At a panel on immigration and faith at the Religion Newswriters Association convention Thursday, Luis Lugo, the director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, made a few interesting observations:

• Immigration is leading to an increase in the number of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims in the United States, but a large majority of new immigrants are Christian. This stands in contrast to the situation in Europe, where a much higher percentage of immigrants are non-Christian.
• Although Protestants outnumber Catholics in the United States, new immigrants are overwhelmingly Catholic, and as a result, "immigration is tilting the balance within American Christianity in favor of Catholicism." Also, Lugo said, "We're very close to becoming a minority Protestant country.''
• Many of the new immigrants are from Latin America, Africa and Asia. "What we are seeing is not the de-Christianization of America, but the de-Europeanization of American Christianity,'' he said. One effect of this, he said, is a rise in Pentecostal and charismatic worship styles in US churches, because those more expressive forms of worship are often preferred by immigrants from the Global South.
• Nearly a quarter of all Catholics in the United States are foreign born -- the highest percentage among any of the nation's largest faith groups. "To know what the country will be like in three decades, look at the Catholic Church,'' he said.
• The Muslim population in the United States is more diverse, in terms of national origin, than the Muslim population in any other country on earth. No more than 8 percent of American Muslims is from any one country. This, again, contrasts with the situation in Europe, where, for example, many German Muslims are from Turkey, many Spanish Muslims are from Morocco, and many French Muslims are from Algeria.

Two members of President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, speaking from opposite ends of the theological spectrum, today suggested that they have pretty limited expectations for the panel.

Speaking at the annual convention of the Religion Newswriters Association, Frank S. Page, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, "I do not think anything of substance will come out of it. The policy recommendations will be relatively innocuous -- nothing of great substance.'' Page is probably the most conservative member of the panel -- he described himself as the "resident fundamentalist,'' but he said he has access to the White House, expects to have a chance to talk directly with the president, is honored to be on the council, and said that "I think his heart is right with regard to some issues.''

The Rev. Peg Chemberlin, who is the president-elect of the National Council of Churches, didn't seem to have particularly high expectations for specific policy outcomes as a result of the diverse panel either, but she praised the effort at inclusiveness and listening. Interestingly, she opined that mainline Protestant leaders have less access to the Obama White House than do evangelical leaders, or even Catholics and Jews, but she suggested that that probably has more to do with the political skills and interests of the leaders, rather than any strategic effort by the White House.

USA Today's Cathy Grossman has a bit more on the discussion here.

Some items on my reading list this Tuesday morning:

Old-school seminary: Eric Gorski, a national religion reporter for the Associated Press, visits a Neocatechumenal Way seminary in Denver. The enticing lede: "The seminarians' wallets are empty, except for driver's licenses and insurance cards. To buy cigarettes or clothes or anything else, they must ask their superiors for money — an exercise in obedience and a reminder that material things are not important."

Gene Robinson in England: The Guardian newspaper has a lengthy interview with the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire with lots of interesting personal detail, but the newsiest bit is his reaction to the idea of a two-tiered Anglican Communion: "I can't imagine anything that would be more abhorrent to Jesus than a two-tier church."

More on Protestants and homosexuality: On today's Globe op-ed page, scholars Wendy Cadge of Brandeis and Laura Olson of Clemson take a look at the battles over gay rights in Protestantism, and observe that, "Mainline Protestant denominations in particular are slowly, but deliberately, adopting more tolerant stances - leaving conservatives rather than liberals to split off from their churches."

Obama's faith office: Dan Gilgoff of U.S. News takes a look at how the Obama Administration's faith-based office differs from that of the Bush Administration and concludes that "President Obama's faith-based office has given religious figures a bigger role in influencing White House decisions."

Douthat on Kennedys: Ross Douthat's column in Sunday's New York Times about differences on abortion between siblings Ted and Eunice Kennedy, both of whom died last month, is occasioning a lot of chatter. He writes, "It’s worth pondering how the politics of abortion might have been different had Ted shared even some of his sister’s qualms about the practice."

In today's Globe, health/science reporter Liz Kowalczyk takes an interesting look at the increase in demand for chaplains at Boston hospitals. An excerpt:

The number of requests from patients, families, and staff for spiritual guidance in one of the country’s most technology-rich medical hubs has soared, as hospitals have expanded the role and number of chaplains.

Since 2004, requests for chaplains at the Brigham have jumped 23 percent. At Massachusetts General Hospital, requests have grown 30 percent since the hospital began tracking visits in 2006. And at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which expanded its pastoral care program last year, monthly visits are expected to rise to at least 540 this month, a 10-fold increase over the same time last year.

“Visits are just going through the roof,’’ said the Rev. Julia Dunbar, director of pastoral care and education at Beth Israel Deaconess.

Chaplains and doctors said requests - from both religious and nonreligious patients and families - are growing in part because hospitals are caring for sicker patients who are more often grappling with questions about aggressive care and death. The number of Latino patients also has grown, chaplains said, and many of these patients are deeply religious.

Also, as hospitals have expanded the role and number of chaplains, which include priests, ministers, rabbis and imams, they’ve become more visible and available. Last year, Beth Israel Deaconess hired a full-time Catholic priest and six part-time chaplains and began asking all patients whether they want a visit during their stay. Mass. General has assigned its chaplains to specific units to increase their visibility.

(Photo, by John Tlumacki of the Globe staff, shows a Jesuit priest/hospital chaplain, the Rev. George Winchester, talking with patient Bob Perry of Lowell at Brigham and Women's Hospital on Aug. 20, 2009.)

For those of us who love maps, Gallup today has put out a nifty set illustrating the differential religious makeup of the American states. The maps are based on new data -- survey research conducted earlier this year -- but there's no big news here: the Northeast is the most Catholic region, the South the most Protestant, Utah the most Mormon and New York the most Jewish. And the Pacific Northwest and northern New England have the biggest percentages of non-religious folks. Here is Gallup's analysis of what it calls a "remarkable pattern of religious dispersion in the U.S.,'' with an interesting unanswered question about Vermont:

"A good deal of the religious dispersion across the states is explainable by historical immigration patterns -- particularly the impact of the large waves of European Catholics and Jews who came through ports of entry in the Middle Atlantic states in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The geographic concentration of Mormons in and around Utah reflects the cross-country migration of that group in the mid-1800s from Illinois and other Eastern states to their new home. The fact that certain states like Oregon and Vermont consist disproportionately of residents with no religious identity is more difficult to explain, with hypotheses focusing on the particular and idiosyncratic cultures of those states and/or the migration of certain types of Americans to those states over the decades."

Here's the map about Catholicism:

And Protestantism:

The Massachusetts Bible Society, marking 200 years of handing out millions of Bibles to the poor and the imprisoned, this afternoon staged a small-scale re-enactment of its founding in the warm embrace of the round blue state Senate chamber.

A few dozen supporters of the organization, some dressed in knickers, top hats, bowties or bonnets, read from the founding documents, now tinged with irony, about the aspirations and arguments of Protestant denominations that then wielded considerable power and influence in the Bay State.

The event featured readings from early writings of the Bible Society’s while male Protestant founders, most of them Harvard-educated, who could hardly have imagined the organization's leadership of today: the Bible society’s current president is a Catholic priest, the Rev. Walter H. Cuenin, and its executive director is a woman, the Rev. Anne Robertson (above), who is a Methodist minister. But two centuries of modernization has not changed all atop Beacon Hill: as the clergy and lay people of today held their re-enactment, a small gray mouse darted out from beneath the golden drapes behind the podium and scurried unimpeded across the Senate carpet.

The Bible Society, which was the third such organization in the early United States, is one of the lesser-known relics of Massachusetts’ rich religious past, and has undergone considerable downsizing in recent years, selling its longtime headquarters on Bromfield Street, closing its bookstores, and moving its small staff first to the Congregational House on Beacon Street and then, in December, to the campus of Andover Newton Theological School in Newton. The organization’s rare Bibles collection now resides at Boston University, and its printed newsletter is now on-line only. Its endowment, which was $6.4 million a year ago, is now about $3.3 million.

The organization, which once employed 18 colporteurs who traveled around distributing Bibles door-to-door and had a special ministry to the state’s many newly arriving immigrants, still distributes Bibles in prisons, hospitals, on campuses, and through programs for the homeless and the poor. The organization also hosts lectures and publishes articles. But the organization is also trying to reinvent itself for the Internet Age, increasingly emphasizing its web site, and now with a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter feed, and it recently spent $500,000 to construct a media center at Andover Newton that is intended for use training clergy and congregations on use of technology.

“At one time, everybody who was anybody had not only heard of the Mass. Bible Society but was part of it,’’ Robertson said in an interview. “We still have a message, but today we are focusing more on Biblical literacy, understanding and dialogue.’’

In an address to the society members before a ceremonial re-signing of the founding charter (below), Robertson outlined the argument for the future of the organization, which in recent years has emphasized its place as home for a liberal alternative to more evangelical readings of the Bible. The organization has encouraged an interpretive, rather than literal, reading of the Bible.

“Is it a tough road to convince people that the Bible is relevant to our age? Yes, it is,’’ Robertson said. “Is it tougher still to reach out and take the Bible back from those who have ground its contents to such a sharp point that more people seem to feel wounded by it than helped? Yes, it is.’’

After the ceremony, the Bible Society members strolled over to the Omni Parker House for a period dinner featuring turnip soup and pink pancakes (crepes).

Cuenin, the Catholic chaplain at Brandeis and the first Catholic priest to serve as president, said he wanted to be involved with the organization in part because of its history and in part to make sure Catholics were visible in an organization that was long Protestant-only.

“What we’ve been trying to do is figure out where we go for the future, and figure out the electronic means of spreading the Bible,’’ he said. “Two hundred years ago, the purpose was to give out Bibles, but today people have Bibles, so that’s not a big deal. The question is, how do we make it usable?”

Cuenin and Robertson both emphasized the Society’s role in encouraging a debate about the meanings of the Bible in today’s society.

“I’m someone who believes in interpreting the Bible, and not following it literally, and that’s what my church teaches,’’ Cuenin said. “This society would promote an understanding of the Scripture that is more contemporary and open to historical criticism.’’

(Photos, by Yoon S. Byun/Globe staff, show the Massachusetts Bible Society celebrating its bicentennial by reenacting its founding in the Senate chamber of the Massachusetts State House on July 6, 2009.)

Andover Newton Theological School (right) this week announced that it is pursuing a possible merger with Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, prompting me to take a look at the variety of ways in which local theological schools are adapting to new economic and educational realities. Here's an excerpt from the story:

"The decision by Andover Newton follows several innovative arrangements by local theological schools facing financial or enrollment pressures.

In Cambridge, Episcopal Divinity School is in the midst of a new partnership with Lesley University, in which Lesley is purchasing seven buildings from EDS, the land is being governed cooperatively by the two schools, a joint library is about to be launched, and Lesley is taking over buildings and grounds, custodial services, and dining services for EDS. The two schools expect at some point to discuss academic cooperation.

In Brighton, Boston College has absorbed Weston Jesuit School of Theology, which had been located in Cambridge, and Boston College is also providing facilities assistance to St. John's Seminary, which is on land the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston recently sold to the university. In Newton, Andover Newton is already sharing maintenance staffs and some academic programming with Hebrew College, which is now having conversations with other potential partner institutions.

On the North Shore, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, an evangelical Protestant institution that is by far the largest local theological school, has adapted to the new climate by opening additional campuses in North Carolina, Jacksonville, Fla., and Roxbury and sharing faculty and administration among the campuses.

'When you have a fixed amount of money, are you going to spend it on gutters and downspouts or scholarships and scholars?' asked Nick Carter, president of Andover Newton. 'Folks are looking at the challenge of overhead versus the delivery of mission.'"

(Photo, by Wendy Maeda of the Globe staff, shows a building at Andover Newton on May 27, 2009.)

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life last week reported a finding that at first blush is stunning: the more often one attends religious services, the more likely one is to say that the use of torture against suspected terrorists is at least sometimes justified. And white evangelical Protestants are the most likely subgroup to offer at least some support for torture, while those who are not affiliated with a religious denomination are the least likely.

Here's the graphic from Pew:

The finding has occasioned, not surprisingly, quite a bit of discussion. Andrew Sullivan, in a post headlined "Jesus Wept,'' calls the result "terribly depressing,'' and writes:

"So Christian devotion correlates with approval for absolute evil in America. And people wonder why atheism is gaining in this country.''

Over at Christianity Today, David Neff blogged:

"The immediate impression is that religion — especially religion characterized by active commitment — makes people bloodthirsty. Or something like that. What can we say about this picture? First, the survey is probably accurate. Other studies have shown similar results...Second, there is (as there always is) a gap between leadership beliefs and grassroots attitudes...The key leaders of most evangelical denominations and parachurch organizations have gone on the record against the use of torture."

Neff, who is editor-in-chief of the Christianity Today Media Group, goes on to argue that evangelicals should be against torture always, despite the "Does it work?" debate:

"Utilitarian ethics tends to weigh the magnitude of a potential good against its costs (the greatest good for the greatest number). But evangelicals have been eager to reject utilitarian ethics when addressing other issues — embryonic stem-cell research and population-control programs, for example. Even if embryonic stem-cell research turned out to be the best way to cure Parkinson’s disease, most evangelicals would oppose it, just as we would oppose abortion even if it were shown to reduce, say, food insecurity. By the same token, even if torture produced reliable information about terrorist activity, we should reject it. We are people of principle. Our principles were historically at the root of human rights action and the development of the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions, and any number of other moral crusades that put principle above utilitarianism. Our principles should now motivate us to lead the world in rejecting torture of any human being, for any reason."

At Spiritual Politics, Mark Silk observes:

"The real point here is that moral issues are tied into a whole array of ethical and political values and commitments. Explaining a particular position on a particular issue at a particular time according to religious identity or commitment is a complicated undertaking. One thing should, however, be clear. In this regard there are few if any slippery moral slopes. The oft-cited claim by the pro-life community that support for abortion rights leads individuals and communities inevitably into moral squalor cannot be sustained--certainly not when it comes to opposition to torture. The most anti-torture element in American society--the Nones--is also the most pro-choice."

Of course, the other element that I don't see discussed anywhere is simply partisanship. Evangelicals, and frequent churchgoers, are more likely to vote Republican; it was a Republican presidential administration, of George W. Bush, that allowed interrogation practices many have now concluded constituted torture; and the debate over torture today is, in some ways, a proxy for a debate over the conduct of the Bush administration. It seems to me it might be difficult in survey research to disentangle attitudes toward torture from attitudes toward the Bush Administration's legacy in general, and response to terrorism in particular.

Americans are changing their religious affiliations at unprecedented rates, but Catholics are much more likely to cite concerns about their religion as a reason for leaving than are Protestants, who more often cite changing life circumstances.

The churn within American religion -- about half of American adults have changed their faith affiliation at some point -- was one of the key findings of a major study released last year by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life; today, the Pew Forum is releasing a new study that attempts to explore the reasons why Americans change denominations or religions, or, increasingly, drop out of institutional religion altogether.

Among the most striking findings are that most people who change their religious affiliation leave the denomination in which they were raised by age 24, and many change religious affiliation more than once. And the study found that the growing population of unaffiliated Americans are more disenchanted with institutionalized religion than with the idea of God.

But the differences between Catholics and Protestants are also significant, suggesting that Catholics who become alienated from their church often leave, whereas Protestants have the option of simply switching denominations.

"Protestants show a lot of interdenominational mobility, in part because there are a lot of Protestant groups,'' said John C. Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron. "Among Catholics, there is much less scope for mobility within the denomination, and a larger number ended up leaving.''

The study finds that about half of former Catholics cite religious and moral beliefs as the reason they left the Catholic church. About four in 10 former Protestants who became unaffiliated offer a similar explanation, but among Protestants who simply switch denominations, the main reasons are concerns about particular religious institutions, and life cycle changes such as marriage.

Pew last year released the eyepopping estimate that one in ten Americans is now a former Catholic -- about half of the former Catholics are now Protestants, and about half are now unaffiliated. But the new study suggests that the sexual abuse crisis played at most a minor role in the decision of Catholics to leave -- only two percent of former Catholics who are now unaffiliated volunteered the abuse scandal as the main reason they are no longer Catholic; when prompted by an interviewer, 27 percent said concern about the abuse scandal was a factor in their departure. Former Catholics who are now unaffiliated often said they left because of disagreements with the Catholic church over homosexuality, abortion, birth control, or gender; former Catholics who are now evangelical often say they stopped believing Catholic teachings and are concerned with the Catholic church's teachings about the Bible, while former Catholics who are now mainline Protestants most often say they changed because of marrying a non-Catholic or because they didn't like their priest.

"The sex abuse crisis is nowhere near being among the most important factors explaining why people have left the church,'' said Mark M. Gray, director of the Catholic Poll at Georgetown's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Gray noted that many Catholics who became Protestants cited not one of the culture war issues, but teachings about the Bible.

"Clearly, there's a need to try to connect with youth, because a big portion of the people you're losing are teenagers and in their early 20s, and there's a need to reach out to them in terms of spiritual needs not being met,'' Gray said.

Susan Spilecki, a 41-year-old English teacher from Brighton who was a lifelong and active Catholic until entering the Episcopal church last year, didn't even mention the sexual abuse crisis when describing her transition.

"For my first 20 years, it wouldn't even have occurred to me, no matter how bad it was, that I could change -- being Catholic was just what you were,'' she said. But then, she said, she encountered other Christians in college, she had growing concerns about the church's teachings on contraception, homosexuality, and the ordination of women, she grew tired of explaining why she remained in the Catholic church, and her parish, in Boston's Symphony neighborhood, was closed by the archdiocese. Finally, she decided she wanted to study theology, and concluded that, "as a female, and therefore unordainable, Roman Catholic, who also disagreed with a lot of teachings,'' it was time for a change.

In the Episcopal churches where she worships -- the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston and All Saints Parish in Brookline, "I've met more disenfranchised Catholics, and Unitarians who discovered Jesus, then cradle Episcopalians."

Despite the departures of Catholics from the faith, the overall Catholic population in the U.S. has remained stable because of immigration.

"Long-term, what this means is that the face of the Catholic Church is going to change dramatically over time,'' Green said. "There is likely to be continued erosion by Catholics of European background, and the church is going to be increasingly populated by Hispanics and Asians who are immigrating to the US.''

Among Protestants denomination switching is quite common, and is often triggered by marriage or by a family's move from one community to another.

"A lot of the switching is intra-Protestant switching, and I think at this point that's not even switching -- hardly anyone knows the difference between a Lutheran and an Episcopalian, or even a Methodist and a Baptist,'' said Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University. "Lutherans hardly know anything about Luther, and Methodists hardly know anything about Wesley, and they don't care. We live in a postdenominational time.''

Kyle Thureen, a 26-year-old software engineer from Burlington, was raised in a Lutheran church in Minnesota and now attends the evangelical Grace Chapel in Lexington.

"The name on the front of the church is less important than what does the church believe, and how do they live that out,'' Thureen said. "The bottom line is, I would describe myself as a Christian.''

And Susan Stewart, a 44-year-old church worker in Arlington, had been affiliated throughout her life with American Baptist Churches congregations, but then joined a United Methodist church because it had better programming for children. Her husband was raised in the Catholic church.

"We looked around at a bunch of places, and Calvary United Methodist is within walking distance of our house, it was a neighborhood congregation, and there were a reasonable number of children when we started going there,'' she said. "Neither one of us had any experience with a United Methodist congregation, but originally the denomination did not particularly matter to us. In some ways, we were starting fresh together.''

The study also explores the growing ranks of the unaffiliated -- about 16 percent of American adults, according to Pew. The study finds many of the unaffiliated cite objections to religious people or religious institutions as the reason for leaving organized religion; few cited unbelief. And about one third of the unaffiliated say they are still open to finding the right religion.

"In American Christianity, you see a lot of talk about how vibrant it is, and how people are moving in, but there's also a huge open back door that they must be leaving out of,'' said D. Michael Lindsay, an assistant professor of sociology at Rice University. "It's not so much that science disproves religion, so people abandon their faith, it's more like a gradual drifting away, and a number of unaffiliated folks end up coming back and getting involved.''

In addition to the Globe graphics above, here is a cool flash graphic from Pew.

Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay rights organization in New York, yesterday released a video (above) and a pamphlet featuring a group of liberal Massachusetts clergy arguing that the legalization of same-sex marriage has not led to restrictions on religious freedom. The video and pamphlet are being used by the New York organization as part of its campaign in that state, where the governor last week introduced legislation to legalize same-sex marriage. Empire State Pride Agenda says the Massachusetts clergy are being cited to rebut claims by conservative religious organizations that the legalization of gay marriage threatens religious freedom.

The clergy interviewed, all of whom support same-sex marriage but some of whom are not allowed by their denominations to officiate at same-sex weddings, point out that most Massachusetts clergy do not officiate at same sex marriages (they're not allowed to, by religious authorities, in Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Mormon, or evangelical churches, or in Orthodox synagogues or in mosques) and said that there has been no government pressure on them to do so.

I called up the conservative Massachusetts Family Institute and the Massachusetts Catholic Conference to get their thoughts; not surprisingly, they see the landscape differently. They believe that confrontation between public policy (supporting gay marriage) and religious denominations (that oppose gay marriage) is inevitable, although they acknowledge that it hasn't happened yet. But they point to the state requirement that Catholic Charities be willing to place adoptive children with same-sex couples in order to continue participating in a state adoption program as an example of how this kind of tension plays out. I have a story, "Clergy lend voices to marriage debate,'' in today's paper.

The 88-year-old Skinner organ at Old South Church, which has been silenced for three months because of concern about how the instrument's vibrations might affect a sanctuary wall damaged during MBTA excavation work on Dartmouth Street, will be played again for the first time at the church's Festival Worship Service at 11 a.m. Sunday. On Tuesday, organ technicians Jonathan Ambrosino and Joseph Sloane of Boston put the final touches on readying the instrument, removing some of the protective deck that had been built over the pipes to prevent plaster from falling in, and then tuning the pipes. Sloane held notes at the console, while Ambrosino, wearing a custom-made earplug to protect his eardrums from the intense sound inside an organ, checked the pipes for dirt and dust and tuned them using a metal tuning rod. Globe photographer David L. Ryan was there; he shot the video above, and the photos below.

Scott Helman and Dina Rudick of the Globe staff have put together a lovely video about Lent. Have a look:

Harvard Divinity School is freezing faculty salaries, postponing some searches, hinting at layoffs, and acknowledging that it will not meet its goal of fully funding the tuition of all needy students by next year, according to a memo to the school's faculty and staff from Dean William A. Graham. The memo, which was reported by Bloomberg, outlines how Graham plans to comply with university-wide budget-cutting measures necessitated by the recession and Harvard's falling endowment. Here is the key section of the memo:

"Our priorities and some of the steps HDS is taking in light of current budget guidance from the University are as follows:

•Our top priority is maintaining the levels of student financial aid now being offered. This year, 72 percent of the 90 percent of HDS students with need are receiving grants to cover at least full tuition and fees. Many of these students are also receiving stipends toward living expenses. With the change in financial situation, it appears that HDS will now be unable to reach our earlier goal of funding at least full tuition and fees for all students with need by FY10. Nevertheless, we do not want to lose ground; therefore we intend to maintain the level of aid currently being offered and to keep next year's tuition increases within the normal range.

•Following University-wide guidelines, HDS faculty and administrative/professional (exempt) staff salaries will remain flat for FY10 (with exceptions to meet necessary equity adjustments); HUCTW (union) staff will receive salary increases as outlined in the union contract.

•The pace of faculty growth will need to be slower than planned, with some faculty searches postponed. We are also reducing sharply the current number of visiting and adjunct positions, appointing only those absolutely necessary to cover gaps in the curriculum.

•We also expect to slow the pace of our facilities-renewal projects, carefully weighing key timing considerations and taking advantage of opportunities to reduce operating costs through energy conservation.

•Our events, travel, and catering budgets are under close scrutiny and will be cut in ways we can all live with.

•We have been reviewing all of our non-degree programs and our academic support mechanisms, seeking to identify costs that might be reduced or temporarily eliminated without affecting our core programs or the quality and extent of our curriculum.

•We will continue to review all HDS publications, evaluating what should continue in print and where web publications may be of greater utility.

From the start of the emerging global economic crisis last fall, we have hoped to meet the School's financial challenges without reducing staff. As we reexamine priorities for our various activities and programs, it has become clear that this will inevitably involve a review of staffing configurations. In an effort to minimize impact to employees we are looking—and will continue to look closely and to think creatively—to see if we should arrange things differently and make do without filling vacancies as they arise. If situations arise in which the shifting of priorities leads to staff reductions, we want to assure everyone that, particularly in light of the tight job market, we will seek to provide all possible assistance and support to any affected employee."

(Photo of Harvard Divinity School by Tom Herde of the Globe staff.)

A multifaith group of religious leaders from Boston, including Jews as well as Muslims and Christians, today is issuing a joint statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

"We call upon Hamas immediately to end all rocket attacks on Israel, and upon Israel immediately to end its military campaign in Gaza,'' the statement says.

The Jewish signatories include several rabbis as well as the former presidents of Hebrew College and the Jewish Community Relations Council, but are predominantly drawn from the liberal wing of the Jewish community, and do not include the current heads of the major umbrella Jewish community organizations, who have generally not said anything that could be perceived as critical of Israel.

The most prominent signatories are the Christian leaders, also predominantly associated with liberal causes, who include the top local officials of the Episcopal Church, the Massachusetts Council of Churches, the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church, as well as the president of Andover Newton Theological School. The top local official of the Unitarian Universalist Association also signed. There are several Catholic signers, but no members of that church's hierarchy.

The Muslim leaders include several local imams and the leadership of the Muslim American Society of Boston.

Here is the full text of the letter plus the signatories:

"AN INTERFAITH DECLARATION FOR PEACE

We, members and leaders of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities in Greater Boston - all having deep and symbolic ties to the land and peoples of the Middle East - are anguished by the events unfolding in Israel and Gaza. Recognizing the legitimate needs of all peoples, including all those living in the Middle East, for dignity, peace, safety and security –- regardless of religion, race, or national origin -- we issue this joint statement with the hope and belief that our interfaith voices will be heard clearly, above the din of war.

As guiding principles,

•We acknowledge the long, complex, and painful history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
•We acknowledge the wide range of deeply-held beliefs, and intensely-felt narratives on all sides
•We acknowledge that all sides are capable of assigning blame to others, and asserting justification for their cause
•We observe that violence by any side begets more violence, hatred, and retaliation
•We deplore any invocation of religion as a justification for violence against others, or the deprivation of the rights of others
•We decry any use of inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes the other and is intended, or is likely, to promote hatred and disrespect
•We believe the conflict can be resolved only through a political and diplomatic solution and not a military one.

In the face of many competing narratives, we recognize that the overriding common need of the peoples of the region is the prompt implementation of a just and lasting peace. Toward that end, and particularly in response to the current hostilities,

•We call upon the United States and the international community immediately to intercede to help reestablish a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, toward the goal of a permanent cessation of hostilities
•We call upon Hamas immediately to end all rocket attacks on Israel, and upon Israel immediately to end its military campaign in Gaza
•We call for an immediate end to all strikes on civilian centers and citizens, both Israeli and Palestinian
•We call for lifting of the blockade on Gaza as to all non-military goods, for an immediate and significant increase in humanitarian aid to address the needs of the people of Gaza, and for all parties involved to join in taking responsibility to address those human needs
•We call on all parties involved in the conflict to work sincerely and vigorously toward a just and lasting peace that addresses and promotes the national aspirations of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples
•We call on President-elect Obama to make clear that as President he will urgently assert US leadership to achieve a comprehensive diplomatic resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts

Through this joint statement we affirm our commitment to engage with one another, even, and especially, during times of great stress. We also affirm our common humanity and our common belief – as Jews, Muslims and Christians - that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must cease, that there is no military or violent solution, that all human life is valued, and that all parties must cooperate to make the peace – a just and lasting peace desperately needed and deserved by all the peoples of the region."

Signed:

These rich photographs were shot earlier today by the Globe's David Ryan at Old South Church in Boston's Copley Square, where an aerial engineer named Emma Francis was examining the crack in the wall caused by MBTA excavation work beside the landmark church early last month.

I just got off the phone with the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, the senior minister of the United Church of Christ congregation, who told me the "roped access" was necessary to determine whether there is any risk of plaster falling from the cracked wall when the organ is played. It turns out that the church's organ, with something like 6,500 pipes, causes the building to shake when it is played, and it hasn't been used since the damage because of a fear that plaster could fall onto the organ's pipes or electronics (apparently there is no risk to people because they don't stand under that wall). Today's tests found the plaster to be quite loose, but it remains to be decided whether the loose parts can simply be removed, or can be temporarily repaired, or whether the organ will be unusable for months or years.

Taylor said the roped access was achieved by removing a part of a window that is about 70 feet up, and putting two ropes through to anchor the engineer, and then hoisting her up on a harness with all kinds of equipment used to assess the damage.

The church is quite eager to resume the use of its organ for worship, weddings, and concerts.

"We're in a specialty business here -- we don't sell a product, our purpose is to worship, and a part of the way we do that is with beautiful music,'' Taylor said. "This organ represents to us a particular and unique and precious instrumental treasure that also manages to fill that space, so the thought of being without it for what could be months or years is hard to imagine.''

Taylor said the church has been making do with a variety of instruments -- in addition to its Steinway piano, it has used cello, trumpet, clarinet, drums, mandolin and flute.

Meanwhile the repairs to the church appear to be quite a ways off. Taylor said there is still an ongoing forensic investigation to determine what happened, but that it appears that an MBTA contractor somehow hit the church's pilings (the church, like everything else in the area, is built on fill, so it's held up by pilings) with a high-pressure jet of grout slurry, and the impact on the pilings lifted the church's wall.

"There's really no agreed understanding as to what happened, so the forensic investigation will involve test pits and mathematical computations where they plug in all kinds of things and look at the crack and try to say why it went the way it did,'' Taylor said. "But the MBTA is still taking responsibility and assuring us that the church should bear no cost at all in this.''

It’s that time of year again – list time. Actually, it’s way past list time. The Religion Newswriters Association issued their list of the top ten religion stories of the year weeks ago – of course, as a result, they missed the Madoff scandal, the Rick Warren/invocation controversy, and the Gaza assault. Revealer issued lists of the year's best religion writing and the year's best religion books and movies. Altmuslim offered a list of the top ten good news stories of the year. And Religion Dispatches has a list of the top ten year-end religion news lists, including those from Time, Christianity Today, and the Onion.

For this first new year of this new blog, I’m going to offer ten reflections about religion news and the year gone by, with a few anticipatory remarks thrown in as well. This is just a sampling; feel free to suggest other topics in the comments field.

1. The year that is ending was marked, in particular, by the multiple battles for the hearts and minds of religious Americans in the presidential campaign. There was often less there than met the eye – evangelicals continued to vote in large numbers for the Republican Party, despite vigorous efforts to lure them away by Democrats, and Jews continued to vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, despite an unending whispering campaign on the Internet attempting to associate Obama with Islam and critics of Israel. Mitt Romney’s much-anticipated speech on faith and public life was probably not a turning point in American political thinking. Social issues played only a minor role in a campaign dominated first by Iraq and then by the economy. And, to the extent that religion was part of the political story, it was almost always as something to criticize or mock – the preaching of Wright, Hagee and Pfleger, the beliefs and practices of Palin and Romney, the middle name of Obama, the politics of Warren.

2. As the new year begins, it appears that the biggest story for all religions is likely to be the economy, which will increase demand on religious organizations for solace and assistance at the same time that it depletes their endowments and threatens their fundraising.

3. In the Catholic Church, the biggest news of 2008 was the successful visit to the United States of Pope Benedict XVI, who benefitted enormously from low expectations and won high marks for his decision to meet in Washington with five Bostonians who had been sexually abused by priests. That meeting was put together by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who passed (without celebration) five eventful years as archbishop of Boston, seemingly settling into his role after surviving multiple controversies, moving the church’s longtime headquarters from Brighton to Braintree, completing a reshaping of his administrative team, improving the archdiocese’s grim financial picture and rescuing St. John’s Seminary from the brink of death. But O’Malley still faces enormous challenges; the diocese still spends more each year than it raises; five closed parishes remain occupied (for more than four years now!) by protesters; and the diocese’s accounts for clergy pensions and benefits are seriously underfunded. And the church remains, particularly in Massachusetts, at odds with the political culture, particularly over abortion and gay rights. So in 2009, I'll be watching how O’Malley handles the vigils and the pension funds; what he does to address the increasing priest shortage, most likely by asking more priests to oversee multiple parishes like the circuit riders of old; and how he manages critiquing a presidential administration supported by the vast majority of his parishioners. For the pope, a highlight of 2009 is expected to be a May visit to Israel, but that trip could be postponed or cancelled if the violence there continues.

4. Mainline Protestant denominations continued to be roiled by debates over homosexuality, and continued to grapple with declining participation and aging congregations. The split in the global Anglican Communion since the election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire began to formalize in 2008, as conservatives announced that they were establishing a separate North American province that would compete with the existing Episcopal Church in the U.S. and Canada. African American Protestant churches reflected on the state of black liberation theology after the incendiary preaching by Jeremiah Wright (a pastor in the mainline United Church of Christ) called attention to the risks of rhetoric in the age of Youtube.

5. The evangelical Protestant world was in the spotlight throughout the election, as the Democratic Party attempted, with little measurable success, to break the strong relationship between evangelicalism and Republicanism. But evangelical politics are clearly in flux – polls show younger evangelicals interested in a broader array of issues than their elders. And the tension was on display in awkward ways; the National Association of Evangelicals ousted a longtime long official, Rich Cizik, whose open attitude toward global warming and gay relationships caused some on the right to question his orthodoxy. And the flap over Obama's choice of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation reminded both evangelicals and Democrats that engagement between the two will be fraught with complexity.

6. For the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2008 brought an end to the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose candidacy went further than that of any of the Mormons who have previously sought the nation’s highest office, but also called attention to a deep streak of anti-Mormonism in American culture, particularly among evangelical Protestants. The year also saw Mormons in the midst of a controversy over Proposition 8, the measure that would overturn same-sex marriage in California. Mormons, acting at their church’s urging, gave millions to the campaign, and the church was targeted by protesters after the measure passed. Locally, Mormons continued their institutional growth in eastern Massachusetts; eight years after building a huge temple on Belmont Hill, the LDS church this year broke ground for a new stake center in East Cambridge and announced plans to build a new chapel (being contested by neighbors) in Brookline.

7. For Jews, much of the year’s biggest news was concentrated at the end of the year, as multiple Jewish foundations and individuals lost millions of dollars in the alleged Ponzi scheme overseen by one of the community’s own; an investor named Bernard L. Madoff. And the Israeli assault on Gaza, in response to Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, brought renewed attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to significant concern about Israel’s conduct by a variety of governments and groups. There was also the immigration raid on the kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, which has intensified a growing discussion about what relationship, if any, there should be between ethics and kashrut. Locally, the Combined Jewish Philanthropies offered a new plan for the Jewish community, which, as it turns out, called for intensified defense of Israel; the Jewish community locally also decided to close its community center on the South Shore. In 2009, watch for a potential consolidation of Jewish nonprofits as the economy and the Madoff scandal take their toll, and also keep an eye on how the Jewish community manages interfaith relations given the increasing criticism of Israel from other faith groups.

8. For Muslims, the year brought ongoing tension over the place of Islam in the West, as American Muslims continued to make incremental political gains, but were largely ignored by an Obama campaign wary of associating with an unpopular group. The use of terror by some Muslims – most recently the attacks in Mumbai – continues to pose a challenge to those who proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace. The Middle East crisis also looms large for American Muslims, who are attempting to persuade American policymakers to criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza. Many Muslims seized as a sign of hope Colin Powell’s denunciation, on Meet the Press, of the idea that there is something wrong with being a Muslim. And in Boston, 2008 brought the soft opening of the much-debated and long-delayed new Islamic Cultural Center in Roxbury, which is expected to fully open in 2009.

9. There were several notable deaths in the world of religion in 2008. Cardinal Avery Dulles, the scion of a famous, and Protestant, American family, who came to Catholicism by the banks of the Charles River, and who became the only American theologian ever named a cardinal by Rome, died in December at 90. Gordon Hinckley, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, revered by Mormons as prophet, seer and revelator, and a descendant of the last governor of Plymouth Colony, died in January at 97. Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexy II died in December at 79; Warith Deen Mohammed, the African-American Muslim leader, died in September at 74.

10. The business of religion journalism, like the rest of the journalism business, is, to put it mildly, in flux. The amount of space and resources committed to religion journalism by the mainstream media continued to dwindle in 2008, and several veteran religion writers around the country were laid off or bought out.

At the Globe, the powers-that-be retired the paper’s longtime religion column, Spiritual Life, as part of a budget-cutting effort, and launched this blog, Articles of Faith, in an effort to better engage with that segment of our growing on-line audience that is interested in religion. The blog has grown rapidly – thanks to Sarah Palin, the abortion issue, and a variety of other controversies, we had nearly 200,000 page views in November. I am grateful to all of you (well, most of you) who visited, bookmarked the site, subscribed to the RSS feed, and took the time to post comments or send notes as I experiment with this forum, trying to figure out what features and what types of posts are most useful, how best to balance the kinds of hot-button items that generate clicks with posts about news and culture that can be traffic-deadening, and also how best to balance blogging with reporting and writing stories.

This will almost certainly be my last blog post of the year; I’ve just arrived in California for a vacation, and, if the news and my own temperament allow me to tear myself away from the keyboard, Articles of Faith will be on hiatus for a bit. But please feel free to post your own thoughts about trends in the world of religion as comments on this blog, or shoot me an e-mail with suggestions for religion stories you think the Globe should pursue in 2009.

And, to one and all, Happy New Year.

(Photo, by Lai Seng Sin/AP, shows a New Year's celebration today in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.)

As if the 70-foot crack caused by MBTA work wasn't enough for Old South Church to worry about, now it appears that the publicity over the damage may be scaring some folks away from the building. The church's senior minister, the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, called today to say that she is concerned that congregants and First Night celebrants are uncertain about the building's stability -- a concern that she says is unfounded, based on assessments by multiple engineers who have examined the crack on the inside and outside of the church's Dartmouth Street wall. The United Church of Christ congregation, located in Copley Square, has been using the building actively for weddings and worship and so on, and on Wednesday night will be hosting New Year’s Eve Concerts for brass and percussion at 6:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Taylor sent along the following statement:

"Recent damage to Old South’s national historic landmark building (corner of Boylston and Dartmouth Streets), has caused some church members, as well as those in the general public, to worry if the building is safe. It is absolutely safe! A raft of structural engineers, geotechnical engineers and architects all assure us that the wall is completely safe. It is true that the church’s E. M. Skinner organ has been silenced for the foreseeable future but this is a measure imposed for the organ’s safety. Engineers have not been able to assess the condition of a large, inaccessible portion of plaster at one of the cracks. Vibrations from the organ’s great pipes can be felt in the pews and there is some concern that the vibrations could loosen bits or hunks of plaster. If plaster did come loose, it would fall into the organ pit, not onto people. Despite the inconvenience, the church is determined to ring in the New Year with as much pomp and circumstance as it can muster. On First Night Old South will replace their popular, house-filling Organ & Brass Concerts with Brass and Percussion Concerts. The best of Boston’s brass and percussion artists join Harry Huff, Old South’s Minister of Music, in a supersonic concert, playing electrifying arrangements of popular classics by Bach, Copeland, Mussorgsky, and LeRoy Anderson, as well as leading the audience in singing stirring favorites. The evening includes music for trumpets, French horn, trombone, tuba, percussionists and piano."

(Photo, by John Tlumacki of the Globe staff, shows a bicyclist passing Old South Church in a snowstorm on Dec. 19, 2008.)

Have you ever wondered how Mary became a global icon, an object of widespread devotion and artistic exploration? That's the question being investigated by Miri Rubin (above), a professor of medieval and early modern history at Queen Mary, University of London. In the Ideas section of today's Globe, I have an interview with Rubin about her work, which is leading to a new book, "Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary.'' An excerpt from the interview:

IDEAS: How does she move to become a global figure?

RUBIN: After the year 1000 we see this really important process that some have rather grandiloquently called the birth of Europe. . . . What happens over the next few centuries is a very intimate relationship to Mary within the monasteries. After all, these are boys who've been taken away from their families. This is an attempt within the monastery to create, in a way, a sort of a fictive family, a family of the monastery, to fight sin, to fight the struggle with temptation, and Mary is the absolute companion of those particular struggles. [Mary] is consoler, is above all a mother figure, and she's still quite a sort of ladylike figure, quite a grand figure in representation. But we begin to see around the 12th century, this softening of Mary . . . not the sort of hieratic, frontal, priestly figure, but someone who is more playful, in relationship with her son. . . . And then in the 13th century, with the coming of the big preaching orders that aim to educate not just the elite but people in towns and in their vernacular . . . the material becomes extremely vivid, extremely lively, and Mary becomes like the woman next door.

You can read the full interview here.

(Photo by Amy Price.)

KEY WEST _ At the final session of the Faith Angle conference today, two prominent survey researchers, John C. Green and Anna Greenberg, examined a variety of polling data about the relationship between religious affiliation and voting behavior in this year's presidential election.

The chart above shows the bottom line, and reinforces patterns that have been in place for at least the last two decades -- Democrats are favored by minority ethnic and religious groups, as well as by less observant white Christians, while Republicans are favored by more observant white Christians. The chart was generated by Green (left), who is a political science professor at the University of Akron, and also a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which is the sponsor of the conference.

Green suggested that the basic structure of "faith-based politics" did not change much since the 2004 campaign -- despite unprecedented efforts by the Obama campaign to move religious voters, and a lot of erroneous predictions by pundits -- but that it was enough to elect Obama. "It was not very different than we’ve seen in the past, but different enough to have a different result,'' he said. He said the Democrats made their biggest gains among minority religious groups (particularly Hispanic Protestants) and failed to make significant gains among white Christians (although there was some movement to the Democrats among evangelicals who go to church less than weekly, and among young evangelicals).

The minimal change demonstrates, Green said, "that these basic differences are deeply embedded.''

"Religious groups are strongly partisan these days, and deeply embedded into the party coalitions,'' Green said -- meaning that groups like black Protestants and Jews are important parts of the Democratic coalition, while white evangelicals play a similar role for the Republican Party. "In the short run, there is only a limited capacity for religious groups to move.''

Among Catholics, Green said, the data shows increasing polarization, with weekly communicants shifting more to the right, and less frequent Massgoers shifting further to the left.

Greenberg (right), is a Democratic pollster and senior vice president at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. She had several interesting findings -- among them, that Barack Obama was clearly underperforming (compared to previous Democratic candidates) among Jewish voters through much of the campaign, but that he wound up with about 78 percent of the Jewish vote -- which is typical for a Democratic presidential candidate. Greenberg, who said "I was actually pretty shocked" at how well Obama did among Jews, said it was not clear how Obama succeeded in moving Jews back to the Democratic column, but speculated that it was the combined effect of concern among Jewish voters about Sarah Palin's social conservatism, and what Greenberg described as the reassuring effect on Jewish votes of Obama's performance during the debates. Green agreed, saying, "Many Jews are Democrats, and once they became reassured that some of these problems were not serious, they went back to their partisanship...Once the Jewish community became reassured that Obama was going to be all right -- not that he was going to be excellent -- that was enough.''

Perhaps Greenberg's most interesting finding, though, has to do with young evangelicals -- a population of increasing interest to scholars and journalists because of the perception that they may exhibit different political behaviors than their elders. Greenberg said that research shows that young evangelicals in fact are more liberal than older evangelicals on multiple issues -- including gay marriage (below), global warming, and the Iraq War -- but are not moving on abortion -- young evangelicals are just as strongly opposed to abortion as are older evangelicals.

Green said that, although white evangelicals are still strongly Republican, there is clearly change taking place among younger evangelicals. "Generational change happens all the time on a steady basis, but there are points of time when it has a big effect, and evangelicals are going through one of those times, on religious terms, social terms, and political terms.''

KEY WEST _ This afternoon's session at the Pew Forum's semi-annual Faith Angle conference focused on the interplay between religion and race during this year's presidential campaign, which, as everyone knows, saw the first African-American elected president of the United States. The speaker was Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (right), a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton.

Glaude, like many, sees the election of Barack Obama as a signal moment in the history of race in America; he called it "an extraordinary ritual of racial expiation.''

"It's all about race,'' he said. "We couldn't say that during the election. But it's historic. How do we deal with the ghastly ghosts of our past?...These ghosts are constantly reminding us of how earthly and human this fragile experiment in democracy has been. And his election, for African American communities in particular, and for the nation in general, is a signal that the true work begins January 20.''

Glaude was dismissive of the discussion in the media about where the Obama family will worship in Washington, a storyline that Glaude called "rather crazed." "Will he join a black church or not? Such questions are freighted with the weight of our current national malaise -- the continued interrogation of his identification. Is he really black, after all?" Glaude suggested that the fixation with Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, falls into a similar pattern, in that Wright, "served as a proxy for the claim about Obama's otherness...he really is black, and therefore is a candidate only for 'them'.'' He also said that the discussion of whether Obama should worship in a predominantly black church is related to the discussion of whether America has entered some kind of post-racial moment, a concept that Glaude called "a lazy American way of marking something that's shifted" and compared to a Ralph Ellison envisioned- "fantasy of the blackless America.''

Glaude said that it will be interesting to watch how the black church is affected by the Obama election. "There is an extraordinary transformation taking place within African American churches,'' he said, pointing to the emergence of megachurches, the "Pentecostalization of much of religious life,'' and, in both church and politics, the emergence "for the first time of a cadre of leadership in the African-American community that has no biographical experience of slavery or Jim Crow.''

"How will black suffering speak publicly?'' Glaude asked. "Wherever power is operating, there is a role for a prophetic voice, but it's going to be complicated because a black man is running the empire.''

The damage caused to Old South Church in Boston by an MBTA construction project was worrisome to a lot of folks, but few more than the couple whose wedding had been planned to take place at the National Historic Landmark yesterday afternoon. The bride and groom had some nervous moments, but happily, their wedding was able to proceed, and took place without a hitch. As luck would have it, the groom's aunt, Audrey Wennblom, is an old friend and colleague of mine (she worked as an editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer when I was a reporter there), and while en route back to Seattle today she sent along the following dispatch, and the photo above, from her iPhone:

"Justin Rawlings and Anna Baxstrom were all set to go to their wedding rehearsal at Old South Church Friday when they got word that a crack in the church wall meant that there would be no organ allowed--the vibrations, you know. But the church provided a piano and trumpet player instead, which sounded just fine to the 120 guests gathered in the church Saturday at 5 p.m., most of whom had walked just block from the Lenox Hotel where they were staying and where the wedding would have been held had the church defaulted. The crack, in fact, provided a little grist for the wedding homily delivered by officiating minister, the Rev. Kenneth H. Orth. He warned the couple that they may have 'cracks in their relationship' and 'cracks in a perfectly constructed life' but that their love would see them through. Before the ceremony ended, Dr. Orth promised that the church would work 'diligently and faithfully with MBTA' to repair the damage."

Here's my story from Saturday's paper about the damage to the church. And here's a follow-up, from today's paper, by Megan Woolhouse, about the parade of visitors stopping by to see what happened.

Also this weekend, the church's senior minister and chief executive, the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, sent an e-mail update to members of the United Church of Christ congregation:

"Dear Old South Members and Friends:

As you may have heard, read or seen on the news, the MBTA's work outside our Dartmouth Street wall has resulted in a serious, through-and-through crack in our east facing wall. This occurred somewhere around 10pm on Tuesday evening … at a time in which the MBTA and its contractors were working at our site. Old South's geo-technical engineer noted the problem early Wednesday and a stop-work order was immediately implemented. The resulting crack extends from the foundation to the very top of the wall and into the ceiling roof. It is viscerally painful to see.

The MBTA and its contractor take full responsibility and promise to make us whole. In the meantime, we have brought in our architects (who know the building well) and their structural engineers, along with our organ builder and geo-technical engineer. (Our stained glass consultant will be brought in shortly.) A small army of such folk has been in and out of our building all day: peering, poking, measuring, consulting, advising and reaching some conclusions. Our first concern was safety.

The temporary results are threefold:

1) We are approved to resume all normal activities in the sanctuary through the weekend (concerts, wedding, worship), with the exception that the organ will not be used. The reason to refrain from playing the organ stems from a concern that its vibrations could cause bits of the interior plaster to come loose. They are not concerned that the stone wall will come tumbling down.
2) Over the weekend the engineers will attach to the building ten or so sophisticated crack gages. These will be affixed at all the areas of concern, can be read and monitored remotely, and will measure any and all movement of the building and its cracks.
3) The major through-and-through crack will be temporarily filled to keep out the weather; the wall's weakest sections may be stitched (not unlike a medical suture).

Over time this same small army will come to conclusions and agreements about a more permanent solution.

Rest assured that the very good work that was done two years ago in negotiations with the T (deep thanks to Rusty Aertsen) puts this squarely on the shoulders of the MBTA and their contractors (their insurance not ours) and that they have already agreed to our need to hire our architects, our structural engineer, our organ builder, our stained glass consultant … and the bills go to them.

I cannot say enough about Old South members who spent hours and hours in the past few days at meetings, climbing around the building, talking, consulting, listening, learning, and consistently advocating our stewardship of this national historic landmark building. Many thanks to Tom Bulkeley who is our point-person for the MBTA project and to Lois Corman who chairs the Operations Committee. Both were in the church virtually all day today and much of yesterday and Wednesday as well. Thanks to Roger Burke whose expertise as an engineer and deep knowledge of the building continues to serve us well. Thanks to Sean O'Donnell who sings in the choir and who doubles as one of organ builders, for stopping in over and over to see that things were going well. Many thanks to staff members who came in to help out on days off and/or worked extra hours: Helen McCrady, Amy Perry, Elias Perez and Quinn Caldwell.

There is much more to say, but I need to sign off. Please know that your staff and lay leaders are working tirelessly and strategically to manage a near-crisis, to handle the media, to juggle building users, to maintain our regular commitments in a very busy time of year, and to continue to provide a beautiful safe space in which to serve, worship and celebrate the deep beauty of this holy season.

Come to the Old South Craft Fair tomorrow, note that our outdoor Christmas Tree is up and lit, that Gordon Chapel is decorated and that we are preparing our hearts and minds and souls for the coming of the Christ Child.

The Rev. Nancy S. Taylor"

Among the many decisions Barack Obama has to make as he prepares to move to DC: what church will he attend? As you may recall, the president-elect is currently churchless, having resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago after his pastor's intemperate sermonizing caused controversy for Obama's campaign.

Now Amy Sullivan at Time magazine has asked some members of Washington's pew-punditocracy to offer recommendations for the Obama family. Sullivan offers a witty look at the pros and cons of various Capital congregations. An excerpt:

"I talked to a number of people who know the religious world here in Washington and solicited their church recommendations. At least two people thought that since home churches are a growing trend, you might want to start your own in the White House. A "Church of the Obamas," however, might just fuel the messianic talk. But I think you'll find some good options here, including a couple of intriguing — dare I say maverick — possibilities."

(Photo, by Alex Brandon/AP, shows Obama at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on June 15, 2008.)

Four years ago, Barack Obama sat down with Cathleen Falsani of the Chicago Sun-Times for a detailed interview about his faith life. She wrote a column about the interview at the time, but now the full transcript is available on Beliefnet, and it's quite an interesting read. Obama does praise Revs. Wright and Pfleger, who became controversial during this year's presidential campaign, but he also talks revealingly about his own upbringing, his conversion experience, his beliefs, and his prayer life. Here's one interesting exchange, about evangelization:

OBAMA: This is something that I'm sure I'd have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and proselytize. There's the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven't embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.

FALSANI: You don't believe that?

OBAMA: I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That's just not part of my religious makeup. Part of the reason I think it's always difficult for public figures to talk about this is that the nature of politics is that you want to have everybody like you and project the best possible traits onto you. Oftentimes that's by being as vague as possible, or appealing to the lowest common denominators. The more specific and detailed you are on issues as personal and fundamental as your faith, the more potentially dangerous it is.

Annie Britton (above) was barred from becoming a United Methodist minister because she married a woman, so she was instead “ordained’ by the Church within a Church movement. From my story in today’s Globe:

"The day after Annie Britton married another woman, she went to church. It was not just any church, but a church in Southeastern Massachusetts that she had been leading in worship while preparing for ordination in the United Methodist Church, a denomination that does not allow noncelibate gays and lesbians to be ordained. So Britton and her wife made an uncomfortable decision: They removed their wedding rings and stuck them in a box so no one would know. But the marriage set in motion events that led to a ceremony held earlier this month by a group opposed to the United Methodist Church's ban on gay clergy. During that ceremony, held Oct. 19 in Baltimore, the group declared Britton to be a minister 'in the Methodist tradition,' although not in the United Methodist Church."

(Photo by Suzanne Kreiter of the Globe staff.)

In the new edition of Newsweek, Lisa Miller profiles Kirbyjon Caldwell, the African-American megachurch pastor who was a high-profile supporter of George W. Bush and is now a supporter of Barack Obama. Caldwell's church, Windsor Village United Methodist in Houston, claims a congregation of 14,000. An excerpt:

In this fraught and divisive election season, it is hard to remember the excitement religious conservatives felt about Bush in 2000. His plain-spoken evangelical faith and his commitment to supporting religious groups through government funding motivated even many African-Americans and Hispanics to vote the Republican ticket for the first time in their lives. (In 2004, religious African-Americans were credited with winning Ohio for Bush.) Caldwell voted for Bush for president not once, but twice. Twice he gave the invocation at Bush's Inauguration. He spent the night in the Lincoln Bedroom; he dined with Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall; and this past May, standing before a Texas limestone cross festooned with white blossoms, Caldwell presided over the marriage of First Daughter Jenna Bush and Henry Hager. But after Bush's two terms in office, Caldwell, who is 55, has seen little evidence of the revival he promised that night in 2000. Last summer he aligned himself with a man who he believes better represents the Christian ethics and American values he preaches: Barack Obama.

(Photo, by Rick Bowmer/AP, shows President Bush hugging the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell during the 54th Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral Sunday, Jan. 21, 2001 in Washington.)

As religious denominations and organizations try to figure out how to respond to the financial crisis that is roiling the world's markets, the top official of the largest Protestant denomination in Massachusetts has issued a pastoral letter urging clergy to refocus on non-material abundance.

The Rev. Jim Antal, president of the Massachusetts conference of the United Church of Christ, titled his letter "Abundance in a time of Scarcity,'' and urged pastors to offer "leadership in the area of money that is confessional, transparent, candid and joyful." Antal wrote:

"Abundant life has nothing to do with bank solvency or market health. Jesus' invitation to lead generous lives of sharing does not hinge on personal, corporate or national financial security. The present crisis opens the door for us to accept Jesus' expectation that as pastors, we are called to build beloved communities whose life together centers on trust, sharing, justice and sacrifice."

Antal said he expects the economic crisis to affect the financial health of congregations and their congregants, and urged the pastors to carefully consider their sermons on the subject, writing, "We have entered a time of great testing - and as with every test, we have before us a great opportunity. How each of us frames the present crisis within our congregations is of critical importance. What is your role as pastor when our society takes a plunge into the cold waters of financial anxiety?"

The United Church of Christ, by the way, is not only the heir to a variety of congregationalist traditions, but is also the denomination to which Sen. Barack Obama belongs.

The full text of Antal's pastoral letter is below; if you don't see it, click on "full entry."

A huge fire destroyed the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain in 2005, but the congregation's safe survived, and members are now going through its contents and finding all kinds of interesting artifacts: a letter urging that Northern Baptists split with the Southern members of their denomination over slavery, a silver communion service, and records from previous fires. The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports:

"With the help of two professional safe-crackers, congregants Linda Karpeichik and Martha Khan were relieved to discover 'a treasure trove of historic books and documents' still intact, according to First Baptist’s March 2008 newsletter. The church has only just begun sorting through the documents in the safe. The shiniest find, a silver communion service presented to First Baptist by JP Unitarians, has been donated to the Museum of Fine Arts."

The congregation is now raising money to rebuild the church.

(Photo, by David Ryan of the Globe staff, shows the interior of the First Baptist Church in JP frozen in ice after the fire in 2005.)

The new Wilson Chapel at Andover Newton Theological School is being recognized with an award of merit from the American Institute of Architects' Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture and Faith & Form Magazine.

The limestone structure is a striking building; the Globe's architecture critic, Robert Campbell, wrote in his review: "Wilson Chapel is a superb building, not merely for its architecture but for all the ways in which it gets you thinking." The structure is intended to be a house of worship for multiple faiths; it combines the architectural tradition of the New England meeting house with a modern sensibility, including a glass wall facing symbolically toward the Global South, where Christianity sees its future.

The building is also heavily wired; I wrote a story about Andover Newton's partnership with the Massachusetts Bible Society to create a media center in the chapel that will train seminarians and clergy to make better use of technology.

The chapel was designed by Donham & Sweeney, a Boston-based architectural firm. And the chapel shares a Newton hilltop with another example of contemporary religious architecture in Boston -- the Moshe Safdie-designed campus of Hebrew College.

UPDATE: Turns out the architect, Brett Donham, brings not only a background in design but also in religion to this project -- he told me in an e-mail that he is an active Episcopal layman who served as president of the standing committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and is currently the chairman of the board of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge.

(Wilson Chapel photos from Donham & Sweeney Architects.)

Nearly 40 years ago, amid tensions over urban renewal, five Allston-Brighton congregations got together to build an affordable housing project at Barry's Corner. Charlesview (above), with 213 units, is still administered by a board appointed by the three surviving religious institutions: St. Anthony Parish, a Catholic church in Allston; Community United Methodist Church in Brighton; and Congregation Kadimah-Toras Moshe, also in Brighton. Now the congregations are working on a proposal to tear down the Charlesview and replace it with 400 units, called Charlesview Residences, in Brighton Mills. It's all part of Harvard's plan to expand its campus into Allston. In the Globe's City Weekly, Andreae Downs reports:

"Through consolidations over the years, the five original congregations have merged into three: St. Anthony's, Community United, and Congregation Kadimah-Toras Moshe. They serve about 1,300 people, or roughly 85 percent of the neighborhood. But some things haven't changed over the years. 'What's amazing is how the five different congregations are still in lockstep,' Fiorentino said. 'The causes we champion are the same; the ways we go about that are the same.'"

(Photo of existing Charlesview development by George Rizer, Globe staff.)

John Ferris, 82, the longtime choirmaster at Harvard, organist at Harvard's Memorial Church, and professor of hymnology at Harvard Divinity School, has died. The Globe's classical music writer, Jeremy Eichler, writes the obituary:

"I think that John was probably the greatest church musician of his generation," said the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, who worked side by side with Mr. Ferris at Memorial Church for about two decades. "He transformed worship. The music was luminous, and no one before or since has been able to create quite the sound that he was able to get out of the voices that sang for him. People wanted to make music for John Ferris, and when they did, the effect in the church was quite extraordinary."

After his retirement from Harvard, in 1990, Ferris led the choir at Colebrook Congregational Church in Connecticut. That congregation's web site has a detailed biography.

(Photo of Ferris taken by Jack O'Connell of the Globe in 1972.)

Lightning struck the First Baptist Church of Lynn last night, causing moderate damage to the 141-year-old building. The Globe's story, by correspondent Caitlin Castello, is here.

(Photo, from church web site, predates the lightning strike.)

In today's Spiritual Life column in the Globe, Rich Barlow profiles Donna La Rue of Arlington, a reenactor who, as "Mistress Elizabeth" of 1773 is giving tours of "Cambridge Churches as Agents of Change."

(Photo above by Essdras Suarez of the Globe staff.)

U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry tonight at Yale is to give a major speech on interfaith dialogue in which he will suggest that the future of humanity depends on a greater understanding between religions.

"We’ve barely broken the seal on the 21st century, but already it’s been marked not just by burning buildings and occupying armies and riots and roiling images of bloodshed and humiliation, but also by an even more widespread and dangerous worry—by a question you hear whispered and spoken quietly: What if we can’t live together?,'' Kerry says in remarks prepared for delivery at a Christian-Muslim conference organized by Yale Divinity School.

The conference, with about 150 attendees, was prompted by "A Common Word," an important statement issued last year by Muslim theologians and clerics about Christian-Muslim relations.

Kerry, reflecting on his Puritan ancestors as well as his Catholic upbringing, makes a plea for coexistence, if not agreement, between faiths, saying, “Somehow, we have to find a way to agree that faith may be worth dying for, but it cannot be worth killing for. We have to strive for a global ethic that allows each of our religious faiths to express themselves fully but also allows us to unite around common ethical ground.”

Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who narrowly lost the presidential race in 2004, says that many Americans, including politicians, know too little about Islam. And he connects that lack of knowledge to America's decision to go to war against Iraq.

“My pride in America’s successes is tempered by knowing that we are a long way from mutual understanding with the Muslim world today,’’ he says. “…We have major politicians who couldn’t tell you the difference between Shi’a and Sunni— so it’s no wonder that we attack a secular dictator in response to radical fundamentalist terrorists.”

And Kerry argues that religion is often exploited for political purposes.

“Extremism and violent sectarianism often represent a human attempt to capitalize on the failures of governance and civil society,’’ he says. “This applies to failed states like Afghanistan, where in the 1990s the Taliban arose to fill a chaotic vacuum, but also to many other places where the state, the society, and the religious order don’t do enough to remedy unfairness, lack of education, or social alienation. I don’t just mean a place like Sadr City in Baghdad— this is true of Cairo or even the desolate immigrant suburbs around Paris. People exploit religion to drive a wedge and gain a foothold—and failed states, failed civil societies, and frankly corruption in governance empower them to do so.”

The full text of Kerry's remarks, as prepared for delivery (he might vary slightly in the spoken version) are posted below (if you don't see them now, click on "full entry.") And we've just enabled comments on this blog, so if you have thoughts, please post them; please be patient if they don't appear immediately -- I still have to figure out how this feature works.

(Photo by Getty, taken on Capitol Hill July 9.)

I shot this in Lee this morning, of a church (First Congregational) with one of the sadder steeples I've ever seen -- it appears to be held up by a combination of tarp and rope.

Can anyone explain? Shoot me a note.

In today's Globe, Gloria Negri describes the dedication of the Rev. Donald Paige, the longest-serving preacher in the New England conference of the United Methodist Church, in the obituary:

"The last of those years of service was at the Church of St. Alban in Lynn, the former All Saints Church he attended as a boy, said its vicar, the Rev. Evan Mwangi, who said Rev. Paige helped him out and gave sermons until last year. Rev. Paige was so determined to continue his clerical duties, said his son and daughter-in-law, Jerome and Janet Paige of Danvers, that he recently had them carry him up the steps of St. Alban."

ANGLICANISM: James Carroll on Lambeth conference

CATHOLICISM: NY Franciscan pleads guilty to child rape in Boston

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: Mother church president, former Monitor editor Bergenheim dies

CHRISTMAS: Yvonne Abraham visits Nova Scotia, home of Boston's annual tree

ISLAM: Ex-treasurer of Muslim charity sentenced to prison

JUDAISM: Haverhill synagogue vandalized

SPIRITUAL LIFE: Big role for church credit unions sought

(The Rev. Garvin Warden, pastor of Greenwood Memorial United Methodist Church of Dorchester and a member of the New England United Methodist Federal Credit Union. Photo by Pat Greenhouse, Globe staff.)