEAUDOIN: I think the apostle Paul is in some way our motto, going to the, quote, unquote, pagans and saying, "You know the God that you worship is really the God that I know. The God that you're looking for is the God that we have been trying to talk about for 2,000 years and let's talk together about that God."

VALENTE: With God at the center of their lives, the symbols so important to this generation will begin to take on new meaning, Beaudoin says. In that way, young people eventually will come to understand that everything they do in life is connected to God.

Unidentified Woman #3: And may we share that love with those around us.

VALENTE: This is Judy Valente in Boston.

Group of People: (In unison) Amen.

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BOB ABERNETHY: And that's our report for now. Next time, the boy preacher turned artist, who is now illustrating a lavish new edition of the Bible.

I'm Bob Abernethy. See you next week.

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