What Will Scorsese Do with "Silence"?

Martin Scorsese is working on an adaptation of Silence, a novel by the late Japanese author Shusaku Endo (1923-1996) who also wrote the screenplay for the 1971 Japanese film Chinmoku (Silence). Endo was a Christian and Silence tracks the struggles of a Portugese Jesuit called to Japan during a season of severe persecution designed to obliterate Christianity. Jay Cocks (who wrote the screenplay for Scorsese's Gangs of New York) is the screenwriter, and production is due to begin in the summer of 2007.

What drew Scorsese to this project, and what will he do with the material? Worthwhile questions, considering that this was the director behind the camera for the 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ, and the director who turned the murderer in the 1991 remake of Cape Fear into a Pentecostal Christian (in reaction--some say--to the way Christians attacked his Last Temptation film).

What will the acclaimed director focus on from Endo's novel? What concerns me is what will be done with the priest's spiritual struggles and with the challenges from his tormentors. The priest in the novel often asks himself about the silence of God in the face of such intense suffering on the part of faithful Christians. And the tormentors often remind the priest that the Japanese have their own religion (Buddhism) and the Christian faith he is trying to transplant in that foreign soil will never survive. The Japanese officials, in fact, consider Christianity just one more Western characteristic they are trying to expel from their islands.

Could it be that it's this theme that has captured the attention of the director and screenwriter: the conviction that Christianity is part of "Western culture" that shouldn't be imposed on other cultures? Never mind that it's this conviction that led 17th century Japanese magistrates to devise the most inhuman of tortures for their own Japanese citizens who embraced Christianity.
Will the magistrates become "the voice of reason" in this film adaptation of the novel? Will the film convey the futility of missionaries like this priest who bring Christianity to other cultures only to bring trouble to the people who embrace it? It would certainly fit the spirit of the age: to many, Christianity is looked upon as a "Western religion"--even an "American religion"--that shouldn't be transplanted to other cultures. In reality, Christianity is a universal faith that transcends passports, flags, and national customs. Far from being "Western" or "American," culturally-speaking, Christianity actually sprang from a Jewish messianic movement in first-century Jersusalem under Roman occupation. It spread from there south, east, west, and--for our interests in America--it also spread north into what is now Europe and the British isles to take root in Anglo-Saxon soil and from there made its way to America. In other words, cultures now considered "Western" and specifically "American" were recipients of missionary outreach long, long before they became supporters of missionary outreach.

So, I'm waiting to see how Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese deal with this theme in Endo's novel. It would be ironic if the film looked sympathetically upon the novel's characters who justify their inhumane torture of Japanese Christians on the premise that a "Western" religion had no place in Japanese culture.

Hat Tip to Jeffrey Overstreet, who announced the upcoming film adaptation of Endo's novel in his review of Scorsese's current film, The Departed. Overstreet wrote:

Shazuko Endo’s Silence . . . gives Scorsese the richest, most profound source material he's ever had to work with. Let's hope that he finds himself more inspired by the passion of the missionary than by the malevolence of the devils who try to discourage him.

Get Our New iMix of Praise Music

Here's how to get more familiar with the worship music in the Bold service and enjoy it throughout the week. I've created an "iMix" at iTunes called "Hillcrest Bold Gold (Volume 1)." By clicking on the hyperlink, you will find ten songs by contemporary recording artists that our Hillcrest Praise Band leads us to sing.

If you don't have iTunes on your computer, when you click Hillcrest Bold Gold (Volume 1), you will be directed to download your free copy of iTunes. Once you have the program on your computer, you can listen to 30-second clips of the 10 songs in the iMix. You can then choose to download the entire mix for $9.90 or select individual songs from the mix for $.99 each.

You don't need an iPod to enjoy songs downloaded on iTunes. Even without an iPod, you can listen to the songs on your computer, or you can burn audio CDs from iTunes if you have a CD burner connected to your computer.

I'll create a "Hillcrest Bold Gold (Volume 2)" iMix in a few weeks. Send me your suggestions about what you want on it.

Our "Hillcrest Connection" to an Austin Film Festival Winner

Diane and I got a chance to see "Chalk" at the Austin Film Festival last night. Katie Brock, a vocalist in our Hillcrest Praise Band, has a role as a math teacher. They mis-spelled her name on the credits (to keep you humble, Katie!), but it was still fun to see her up on the big screen!

The film is a "mocumentary" in the style of "The Office" on NBC. Instead of tracking the hapless happennings of a sales force in a paper supply company, though, "Chalk" follows four green teachers in their struggles.

"Chalk" was one of the few locally-produced films screened at the Austin Film Festival. It was written by Mike Akel (who also directed), and Chris Mass. Both have had experience as teachers in area high schools (Travis and Lanier).

I hear that the film has been picked up by a major distributor, and deservedly so. The four actors who play the key roles do a great job, and the pace and comic timing is nearly perfect.

To see the trailer, click here. To read an article from the Austin Chronicle, click here.

Richard Dawkins on The Colbert Report

Stephen Colbert matches wits with Richard Dawkins. . .

Our Convention President's Three R's

In his recent column, our new Southern Baptist Convention President, Frank Page, said that he's been touring the convention preaching the "Three R's" that must be in place for our convention's churches to thrive:

"Those Rs are rightness, revival and relevancy. While we thank God for the wonderful men and women who fought for many years to return our convention to a strong affirmation of the inerrancy of the Word of God, I challenge our convention to realize that rightness alone with not bring about church transformation and revitalization of our convention. With equal passion, we must seek a revival from God and also, relevancy for this world and for future generations."

Be sure to read his full comments here.

Gay-Rights "Train Wreck"

In “Train Wreck Coming,” former Time writer, David Aikman, explains why homosexual marriage has begun to threaten the free expression of religion guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. He says, “After the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal, a 1971 IRS ruling came into play. It decreed tax-exempt status should be denied to non-profit groups that hold views ‘contrary to public policy.’ Since same-sex marriage had been defined by Massachusetts as ‘public policy,’ any organization that refused to extend social services to same-sex couples would be liable to lawsuits for discrimination.”

His brief commentary illustrates some of the religious organizations and individuals that have been impaled on this legal spear: the Swedish pastor imprisoned for preaching against homosexuality, Massachusetts Catholic Charities decision to shut down rather than face state prosecution for refusing to give adoptive children to same-sex couples, and campus organizations like the Christian Legal Society and InterVarsity being denied campus recognition because of their stance on homosexuality.

It's a chilling prediction of conflicts to come from a level-headed source. "The issue has gone far beyond the freedom of homosexuals to live and act openly," he says. '''The issue is now the freedom of religious people and organizations to criticize that lifestyle.”

Three Things Christians Must Highlight

How can churches reach people in a culture increasingly unmoored from a Christian worldview? When Tim Stafford at Christianity Today asked John Stott that question, Stott said we should pay attention to three things: transcendence, significance, and community. Here was Stott's reply to the question of reaching our secular Western culture:

I think we need to say to one another that it's not so secular as it looks. I believe that these so-called secular people are engaged in a quest for at least three things. The first is transcendence. It's interesting in a so-called secular culture how many people are looking for something beyond. I find that a great challenge to the quality of our Christian worship. Does it offer people what they are instinctively looking for, which is transcendence, the reality of God?

The second is significance. Almost everybody is looking for his or her own personal identity. Who am I, where do I come from, where am I going to, what is it all about? That is a challenge to the quality of our Christian teaching. We need to teach people who they are. They don't know who they are. We do. They are human beings made in the image of God, although that image has been defaced.

And third is their quest for community. Everywhere, people are looking for community, for relationships of love. This is a challenge to our fellowship. I'm very fond of 1 John 4:12: "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us." The invisibility of God is a great problem to people. The question is how has God solved the problem of his own invisibility? First, Christ has made the invisible God visible. That's John's Gospel 1:18: "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known."

People say that's wonderful, but it was 2,000 years ago. So in 1 John 4:12, he begins with exactly the same formula, nobody has ever seen God. But here John goes on, "If we love one another, God abides in us." The same invisible God who once made himself visible in Jesus now makes himself visible in the Christian community, if we love one another. And all the verbal proclamation of the gospel is of little value unless it is made by a community of love.

These three things about our humanity are on our side in our evangelism, because people are looking for the very things we have to offer them.

The complete interview can be found here.

Jesus in History and the Bible

I’ve uploaded my article, “Jesus in History and the Bible” at AnchorCourse.org. This article shows that even without a New Testament we can learn seven things about Jesus from the writings of non-believers in the first and second century.

God's Gym

I admit it. I have an unusual way to count off my reps during my exercise routine.

Like most people who work out, I do three sets of ten with my weight-lifting or push-ups or (yuk) sit-ups. But I have a different way to count to ten. I count the first motion with, “The fruit of the Spirit is. . . .” and I continue the count by saying, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

That’s a line from Scripture that’s worth memorizing--Galatians 5:22-23. There Paul lists the “fruit” or “outcome” of a life controlled by the Holy Spirit. I use the list in my exercise routine to remind me of the character God wants to form in me. The Bible says, “Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8). So, while I work out in my home gym, I review how I’m developing in God’s Gym, too.

Look at that list again. Think about each word carefully: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Who would not want this kind of life? The Bible promises that this kind of life can be ours as we depend upon the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, the nine fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 isn’t a “to do” list. Instead, it’s evidence. The more you yield to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the more these nine qualities will show up in your life.

If we’re going to depend upon the Holy Spirit’s guidance and power, we need to know more about the Spirit. That’s our topic this Sunday morning at Hillcrest. We’ve been going line by line through the ancient Apostles Creed, and this Sunday we’ll examine what it means to say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

If you live in the Austin area, join us this Sunday at 9:30am or 10:45am for this important study. To catch up with the series, listen online (iTunes or website). You can receive a free book when you attend Hillcrest during our current sermon series, or you can order copies online by clicking here. To learn more about the book, read the introduction by clicking here or check out the website at www.AnchorCourse.org.

Raising the Bar

At his weblog, Ben Witherington asks, “Where Are our Evangelical Youth Going? He comments on the widely-circulated warning that so many churchgoing teens will drop out of church by the time of adulthood that only four percent will be Bible-believing Christians in adulthood.

Now, not everyone agrees with that dire warning. See comments at Weblog at ChristianityToday.com and the Austin-American Statesman coverage of a recent national youth leaders conference held here in Austin. Still, Witherington has some important comments.

He challenges leaders of student ministries to raise the bar and raise the passion level. He writes:

Here's a simple truth--- God's Word does not wear out or fail. It doesn't have built in obsolescence like pop culture. So here's my formula of the day--the less Biblical substance to a Christian pop event, song, etc. the less likely it
will have any staying power.

In addition, leaders of student ministries need to live the message and not just teach it. They need to experience worship and not just lead it. He writes:

And here's another other factor. You need to draw your water from a deep well. By this I mean that a Christian musician, minister etc. needs to have a deep and abiding relationship with the Lord and deep and profound grounding in God's Word and in God's community. If you try to proclaim something that has not first catalyzed your own soul and spiritual life, it will ring hollow, rather than true.

In short, Witherington calls on youth leaders to give students “a close encounter . . . with the Word of God Incarnate, and the Word of God written, and the Word of God incarnated in his community.”

Good stuff. I’m grateful that Jim Siegel and his youth leadership team do that very thing at Hillcrest. It’s a formula worth following not just in youth ministry but in our outreach to every age group in our community.

Friday Night Lights

Did you see Friday Night Lights last night? I enjoyed the show, and it had lots of Austin-area locales in the shots: the Pflugerville stadium, the Hutto stadium (home of the "Hutto Hippos"!), EZ's restaurant on Lamar across from Central Market. Two of our members, Michele Roberts and her son Bryce, had their moment of national fame in one of the shots. I also thought that UT head coach Mack Brown's cameo appearance was hilarious: he played a businessman giving lots of "helpful advice" to the head coach at a social function. One passing line was gold: "Now, you got a great quarterback, coach, but don't get to thinking that having a great quarterback is all you need to win a national championship." The prayer from the star player at the end of the hour was a good one, too. Friday Night Lights continues next Tuesday on NBC.

Discovering Jonny Lang

I just downloaded Jonny Lang’s latest release, Turn Around (A&M Records). He camps out on the funk side of rhythm and blues, with some urban gospel mixed in as well. He sings a duet with Michael McDonald on “Thankful,” and other well-known artists join him at points: Buddy Miller, Sam Bass, Nickel Creek violinist Sara Watkins, and Steven Curtis Chapman, five- time Grammy winner and GMA's most awarded artist.

Now if we can just get Lang and Joss Stone together for a duet. Oh my. (I stand corrected: A quick Google search put Stone and Lang together for U2’s “When Love Comes to Town” on Herbie Hancock’s Possibilities. Too bad it’s only available for download when you buy the whole album.)

Regarding Turn Around, Lang told ModernRock.com, “Outwardly, I wouldn't consider it a Christian album. But a lot of songs are about my relationship with the Lord. Because of those changes in my life, they brought about restoration and healing to some things that were going on in my life and really made me a new person.”

Jonny Lang burst onto the mainstream music scene in 1996 at the age of 15, capturing critical acclaim with two million-selling albums for A&M -- 1997's Lie to Me and '98's Wander This World. He also toured with the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and Sting and had a role in the movie Blues Brothers 2000.

Lang disappeared for a while, in part because of changes at his record label, and in part because of problems with drugs and alcohol. In 2002, Lang had a spiritual transformation, reflected on his 2003 release, Long Time Coming.

Now, three years in the making and ten years into his recording career, Turn Around is getting some real praise. “Nobody has sung soul with this much passion and energy since James Brown was at his peak in the sixties,” says The Phantom Tollbooth. “The title track ‘Turn Around’ alone is worth the price of the CD. There is an extended guitar solo by Lang that ranks up there with anything you have heard from Bonnie Raiit and Eric Clapton.”

I missed his Austin concert on his current tour. But I didn’t miss out on getting the album. You shouldn’t either.

You can listen to songs at his website and his MySpace page. ChristianMusicToday.com has a good review here.

Waiting on "The Perfect Righteous Human Being"

The writers at GetReligion.org critique the news media for their coverage of religious issues. It's worth a review at least once a week. On Monday, September 25, they posted comments about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s address at the United Nations: "Waiting on the perfect righteous human being ." To introduce you to this important story and to GetReligion, I'm going to copy the entire post here:

Here is your first assignment as we start a new week. It has to do with the most amazing quotation from last week.

First, open Google. Now, insert — in direct quotation marks — the phrase “perfect righteous human being.” Search in the News category.

Now, what did you find? Not much.

This phrase is, of course, taken from the final act of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s dramatic address at the United Nations. Click here for the full text, but here are the crucial quotes:

“I emphatically declare that today’s world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.

“O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.”

Does that sound familiar? Did you see this passage played over and over on the evening newscasts and debated on the niche-market shows on cable?

You didn’t?

To grasp the importance of what is happening in these paragraphs, please head on over to The New Republic (that right-wing rag to which we link quite a bit) and read the fairly recent cover story titled “Ahmadinejad’s Demons: A child of the revolution takes over” by Matthias Kuntzel.

Now, back to the United Nations. Try to imagine what would have happened if President George W. Bush had ended his U.N. address with a call for the second coming of Jesus Christ and pledged that he would strive to see this event come to pass, sooner rather than later. Imagine the mainstream media response. Do you think this would be mentioned in major media? Do you think journalists would jump to cover that topic (as well they should)?

Andrew Sullivan states the obvious, quite well, beginning with an appeal for readers to read the quotes in question a second time:

Ahmadinejad is calling upon God to bring about the coming of the Twelfth Imam (“the perfect human being promised to all by you”), who heralds the Apocalypse. He is also saying that he will “strive for his return.” It is the most terrifying statement any president of any nation has made to the U.N. We have a dictator on the brink of nukes, striving to accelerate the Apocalypse. Think of the Iranian regime as a nation-as-suicide-bomber. And anything serious we can do to prevent it may only make matters worse. No wonder Ahmadinejad smiles. Paradise beckons.

So why have newspaper readers and television viewers not been swamped with coverage of this part of this address? Why is that Google News search so wimpy?

Here is what Joel C. Rosenberg has to say over at National Review. I think you will not be surprised to learn that his argument, when boiled down to its essentials, is this: Too many people in the mainstream media simply do not get religion. But, beyond that, there is a good chance that many journalists are simply afraid to dig into the details of Ahmadinejad’s beliefs and his own unique faith journey (which includes some literal minefields).

It is, you see, much, much easier to stick to writing stories about the Left Behind novels. Saith Rosenberg:

American journalists aren’t asking Ahmadinejad about his Shiite religious beliefs, his fascination with the coming of the Islamic Messiah known as the “Twelfth Imam” or the “Mahdi,” his critique of President Bush’s faith in Jesus Christ and encouragement of President Bush to convert to Islam, and how such beliefs are driving Iranian foreign policy.

Time’s cover story and exclusive print interview with Ahmadinejad never broached the subject of his eschatology. Nor did [Brian] Williams. Nor did [Mike] Wallace. Nor does a just-released book, Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy And the Next Great Crisis in the Middle East, by British Iran expert Ali M. Ansari. Nor does almost any of the saturation coverage Ahmadinejad is receiving.

Journalists aren’t typically shy about asking tough, probing questions about the religious views of world leaders. President Bush has been grilled at length about being an evangelical Christian and how this informs his foreign policy, particularly with regards to Israel and the Middle East. Clearly the pope’s views of Christianity and Islam are now under fire. Why such hesitancy when it comes to the religious beliefs of a leader who has called for the Jewish state to be wiped off the planet and urges fellow Muslims to envision a world without the United States?

Good question. Of course, you knew that’s what we would think here at GetReligion.

Control the Definitions, Control the Debate

“We find ourselves mildly bemused by those benighted people who respect science but refuse to bow down to its unassailable authority.”

Okay, you won’t find that exact quote from Scientific American’s October editorial, “Let There Be Light.” But you’ll find that tone.

The editors say, “Science and faith can coexist happily as long as neither tries to take on the functions of the other.” Where is that dividing line? “Scientific research deals in what is measurable and definable,” they say, and “it cannot begin to study what might lie beyond the physical realm or to offer a comprehensive moral philosophy.”

With the theory of evolution being applied to why we have a longing for God and why we have the particular moral framework we have, I’d say that science has crossed that line time and again. Indeed, when they reach the end of their editorial, they refer to “the fault line between science and religion” as “illusory.” So, scientists like Francis Collins who have written books expressing their Christian belief “are not expressing a strictly scientific perspective,” the editors say. “Rather, they are struggling, as people always have, to reconcile their knowledge of a dispassionate universe with a heartfelt conviction in a more meaningful design.”

Read the carefully-chosen words of that last line again: it’s a “struggle” when you have to “reconcile” knowledge and heartfelt conviction. From the realm of “knowledge” we see a “dispassionate universe”—cold, meaningless, and unmindful of human existence. If one wants “a more meaningful design” to the universe, one has to stir it up with “heartfelt conviction.”

These are loaded words that express a strong bias: a meaningless view of the world equals “science” equals “knowledge.”

C.S. Lewis addressed this issue nearly sixty years ago in his important little book, The Abolition of Man, where he complained that our world is removing concepts of beauty and virtue and loyalty from the realm of what is objective and instead assigning the concepts to the wooly world of what is merely subjective. As a result, we a building “men without chests”--people without the moral backbone to sustain civil societies.

But it doesn’t take “heartfelt conviction” to fill the world with purpose. Instead, it just involves a decision to quit suppressing the evidence. Paul wrote in Romans 1:19-20 that people “suppress the truth.” Indeed, “what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.”

In Chapter Five of my new book, The Anchor Course, I outline five realities about the natural world that will open our eyes to God once stop ignoring them. Attend Hillcrest during our current sermon series and receive a free copy (one per household), or order online.

Death for a Christian Convert

Ali Mustaf Maka'il is dead, and we should remember his family in prayer. Ali was a 22-year-old Somali college student and cloth merchant who converted from Islam to Christianity 11 months ago. A news report says he was shot in the back September 7 after he refused to join a crowd in Mogadishu that was chanting Quran verses in honor of the lunar eclipse.

Somali leaders are committed to implementing Sharia, or Islamic law, in the governance of the country. According to Sharia those who leave Islam for another religion are "apostates" and must be killed. Ali is the latest casualty in what observers fear is a growing persecution of the tiny Christian minority in Somalia.

There are complicated issues that transcend a simple religious explanation for persecution. Somalis look upon Christianity as the "mark" of their Ethiopean enemies and their former colonial masters, the Italians and the British. Thus, for a Somali like Ali to convert to Christianity is as much an act of disloyalty as it is apostacy in the eyes of his countrymen.

Still, the death of a Somali Christian convert who refused to participate in the community's Islamic prayers is reminder of how dangerous it is to be a Christian in much of the world.

In the 20th century, millions of Christians were killed in the name of atheistic communism (in fact, more Christians were killed in the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries of Christianity). Communism has come and gone, but it looks like the 21st century will be just as bloody for many Christians because of Islam--the "religion of peace."

New Missionaries from Hillcrest

When the International Mission Board appointed 87 new missionaries on September 13 (read the story here), the ceremony included two members of our church. Daniel and Tiffany Kilcoyne will soon move to France to work with university ministry. We'll have our own commissioning service for them Wednesday, September 20, 6:30 p.m. in the Worship Center.

A Way to Wash Our Sins Away

In the article, "Washing Our Sins Away -- Literally?" ABC News reported on the linkage between moral guilt and the felt need to wash.

"Showering — a simple everyday activity — is linked to morality in a way we never knew," said study co-author Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University.

Liljenquist and her colleagues asked a group of 60 college students to concentrate on either something ethical or unethical that they had done in the past. The researchers discovered that students who remembered their own unethical behavior were more likely to act as if they felt unclean.

For example, the students were given the word "W_ _ S" and asked to complete the letters. Students who reflected on an unethical memorywere more likely to say that the unfinished word was "WASH" instead of "WISH."

Again, when given the word "S _ _ P" they completed the letters as "SOAP" instead of "SOUP" or "STEP."

In another similar experiment, after students were asked to remember some ethical or unethical action from their past, each student was given a choice of two free gifts: a pencil or an antiseptic wipe. Sixty-six percent of the students who said they had recalled an unethical memory took the antiseptic wipe. It was as if they wanted to wipe themselves clean of the recollection.

It's a common impulse, universal across the cultures. "Wash away all my iniquity," King David called out to God in confession of his adultery, "and cleanse me from my sin" (Psalm 51:2). It's good to know God responds to that kind of heart cry.

In the New Testament, baptism symbolizes the cleansing power of Christ's sacrifice. After Ananias explained the gospel to Paul, he said, "And now, what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16). It reminds me of a story of old Sam Houston. At 61, he became a believer and submitted to baptism in Rickey Creek. Cynical friends asked the dripping-wet Texas hero if he felt his sins had now been washed away. "Yes," said Houston, "and God help the fish down below!"

It' s been my privilege to officiate at this cleansing ceremony called baptism for numerous people across the years. If you live in the Austin area, let's talk about scheduling your baptism.

Islam and Forced Conversions

Ted Olsen often has some insightful commentary on daily news items at ChristianityToday.com's Weblog. In today's "Top Five," he complains about "Compulsion in Religion." It's worth reading his comments:

"There is no compulsion in religion," says the Qur'an. "We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," says Steve Centanni, the Fox News correspondent who was kidnapped with cameraman Olaf Wiig. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on," he said.

Hard news coverage of the forced conversion—which echoes the Jill Carroll kidnapping—has been limited. Discussion has been mostly limited to conservative columnists, op-ed writers, and bloggers. That's unfortunate, since it places the debate in a "neo-conservatives" vs. "Islamofascists" narrative instead of a larger
discussion of human rights.

Perhaps the reporters already feel defensive on the subject—The New York Times, among others, took much criticism for its initial headline, "2 Kidnapped Journalists in Gaza Freed Unharmed," before it changed it to "Fox News Journalists Free After Declaring Conversion on Tape."

And perhaps the wind was taken out of reporters' sails by Centanni's apparent enthusiasm for Islam (leading some to accuse him of Stockholm Syndrome) and his shrugging the conversion off as a minor inconvenience on the way to freedom.

But the compelled conversion story has moved on and grown beyond kidnapped reporters. Almost every day, of course, religious liberty watchdogs like Compass Direct and AsiaNews.it report stories of Christians forced to convert to Islam or punished for converting out of it. For whatever reason, those rarely attract mainstream news attention. But politics stories do attract mainstream news
attention, so it's a wonder that few reporters have tied the forced conversions to the new Al Qaeda video calling for Bush and non-Muslims in the United States to convert to Islam or "suffer the consequences."

"If the Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants like … the crusader-in-chief George W. Bush were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam," Californian Adam Yahiye Gadahn said in the video (which identified him as "Azzam the American"). "To Americans and the rest of Christendom we say, either repent (your) misguided ways and enter into the light of truth or keep your poison to yourself and suffer the consequences in this world and the next."

But, you know. No compulsion and all that.

How about some real reporting on forced conversions? Nationalist Hindus in much of India claim that Christians are "enticing" or forcing people to convert, and they have passed anti-conversion laws in four states. Indian Christians respond that the allegations are baseless, and that it's the Hindu nationalists who are forcing their religion on others, often violently so. The U.S. government's religious freedom reports tend to agree with the Christians, but some serious reporting is needed to clarify the reality.

And what can we learn about forced conversions to Islam? Some of them do "stick," but how many? How do moderate Muslims respond when conversion is professed at the point of a gun? What about Muslim political leaders? What does "moderate" Muslim evangelism look like?

And how about a historical perspective on forced Christian conversion? Does Scandinavia's current lack of enthusiasm for Christianity have anything to do with how the faith came to the country a millennium ago, with King Olaf Trygvesson's command, "Be Christian or die"?

There are hundreds of other stories that can and should be done on forced conversions. This isn't a "conservative" issue. It's a human rights issue that gets to the core of what it means to be human. This subject belongs on the front page, not just the op-ed page.

Becoming Pro-Life

In "Choosing Life," Fred Barnes explains how five people changed their mind on the issue of abortion and became pro-life: Ronald Reagan, Henry Hyde, Ramesh Ponnuru, Wesley Smith, and Barnes himself. He writes:

HOW DO PEOPLE BECOME PRO-LIFERS? What turns people into passionate foes of abortion and related issues like euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research? I'm not referring to those who supported the pro-life position because of their family upbringing or religious faith or because of a political requirement as, say, a Republican candidate in a red state. I'm talking about people who, as adults or mature teenagers, were either pro-abortion or basically indifferent to the issue. Then something changed their mind, prompting them to take up the anti-abortion cause. Perhaps they began defending the pro-life position without realizing they'd flipped. In any case, what caused the change? What happened?

It's worthwhile to read his answers to this question. Click here to read the article.

A New Missions Generation: Good News and Bad News

ChristianityToday.com gives us good news and bad news about what they're calling "The New Missions Generation."

The good news: some of the most significant advancements in the history of world missions happened when college students caught the vision for taking the gospel to unreached nations, and it looks like a passion for missions is on the rise among students again. "There's a growing confidence that 2006 could be a marker year for the rebuilding of the student missions movement," Ryan Shaw says in the article. He's the director of Student Volunteer Movement 2, a network of churches and agencies promoting student involvement in world missions. And Paul Borthwick says, "Students these days have grown up with a global church consciousness. They have an empathetic understanding of different ethnicities and cultures. Their global consciousness and their own histories of brokenness enable them to humbly relate to people in different countries and from different cultures." Students seem to be particularly passionate about addressing issues of social justice and getting involved in pragmatic actions to alleviate poverty.

Now for the bad news. According to the article:

Unfortunately, many students today exhibit theological confusion. "Too many college students are not convinced about the exclusive claims of Christ and the eternal lostness of humanity," says Terry Erickson, InterVarsity's director of evangelism. "Students today are more grace-oriented than truth-oriented." Erickson notes that young people on missions trips today may not be articulating the gospel's promise of eternal salvation through Christ's death on the Cross as clearly as they are demonstrating their concern for social justice and compassion for the poor.

We have to pay attention to the word God speaks as well as the world God loves. When it's God's call students are responding to, it's this dual duty students will respond with.