Grove City College is a small Christian institution in Pennsylvania. The school has been around for more than 130 years. Its charter mandates that students be admitted "without regard to religious test or belief." This is how the school describes its roots:

The founders of Grove City College, consciously avoiding narrow sectarianism, held a vision of Christian society transcending denomination, creeds, and confessions ... They hoped that through its program of intellectual, moral, and spiritual education, Grove City College would produce young leaders, whatever their creed or confession, capable of pushing civilization forward on every frontier.

When those supporting equality for gays promoted a "day of silence" for gay rights, a counselor apparently remarked that it was fine by him. He encouraged students to attend school as usual. So a group of conservative Christians is trying to get him fired.

That's the temptation, isn't it? As frail humans afflicted with the limitations of the wisdom of our upbringing, we can too often embrace highly selected scripture that might reinforce the prejudices of our parents. The group of conservatives redefines the golden rule.

Hmmm. “…The way I want to be treated.” So, if a student is about to enter, or has entered, a high-risk practice that is called an abomination by our Lord, and has shared this with classmates, a “true” Christian should attend school to support a day that affirms this behavior and scorns any warnings to that student? Some friendship!

Here’s a biblically-based alternative: “Friends don’t let friends do homosexuality!”

There is a different course, one in accord with the teachings of Christ. I am impressed with the campaign of outreach conducted by the house of worship I attend. I like to feel that it is part of a larger movement to welcome those of uncertain faith into a fellowship of spiritual growth. We are encouraged to support one another, and to join together in walking with Jesus.

I am trying to imagine us taking the other approach: declaring our bigotries to be divinely inspired, then using our church to force those biases on others.

Nope. Can't quite do it.

St. Mark's Methodist Church in Florissant, Missouri, has a history of social involvement in the community. Tutoring in a neighborhood school has been supplemented by an outreach educational program in a low rent apartment building. Volunteers work with kids on homework and projects after school.

An all day sales event is kind of a once a month thrift shop. Folks donate items, while other folks come from miles around to buy. The proceeds stock a food pantry for those down on their luck. Some activities express the love of Christ through one-time acts of kindness. A small group set up a one day free coffee and cookies event at a time when long, long lines were anticipated at a local motorist licensing office.

Two generations ago, the church declined to take a stand on open housing. It was a bit of a victory for segregationists, but folks on both sides of of the should-not-have-been controversy left the church. The price is paid to this very day, as black membership is only recently noticeable. But two years ago we were one of only a very few churches who were willing to invite a mostly minority start up congregation to hold afternoon services. It is not charity. They pay their own way, but joint services are common, and cross participation is not at all unusual.

It seems an obvious move, but it wasn't until recently that we took several major steps actively to attract people outside the congregation. In one move, a few of us were sponsored by the church as a Christian band. Contemporary worship began a year ago, with separate 10:30 service. Contemporary service is enthusiastic and growing, as we continue to develop new ideas to praise God and develop in fellowship.

We were impressed early on by a visit to the Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area. They had specifically targeted non-Christian skeptics, hosting discussion/debates, even promoting books by atheists. A few may have come to jeer but stayed to worship. Some were just curious at first.

I'm comfortable with skeptics. They represent a visit to what had been my long term ideological, spiritual home. I respond to questions, and occasional challenges, with cheerful respect. I don't really rebut the issues expressed, I suppose, as much as I simply testify about my own experiences when those experiences apply to the discussion.

I confess to being more puzzled than surprised by the reaction of Christians to those with a non-theistic outlook. A meeting between a few members of the Obama administration and a couple of groups of non-believers has raised the blood pressure of some Christians. "It is not likely that this outreach to anti-religious activists--many of whom would crush Christianity if they could--will do anything to calm the fears of people of faith" says one Christian activist. "Indeed, it will only alienate them even further."

I dunno. Attacking non-Christians like that seems ... well ... unChristian.

People of faith, especially Christians, have good reason to wonder exactly where their interests lie with the Obama administration. Now we have the definitive answer.

 - - Bill Donohue, President Catholic League, February 26, 2010

The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children.

In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest.

 - - Bob Marshall, Republican State Legislator, Virginia, February 18, 2009

I regret any misimpression my poorly chosen words may have created as to my deep commitment to fighting for these vulnerable children and their families.

 - - Bob Marshall, Republican State Legislator, Virginia, February 22, 2009

It was years ago. I sat at a dining room table with a young lady I had been dating. We were drinking coffee and chatting. It was late. Her son, a fellow in his early twenties, I would have guessed, came home.

I took him to be a bit of a street thug. He was not thrilled to meet me, either, and had no hesitation about letting me know. He had met folks like me and he was emphatically unimpressed. He sat, glared at me, and asked what I thought was a disparaging question about my then recent family breakup. I answered evenly enough that, yeah, my family had been torn asunder the previous year. I was living in an ocean of pain. The unspoken ending to my response was: So what of it? I was inwardly prepared for snide comments.

Instead, he stared for a second. When he spoke, it was with concern. The years have erased his actual words. He told me I could not keep going on that way. We spent the rest of that long night talking about my life and his. We talked of hopes and dreams. It went nearly until the dawn. Three months later, I spoke at his funeral.

It has occurred to me since then that something aside from this concerned young man was speaking to me, demanding that I turn my life around. I often put it into a religious context. Jesus speaks to us in many ways.

I thought of my young friend a few months ago as I read news accounts of a group of Muslims gathering for public worship outside the Capitol in Washington. As they tried to pray, Christian protesters screamed at them through megaphones. The Christians quieted only after one Muslim gave them a fair variant of what Jesus teaches us: "We would never come to a prayer meeting that you have to make a disturbance. Please show us some respect. This is a sacred moment. Just as your Sunday is sacred, our Friday is sacred." And so we are instructed to do unto others.

In Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this month, a television station pretty much invented stories about a gated Muslim community. Implied, but not stated, was that a terrorist training camp might be there. In the body of the story they revealed that nothing was going on. Move on, folks, nothing here to see. But a mosque on the other side of town was vandalized. Graffiti proclaimed local bigotry. "Muslims Go Home" was sprayed right next to crudely painted crosses. But that did not end the drama.

Local neighbors showed up with paint, brushes, and indignation at what had been done. An unemployed truck driver wept as he donated additional paint. What was supposed to be a small open house at the mosque was crowded with over 150 Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. They came to learn and to show support for their brothers and sisters who follow Islam.

We often can learn the message of hope, the message of Christ, from others. Sometimes Jesus even speaks to us through Christians.

Go to Heaven without worrying about the pets you leave behind.
The web site is worth seeing.

The House of Worship I attend puts on a few Cantatas each year. We alternate music and words to present a coherent message. I often am allowed to compose the speaking parts. One Christmas, I asked a young woman, a school teacher, to perform some of the roles. She was wonderful.

She portrayed a sad elderly caregiver telling of a young boy in gravely ill health assigned to her. "He was so sweet and helpless" she began in a trembling voice, and there was a hush throughout the sanctuary. Her every word was spoken with a tearful weariness. The point of the vignette was that he grew to be the adult Walter Scott, writing stories of faith.

A few songs later, she was a small child who had written to a newspaper asking whether there was really a Santa Claus. Her light sing-song presentation delighted the congregation. She WAS that child. And when she said "Santa Claus is what Christmas is all about," she made everyone laugh.

I thought of my talented friend as I began reading "My Jesus Year" by Benyamin Cohen. Cohen writes of what religion meant to him growing up in an orthodox home. He recounts some of that in a recent interview:

Odd items, too, like not being able use an umbrella on the Sabbath, or being told to put my right shoe on before my left one. This was how Judaism was taught to me as a kid-as one long legal theories class.

The value of ritual to spirituality is the reminder that we belong to one God and are a beloved part of his creation. Defining a religious tradition as a set of rules severely restricts spiritual experience.

The costly mistake Cohen perceived applies across the board. I have angered literalist Christian friends about the meaning of ancient scripture. One nearly screamed at me as I asked why slavery would be wrong today but right in the time of Exodus. The obvious answer is that those who wrote scripture, in applying God's inspiration to their understanding of the world, got a lot of it wrong. We can learn from the inspiration while rejecting obvious error. Instead, he yelled about the nature of the moral universe changing because earthquakes tore the Holy Curtain in the temple at the crucifixion. It seems God loved slavery right up to then.

Jesus was hated by the literalists of ancient times, who valued ritual above spirit. We share with other faiths a common temptation, defining God as one tradition, or one book, or one translation, or one set of hymns. At the core, this worship of God-in-a-box is idolatry, the source of much earthly torment.

Christianity is about more than rules. It is about love: for God, for our neighbors, for ourselves. And Christmas is about more than toys.

My understanding -- I'm not a theologian -- but there's a prophecy in the Bible that says you'll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times. Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.

 - - Mark Cole (R-Fredericksburg), Virginia House of Delegates, Feb. 9, 2010
     On a new Virginia law barring implantation of microchips into human
     beings without their knowledge and consent. Presumably, Satan rigidly
     obeys the laws of the Commonwealth.