June 14, 2007 | 10:05 am

Billy Graham’s wife in a coma: Where will she rest?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I was on the phone with an editor at Christianity Today yesterday when the news of Ruth Graham’s failing health was breaking. Her husband, the famed evangelist Billy Graham, founded CT 50 plus years ago, and since then he has led the evangelical wing of Christianity, if not always physically at least spiritually.

The word today is that Ruth Graham is in a coma, waiting patiently for the gates of heaven to open. There was much speculation yesterday about where she would be buried: The Washington Post reported in December that she didn’t want to be buried in Charlotte at the plot selected by her husband but in the mountains where she raised five children.

But, according to a statement from Billy Graham on the Web site of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Ruth recently changed her mind about her earthly body’s final resting place:

Earlier this spring, after much prayer and discussion, Ruth and I made the decision to be buried beside each other at the Billy Graham Library in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.

We have held this decision privately and only decided to announce it now that she is close to going home to Heaven.

Ruth is my soul mate and best friend, and I cannot imagine living a single day without her by my side. I am more in love with her today than when we first met over 65 years ago as students at Wheaton College.

Ruth and I appreciate, more than we can express, the prayers and letters of encouragement we have received from people across the country and around the world. Our entire family has been home in recent days and it has meant so much to have them at our side during this time. We love each one of them dearly and thank God for them.

June 13, 2007 | 4:49 pm

President Joe Lieberman and war with Iran

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Robert Scheer posed an interesting question today: What if Al Gore had prevailed in 2000 but died in the White House?

Would President Joe Lieberman have been worse than George W. Bush? His recent actions suggest that he could have descended even lower in his illogical and immoral responses to the tragedy of 9/11. Although now an independent, Lieberman provides a cautionary tale for folks who talk of backing “any Democrat” who can win.

At a time when even President Bush has recognized the need for negotiations with Iran in order to stabilize Iraq, where disciples of Tehran’s ayatollahs have risen to power, thanks to the U.S. occupation he fervently supports, Lieberman urges war with Iran. “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” he told CBS on Sunday, “and to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran.”

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June 13, 2007 | 9:54 am

The breast-feeding fatwa

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

CAIRO—First came the breast-feeding fatwa. It declared that the Islamic restriction on unmarried men and women being together could be lifted at work if the woman breast-fed her male colleagues five times, to establish family ties. Then came the urine fatwa. It said that drinking the urine of the Prophet Muhammad was deemed a blessing.

For the past few weeks, the breast-feeding and urine fatwas have proved a source of national embarrassment in Egypt, not least because they were issued by representatives of the highest religious authorities in the land.

 

Issued by religious scholars, fatwas are supposed to provide Muslims a road map for transforming the values of the Quran to societal mores. Famous proclamations include the order for Muslims to boycott American and Israeli products and the bounty put on Salman Rushdie’s head after he wrote The Satanic Verses in the late ‘80s.

In Egypt alone, thousands are issued every month, according to The New York Times. Most are mundane and without controversy. But it seems some Islamic jurists are going overboard, and in the past few weeks have issued a few embarrassing religious edicts like the breast-feeding and urine fatwas, or fatawa.

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June 12, 2007 | 1:04 pm

The ministerial high-life

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Randy and Paula White say they were following God’s call when they moved to Tampa Bay and started a ministry that now has more than 20,000 members and $40 million in annual donations. But as the success of Without Walls International Church soared, so did the luxurious lifestyles of its founders.

According to an investigation published last month by The Tampa Tribune (and resurrected by the DMN religion blog), the Whites travel in a $1.9 million business jet, own a $2.1 million on Bayshore Boulevard and a $3.5 million Trump Tower condo in New York and rent a waterfront villa in Malibu.

“Mansions, big planes, money, fame. That’s what it’s all about now,” said the Rev. Hector Gomez, a former Without Walls staff member who left in 2000. “There are prophets for God, and there are prophets for profit. That’s the category they fit in.”

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June 12, 2007 | 7:46 am

Jews get polygamous

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Right now, in the boardrooms of Jewish philanthropic organizations throughout the U.S., program officers are locked in heated discussions about your love life. Whirlwind trips to Israel, boozy mixers at community centers, film screenings in darkened theaters, online endogamous dating sites—all meticulously designed to lead young Jews into lasting romantic relationships. So, in an American social climate where divorce is pandemic and for the first time in decades, more than half of the population is unmarried, wouldn’t the powers-that-be be pleased to know that some Jews yearn to be in as many Jewish relationships as possible… at the same time? Polyamory, while hardly a sweeping mainstream trend, is a lifestyle that an increasing number of Jews are embracing.

That’s part of a surprising feature in Heeb magazine. The article gives the example of what happened when Rabbi Jacob Levin, 62, came out to his Northern California congregation.

(H)is disclosure was met with a mix of confusion and dismay. Homosexuality they understood—there was growing acceptance, some synagogues more conservative than theirs were even supporting gay marriage—but polyamory? This was different, this was weird. They were Jews after all, people of the Book, not pagan nature worshipers or—God forbid—Mormons.

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June 11, 2007 | 1:15 pm

Paris Hilton finds God?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Barbara Walters received a collect call yesterday from Twin Towers prisoner Paris Hilton, who talked about, ehem, growing up (no mention was made of the temper tantrum she threw in court Friday) and wanting to get involved in charity work when she finishes her 45-day sentence for driving with a DUI-inflicted suspended license.

I’m not the same person I was. I used to act dumb. It was an act. I am 26 years old, and that act is no longer cute. It is not who I am, nor do I want to be that person for the young girls who looked up to me. I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that. I have been thinking that I want to do different things when I am out of here. I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance.

My wife is in PR, and yesterday we talked Paris-damage-control strategy. The repentant sinner is, of course, a textbook response. Two weeks ago, it was Britney Spears going apoplectic.

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June 11, 2007 | 11:15 am

‘Ex-gay’ therapy on trial

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Bible Belt Blogger has been writing like crazy about the story he broke last month: President Bush’s nominee for surgeon general, James Holsinger, has taken a strong stance against homosexuality. Yesterday, he noted this article on The Huffington Post:

Holsinger believes in ex-gay therapy. He therefore views homosexuality as a curable disease. Every major, reputable medical organization rejects ex-gay therapy and the notion that homosexuality constitutes a mental illness. Every single one. The most notable of these organizations is the American Psychological Association, the country’s largest organization of mental health professionals. In 1974, the APA stopped listing homosexuality as a mental disorder; last year, the group issued a pointed repudiation  to the ideological proponents of ex-gay therapy. (It’s worth adding that conversion therapy supporters have not produced one single word of peer-reviewed work to support their theories).

Holsinger’s belief in discredited, crack-pot “conversion” therapy puts him in direct conflict with virtually the entire American medical community.

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June 11, 2007 | 9:11 am

Kosher ‘Endless Summer’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Orthodox Jews are finding spiritual sanctuary in the Pacific surf. From The Jewish Week:

The group wakes before 8 a.m. so they can daven Shacharit. By 9:30, they’re on Venice Beach, suited up and riding the waves as the sun heats up the Pacific on the Southern California coast. They’re on their boards until noon, then after lunch it’s time to learn about the ocean, get training in First Aid and play sports. They’re back home for Mincha, followed by discussions on the Mishna and Pirkei Avot.

Welcome to a typical sun-drenched day in the life — kosher “Endless Summer” style — at Joe V. Surf Camp, a five-week program for high school students that combines love of Judaism with a love for the ocean.

My colleague Amy Klein wrote about surfer Joe and his band of observant Jews back in February, when the water was a lot colder.

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June 10, 2007 | 8:50 am

‘Secret life of a porn-addicted minister’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Sheryl and Paul Giesbrect are preparing to celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary. The sweethearts cherish their life together, which began when they met while attending a Christian university.

It’s where they found religion and each other. Today, Paul is a minister in California and Sheryl broadcasts spiritual messages. Both counsel troubled couples, but now they find themselves in need of counseling. Their marriage holds a secret, one the 50-year-old parents of two say rattled their union.

 

Porn. That’s Paul’s secret. In fact, it’s the secret of millions of American men and increasingly women. (Anti-porn groups claim as much as 70 percent of Christian men are enslaved by lascivious computer images.

I missed Paul’s story when it ran on “Good Morning America” last week, but noticed it just now at religionheadlines.org. The LA Daily News just concluded a six-day porn series, for which I wrote articles about XXXChurch, which is leading the new paradigm for fighting porn addiction, and the born-again porn star.

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June 8, 2007 | 7:44 am

Born-again porn star

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

CHATSWORTH—In need of grace, Keri Humble walked into The Church at Rocky Peak one Sunday and received the recognition that shamed her.

“I love your show on the Playboy Channel,” a door greeter told her, referring to “Spice Hotel.”

There are many lifestyles born-again Christians can leave behind and begin with a clean slate. Porn star is not one of them.

“Once you do it, you are putting a permanent black fingerprint on your life that is going to follow you the rest of your life,” Humble said. “You can’t take it back: It’s on film.”

Every church pastor in America deals with porn’s effect on their flock. But in the San Fernando Valley—the heart of the adult-film industry—ministers and churchgoers also must mend the fractured souls of people like Humble.

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“After I did it once, it was almost just like, `Now I’ve screwed up. I might as well just do a couple more,”’ she recalled. “And then after that, it just kept going and progressing and progressing. That’s how it works with sin. You feel like you have already made the mistake. You can’t take it back so you just might as well keep on sinning.”

 

That is one of my two final stories for the LA Daily News, both of which ran Thursday in the paper’s “Valley Exposed” porn series. Click to read the rest of Keri Humble’s story or the main story I wrote about the friendship between porn legend Ron Jeremy and an evangelical minister.

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June 7, 2007 | 5:34 pm

Jews mugged leaving shul

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Fifteen years ago, Mordechai Naor walked to Congregation Shaarei Tefila in the Fairfax district with a handgun as his companion. Six years after moving to the Pico-Robertson neighborhood and leaving those fears of mugging behind, Naor is considering re-kindling an old relationship.

“Since we moved over here, I always felt safe,” said Naor, 60. “It’s not extreme to go armed again, but I never even thought to worry about who was walking behind me.”

His new sense of vulnerability stems from a recent spate of attacks against Jews in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood.

As dusk turned to dark on the first night of Shavuot, one rabbi, who asked not to be named, was mugged at knifepoint on Rodeo Drive near Olympic Boulevard as he was walking home after services. Eight hours later, five Orthodox men were walking down Pico Boulevard near Sherbourne Drive when a van pulled up and two men jumped out waving handguns. Less than a week later, another Jewish man was mugged in Beverlywood.

That’s the beginning of my story in today’s Jewish Journal. The muggings have evoked memories of a rash of attacks in early 1990s.

Observant Jews were targeted as easy marks, because they walked at night, sometimes alone, and even though they didn’t carry cash, they often wore expensive jewelry.

“It was like an epidemic,” said Isaac Naor, Mordechai’s son. “Every week, somebody else was getting mugged. Everybody was walking to shul with a gun.”

Among those attacked was the then-president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, Rabbi Jack Simcha Cohen, who also was the leader of the Naor’s synagogue.

On Shabbat, Cohen was walking near his home with his son when two strangers approached, one asking for directions.

“Before I knew what was going on,” Cohen said, “he put me in a stranglehold and started banging my right arm across the sidewalk. Just kept smashing it and snapped it.”

Read the rest of the story, including whether police think Jews are being targeted and the Halachic implications of carrying a handgun on Shabbat.

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June 5, 2007 | 6:36 pm

Rudy’s crisis of faith

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It seemed for the past few months that former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani could keep Republican voters so mesmerized by talking about 9/11 that he wouldn’t have to confront the fact his politics are quite liberal for conservatives—and way out of touch with evangelical Christians, who have been essential to Republican success since the early ‘80s.

But last month Giuliani’s popularity began sliding. A week later, Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson, a man who’s had Bush’s ear, opined—divined?—that “Rudy’s not the one.” It seemed Giuliani’s pro-choice, liberal leanings—and his incredibly messy personal life (he married his second cousin and via news conference told his second wife he was filing for divorce)—were just too much too swallow.

Today, Christianity Today, the sentinel of evangelicalism, added to the criticism, reporting “Conservative leaders doubt his support among evangelicals will last.”

“I think a lot of evangelicals are just getting to know Rudy,” said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

“As they get to know him—not as the hero of 9/11 but as a supporter of tax-funded abortions—his support will decline precipitously.”

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