Episode no. 818
December 31, 2004
KIM LAWTON, guest anchor: Coming up, we look ahead to the religion stories most likely to make news in 2005. And this church in Virginia is home to many of the movers and shakers in Washington, and their pastor has a mission.
Mr. LON SOLOMON (McLean Bible Church): Change this one city and the reverberations will be found - will be felt all across America and the world.
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KIM LAWTON: Welcome. I'm Kim Lawton sitting in for Bob Abernethy. Good to have you with us.
With death tolls continuing to soar from the tsunamis in southern Asia, the worldwide community is mounting the largest humanitarian effort ever. In the immediate wake of the tragedy, Buddhist and Hindu temples across the region became makeshift relief centers where survivors sought shelter and aid. In Vailankanni, India, rescue operations were headquartered at a famous Christian shrine. Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and others have been offering prayers for the victims, and religious relief groups are collecting money and supplies for the devastated region. Humanitarian officials are still assessing the magnitude of the disaster. Initial emergency needs were for food, clean water and medicine. Aid workers say the biggest challenges are coordinating efforts over such a widespread area, and preventing the outbreak of deadly diseases caused by contaminated water and poor sanitation.
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KIM LAWTON, anchor: New pressure on the U.S. government to do more about the escalating violence against religious minorities in Iraq. In a letter to President Bush, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom urged new measures to safeguard non-Muslims and their places of worship. The commission, an independent federal agency, said Christian communities, including Chaldeans and Assyrians, are being targeted because of their perceived support for the US. According to the commission, members of other small non-Muslim sects are also being abducted and assassinated. The letter urged immediate action to ensure the survival of these ancient religious communities.
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KIM LAWTON: The future of Iraq will undoubtedly be one of the major stories of 2005. But what else will we be watching? As we do every year at this time, we invited several prominent journalists to take a look at the year ahead. Bob Abernethy moderated the conversation.
BOB ABERNETHY: Our reporters to look ahead to the religion and ethics stories of the New Year, are E.J. Dionne, a columnist for The Washington Post, a fellow of the Brookings Institution and a professor at Georgetown University. Caryle Murphy is a religion writer for The Washington Post, a Pulitzer-prize winner and the author of the book, "Passion for Islam." Laurie Goodstein is a religion writer for The New York Times.
Laurie, let me begin with you. The election of 2004 seemed to give many religious conservatives a new sense of their power. Politically, what do you expect from that group in the year to come?
LAURIE GOODSTEIN (Religion Writer, The New York Times): I think you'll see an increasing assertiveness both on the national level and on the local level from religious conservatives of all kinds - not just evangelicals - but also those conservative Catholics and conservative Jews, in particular Orthodox Jews who've formed an alliance with evangelicals, on all kinds of issues, everything from stem cell research and abortion, euthanasia and also, what their concern is, a coarsening of the culture. So, I think everywhere that conservative religious folks have been training people and preparing leaders to go into politics, both at the local level and the national level, you're going to see those people stepping forward and pushing their issues.
ABERNETHY: And Caryle, what do expect to see as a result of all of this on Capitol Hill?
CARYLE MURPHY (Religion Writer, The Washington Post): Well, I expect to see more efforts to promote the faith-based initiative, where federal money is given to religious groups to do social services. And, I think that there will be certainly legislation on Capitol Hill to deal with all the moral, ethical issues that Laurie mentioned. And then finally, definitely there's going to be a real energizing of the conservative Christian forces - when and if there is a judicial nominee to the Supreme Court.
ABERNETHY: E.J., if a vacancy opens up on the Court, what kind of person would you expect the President to nominate and what would you see as the consequences of that?
E. J. DIONNE (Columnist, The Washington Post and Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution): I think we can fearlessly predict that this person will be a conservative. The President has said that his models - he said in the 2000 campaign - that his models were Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. There are different kinds of conservatives, however, and I think the religious and moral issues may submerge what I think is an emerging debate, and it's a really important debate, over whether you are going to see a new version of conservative judicial activism, which is aimed at constricting the power of Congress and state legislatures to act in areas such as disability rights or the environment or labor protections.
I also think you are going to see something happening on the Democratic side. Caryle mentioned the faith-based initiative. Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman have always been interested in this. One is hearing that Senator Harry Reid, the new Democratic leader, is also interested. So, you may see an alternative approach to cooperation between government and religious organizations in lifting up the poor. And, I think that would be a very interesting debate, if the Democrats actually offered their own model for this sort of activity.
ABERNETHY: Caryle, let me turn to the Middle East, especially Iraq, elections scheduled for later in January?
Ms. MURPHY: That's right.
ABERNETHY: What do you expect to see?
Ms. MURPHY: Well, if the elections do proceed as scheduled, I think this is definitely going to produce a Shiite-dominated government. And this would be a government that's charged with writing a new constitution. But, the important thing for that new government will be how do they reach out and will they reach out to the Sunni minority to bring them in, if the Sunnis don't participate in the election? And, some Sunni clerics have called for them to boycott it. Because, what we don't want - and there are a lot of fears that could happen - is that this will generate into a civil war - a Sunni-Shia civil war.
ABERNETHY: Suppose a Shia majority is elected and writes a constitution and then governs in a way that is bad news for women and bad news for religious minorities? What would the reaction to that be back here, E.J., in this country?
Mr. DIONNE: Not good. I think there would be a sort of a lot of gnashing of teeth and saying, "Well what exactly did our intervention lead to?" But, I think there is an alternative. The Shia, I think, in Iraq are very conscious that while they are a majority there, the Shia in the rest of the Arab Middle East are a minority. So, they're going to have to create a kind of model for pluralism in Iraq, I think, partly to protect their brethren elsewhere. The other thing is we talk as if there's one giant Shia bloc in Iraq, and you know, as if there were, say a large Christian bloc in the U.S. and not all the divergences that you have within the Christian community. And so, I think, one of the steps toward pluralism would be the development of a number of Parties or political tendencies within Shiism in Iraq. And, I think that's a real possibility.
ABERNETHY: Caryle, after the death of Yassar Arafat last year, now what - in that part of the Middle East - between Israel and Palestine?
Ms. MURPHY: Well, that's another election coming up, the Palestinian election. And, Abu Mazen, a long-time politician, an older guy who is very moderate who has called the recent uprising a mistake - therefore he's alienated a lot of the young people - he's got good possibility of good relationship with the Israeli government. But, the Israeli government has to respond too, to help him out. They've got to give him stuff, they've got to make sure that, you know, he can get something for his people - gestures to increase confidence on both sides. And then, hopefully, you know, hopefully, there'll be negotiations. And, I think it's very important that the United States get involved in seeing that these negotiations do happen.
ABERNETHY: Laurie, the Presbyterian Church USA, back in this country, wants or is considering divesting itself of its investments in companies doing business in the Israeli-occupied territory. How significant do you see that?
Ms. GOODSTEIN: Well, this is a very big concern for Israel, because the precedent of course is divestment from South Africa that helped bring pressure on that government and ultimately led to the downfall of the white government in South Africa. The Presbyterian Church is concerned about what they have seen in Israel, what has happened to the Palestinians. And, that's why they are trying to exert some force here through a divestment campaign. But, it's not at all clear that it's going to come to pass. There are divisions in the Presbyterian Church. But other mainline Christian denominations are looking at the Presbyterian example and discussing among themselves. They also have concerns about what they have seen in Israel. And, they're looking at whether this is something that they should follow as an example.
ABERNETHY: And the Episcopalians, are they going to split up or not?
Ms. GOODSTEIN: Well, this is the schism that never happens. It hasn't happened yet even though a deepening polarization between the conservatives and the liberals in that Church where the presenting condition is homosexuality, but in fact the underlying issue really is how literally to read the Bible. I think what you'll see is a sort of eating away at the unity of the Episcopal Church here in the United States with individual parishes saying they would like to part from the Church and dioceses as well.
ABERNETHY: Our time is almost up, but I want to ask you this: when there was genocide going on in Rwanda, many people said, "Oh, we should have done more about it." Now, within the past few years, there has been something like that going on in Sudan. And not the U.N. And despite the efforts of many religious people to get attention paid to this, not the U.S. either has done enough, probably. Why is that?
Ms. GOODSTEIN: This is I think in some ways, a case in point that evangelicals in this country, even with their renewed political strength, don't always get what they want. They were the first to sound the alarm on the Darfur crisis, partly because they had missionaries in that part of the country and aid workers. And they have the ear of the White House on some things, but not necessarily on this.
ABERNETHY: Yes. Caryle?
Ms. MURPHY: I think it's another indication of how Iraq is sucking up the energy and the attention of the U.S. government. If the United States government were more interested in the atrocities in Sudan, then the U.N. would be.
ABERNETHY: Caryle, very quickly, Islam in the United States, Muslims in the United States, what's going on there?
Ms. MURPHY: It's a very distressed, dejected community and I think they have - there is two things to watch as the next year rolls by and that is how are they going to respond or reorganize themselves politically after having, you know, come out against Bush, and then have him elected - to how they are going to renew ties with the Administration. And then, theologically, there's a lot going on among Muslims in the United States on how to re-interpret their religion to make it more accommodating to American modernity. And, there are some interesting events happening there.
ABERNETHY: E.J., what are you going to be watching most in the coming year?
Mr. DIONNE: Well, I think I am going to be watching the adjustment to the reading of the meaning of this election on cultural questions. Where do Democrats go? Do they - you know, they're not going to gain religious votes by adding a few more "God bless you's" to their speeches - it's going to be how do they put a progressive agenda in moral terms. You know, war and peace are life issues after all. And on the Republican side, I am going to be looking for, where do the religious conservatives want to go, how much farther do they want to push gay marriage? What other issues do they put on the agenda? And, as Laurie suggested earlier, how much local activism do we see as sort of a renewal of activism by religious conservatives at the local level?
ABERNETHY: I am sorry our time is up. Our thanks to E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post, Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times and Caryle Murphy of The Washington Post. Happy New Year to all of you.
Mr. DIONNE: And to you.
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KIM LAWTON: A special report now on an influential evangelical mega-church just outside Washington, D.C. Lucky Severson has our look at the McLean Bible Church, and its popular, sometimes provocative pastor.
LUCKY SEVERSON: They arrive by the hundreds as if they were on a weekend shopping spree at the local mall. Except this is Sunday and the building that could pass for a mall is the McLean Bible Church in Northern Virginia, a stone's throw from the nation's capital. This is a non-denominational mega-church.
Reverend LON SOLOMON (Pastor, McLean Bible Church, greeting the faithful): Hey ladies. How are you? Thanks for coming today. Thanks for getting up early.
SEVERSON: There are upwards of 800 mega-churches in the U.S. Many are evangelical and conservative. Beyond that, some have different missions, but few are as ambitious and focused as the Mclean Bible Church, and its pastor, Reverend Lon Solomon.
Reverend SOLOMON: Our vision, our mission is to make an impact on secular Washington with the message of Christ.
(speaking on stage): Well, good morning. We are glad to have everybody here.
SEVERSON: The day we were here, most of official Washington was out of town. But the McLean Bible Church has more than its share of movers and shakers - senators, congressmen, lobbyists and other well-connected Washingtonians.
(to Rev. Solomon): I think you have been quoted as saying, "Change this city, Washington, and you can change the world." You believe that?
Rev. SOLOMON: I do. I believe Washington's the only city left that you can honestly say, "Change this one city and the reverberations of that would change social policy across America and would change the world."
SEVERSON: He's built the church into a Washington powerhouse with about 9,000 people who believe God is behind the ambitious mission of their pastor. But, religion scholar Shaun Casey, says if Lon Solomon is like the leaders of many mega-churches, he wouldn't be where he is if he wasn't who he is.
Dr. SHAUN CASEY (Professor of Christian Ethics, Wesley Theological Seminary): You have to be something of an entrepreneur. You have to be a leader. You have to be a great preacher. You have to be able to connect to people and motivate them in very strong ways, and he seems to have those attributes.
Rev. SOLOMON (speaking from pulpit): This is not make yourself feel good flattery. This is not psychological babble, friends. This is biblical truth.
SEVERSON: His message is simple: the Bible is the word of God and Christ is the Savior.
HELEN LINK (Parishioner, McLean Bible Church): I think that Lon is very good at applying what the Bible says to our lives today. And I don't think it is particularly Bible thumping.
Rev. SOLOMON: We tell people Jesus is the only way to get to heaven.
SEVERSON: Solomon wants to convert not only every secular person, not only every non-Christian in Washington, he seems especially determined to convert Jews.
Rev. SOLOMON (speaking at podium): At the age of 21, I was an emotional and psychological disaster zone, well on my way to self-destructing.
SEVERSON: It's a story he tells time and again: the prodigal son, the prodigal Jewish son converts to Christianity. It happened when he was a student at the University of North Carolina, majoring in chemistry.
Rev. SOLOMON: I joined a social fraternity, and we drank hard and we partied hard and we womanized hard. I started doing a lot of drugs, including a lot of psychedelics and then began pushing drugs.
SEVERSON: Finally, sinking to the bottom, he encountered Bob Eckhart, a persistent street preacher driving a white van. Eckhart gave Solomon a copy of the New Testament.
Rev. SOLOMON: Finally I got to Matthew, Chapter 11, where Jesus said, "Come to me all you who are burdened and heavy-laden and I will give you rest. You will find peace for your soul." And as soon as I read that I went, "Bingo!" And within a week, all I can tell you is, man, Jesus Christ moved into my life.
SEVERSON: And now he wants to move Jesus into the lives of other Jews. This is a national Christian missionary program called "Jews for Jesus" that Reverend Solomon has embraced with a passion.
Rev. SOLOMON: I am passionate about Jewish people because being one, still today, I realize what adding the Messiah into the Jewish faith does. It's the missing link.
SEVERSON: It's a link many Jews, like Larry Dubin, find offensive.
LARRY DUBIN: They don't practice traditional Judaism. In fact they are ex-Jews. It's a lie, it's offensive and they ought to be called on it.
SEVERSON: Stephen Katz is the Washington director of "Jews for Jesus."
STEPHEN KATZ (Washington Director, "Jews for Jesus"): That's something that is often leveled against us. You are no longer Jews, you are Christians. Well, I say I am a Jew who is a Christian.
SEVERSON: Scott Hillman is with "Jews for Judaism," a group created to counter "Jews for Jesus" and many other missionary programs like it. He says a Jew simply cannot be both a Jew and a Christian.
SCOTT HILLMAN ("Jews for Judaism"): Is it possible to be an atheist for God? Is it possible to be a meat eater for vegetarians, you know, or a vegetarian for meat? It's doesn't work. This is an oxymoron.
SEVERSON: Sandy Link disagrees. He's a member of the Mclean Bible Church and he says, a Jew.
SANDY LINK (Parishioner, McLean Bible Church): You are born a Jew and you are always a Jew because it is your birthright. The Bible is rife with Jewish people who became Christians. So, it is quite possible and it has been very possible for me. It enriches your experience and it completes you Judaism to be a Christian.
SEVERSON: Ultimately, according to Reverend Solomon's read of the Bible, Jews and anyone else who doesn't convert to Christianity won't go to heaven.
Rev. SOLOMON: I'm sorry if it offends people. I'm only delivering the message that Jesus gave. And, you know, you could call it intolerance if you want, but let's face it. I mean, truth is intolerant. Truth is truth. They miss heaven.
Mr. HILLMAN: They say we're "despised of God," that we've been, you know, "left behind" because we rejected the Messiah.
SEVERSON: Many here believe in the "end times" prophecies of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye, who has spoken at McLean Bible. Followers believe there are verses in the Bible that predict that a certain number of Jews need to be converted to Christianity before Christ can return.
Dr. CASEY: It's a very speculative business, to put it mildly. And there are folks who find biblical verses who they think justify some sort of "last times" outreach to the Jews and some sort of conversion. But I think it's a selective read.
Rev. SOLOMON: We only take a public stand on two social, quasi-political issues. They are abortion, homosexuality, gay rights and gay marriage.
Mr. LINK: What I like about Lon's sermon is it's very straightforward - he really doesn't leave a lot of ambiguity. And so, I think it is easier when you know exactly where we stand as a church - exactly where Lon stands as a minister.
(Clip shown from "Passion of the Christ")
Rev. SOLOMON (speaking to audience): With all these people standing around the cross taunting Jesus to come down and thereby prove his Messiah ship. The question is why didn't Jesus come down?
SEVERSON: They also know that Reverend Lon will deliver an instructive, impressive, always on time, Sunday service that will keep them coming back.
Rev. SOLOMON: I think people in Washington are used to excellence. And when they come into church and church runs sloppy, I just don't think that's an effective way to reach secular people.
SEVERSON: On this day, the featured musician is a renowned harpist. The sanctuary is adorned with huge flat screen TVs that make the people on stage a little less distant. It's all part of the package. And that includes Starbucks Coffee.
(to Rev. Solomon): Do you take umbrage when people refer to this as a glitzy mega-church?
Rev. SOLOMON: No. People call us all kinds of things.
SEVERSON (to Rev. Solomon): As long as it works, that's what you care about?
Rev. SOLOMON: As long as we're changing people's lives for Jesus, that's the bottom line.
SEVERSON: That includes changing the lives of kids in trouble in hard scrabble Washington neighborhoods. McLean Bible also operates one of the few ministries for disabled kids in the country. One of Solomon's four children, a daughter, was born with profound physical and mental disabilities.
Rev. SOLOMON: I have my little girl, Jill who God used to just radically change my life 12 years ago. She made me a better man, and she made me a better leader, a better pastor, made us a better family.
SEVERSON: Reverend Solomon says he hardly recognizes the person he used to be. From practicing Jew to drug pusher, from atheist to true believer, he is convinced God made him in the womb to do what he is doing.
Rev. SOLOMON: I feel my life's making a difference for eternity and that there are going to be a lot of people in heaven because of what I did and that you know, that gives me great satisfaction. I'm looking forward to the Lord saying to me when I get to heaven, "Well done Solomon, you didn't get it all right, but you did a pretty good job. Well done, good and faithful servant."
Rev. SOLOMON (speaking from pulpit): And God's people said "Amen." Thanks for being here and bless you guys.
SEVERSON: For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Lucky Severson in McLean, Virginia.
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KIM LAWTON: On our calendar, Sikhs celebrate the birthday of their last guru on January 5. Guru Gobind Singh died in 1666. The Sikh scriptures are now considered the religion's guru.
Meanwhile, it's a complicated time in the Christian calendar. January 6 is the Feast of the Epiphany for Western Christians and most Eastern Orthodox churches in North America. In the Western Church, Epiphany marks the visit of the Wise Men to the baby Jesus. Eastern Orthodox Christians associate the feast with the baptism of Jesus. But other Christians follow different calendars. So Armenian Christians celebrate Christmas on January 6. And January 7 is Christmas for Egyptian and Ethiopian Copts, as well as Russian and some other Orthodox churches.
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KIM LAWTON: Finally, Pope John Paul II is resting after a busy Christmas season, but there are reports that he's considering shaking up a long-standing Catholic tradition in the new year. A newspaper in Genoa, Italy, quotes an influential cardinal as saying the Pope may abolish miracles as requirements for sainthood. Over the centuries, there have only been two major reforms of the process for proclaiming saints. In 1588, the process was centralized at the Vatican, and in 1983, John Paul II cut the number of miracles required from four to only one for martyrs and two for other candidates. An official at the Vatican office that oversees the sainthood process declined to comment on the report. But he did acknowledge that eliminating the miracles requirement would be nothing short of revolutionary.
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KIM LAWTON: That's our program for now. I'm Kim Lawton. There's much more on our Web site. Join us at pbs.org. As we leave you, in honor of Epiphany, entertainer John Tesh performs "We Three Kings" on a PBS special.
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