The next general election Presidential ballot that does not include the name of Barrack Obama will be examined by at least a few new voters with no memory of the 9/11 attacks that made New York and Washington into twin cities. Birth and death, the turning of life's seasons, resigns all things to history. Right now, the anger burns bright and hot.

My workday began late that morning. I had worked into the previous night, and my boss was understanding. I walked in to see co-workers gathered in shocked silence around a television set. When I asked what happened, one turned on me in barely subdued fury. Didn't I ever watch the morning news before work? He was angry that anyone could still be living in some sort of normalcy. Ignorance was no excuse. I was forgiven only as mind numbing helplessness came to me, satisfying his need for shared shock.

One image, later published, stays with me. A man falling, upside down, in a posture of walking. He had apparently jumped to avoid the flames. Fanatics had given thousands of human beings a similar choice. My daughter called me that morning from college on the outskirts of our nation's capitol. We wept together for friends who waited for news of lost family in the Pentagon. We wept for our country. "How could anyone be so cruel?" she cried.

A group of American Muslims wants to build a center near where the World Trade Center stood. Local residents and neighborhood councils back the idea. It is intended as a rebuke to Islamic extremists. Contrast our openness to all religions with your violent intolerance. All Americans, including Muslims, are united against the violence.

Opposition to an Islamic Center near the site of the New York City attack comes partly from pure xenophobia. There is no question that bigotry plays a role in any free society. But part of it comes from all too recent pain. That is the essential point made by Sarah Palin in her message, posted, erased through some error, and re-posted, on facebook. "No one is disputing that America stands for – and should stand for – religious tolerance," she writes. "It is a foundation of our republic." Her opposition is based on compassion for the trauma. She quotes a family member of a 9/11 victim. "I think that it is incredibly insensitive and audacious really for them to build a mosque, not only on that site, but to do it specifically so that they could be in proximity to where that atrocity happened."

Those who seek to empathize might imagine the phobia of an adult who, as a child, was attacked by a bald headed man. What is to be our answer to her very real fear of all bald headed men? Would stern lectures about stereotypes be our compassionate response? The practical choice, the non-bigoted choice, the compassionate choice comes to a simple question.

Must we, out of respect for childhood trauma, prohibit bald headed men from entering the neighborhood? Or should healing be our goal?

It's hard to say why Christianity grew in the centuries before Constantine made it the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Before then, Christian martyrs were the visible part of an oppression that went way beyond the FoxNews outrage at occasional Walmart employees who say "Happy Holidays." As Roman rumors spread of the Emperor Nero playing musical instruments to accompany the glorious sight of Rome on fire, he tried to divert popular anger. He blamed members of a new cult and had Christians burned alive. As Senate troops came to arrest the Emperor, he killed himself, an excellent career move. Nero was gone, but the public executions of Christians became a tradition among those in control.

It was an unusual gathering of believers. It was monotheistic, which provoked a considerable outrage among religiously devout Romans. Even more provocative, it carried a message of equality before God for everyone. Upper classes were, of course, furious at such egalitarianism. But revolutionary theology proved attractive to those who found little meaning in the polytheistic splitting of divine roles. Ex-soldiers, slaves, women, those at the bottom rungs of the prevailing social order, and those who simply craved social justice found meaning in the religion that proclaimed a universal human dignity. By the time of Constantine, some scholars estimate that as many as 11% of the Empire were members.

As it became profitable for those in control of society to join the newly official religion, it became a haven for the those who favored the established order. As upper classes took over, the Lord's name was invoked to oppress those we would exploit or simply hate. Wars were conducted, torture was administered, injustice was justified. And so it is today. "Social justice isn't in the Bible," proclaims one national figure.

But every once in a while, some new group would take Jesus at his word, and an outburst of equal treatment would have to be suppressed or incorporated. The end of slavery, humane conditions in the workplace, and the treatment of women all had a religious component. It is not a surprise that various liberation theology movements would experience the same burst of revelation. Christianity is about more than bigotry against those we hate, and God's love extends to all. Social justice is part of the red letters of scripture. It comes from a recognition of the worth of all God's children.

Jesus is not ALL about social justice. Personal redemption, a release from guilt and suffering, a transcendent love that recognizes a hard core of personal worth are at the heart of Christian worship. When someone in need is understandably repulsed by hatred and intolerance, the temptation is to throw the manger baby out with the bath water.

When that happens, a ray of hope is lost to a world in need of hope.

Gospelchor Rejoice Langenberg

Christians, especially pastors, sometimes speak a little derisively about "church shopping." The feeling seems to be that, a church being akin to a family, this is a little like family shopping. A spiritual home should be an environment in which meaningful, supportive relationships can be established. We are on a journey together.

But I was once on a journey of my own, searching for a spiritual construct I could live with, a framework that meant something. I visited houses of worship that focused on a God-principle that, after a season of struggle, became too impersonal to me. It seemed a little like worshiping a mystery force. May the Gravity be with you. I bowed with Presbyterians, knelt with Baptists, shouted with Pentecostals, and talked on Saturdays with Seventh Day Adventists. The local Ethical Society hosted a debate, but friendliness turned icy when I suggested, during a question-answer follow up, that an anti-war presentation was poorly researched and inadequately considered. I did commune briefly with a Buddhist monk, but mostly my odyssey was in Christian circles.

I noticed that some worship places were more enthusiastically friendly. I was happy about that until I noticed another pattern. The friendliness in some churches was a comrade-in-arms sort: you're-one-of-us enthusiasm was appended with and-not-one-of-them. The walls of some sanctuaries formed a mighty fortress against the evil enemy waiting outside. Friends were we all, serving against that common foe: outsiders.

I thought of that sad discovery as I read a pastoral warning that any good Christian must stay away from, of all things, yoga class. Brother Michael Gleghorn bases his clarion call, in part, on dangerous teachings of "the Upanishads, probably written between 1000-500 B.C" which established for all time "the practice and goal of yoga..." Lord protect us.

I suppose responsible evangelism never was easy. It involves seeing those outside the sanctuary as God's children, not as some enemy. Christian arrogance takes many forms: I am a spiritual success. If you study hard and follow in my steps, you may also become a spiritual success. One pastor suggested that a better attitude would be that of a one homeless orphan to another: I've heard where we can find food.

One such food messenger is a young woman who introduces, often with intense personal witness, some of our songs in contemporary worship. She tells me she plans this morning to mention that as a child she would seek out and climb the highest hill around and pray from its crest. She hoped God might not have to listen so hard to hear her prayers. Her message is humble and affecting. "Don’t look for a hill like I did," she says. "Just look inside and remember God is working, listening, and waiting for us to hear him."

I would add that we need fear no evil, even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of yoga exercise.