FORTY-THREE minutes into his “special live edition” with Charlie Sheen on Monday night, Piers Morgan finally got around to asking his guest a real question. Before that, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Sheen had mostly traded chuckles and anecdotes about multiday benders, inflated network salaries and meet-ups in Aspen, Colo. But then, after three commercial breaks, Mr. Morgan inquired, “Have you ever hit a woman?”...
Article here
Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
A lifetime bond over books
From a box hidden under the Christmas tree each year, a father's love of reading is passed on to his daughter, a gift they share right up to their final day together.
Every Christmas when I was a child and even as a young adult, I knew which present I would open last. Deep under the tree, covered with fallen needles and those home-made paper ornaments you save for the lowest branches, lay a large box. Originally used for some bulky garment — a really significant cardigan or, pushing further back, one of those inexplicably popular fuzzy ponchos —it was the kind of box one saved, once upon a time, before gift bags were invented and gift wrap was dear, when kids were encouraged to slow down and remove the paper carefully so it could be smoothed, folded and used again. To make this box suitable for easy reuse, only its lid had been wrapped in red paper bedecked with some green figure (wreaths possibly, or just festive bows) that over the years frayed at the corners and had a web of inevitable wrinkles so that it eventually looked like a Christmas present might look on a TV screen full of static.
But there was always a brand-new bow on it because my father loved those big, fat stick-on bows, and this box was from him. . Which meant it was full of books.
Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Mary Stewart and J.D. Salinger, Tolkien and Woolf and Wharton, Dickens and Vonnegut and, in later years, Frank O'Connor, then more Frank O'Connor. It started when I was in third grade, with the "Little House" series and Louisa May Alcott; every Christmas until his death my father gave me a big box of books. Paperback because he and I both read too much to afford hardbacks, but shiny and tantalizing as any bracelet or sweater or electronic gadget. A Whitman sampler of books that I would spend the rest of my holidays devouring, hoarding the leftovers in sliding stacks beside my bed. Books I would keep with me, would move from city to city, from coast to coast.
Because it wasn't just a present, that box. It was a bond, a hand squeezing mine under the table to remind me that, no matter what storms were currently raging — between us or around us — we would always have this, our shared love of, and belief in, the daily act of reading.
"Until I feared I would lose it, I did not love reading; one doesn't love breathing," wrote Harper Lee, via Scout Finch, the narrator of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and I don't think there is a sentence in the English language that I understand more. I learned to read as Scout did, sitting on my father's lap, behind newspapers and books, following his finger as he read, which was all the time.
My father never moved without a book in his hand. While my mother, also a prodigious reader, put aside her novels to teach me my letters and take me from picture books to simple narratives, Dad's idea of age-appropriate fare for a 6-year-old was "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver's Travels," and not any of the abridged versions. He gave me "The Catcher in the Rye" when I was in the fifth grade, Jane Austen when I was in the sixth. He watched what I brought home from the library, what I read and what I didn't and asked why, pushed me to read Truman Capote and Willa Cather as thoroughly and with as much respect as I read Hemingway and Fitzgerald … no matter what my sniffy high school teachers said. He gave me Cheever and Updike and Somerset Maugham. He didn't like Mailer, ditto Gore Vidal, but we read them and discussed them and spent hours putting together our own Century lists — those authors whose work would survive 100 years.
It was an ongoing conversation we could have when other topics became too painful or infuriating, a secret code through which we could send each other messages of encouragement and support or anger and disappointment. "What are you reading?" became our "how are you doing?" Dorothy Day meant things weren't going so well for him, another sojourn into "Bleak House" meant I was seeking refuge.
As I grew older, I gave as well as received, introduced him to Margaret Atwood and Margaret Drabble, A.S. Byatt and Jorge Luis Borges, and my big box of books grew smaller and more selective — Trollope's Palliser novels, the letters of Virginia Woolf. But the conversation never flagged.
The last night of my father's life, I sat up late in hospice with him. He hadn't responded to us in almost two days, and I had run out of ways to say goodbye so I was reading the book I had shoved in my purse on the way to the airport — a copy of Agatha Christie's "N or M ?" But in between the words, the silence was just too full of what was going to happen next. So I read aloud, to my dying father, from a yellow-paged, dog-earred paperback that he had given me in a big red box one long ago Christmas.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Exhibit displays Nazis' 'Deadly Medicine'
The exhibit at Loyola Marymount University argues that by advancing the theory of eugenics — an outgrowth of Darwinism — German doctors helped lay the foundation upon which the Holocaust was built.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Craigslist Removes Adult Section
Craigslist's reputation for prostitution ads in it's "adult" section has resulted in pressure to remove it from the site. (This is dated but I wanted to file it away on here.)
Story link is here.
Story link is here.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
'In the Land of Believers' by Gina Welch
A writer goes undercover as a 'church lady' to write an account of being a member of an evangelical church. The book becomes a melodrama, with the author in the role of villain. Article here.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
What Would Jesus Sell?
LA Times, July 21, 2006|Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer:
Click here for article.
"Christian perfume's not your thing? Try golf balls. Or candy. This booming market has piles of products and a single message."
___________________________________________________________________
DENVER — The fake rose petals strewn across the tablecloth gave Milton Hobbs' booth a romantic aura. He stacked crystal-cut perfume flasks in a pyramid and set out pink candles tied with ribbon. The effect was almost sexy -- at least compared with the other booths at the International Christian Retail Show.
Hobbs liked it. He needed a striking display to call attention to his most unusual product.
"Christian perfume," he said. "It's a really, really new genre. We're the first!"
Virtuous Woman perfume comes packaged with a passage from Proverbs. But what makes the floral fragrance distinctly Christian, Hobbs said, is that it's supposed to be a tool for evangelism.
"It should be enticing enough to provoke questions: 'What's that you're wearing?' " Hobbs said. "Then you take that opportunity to speak of your faith. They've opened the door, and now they're going to get it."
More than 400 vendors packed the Colorado Convention Center last week to showcase the latest accessories for the Christian lifestyle. There were acres of the predictable: books, CDs, greeting cards, inspirational artwork, stuffed animals wearing "Jesus Loves You" T-shirts. Many of the newest items, however, put a religious twist on unexpected products -- marketed as a means to reach the unsuspecting and unsaved.
Christian Outdoorsman was taking orders for a camouflage baseball cap with a red cross. In Booth 235, Revelation Products of St. Louis was pitching golf balls and flip-flops. Follow the Son flip-flops have patterned soles that leave the message "Follow Jesus" in the sand.
Gospel Golf Balls are touted as "a great golf ball with a greater purpose." Manufactured by Top-Flite, the golf balls are printed with well-known verses from the Bible, such as John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.... "). Dave Kruse, president of Revelation, said they were meant as "conversation starters," to help men share their faith while teeing up.
An added bonus: Duffers need no longer feel bad about losing a ball in the rough. "If you're playing great, good," Kruse said. "If you're spraying the ball, well ... lose a golf ball, share the gospel."
After years of steady growth, the Christian retail market notched $4.3 billion in sales in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available. Sales of Christian books, in particular, are booming, outpacing most sectors of the publishing industry.
But except for a handful of top-selling books and albums, Christian merchandise is marketed almost exclusively by believers for believers, through Christian stores, trade shows and websites.
There are Christian health clubs, Christian insurance agencies and Christian tree trimmers (who advertise in Christian business directories). There are Christian alternatives for the most unlikely mainstream products: gangsta rap, shoot-'em-up video games, sweatbands, playing cards, scrapbook supplies, children's pajamas.
Even the popular American Girl doll collection -- long a favorite of Christian families because it's so wholesome -- has inspired an overtly Christian knockoff.
A Life of Faith, like American Girl, publishes historical novels featuring spunky girl characters, then turns the heroines into $100 dolls with lavish wardrobes. In the Christian version, the dolls come clutching Bibles; their stories, sprinkled with Scripture, describe how the girls find sustenance in their faith.
"It looks like a bunch of pretty, frilly stuff, but ... it will get those Biblical values deep into the girls' hearts. Our culture is a river of mud, and we don't want girls to be swept up in it," said Sandi Shelton, president of Mission City Press in Franklin, Tenn., which produces the Life of Faith line.
The effect of such products, according to political scientist Alan Wolfe, is to create almost a parallel universe, one that allows Christians to withdraw from the world instead of engaging it as Christ commanded.
"It's as if they're saying the task of bringing people to Jesus is too hard, so let's retreat into a fortress," said Wolfe, who directs the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.
"Evangelism is about reaching out and converting the unsaved," Wolfe said. "This is about putting a fence around people who are already saved. It strikes me as if they're giving up."
Over at Booth 266, Michael McCarron has no time to contemplate capitulation.
Wearing a Stars-and-Stripes shirt and a harried look, the owner of Scripture Candy rushed about one afternoon last week filling plates with samples of Christian chocolate for the 9,000 vendors and retailers who visited the five-day trade show. His company, based in Birmingham, Ala., sells an extensive line of candy packaged in little bags printed with Bible verses.
The candy is all top-quality, he said: "You can't put the word of God on something that someone will taste and go 'Blech!' and throw away."
McCarron absolutely believes his sweets can and do save souls. He once received a letter from a man who came across a Bible verse on a packet of candy corn while going through his son's trick-or-treat loot. "The verse touched him, and he decided right there to stop drinking and go back to Christ," McCarron said.
Most merchandise missionaries say they don't expect such miracles. They hope instead that their products will light a spark. When a co-worker helps herself to a fish-shaped mint, maybe she'll remember she hasn't been to church in years. When a hunter sees the crucifix on his buddy's cap, perhaps he'll feel comfortable asking about Jesus.
"It's about picking people up at their level of interest," said Bill Anderson, president of CBA, a national trade organization representing more than 2,000 Christian stores.
The retail show offered Christians plenty of ways to provoke such discussions.
Skintight scoop-neck T-shirts for teenage girls bore slogans that practically begged those not in the know to ask questions. "Wood & nails -- a powerful partnership," one read. On another: "Life without you is not an option."
Would-be evangelists can carry little plastic key chains printed with the slogan "Got Christ?" They can serve their child's birthday cake on a paper tablecloth bearing the message "May God Bless You Today and Always." And for rebels with a cause, Good Newz Temporary Tattooz lets kids stamp their love for "JC" on their arms -- and rub it off the next time they shower.
"I know where you're coming from if you think it looks like we're merchandising or trivializing Christ, but this is a way to connect," said David Lingner, who developed the Christian Outdoorsman line, including a camouflage-print Bible cover.
From his center at Boston College, Wolfe views such products with bemusement. Waiting for someone to remark on your golf ball or perfume, he said, is hardly a forceful way to fulfill the Great Commission, the Biblical command for Christians to spread their faith and anoint disciples. "I think they're fooling themselves," he said.
Sociologist Charles M. Brown is less harsh. "I doubt very seriously whether you have a lot of people converting" after they're exposed to Christian products, "but it is a way of opening doors," said Brown, who teaches at Albright College in Reading, Pa.
In recent years, Brown has interviewed dozens of Christian vendors and retailers; he's concluded that many are motivated not by profit but by a genuine sense of calling. "They really do see what they're doing as a form of ministry," he said.
Though she doesn't doubt the vendors' sincerity, Ellie Cupps was taken aback to see booth after booth of Christian kitsch. She and her husband, Don, had come to the trade show seeking handcrafted gift items for their two Catholic bookstores in Albuquerque, N.M. They had to search for them amid Queen Esther action figures, Christian pirate decals, David and Goliath balloons, Armor of God pajamas and Bible-based cartoon greeting cards.
"It's getting a little bit overboard," Cupps said. "It's faddish. If you can slap Jesus on it, it will sell."
"Or they think it will sell," her husband broke in, shaking his head. "A lot of it is just flash in the pan."
Cupps lingered over an item she found more appropriate: Abaca Angels, made by women in the Philippines from the leaves of a tropical plant. She examined the delicate craftsmanship, then looked up.
"The Scripture Candy," she said, "was kind of neat."
Click here for article.
"Christian perfume's not your thing? Try golf balls. Or candy. This booming market has piles of products and a single message."
___________________________________________________________________
DENVER — The fake rose petals strewn across the tablecloth gave Milton Hobbs' booth a romantic aura. He stacked crystal-cut perfume flasks in a pyramid and set out pink candles tied with ribbon. The effect was almost sexy -- at least compared with the other booths at the International Christian Retail Show.
Hobbs liked it. He needed a striking display to call attention to his most unusual product.
"Christian perfume," he said. "It's a really, really new genre. We're the first!"
Virtuous Woman perfume comes packaged with a passage from Proverbs. But what makes the floral fragrance distinctly Christian, Hobbs said, is that it's supposed to be a tool for evangelism.
"It should be enticing enough to provoke questions: 'What's that you're wearing?' " Hobbs said. "Then you take that opportunity to speak of your faith. They've opened the door, and now they're going to get it."
More than 400 vendors packed the Colorado Convention Center last week to showcase the latest accessories for the Christian lifestyle. There were acres of the predictable: books, CDs, greeting cards, inspirational artwork, stuffed animals wearing "Jesus Loves You" T-shirts. Many of the newest items, however, put a religious twist on unexpected products -- marketed as a means to reach the unsuspecting and unsaved.
Christian Outdoorsman was taking orders for a camouflage baseball cap with a red cross. In Booth 235, Revelation Products of St. Louis was pitching golf balls and flip-flops. Follow the Son flip-flops have patterned soles that leave the message "Follow Jesus" in the sand.
Gospel Golf Balls are touted as "a great golf ball with a greater purpose." Manufactured by Top-Flite, the golf balls are printed with well-known verses from the Bible, such as John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.... "). Dave Kruse, president of Revelation, said they were meant as "conversation starters," to help men share their faith while teeing up.
An added bonus: Duffers need no longer feel bad about losing a ball in the rough. "If you're playing great, good," Kruse said. "If you're spraying the ball, well ... lose a golf ball, share the gospel."
After years of steady growth, the Christian retail market notched $4.3 billion in sales in 2004, the latest year for which figures are available. Sales of Christian books, in particular, are booming, outpacing most sectors of the publishing industry.
But except for a handful of top-selling books and albums, Christian merchandise is marketed almost exclusively by believers for believers, through Christian stores, trade shows and websites.
There are Christian health clubs, Christian insurance agencies and Christian tree trimmers (who advertise in Christian business directories). There are Christian alternatives for the most unlikely mainstream products: gangsta rap, shoot-'em-up video games, sweatbands, playing cards, scrapbook supplies, children's pajamas.
Even the popular American Girl doll collection -- long a favorite of Christian families because it's so wholesome -- has inspired an overtly Christian knockoff.
A Life of Faith, like American Girl, publishes historical novels featuring spunky girl characters, then turns the heroines into $100 dolls with lavish wardrobes. In the Christian version, the dolls come clutching Bibles; their stories, sprinkled with Scripture, describe how the girls find sustenance in their faith.
"It looks like a bunch of pretty, frilly stuff, but ... it will get those Biblical values deep into the girls' hearts. Our culture is a river of mud, and we don't want girls to be swept up in it," said Sandi Shelton, president of Mission City Press in Franklin, Tenn., which produces the Life of Faith line.
The effect of such products, according to political scientist Alan Wolfe, is to create almost a parallel universe, one that allows Christians to withdraw from the world instead of engaging it as Christ commanded.
"It's as if they're saying the task of bringing people to Jesus is too hard, so let's retreat into a fortress," said Wolfe, who directs the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.
"Evangelism is about reaching out and converting the unsaved," Wolfe said. "This is about putting a fence around people who are already saved. It strikes me as if they're giving up."
Over at Booth 266, Michael McCarron has no time to contemplate capitulation.
Wearing a Stars-and-Stripes shirt and a harried look, the owner of Scripture Candy rushed about one afternoon last week filling plates with samples of Christian chocolate for the 9,000 vendors and retailers who visited the five-day trade show. His company, based in Birmingham, Ala., sells an extensive line of candy packaged in little bags printed with Bible verses.
The candy is all top-quality, he said: "You can't put the word of God on something that someone will taste and go 'Blech!' and throw away."
McCarron absolutely believes his sweets can and do save souls. He once received a letter from a man who came across a Bible verse on a packet of candy corn while going through his son's trick-or-treat loot. "The verse touched him, and he decided right there to stop drinking and go back to Christ," McCarron said.
Most merchandise missionaries say they don't expect such miracles. They hope instead that their products will light a spark. When a co-worker helps herself to a fish-shaped mint, maybe she'll remember she hasn't been to church in years. When a hunter sees the crucifix on his buddy's cap, perhaps he'll feel comfortable asking about Jesus.
"It's about picking people up at their level of interest," said Bill Anderson, president of CBA, a national trade organization representing more than 2,000 Christian stores.
The retail show offered Christians plenty of ways to provoke such discussions.
Skintight scoop-neck T-shirts for teenage girls bore slogans that practically begged those not in the know to ask questions. "Wood & nails -- a powerful partnership," one read. On another: "Life without you is not an option."
Would-be evangelists can carry little plastic key chains printed with the slogan "Got Christ?" They can serve their child's birthday cake on a paper tablecloth bearing the message "May God Bless You Today and Always." And for rebels with a cause, Good Newz Temporary Tattooz lets kids stamp their love for "JC" on their arms -- and rub it off the next time they shower.
"I know where you're coming from if you think it looks like we're merchandising or trivializing Christ, but this is a way to connect," said David Lingner, who developed the Christian Outdoorsman line, including a camouflage-print Bible cover.
From his center at Boston College, Wolfe views such products with bemusement. Waiting for someone to remark on your golf ball or perfume, he said, is hardly a forceful way to fulfill the Great Commission, the Biblical command for Christians to spread their faith and anoint disciples. "I think they're fooling themselves," he said.
Sociologist Charles M. Brown is less harsh. "I doubt very seriously whether you have a lot of people converting" after they're exposed to Christian products, "but it is a way of opening doors," said Brown, who teaches at Albright College in Reading, Pa.
In recent years, Brown has interviewed dozens of Christian vendors and retailers; he's concluded that many are motivated not by profit but by a genuine sense of calling. "They really do see what they're doing as a form of ministry," he said.
Though she doesn't doubt the vendors' sincerity, Ellie Cupps was taken aback to see booth after booth of Christian kitsch. She and her husband, Don, had come to the trade show seeking handcrafted gift items for their two Catholic bookstores in Albuquerque, N.M. They had to search for them amid Queen Esther action figures, Christian pirate decals, David and Goliath balloons, Armor of God pajamas and Bible-based cartoon greeting cards.
"It's getting a little bit overboard," Cupps said. "It's faddish. If you can slap Jesus on it, it will sell."
"Or they think it will sell," her husband broke in, shaking his head. "A lot of it is just flash in the pan."
Cupps lingered over an item she found more appropriate: Abaca Angels, made by women in the Philippines from the leaves of a tropical plant. She examined the delicate craftsmanship, then looked up.
"The Scripture Candy," she said, "was kind of neat."
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
"Doubt is Their Co-Pilot"
A religion of uncertainty.
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
November 16, 2005
(http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/16/nation/na-newreligion16)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It takes a certain amount of audacity to found a religion.
Ford Vox does not look audacious.
A tall, slightly stooped medical student, Vox speaks in a mumble and rarely lifts his eyes. But if he lacks confidence, that only makes him all the more qualified to lead his flock because Vox, 28, has created a religion for people who know only that they know nothing.
Universists might believe in God, or might not. (Personally, Vox thinks he does.)
The only dogma they must accept is uncertainty.
Relinquishing any hope of cosmic truth, Universists worship by wondering how we got here, and why, and what lies ahead.
From his base here in the Bible Belt, Vox has built an online congregation of more than 8,000 in the last two years. They meet in cafes and living rooms across the nation; they join online chats with scientists and theologians; they find profundity in admitting their confusion.
"We want to rework religion from within," Vox said.
It is a surprisingly common impulse these days.
In vast numbers, Americans are turning away from traditional religions. They're not giving up on God, but they are casting aside the rituals and labels they grew up with.
Conventional churches still have enormous pull. There are more than 300,000 Protestant congregations in the United States, and mega-churches can easily attract 8,000 worshipers on any given Sunday.
But the number of Americans who claim no religion has more than doubled in a decade. More than 27 million adults -- nearly one in seven -- reject all religious labels, according to the City University of New York's respected American Religious Identification Survey.
Even among committed Christians, restlessness is growing. Pollster George Barna, who works for Christian ministries, estimates that 20 million Christians have largely forsaken their local church in favor of discussion groups with friends, Bible study with colleagues or spiritual questing online.
"They want less of a programmed process and more of a genuine relationship with God," said Barna, who describes the shift in his new book "Revolution."
Vox hopes to offer one possible path in Universism.
Instead of hierarchy and ritual, his religion offers rambling chats about the meaning of life. Instead of a holy text, members put their faith in the world around them, trying to figure out the universe by studying it.
The go-it-your-own-way philosophy at the heart of Universism troubles Douglas E. Cowan, an expert in emerging religions at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. As he put it: "One guy worshipping a potato in a hotel room in New Jersey is not a religion."
True religion, Cowan said, gives structure and meaning to people's lives and elevates them above the humdrum of their daily chores.
He can't quite see how uncertainty does the trick.
Universists respond that he's missing the point. They're trying to build a religion that lets people find their own structure and meaning. Universists know they're on their own in the great journey of life -- but they take comfort in meeting every few weeks to talk through what they've discovered along the way.
"We need a social structure that doesn't involve other people telling us what to believe," said E. Frank Smith Jr., 61, an early convert.
Vox has felt that way since he was 14 and a camper at a Christian summer program.
One of his counselors specialized in picking out -- and raging against -- the sins alluded to in Top 40 songs. Vox found himself wondering why he should listen to the church when he really preferred listening to Chris Isaak.
That disillusionment grew, and by college Vox had turned away from the Presbyterian church his family attended in Tuscaloosa, Ala. But he wasn't ready to abandon religion altogether.
Vox believes that humans are hard-wired for faith, as some genetic and neurological research suggests.
Also, he was lonely.
Vox missed the sense of community he found in church -- and the feeling of spiritual uplift. He could have joined a book club. But in his senior year of college, he had an epiphany. Hobbled by back pain so severe he sometimes lost the will to live, Vox vowed to give his existence meaning by founding what he dubbed "the world's first rational religion."
Vox spent the next two years exchanging e-mails with other lost souls who helped him sketch the outlines of Universism.
"What if there were a religion that does not presume to declare universal religious truths?" Vox wrote in an online manifesto. "What if there were a religion that demands no blind faith in prophets or their writings?"
Vox wrote tens of thousands of words about this new faith for the faithless. For a guy devoted to doubt, he sounded pretty sure of himself:
"Universism seeks to solve a problem that has riddled mankind throughout history: the endless string of people who claim that they know the Truth and the Way." His religion, he wrote, would "dispel the illusion of certainty that divides humanity into warring camps." It would unite the world.
"It wasn't arrogance," Vox said. "I'm not a guru. I just feel that a lot of the things people believe in, they should be a lot less certain about."
Skeptics point out that Vox demands certainty about his own concept of truth -- namely, that it doesn't exist. Russell D. Moore, dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, dismisses Universism as a bleak "parody of a church."
He adds: "It's very hard to create a sense of community around a nonbelief."
Universism also faces competition in recruiting the faithless, as several secular groups have stepped up their public profiles this year.
The American Humanist Assn., which has 7,500 members, is running a national ad campaign to persuade the public that atheists can be ethical, even patriotic. The Secular Coalition for America hired its first lobbyist to promote the separation of church and state. The Brights, an atheist civil rights group, has signed up 18,000 members.
Vox supports those efforts, but he doubts atheists will ever win the masses. They're too political. They don't inspire wonder. And in much of America, they're viewed as vaguely disreputable.
That's where Universism has an edge, nonbeliever James Underdown said with a hint of envy.
"You can tell someone you're a Universist and they won't know what the heck that is, but at least you're not a dirty atheist," said Underdown, who directs the Center for Inquiry-West, a Los Angeles institute for freethinkers
Now in his final year at the University of Alabama Medical School, Vox became too busy to continue leading his movement. This fall, he turned Universism -- and its $2,200 bank account -- to his friend Todd Stricker, an office manager who until recently would have described his religion as "nothing."
"I make no claims to be a spiritual leader," said Stricker, 25. "I'm just good at organizing."
Stricker met Vox at a political rally two years ago, when he was new to Alabama and seeking a support system. After long discussions, he decided to try Universism. He now spends much of his free time at his computer, helping people start chapters.
There are Universist groups in San Diego and in Denton, Texas, in Salem, Ore., Columbus, Ohio, and Rochester, N.Y. The Los Angeles-Orange County group is holding a bonfire and "big questions" discussion on a Corona del Mar beach this Sunday.
"The process of ordination is just having a nice chat with me," Stricker said. Worship itself is just as informal.
Because Vox and Stricker disdain religious authority, they're reluctant to set rules, aside from a few meek suggestions that meetings start with a reading of a thought-provoking text ("or maybe a guitar version of 'Kumbaya,' " Stricker said).
On a recent evening, 22 members of the Birmingham congregation gathered in a lounge at the Safari Cup coffee shop with little agenda but to talk.
John Earwood, a 60-year-old architect, worked the crowd, trying to promote a word he had coined: "afideist," meaning without faith.
Buster George, 52, a nuclear engineer, introduced his teenage daughter Rachel. "It ought to be illegal to take anyone to church until they turn 18 and can think for themselves," she said by way of explaining her interest in Universism. Her dad beamed.
The room crackled with intense orations on God, creation and eternal life. But it's a bit hard for Universists to sustain a good debate. Defending your own view, after all, makes you sound as though you're sure you're right. And in a religion dedicated to uncertainty, no one wants to be accused of that.
So meetings can devolve into a series of provocative statements without retort.
After Vox called the group to order, the conversation swung from abstinence to Woody Allen, from existentialism to Terri Schiavo and then to the poverty exposed by Hurricane Katrina.
"People are poor because they don't want to work," one woman asserted.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Well, sometimes," a young man said, diplomatically. The conversation veered into the war on drugs.
After a meandering hour, Stricker redirected the group by reading a passage from a Tom Robbins novel that struck him as hilariously insightful. No one had much comment, so they settled down to a guest lecture on Albert Schweitzer, the missionary physician who rejected much of his church's dogma but promoted an ethic of love he said came straight from Jesus.
Kathleen White sat on the edge of her seat, her face rapt. An accountant in Huntsville, Ala., White, 36, came across Universism while trolling online.
Though she still believes in God the creator, White rejects much of her church's teachings: "A lot of what I was taught doesn't have proof to back it up, like life after death and heaven and hell," she said. "I don't want to take that all on faith."
She drove two hours to commune with strangers she figured would understand her struggle. But as she listened to an inconclusive discussion of morality, the downside of Universism struck her.
"Do y'all have any firm beliefs about anything at all?" she asked.
"Our only firm belief is that we're uncertain about everything," Earwood replied.
White looked unsettled.
"I don't think it will be enough to keep me coming back," she said. "It's kind of frustrating."
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
November 16, 2005
(http://articles.latimes.com/2005/nov/16/nation/na-newreligion16)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It takes a certain amount of audacity to found a religion.
Ford Vox does not look audacious.
A tall, slightly stooped medical student, Vox speaks in a mumble and rarely lifts his eyes. But if he lacks confidence, that only makes him all the more qualified to lead his flock because Vox, 28, has created a religion for people who know only that they know nothing.
Universists might believe in God, or might not. (Personally, Vox thinks he does.)
The only dogma they must accept is uncertainty.
Relinquishing any hope of cosmic truth, Universists worship by wondering how we got here, and why, and what lies ahead.
From his base here in the Bible Belt, Vox has built an online congregation of more than 8,000 in the last two years. They meet in cafes and living rooms across the nation; they join online chats with scientists and theologians; they find profundity in admitting their confusion.
"We want to rework religion from within," Vox said.
It is a surprisingly common impulse these days.
In vast numbers, Americans are turning away from traditional religions. They're not giving up on God, but they are casting aside the rituals and labels they grew up with.
Conventional churches still have enormous pull. There are more than 300,000 Protestant congregations in the United States, and mega-churches can easily attract 8,000 worshipers on any given Sunday.
But the number of Americans who claim no religion has more than doubled in a decade. More than 27 million adults -- nearly one in seven -- reject all religious labels, according to the City University of New York's respected American Religious Identification Survey.
Even among committed Christians, restlessness is growing. Pollster George Barna, who works for Christian ministries, estimates that 20 million Christians have largely forsaken their local church in favor of discussion groups with friends, Bible study with colleagues or spiritual questing online.
"They want less of a programmed process and more of a genuine relationship with God," said Barna, who describes the shift in his new book "Revolution."
Vox hopes to offer one possible path in Universism.
Instead of hierarchy and ritual, his religion offers rambling chats about the meaning of life. Instead of a holy text, members put their faith in the world around them, trying to figure out the universe by studying it.
The go-it-your-own-way philosophy at the heart of Universism troubles Douglas E. Cowan, an expert in emerging religions at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. As he put it: "One guy worshipping a potato in a hotel room in New Jersey is not a religion."
True religion, Cowan said, gives structure and meaning to people's lives and elevates them above the humdrum of their daily chores.
He can't quite see how uncertainty does the trick.
Universists respond that he's missing the point. They're trying to build a religion that lets people find their own structure and meaning. Universists know they're on their own in the great journey of life -- but they take comfort in meeting every few weeks to talk through what they've discovered along the way.
"We need a social structure that doesn't involve other people telling us what to believe," said E. Frank Smith Jr., 61, an early convert.
Vox has felt that way since he was 14 and a camper at a Christian summer program.
One of his counselors specialized in picking out -- and raging against -- the sins alluded to in Top 40 songs. Vox found himself wondering why he should listen to the church when he really preferred listening to Chris Isaak.
That disillusionment grew, and by college Vox had turned away from the Presbyterian church his family attended in Tuscaloosa, Ala. But he wasn't ready to abandon religion altogether.
Vox believes that humans are hard-wired for faith, as some genetic and neurological research suggests.
Also, he was lonely.
Vox missed the sense of community he found in church -- and the feeling of spiritual uplift. He could have joined a book club. But in his senior year of college, he had an epiphany. Hobbled by back pain so severe he sometimes lost the will to live, Vox vowed to give his existence meaning by founding what he dubbed "the world's first rational religion."
Vox spent the next two years exchanging e-mails with other lost souls who helped him sketch the outlines of Universism.
"What if there were a religion that does not presume to declare universal religious truths?" Vox wrote in an online manifesto. "What if there were a religion that demands no blind faith in prophets or their writings?"
Vox wrote tens of thousands of words about this new faith for the faithless. For a guy devoted to doubt, he sounded pretty sure of himself:
"Universism seeks to solve a problem that has riddled mankind throughout history: the endless string of people who claim that they know the Truth and the Way." His religion, he wrote, would "dispel the illusion of certainty that divides humanity into warring camps." It would unite the world.
"It wasn't arrogance," Vox said. "I'm not a guru. I just feel that a lot of the things people believe in, they should be a lot less certain about."
Skeptics point out that Vox demands certainty about his own concept of truth -- namely, that it doesn't exist. Russell D. Moore, dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, dismisses Universism as a bleak "parody of a church."
He adds: "It's very hard to create a sense of community around a nonbelief."
Universism also faces competition in recruiting the faithless, as several secular groups have stepped up their public profiles this year.
The American Humanist Assn., which has 7,500 members, is running a national ad campaign to persuade the public that atheists can be ethical, even patriotic. The Secular Coalition for America hired its first lobbyist to promote the separation of church and state. The Brights, an atheist civil rights group, has signed up 18,000 members.
Vox supports those efforts, but he doubts atheists will ever win the masses. They're too political. They don't inspire wonder. And in much of America, they're viewed as vaguely disreputable.
That's where Universism has an edge, nonbeliever James Underdown said with a hint of envy.
"You can tell someone you're a Universist and they won't know what the heck that is, but at least you're not a dirty atheist," said Underdown, who directs the Center for Inquiry-West, a Los Angeles institute for freethinkers
Now in his final year at the University of Alabama Medical School, Vox became too busy to continue leading his movement. This fall, he turned Universism -- and its $2,200 bank account -- to his friend Todd Stricker, an office manager who until recently would have described his religion as "nothing."
"I make no claims to be a spiritual leader," said Stricker, 25. "I'm just good at organizing."
Stricker met Vox at a political rally two years ago, when he was new to Alabama and seeking a support system. After long discussions, he decided to try Universism. He now spends much of his free time at his computer, helping people start chapters.
There are Universist groups in San Diego and in Denton, Texas, in Salem, Ore., Columbus, Ohio, and Rochester, N.Y. The Los Angeles-Orange County group is holding a bonfire and "big questions" discussion on a Corona del Mar beach this Sunday.
"The process of ordination is just having a nice chat with me," Stricker said. Worship itself is just as informal.
Because Vox and Stricker disdain religious authority, they're reluctant to set rules, aside from a few meek suggestions that meetings start with a reading of a thought-provoking text ("or maybe a guitar version of 'Kumbaya,' " Stricker said).
On a recent evening, 22 members of the Birmingham congregation gathered in a lounge at the Safari Cup coffee shop with little agenda but to talk.
John Earwood, a 60-year-old architect, worked the crowd, trying to promote a word he had coined: "afideist," meaning without faith.
Buster George, 52, a nuclear engineer, introduced his teenage daughter Rachel. "It ought to be illegal to take anyone to church until they turn 18 and can think for themselves," she said by way of explaining her interest in Universism. Her dad beamed.
The room crackled with intense orations on God, creation and eternal life. But it's a bit hard for Universists to sustain a good debate. Defending your own view, after all, makes you sound as though you're sure you're right. And in a religion dedicated to uncertainty, no one wants to be accused of that.
So meetings can devolve into a series of provocative statements without retort.
After Vox called the group to order, the conversation swung from abstinence to Woody Allen, from existentialism to Terri Schiavo and then to the poverty exposed by Hurricane Katrina.
"People are poor because they don't want to work," one woman asserted.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Well, sometimes," a young man said, diplomatically. The conversation veered into the war on drugs.
After a meandering hour, Stricker redirected the group by reading a passage from a Tom Robbins novel that struck him as hilariously insightful. No one had much comment, so they settled down to a guest lecture on Albert Schweitzer, the missionary physician who rejected much of his church's dogma but promoted an ethic of love he said came straight from Jesus.
Kathleen White sat on the edge of her seat, her face rapt. An accountant in Huntsville, Ala., White, 36, came across Universism while trolling online.
Though she still believes in God the creator, White rejects much of her church's teachings: "A lot of what I was taught doesn't have proof to back it up, like life after death and heaven and hell," she said. "I don't want to take that all on faith."
She drove two hours to commune with strangers she figured would understand her struggle. But as she listened to an inconclusive discussion of morality, the downside of Universism struck her.
"Do y'all have any firm beliefs about anything at all?" she asked.
"Our only firm belief is that we're uncertain about everything," Earwood replied.
White looked unsettled.
"I don't think it will be enough to keep me coming back," she said. "It's kind of frustrating."
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