America’s largest evangelical denomination, the 16-million strong Southern Baptist Convention, is holding its annual meeting in Indianapolis on Tuesday and Wednesday against the backdrop of a decline in the number of yearly baptisms.

This is serious stuff indeed for a group that places much emphasis on the conversion experience, the acceptance of Jesus as a person’s savior and the rite of passage that goes with this acceptance: a public immersion in water or baptism.

In April the SBC released its latest baptism numbers — figures it tracks closely, underscoring the importance attatched to them.

In 2007, baptisms decreased by 5 percent to 345,941 from 364,826 in 2006. It was the third straight year that the number of baptisms fell and the lowest total since 1987.

I have blogged on this topic in the past, before the latest figures, which one Southern Baptist official told me “hit everyone in the guts.”

Of course some people attend Southern Baptist churches without taking the dunk, including — at least according to many reports — presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

But this decrease in baptisms could also point to a broader slowdown in the swelling ranks of America’s evangelical movement, which now includes one in four adults in the United States.

The U.S. evangelical movement is experiencing “growth pains” with divisions emerging over its direction and a push to broaden its Biblical agenda from its recent political focus on family and cultural issues such as abortion and gay marriage, to embrace others such as climate change.

These divisions are also emerging within the SBC, a bedrock of cultural and theological conservatism.

These trends could soften some of the evangelical movement’s partisan — read Republican — edge, which is perhaps not good news for McCain, who is regarded as a liberal compromiser by some of the more conservative evangelical leaders. More on this angle here and here and here.

But some of McCain’s policies such as his call for action on climate change are also in line with more centrist evangelical thinking.

Outgoing SBC President Frank Page is fond of quipping that Southern Baptists are well known for what they are against but need to talk more about what they are for. He told me that a broader agenda had resonance especially with younger evangelicals.

“Younger evaneglicals want to see this … environmental stewardship and other areas such as poverty, homelessness and hunger,” Page said, noting the SBC’s little reported work in area such as diasaster relief and food banks.

Six candidates are running for the rotating two-year term to replace Page. Interviews with them by Baptist Press can be seen here.

So stay tuned and watch this space.

Over 275 congregations from across the faith spectrum and all corners of America will display banners this month condemning torture. The campaign is the brain child of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) which groups over 190 religious groups.

President George W. Bush in March vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding and other controversial
interrogation techniques that critics say is torture, making the issue a political as well as moral one in this election year.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain — who was tortured while a prisoner of war in Vietnam — has strongly condemned water-boarding and has been the author of previous anti-torture legislation, winning praise from centrist U.S. evangelicals among others. But he did not support the legislation vetoed by Bush on the grounds that it was too sweeping.

The banner campaign is one of inter-faith cooperation drawing Islamic, Jewish and Christian congregations and others. The issue is an emotive one but also clearly one where folks of different faiths find common ground.

(Photo credit: Reuters, Emma Goh, Cambodia, dec 2, 2007)

The June issue of “Harper’s Magazine” has a provocative essay by Garret Keizer called “Turning Away From Jesus: Gay rights and the war for the Episcopal Church.”

The split in the global Anglican Communion over the consecration of the openly gay U.S. Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson and the broader issue of the church’s take on sexual orientation and other social issues in general has been extensively reported on.

These fault lines are partly but far from exclusively geographical, dividing more traditional churches in the developing world — especially Africa — from those in the developed world. It threatens to undermine Anglican provinces like the Episcopal Church in the United States by creating competing authorities within them, one for a more liberal majority and another for a conservative minority.

Dissecting the jargon of the conflict, Keizer sees parallels between the corporate world and the shifting currents of globalization. “What is ‘provincial realignment,’ at bottom, if not the ecclesiastical version of a corporate merger? What is ‘alternative oversight,’ if not church talk for a hostile takeover?,” he writes, seeing these comparisons in the methods rather than the motives of those involved.

He also chimes in on a theme that has been raised in different ways elsewhere by others in dicussions of America’s Religious Right: “How does a Christian population implicated in militarism, usury, sweatshop labor and environmental rape find a way to sleep at night? Apparently, by making a very big deal out of not sleeping with Gene Robinson.”

Keizer is an Episcopalian, former priest and contributing editor to Harper’s.

The Anglican split will be back in the headlines in coming weeks as Gene Robinson marries his partner, conservative Anglicans meet in Amman and Jerusalem and the Anglican Communion — minus some conservatives led by Akinola — convenes for its once-every-ten-years Lambeth Conference. What do you think the Anglican Communion will look like after this rocky patch passes?

HOUSTON - Barack Obama is a man without a church.

The Illinois Senator and likely Democratic Party nominee for the November presidential election against Republican John McCain said on Saturday he had quit his Chicago church in the aftermath of inflammatory sermons that could become a political lightning rod.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, cut ties last month with the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Jeremiah Wright, who angered many with anti-American and racially charged sermons.

Just as controversy over Wright had died down, a Roman Catholic priest mocked Obama's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during a guest appearance at Trinity United in ways sure to cause offense to some.

Obama said he and his family will find a new church although they will likely not settle on one until early next year -- after the election.

But can Obama remain "churchless" that long? 

The faith factor is always a big one in elections in America, where levels of regular church attendance and belief are much higher and weigh more heavily with many voters than those found in most affluent nations.

If Obama tries to settle on a church before November it could be subjected to the same level of media scrutiny that will be focused on his vice-presidential choice should he secure the nomination, which looks increasingly likely.

That could also bring unwelcome media intrusion into a house of worship.

But while Obama professes a deep Christian faith, his "churchless" status may still stand out as a political liability -- though staying with United was obviously a bigger one.

Think the uproar over John Hagee’s comments about Hitler, the Holocaust, the Bible and John McCain’s rejection of his endorsement is over? Hardly.

U.S. news networks have been abuzz with the latest twist to the saga — a Hagee endorsement (of sorts) from renegade Democrat-turned-independent Senator Joe Lieberman.

Lieberman, who is Jewish, said in a statement posted on his website on Wednesday that “I believe that Pastor Hagee has made comments that are deeply unacceptable and hurtful. I also believe that a person should be judged on the entire span of his or her life’s works.”

The maverick Connecticut senator went on to note Hagee’s work with “Christians United for Israel.”

“Pastor Hagee has devoted much of his life to fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews. The organization that he has helped build, Christians United for Israel, is a vital force in supporting the war against terrorism and defending our ally, Israel. I will go to the CUFI Summit in July and speak,” he said.

Presumptive Republican nominee McCain dumped Hagee like a burning ember last week after it emerged that the Texas pastor had given a sermon in the 1990s in which he quoted from the Bible to make the argument that Hitler was doing God’s work by helping to drive the Jews back to Israel.

In apocalyptic Christian circles in the United States, the creation of the state of Israel in the aftermath of the Second World War is widely taken as a key sign that the End Times are drawing near.

Millions of evangelical Americans to varying degrees subscribe to such views.

Observers of this scene say Hagee’s views are hardly news.

“He’s been saying this kind of thing for decades … he’s a providentialist — he believes that everything that happens on earth is part of God’s plan for the redemption of the world,” said historian Nicholas Guyatt, who has written extensively on apocalyptic Christian culture.

Watch this space: Hagee will remain in the news for some time to come.

An evocative piece of Spanish Catholic history is on display at the Meadows Museum in Dallas — the altarpiece from the Cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigoin Spain’s Salamanca province. You can see our story about it here .

It features 26 surving panels from the cathedral’s main altarpiece, each one a stunning work of art in its own right.

The pieces were painted between 1480 and 1500 during a searing era in Spanish and Church history: America was being discovered, the Moors were being defeated, the Jews were being expelled from Spain and the Inquisition was sharpening the tools of its ruthless trade.

X-ray analysis by the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth has uncovered some of the “original” drafts which show how the paintings changed from start to finish.

But there is plenty of fascinating detail in the finished products. In the “Creation of Eve” (above), a richly-dress Jesus rather than God is at the center of the picture.

“Acacius and the 10,000 Martyrs on Mount Ararat” has one man nailed into the ground rather than the crosses from which his breathren hang. One of his thumbs is oddly on the wrong side of his hand — an error or something symbolic?

This magnificent exhibit runs until July 27.

A group of mostly centrist U.S. evangelicals released a lengthy manifesto on Wednesday which called for the movement to pull back from explicit partisan political activity, saying faith was being used to express “political points that have lost touch with biblical truth.”

Leading figures on the conservative Religious Right, such as Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, were pointedly not asked to sign the document — a reflection of some of the divisions emerging in the U.S. evangelical movement, which numbers over 60 million by some estimates.

“I agree that evangelical Christians have become too aligned with the Republican Party which has taken them for granted,” Perkins told Reuters, adding that he saw some good stuff in the manifesto.

But he said “it was like it was written for ivory tower Christians, like they want to rid the world of evil but don’t want to get involved in the issues to do it.”

Divisions among U.S. Evangelicals — which are becoming more visible or vocal but have long been bubbling below the surface — have taken many forms.

Most publicly, they include a shift in emphasis among some evangelical leaders from the focus on culture issues such as abortion to a broader social agenda that includes calls to action on poverty and the environment

Most centrist evangelicals remain opposed to abortion rights, which they increasingly see as a social justice issue, but it is not their main focus.

The Religious Right, which has been the bedrock of conservative evangelical support for the Republican Party in recent election cycles, has also called for a broader agenda — but insists on tackling the issues that many of its supporters care deeply about.

This includes retaining an uncompromising and very public opposition to abortion and gay rights.

What do you think? Do you think the U.S. evangelical movement has become too politicized?

DALLAS - Has Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton improbably emerged as the favorite of the "Guns and God" crowd?

The U.S. media and blogosphere has been ablaze with speculation that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh may have contributed to Clinton's narrow victory in Tuesday's Indiana primary over Barack Obama by urging Republicans to vote for the former first lady.

The speculation is that the "Rush for Hillary" is seen as a way to extend the Democratic nomination battle and further damage the eventual winner.

Limbaugh has also said in the past that he thought Obama needed to be "bloodied up politically, and it's obvious that the Republicans are not going to do it and don't have the stomach for it."

Obama chief strategist David Axelrod, speaking to reporters on Obama's plane on the way to Chicago from his rally on Tuesday night in North Carolina, said he saw a Rush factor at play in Clinton's win.

He said Clinton ought to "call a press conference and thank Rush Limbaugh for the victory." He said the margin of victory for Clinton was so narrow, there is a good chance Limbaugh might have tipped the scales for her. 

"Eleven percent of the total electorate were Republicans. She got 52 percent of those. A large percentage of them said they would favor McCain in a race against Clinton." 

Indiana has one of the more open primaries which allows independents and Republicans to also request a Democratic ballot on the day they vote.

Do political bedfellows get any stranger than this?

(With additional reporting by Caren Bohan) 

Click here for more campaign coverage. 

Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg has an intriguing idea: is there a “religionome” similar to the human genome and can scientists map it? He raised this idea at a recent Pew Forum conference on religion and public life in Key West, Florida, where he discussed the topic of why belief in God persists.

Newberg’s work focuses, among other things, on his view that we are biologically driven to find meaning in our lives. He argues that our brains have the capacity to create and perpetuate systems of belief that take us beyond our basic survival needs. These beliefs are biologically rooted in the brain, he thinks, but are also given form by our peers, parents and society.

Newberg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology and Psychiatry, Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and director and co-founder of the Center for Spirituality and the Neurosciences, all at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He talked with Reuters on the sidelines of the conference, organized by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, to flesh out his vision.

“If you think of it in the context of the human genome project, what we are talking about is finding a way of mapping all of the different aspects of religion, the different traditions and practices and experiences that people have,” he said.

“And by mapping it, I would not just be talking about the biology of it but trying to connect the biology with what people are actually experiencing, feeling, believing and therefore getting as full as possible a real understanding of what religion and spirituality are really all about for people.”

I asked him to further explain — in layman’s terms — what he saw as the biological basis of belief.

“What I think we have seen in the research we have done, what I would what to do in any kind of religionome type of study, would be to try and find the overall pattern of changes, the pattern of activity in the different structures in the brain that are involved with all the different types of processes that people consider to be religious or spiritual.”

“To expand on that a little bit, I have tended to find that there is a pattern of structures, a group of structures in the brain that seem to be involved whenever people engage in some kind of religious or spiritual activity. So what we tend to find is that there are a set of structures that are activated or inactivated depending on what a person is doing, how they’re doing it, what they’re trying to experience … while the pattern is a little bit different in each type of practice, it always seems to involve the same structures. It just involves them differently.”

The more we learn about the human body, the more some scientists search for a “God gene” or a religious zone in the brain or some other physical basis to account for the phenomenon of faith. Do you think science can explain faith?

KEY WEST, Fla. - Rice University professor Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, shared on Tuesday what he said were his eight misconceptions about the evangelical movement before he began researching his influential book.

1. His first fallacy: "I assumed they (evangelicals) had succeeded because they were united," he told  the "Faith Angle" conference organized by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The reality: he argued evangelicals had sharp divisions but their burning in the belly belief that something is fundamentally wrong with the world drives them and means they can take political set-backs on the chin. 

2. He said his second fallacy was the assumption that "2004 was the pinnacle of evangelical influence in U.S. politics":

But he said many people he had spoken to said they were disappointed that they had voted for President George W. Bush but in their view received nothing in return. He said the biggest evangelical policy triumph was the 1998 passage of the International Religious Freedom Act, which was aimed at promoting religious freedom as a core objective of U.S. foreign policy and evangelicals had lobbied hard to get approved.

3.  "I thought there was a select group who were kingmakers in the Republican Party like James Dobson (of Focus on the Family)."

The reality: he said what he learned was that it was a movement with strong or very public leaders but they did not have make or break status within the Republican Party.

4. Lindsay said he also assumed that the centers of evangelical power were in places like Colorado Springs, Colo., headquarters for influential conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family.

But he said the movement's centers of power were actually the traditional ones like New York and Los Angeles and that the sharpest evangelical divide was between what he called the "cosmopolitan evangelicals and populists".  The populists he said are culture warriors embattled against secular society while the cosmopolitans  want a place at the table but want "their faith to be seen as reasonable".

5.  He said he had assumed that the new issues publicly embraced by the movement such as action on the environment "signaled a party realignment."

But he said evangelicals are still center/right and among the most loyal of Republicans.

6. He said while the domestic realm was important to evangelicals the really interesting emerging evangelical story is in foreign affairs and the movement's enthusiasm for foreign aid and investment. 

7. Lindsay also said that he thought church life drove evangelical political activity but that much of the real action was in the "para-church" sector such as universities.

8.  Finally, he said he assumed politics had been the main focus for most evangelicals.
But many of the people he interviewed articulated a view that politics was "downstream of culture."

- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Bush at a White House event highlighting National Prayer Day earlier this month)