Saturday, September 20, 1997

Jots and tittles from the world of religion

By TOM SCHAEFER

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Jots and tittles from the world of religion:

Religion increasingly is becoming a lively subject on television.

"Touched by an Angel" became CBS's most popular drama series last season, spinning off "Promised Land," which debuted Thursday. ABC has resurrected "Soul Man" from last spring, featuring Dan Aykroyd as a widowed clergyman with three kids. And PBS introduced "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly" with veteran journalist Bob Abernethy as its executive editor and host.

Then there's the program "Nothing Sacred," an ABC drama featuring an unconventional priest in an urban parish who anguishes over the plight of the down-and-out and over what he perceives as the silence of God.

Besides anguishing, the priest and his religious cohorts - and a few irreligious ones - are subjects of some provocative story lines: the priest is tempted to break his vow of chastity; a woman struggles in confession over whether she should have an abortion; a nun insists that God can be addressed as Mother.

Not surprisingly, the show has supporters and detractors.

The 350,000-member Catholic League says "Nothing Sacred" is "fostering the most negative stereotype of those who remain loyal to the church" while embracing the "trendy positions of dissenting Catholics."

Meanwhile, reports the Dallas Morning News, the Catholic magazine America says the show is the "best television series ever produced about the rich and often-complicated lives of American Catholics. It is, in short, brilliant."

Brilliant? Or does the show foster negative stereotypes about priests and other Catholics?

What's your take on it?

Send your comments to: Tom Schaefer, c/o The Wichita Eagle, P.O. Box 820, Wichita, Kan. 67201.

X X X

Do you talk funny? Harper's magazine picked up on an article in an evangelical publication listing certain words and expressions used by Christians that can be downright irritating.

One example: The use of the word "just" in prayers ("Lord, I just want to say that I love you, and just want you to know, how I, just, praise you and just ...").

Callers to a radio talk show, the article reported, said the use of the word "just" strikes them as pious people presenting a false humility. Other irritating words, spoken aloud in prayers, are "Lord," inserted after almost every other phrase, and "right now."

What can I say? Just don't do that - right now or ever again, OK?

X X X

Obtaining divine status for Mother Teresa may be a bit easier, thanks to a change in the Roman Catholic Church's procedure for declaring someone a saint.

The Vatican used to have a devil's advocate. Actually, it was a department that tried to ensure that a candidate for sainthood was thoroughly scrutinized. The idea was to prevent someone from slipping by who was not worthy of sainthood. Like the entire Medici family.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II revamped the process for sainthood, doing away with the office of devil's advocate or special prosecutor. The change was meant to streamline the process while maintaining exacting standards. Even so, some folks are worried, not about Mother Teresa's candidacy but others'.

For instance, what if a bunch of powerful people use their influence to help the candidacy of a person whose name may benefit their cause? Suppose they contribute large sums of money in an attempt to persuade high-ranking officials to intervene with the pope on behalf of a potential saint? And now there's no devil's advocate, no special prosecutor, to check out whether problems exist.

Wait a minute. Were we talking about special prosecutors and investigations of character going on in Rome or Washington, D.C.?

Lord, help us - right now!

X X X

For centuries, philosophers and theologians have wrestled with the issue of theodicy: How do you reconcile the goodness of God and his power with the existence of evil?

Thanks to The Door, that satirical Christian magazine, I'm able to pass on some classic Western responses to the question, along with lighthearted additions by two authors, Daniel Scurry and Tom Hoffmann:

Evil is a lack or defect -Platonism

Evil is a product of a "fallen" world -St. Augustine

God created the "best of all possible worlds" -Leibnitz

Leibnitz was an idiot -Voltaire

God has abdicated control -Deism

God is a control freak -Calvinism

I'm in control -Narcissism

It doesn't matter who is in control -Fatalism

Whoever is in control is supposed to be -Determinism

Men are in control, and that's bad -Feminism

No one is in control, and that's good -Anarchy

God as Chaos is in control -Post-modernism.

Some truth in all of the above -Most of us.

(Tom Schaefer writes about religion and ethics for the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle. Write to him at the Wichita Eagle, P.O. Box 820, Wichita, KS 67201, or send e-mail to tschaefer(at)wichitaeagle.com )