Here's an intriguing thought: Could prayer have anything to do with the significantly improved security situation in Iraq?

It's hard to know what to attribute to the Almighty and for what to blame the Other Side. Several years ago, someone ran a full-page ad in this newspaper imploring Americans to pray harder for the war in Iraq. The spiritual realities in the part of the globe were truly horrendous, the ad said, and praying Americans were oblivious to them all. No argument there; very small percentages of the general public are related to or even know anyone fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I never forgot that ad, so when I heard in June of a new effort to mobilize prayer for Iraq, I listened up. Wayne Dillard (pictured left), a missionary to Singapore with Vineyard Christian Fellowship, was an ordinary guy who decided to take on this huge project of moblizing a cyber "prayer patrol" for Baghdad. He got the idea from a pastor in northern India who told him that Christians should be praying more fervently about the war, as the fate of millions is at stake there. Mr. Dillard was also aware of the half-hearted way much of American Christianity has treated the conflict. As far as I know, this missionary has never been to Iraq, much less Baghdad. Yet, he figured out what the main neighborhoods were and set up this Web site, http//www.prayercentral.net/baghdad/today, at about the same time the U.S.A. was starting its "surge" of troops into the country last June.

"I decided we should focus prayer there and patrol the streets along with the troops," he wrote me. "It didn't seem right to send in extra troops without sending in more prayer."

So he set up the site asking for one minute of daily prayer for the "troops, police and people of Baghdad" along with entries with titles like 'bless the troops," "salute the troops," "field reports" from various military correspondents and prayer lists for church bulletin inserts. When Mr. Dillard set up a place for people to leave encouraging messages for American troops, he got more than 500 emails in the first 12 hours. Intercessors can get daily emails asking for specific prayers for various Baghdad neighborhoods along with satellite maps of the area. There's also "Chuck in Baghdad," a column by CBN correspondent Chuck Holton full of juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits about life on the front line.

Judging from the numerous -- and sometimes flowery -- entries on the site's prayer log, there's been a ton of response. Folks who felt helpless about Iraq now feel they can do something.

And, as we all know, things have improved drastically since June. Do we credit God? The U.S. military? The Iraqis? Hard to say, but Mr. Dillard is certainly a light-a-candle-instead-of-cursing-the-darkness kind of guy.

-- Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

Benazir was one of those women I've always wanted to interview. I was just waking up this morning in Seattle when I learned she had been murdered. She was in and out of Washington frequently and our own Betsy Pisik got lots of conversations in with her a month ago in Pakistan. But her activities never fell directly on my beat, thus there was no religion story for which I needed her quotes.

But her death today was probably due a lot to religion, at least the twisted Islam practiced by her killers, whoever they were. I am willing to bet the reasons were more because she was a female politician willing to challenge an Al Qaeda-informed system that didn't believe women should be outside the home, much less running the country.

They play for keeps in South Asia. A few days ago I brought up how dangerous things are in India for Christians. Sure enough, over Christmas, Hindu extremists attacked Christians in Orissa, one of eastern India's most backward states, ransacking and killing at least six churches and killing one person. The extremists were objecting to a Christmas Eve show which they said was aimed at converting people. The Global Council of Indian Christians said 2,000 people are hiding in the forests now, thanks to "saffron goons" who destroyed their homes and even went after an orphanage. And the local government does nothing.

When Benazir returned to Pakistan, I got emails from some of the human rights folks there saying they were praying she'd get elected, as she had the least tolerance for religious persecution. Being a woman, she knew how it felt being oppressed and she wasn't about to allow it for religious minorities as well.

That, unfortunately, was one prayer that didn't get answered.

-- Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

No, folks, my brain is not addled by the rain here in Seattle, which is where I spending the next week with family. The Keiskamma Altarpiece is one huge artwork that is coming to a church near you, specifically the Washington Cathedral in January. I was able to get a preview here at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral on Seattle's Capitol Hill. The altarpiece has been here since June.

It's hard to describe this massive combo of embroidery, applique, beadwork and photography, put together by 130 Xhosa villagers in the small South African coastal hamlet of Hamburg, so click here. The Keiskamma is the name of a river. It is modeled after Matthias Grunewald's Issenheim altarpiece of 1515, created in response to the horrific diseases of the 16th century. I saw it twice while a college student in France. It has some of the grimmest imagery imaginable about the crucifixion. It is very Christo-centric and is world-renowned for its graphic detail.

The Keiskamma piece, also about 22 feet wide and 13 feet tall, depicts the horrors of AIDS in Africa. The altarpiece, which is directly behind the high altar at Saint Mark's, shows scenes from village life. It opens like a cupboard to reveal not Christ and His saints, but an AIDS widow, a prophet who dances on the sand dunes, some of the respected village women. The anonymous widow, not Christ, is at the center. Istead of Mary Magdalene and St. John, there are AIDS orphans. The embroidery is truly stunning and it's definitely a work of art, but...something is missing.

Is Keiskamma devotional and does it belong in a cathedral? That part continues to bother me as I witness folks go up after Sunday services and sit for presentations about the altarpiece, where AIDS is substituted for the passion of Christ. Seeing the Issenheim altarpiece, one definitely learns that a sacrifice has taken place to appease the wrath of God. With the Keiskamma piece, there's no divinity involved. The message is community empowerment, transformation and hope.

I never thought I'd see an altarpiece with no cross. But that day has arrived.

-- Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

This is the season for embassy parties and yours truly attended yet another one last Sunday, this one at the home of Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen.

His compound on Macomb Street in Northwest Washington has a lawn decorated lavishly with Christmas lights and a huge downstairs floor into which some 200 of us crammed into. A sumptuous dinner, with many varieties of rice and curry, was served.

I brought my daughter along and she sat there quietly throughout the evening, entranced by all the colorful saris.

Most of the folks there were expatriate Indian Christians. A group of Seventh-day Adventists provided the music, a Methodist pastor preached and a fair amount of Catholic clergy and monks showed up in their habits.

Granted, it was a bit odd to be singing Christmas carols next to a statue of Ganesh, the elephant god, but what was a bit stranger was the lack of mention of the plight of Indian Christians back in the motherland. Christians constitute only a small amount -- 2-4 percent -- of India's population but rarely does a week go by when I don't receive emails on persecution of Christians there.

Most come from Sajan George, head of the Global Council of Indian Christians in Bangalore, who has documented 500 attacks in 23 months. His group "has drawn attention to repeated attacks on churches, disruption of worship services and other forms of harassment induldged in by miscreants obsessed with religious hatred," he wrote Dec. 8. "Books and literature are seized and put to fire. Prayer halls are ransackd. These incidents have been happening in various parts of the country and the culprits invariably are [Hindu] religious fanatics."

Olivia Duin, daughter of blogger Julia Duin, nestles underneath a statue and painting at the home of Indian Ambassador Ronen Sen. (Photo by Julia Duin)

Moreover, according to the Dalit Freedom Network, India's government is denying benefits to Christian Dalits or "untouchables," as they used to be called. I was in India a year ago reporting on the female feticide issue [see part 1 here] and while there, got an update on the truly grim conditions there for non-Hindus. Indian Christians have been persecuted for years but it was not until Australian missionary Graham Staines was burnt to death -- along with his two sons -- in January 1999 in Orissa by a Hindu gang, that the rest of the world noticed.

It sure would have livened up that embassy party had someone there had the guts to mention such unpleasantries.

Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

Kazakhstan turned 16 years old on Sunday. I have more than a passing interest in the place since that's where I adopted my daughter in February.

The embassy had a party Dec. 5 to which I went -- daughter in tow -- to meet the new ambassador, Erlan Idrissov. The Kazakhs are pretty happy these days because they just obtained -- over the protests of human rights groups -- the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2010. Human Rights Watch's protest is here.

Why this is problematic needs a bit of explaining. To begin with, Kazakhstan has the world's lengthiest required stays for adoptive parents -- about seven weeks -- meaning that I spent all of January and a good part of February in this area of central Asia.

While in Kostenai -- a snowy northern city of 300,000 near the Russian border -- and in Almaty, the commercial capital, I had numerous conversations with journalists, American embassy staff, missionaries, expatriate businessmen and several Kazakhs about religious freedom in this former Soviet republic. The general consensus was that while things weren't perfect, it was worlds better than truly repressive places such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Although the country was majority Muslim, it was quite secularized. The Muslims I met never went to mosque. I was in the north near large concentrations of Russian Orthodox, but many of them were nominal believers as well and the one Orthodox church I visited was mainly older people.

The most interesting -- and growing -- groups were the evangelical, pentecostal and charismatic Christians who met quietly in houses or small churches. I was told they had freedom to pass out tracts in the streets, particularly during warmer weather. The understanding seemed to be that they were free to witness to non-believers or the Orthodox but they needed to leave the Muslims alone. Many of the pentecostals ignored such prohibitions; one church I visited was made up of mainly Kazakh charismatics whose evangelistic literature was printed in Germany.

During the long hours I spent in Internet cafes, I also chanced on Forum 18, a Norwegian group that charts the many religious freedom violations in former Soviet republics. Kazakhstan, like the old Soviet Union, compels all religious organizations to register with the state. But it's these smaller -- and growing -- groups that are getting the majority of the harassment. For instance, the government is denying registration in the western city of Atyrau, to certain Muslim, Presbyterian, Jehovah's Witness and pentecostal congreations. In Karaganda, a city in the central steppes, Grace Presbyterian, a large evangelical Protestant church, underwent a 15-hour raid on Aug. 24. Harassment of religious groups and fines are common in elsewhere in Kazakhstan and after awhile, one wonders why Kazakhstan got the OSCE chairmanship with this kind of activity going on in multiple cities.

But the worst -- and still unresolved matter belongs to the Hare Krishnas, whose communal land outside of Almaty was seized by the local Karasai government supposedly because the farmer from whom the Krishnas had purchased the land in 1999 did not hold proper title.

On Nov. 21, 2006, district officials arrived at the commune with court orders, bulldozers, trucks, and riot police. Authorities blocked access to the commune, cut electricity, and demolished 66 homes, throwing peoples' possessions into the snow and leaving homeowners without shelter or compensation. The police beat several Hare Krishnas and arrested at least one resident who protested the action. The police attempted to bar observers from the process.

I pulled most of the above paragraph from the U.S. embassy in Kazakhstan's Web site, so I am not making this up. The whole thing was a huge international embarrassment as Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev had just finished hosting a Congress of World Religions that September in Astana, the capital. Plus, the famous Borat movie on Kazakhstan was all over U.S. theaters. I briefly considered visiting the site while I was in the country, but the commune was 25 miles away.

Kazakhstan officials greet guests at the Kazakhstan Embassy's Dec. 5 party marking the country's 16th birthday. Pictured are (from left) Ambassador Erlan Idrissov, his wife, Nurilla, military attache Col. Assylbek Mendygaliez and his wife, Raushan, and political counselor Toleugazy Abzhanov. (Photo by Julia Duin)

A year later, the local government has refused to give the land back and has transferred it to the original farmer. An update is here. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan is planning for another religious congress in 2009.

I really like Kazakhstan and hope to get back there sooner rather than later, albeit in warmer weather. It's definitely a country in major transition. The fact that the newer publications are in three languages: Russian, Kazakh and English, show the country wants to become known to the wider world. And the sooner it distances itself from Soviet-style religious harassment, the better.

-- Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

Archbishop Peter Akinola stood solemnly on a dias, wearing a deep purple and bright red cape threaded with glittering gold thread and gold embroidered stars. Another brilliant star was stitched onto his miter.

I was sitting in a crowd of several hundred people last Sunday afternoon at Church of the Epiphany's new sanctuary near Dulles airport in northern Virginia. The leader of 18 million Nigerian Anglicans and the one man in the world capable of challenging the archbishop of Canterbury was in town to consecrate four new missionary bishops.

His presence was an in-your-face challenge to the Episcopal Church, from which the Nigerian archbishop has extracted some 8,600 Episcopalians, who are now attending one of 60+ churches in his Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).

Very few journalists have managed to sit this man down for a chat. When he announced CANA's formation in 2005, it was at a short and very controlled press conference at Truro Church in Fairfax. Since then, when I've asked CANA folks for interviews, I've always been told the archbishop was too busy. Other journalist friends have told me of their unsuccessful tries at contacting him. The excuse is always the same: too busy, not available or not in town.

Unofficially, I heard that the archbishop was none too thrilled with an embarrassing New York Times article on him that ran last Dec. 25 and thus had sworn off American journalists.

The only reporter who has managed to get through recently was the London Times' Ruth Gledhill, who flew to Abuja to interview him in July and ran this piece in her paper. Which was great if one's media outlet has the budget for such overseas trips. Mine does not.

As the outspoken archbishop has been accused by Episcopal leaders of poaching their churches and turning them into Anglican congregations, naturally I wanted to talk with him. Especially since a large percentage of CANA congregations is in this newspaper's back yard.

Above: Archbishop Akinola during the procession into the church. The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) consecrated four new suffragan bishops yesterday in a ceremony held at Church of the Epiphany in Herndon, Va. The new bishops will "minister to our growing flock" in the U.S., said CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns, adding that CANA has been growing "in the face of relentless opposition and some of the largest lawsuits ever mounted by The Episcopal Church against its own clergy and congregations." (Photo by Kelly Oliver, CRC Public Relations)

Since the archbishop has been in the United States four times (that I know of) since May, I figured it was high time he became available. My efforts to schedule an interview with his Nigerian spokesman Canon Akin Tunde Popoola didn't get too far. Nor did several similar requests with Bishop Martyn Minns, the U.S. head of CANA.
So I showed up at Church of the Epiphany. Surely I could at least introduce myself to him and arrange for some future interview, as I'd heard he was flying out that evening. He'd been in town all weekend but again, I'd been informed he was too busy.

Folks at Epiphany told me he had time to be at a Saturday night dinner party in McLean so I guess "busy" is a relative term.

As the service ended, the musicians struck up "The Church's One Foundation" and all the clergy prepared to recess out the back door into a reception area. I positioned myself just outside the sanctuary so I could catch his eye. As Archbishop Akinola processed out, I saw he was surrounded by a phalanx of people in front, alongside and in back of him, who were marching him through the reception area and down a hallway. I followed.

The archbishop stopped in front of a door while the phalanx protectively grouped itself around him. Then he disappeared. It took me a few seconds to realize he'd slipped up a back stairway. As the door was blocked by the phalanx, I headed back into the reception area and down another hallway where I found a second stairway. Racing up that, I began heading down the hall toward Bishop Minns' office — where I knew the archbishop must be hiding out.

But, horrors, into the hallway strode Bishop Minns himself. Spotting me, plus possibly other folks who wanted to see the archbishop, he zipped into his office and shut the door. Stationed outside was a priest from the Falls Church — one of the local congregations that has departed the Episcopal Church.

I showed up at Bishop Minns' door and the priest/bodyguard, who happened to be built like a football player, blocked my way. "I'm sorry, Julia," he said, "but … " as he maneuvered me toward an exit door. Well, hmmm. What's a reporter to do? Unless I wanted to start a rumble or use tear gas, my options were limited.

I managed to talk the priest into giving the archbishop my business card, then went back downstairs. I could see people ferrying up plates of food up the stairs, presumably for the archbishop and Bishop Minns. I stood vigil down near the base of the stairs, but by one of CANA's media representatives had wised up to my movements and had planted herself within a few feet of me.

I wandered off to interview other personalities and learned about a half hour later that the archbishop had left the church — presumably for the airport.

What is it about us journalists that Archbishop Akinola is so afraid of? Does he not trust himself with us? Or don't his subordinates trust him? This is an era of tape recordings and video, so misquotes can be proven and dispatched with very quickly. Or, more troubling, doesn't the archbishop consider himself accountable? Apparently not.

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

I wasn't planning to deal with some of the more esoteric corners of Mormon doctrine today, but the blogs are humming about the Jesus-Lucifer connection. It's the same question Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is said to ask in an upcoming Dec. 16 New York Times magazine interview, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

Associated Press leaked part of the magazine story late Tuesday.

Mr. Huckabee, who is running neck-in-neck with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, knows there are places in Mormonism where Mr. Romney's campaign does not want to go.

Most of you may think Americans can't discuss theology, but a copy of the AP article posted on breitbart.com had 220 comments by mid-afternoon Wednesday, many of which dissected Mormon doctrine.

Breitbart had also posted a debate Mr. Romney had about his faith with a radio talk show host in Des Moines, Iowa; however, by mid-afternoon Wednesday, the link was not operating. Hmmmm.

"It's interesting we're having this teachable moment," Gary Cass, chairman of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission told me. "If Romney becomes president, you will get a knock on your door and a nice-looking missionary saying, "Would you like to hear about the faith of our president?"

Adding that he grew up among Mormons in Las Vegas, "Mormons have redefined all our terms but most Christians don't know that," he said. "And most people in the media are theologically illiterate."

He's got that last part right. This morning, I was in a meeting with two of apostles from the church's Quorum of Twelve. They were making the rounds of newspaper editorial boards this week to better explain their religion to media who don't get it.

They gave a group of us at the Times some impressive statistics of a 12.8-million-member religion with 53,000 roving missionaries in 178 countries. Since 1985, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has given out $705 million in humanitarian assistance.

But when I asked M. Russell Ballard and Quentin R. Cook about the spirit brother question, they dodged it.

All they would say is that Jesus was the son of God and Lucifer was a fallen angel.

Yes, but what about a pre-historic time before Lucifer fell?

So I began trolling about. First I looked at a document, dated Janury 2000, that the two men left me. Also posted on the front page of LDS.org, it is called "The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles."

It says "(Jesus) was the Great Jehovah of the Old Testament."

Then I learned that several LDS apostles and luminaries, including Spencer W. Kimball, president of the church from 1973 to 1985, had referred to God having two spirit sons known as Lucifer and Jehovah.

Here is another Mormon-related site that explains the "spirit brother" connection. Basically, there was an incident before the dawn of time when God knew he would have to send down a savior. Two of his spirit sons, Jesus and Lucifer, volunteered. This is explained in Abraham 3:27 and Moses 4, both chapters in the "Pearl of Great Price," one of the LDS scriptures. When God chose Jesus, Lucifer rebelled.

The rest, as they say, is pre-history.

Apostles of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints M. Russel Ballard, left, and Quentin L. Cook answered questions about the Mormon religion but refused to discuss the church's political views during a meeting with Washington Times reporters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Dec. 12. (Photo by J.M. Eddins Jr./The Washington Times)

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

I can't add a whole lot to the wealth of news coverage coming out of Colorado on the shootings there but I've not seen much on the missions group that so angered Matthew Murray, the gunman. The only piece I found that describes YWAM at all is this piece by Rocky Mountain News religion writer Jean Torkelson.

For those who've never heard of it, YWAM is the 1,000-pound gorilla among missionary organizations. They have a workforce of 16,000 people operating at 1,000 locations in 149 countries. (The Mormons have more people on the field at any one time; about 51,000). Still, YWAM is one big group and their missionaries are simply everywhere. In the 1978, I visited one of their ministries on a houseboat in Amsterdam. In 1989, I visited one of their outreaches in Costa Rica. Several years ago, I was at one of their centers in southern Colorado. Friends of mine who are YWAM missionaries tell me they have to raise every penny of their support; they get no assisting funds from the organization, unlike some other mission groups. Working there is not for the faint-hearted.

YWAM is best known for their ability to mobilize the young, who are trained at Discipleship Training Centers all over the world. The young people at the Arvada center apparently were just finishing up their 12 weeks when the gunman showed up at midnight Sunday. YWAM'ers learn that martyrdom is always a possibility at the overseas locales to which they will be sent. But in Colorado?

One question remains. If this were in another setting, maybe with another faith group, the words "hate crime" would be all over the place. I haven't seen it once in all the Internet postings and news conference videos I've watched. How interesting. Why is it that a premeditated murder spree against evangelical Protestant missionaries and folks at a megachurch is not a hate crime but, say, the targeting of Muslims and Sikhs after September 11 was?

-- Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

Yet another holiday season is here in which we spend copious amounts of time standing in post office lines mailing off huge things. Every year I am more and more amazed to see how unattractive the religious Christmas stamps are. This year's pick: the Madonna of the Carnation by Bernardino Luini, painted circa 1515, is like every other Renaissance oil painting that gets chosen each year to represent the religious side of Christmas. Yes, I know the tradition of the Madonna and Child is a revered classic. But medieval paintings make Christianity appear as though it's permanently stuck 500 years back. Other religions: especially the attractive blue Eid stamp and the blue-and-yellow artfully drawn dreidel stamp for Hanukkah, get tasteful depictions of what their religion stands for in the 21th century. (Although the Eid stamp is totally out of season now that the Muslim holiday has rotated to September and won't be anywhere near Christmas time for at least two more decades. )

Usually the secular Christmas stamps are done pretty well but this year's "holiday knits" stamp takes new awards for ugliness. Who dreams up these designs?

Would someone at the U.S. Postal Service have the guts to commission a 21st century Mother and Child that most of the stamp-buying public could actually relate to? I have nothing against 16th-century art. While in college, I studied in France and spent months wandering through museums in Paris, Florence, Rome, Venice and many other places. What I really cottoned to were the bright 20th-century tapestries of the Apocalypse by Frenchman Jean Lurcat. He took at 2,000-year-old idea and made it something that 19-year-old me (at the time) could relate to.

Presenting a more modern depiction of the Madonna and Child would surely be controversial; something the postal service avoids by choosing Renaissance classics. But it would engage a public weary of Santa Claus and seeking the true meaning of of the holiday.

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

Episcopalians in New Mexico have a problem on their hands. Their bishop, Jeffrey Steenson, pulled a disappearing act on them last weekend. Bishops don't usually do this, especially just before Christmas.

Having lived in New Mexico just before moving here, I have been following Bishop Steenson ever since he was elected in October 2004. A candidate from Fairfax, then-Truro rector Martyn Minns, was positioned to win the election when then-Canon Steenson's name was submitted. He won on the third ballot and Martyn Minns, who came in second, went on to become bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America — a break-away group — in 2006.

Bishop Steenson was obviously getting more and more disturbed by liberal trends in the Episcopal Church, as he unexpectedly announced in September that, after less than three years in the episcopate, he was becoming a Roman Catholic.

"The reason for this decision is that my conscience is deeply troubled about where the Episcopal Church is heading, and this has become a crisis for me because of my ordination vow to uphold its doctrine, discipline, and worship," he wrote in a September letter to his diocese.

OK. In what's becoming an increasing embarrassment for the Episcopal Church, Bishop Steenson was one of four bishops to go Catholic in 2007 alone. Former Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope, Albany, N.Y., Bishop David Herzog and Southwest, Fla., Bishop John Lipscomb were the other three. But those men had left their positions before swimming the Tiber; Bishop Steenson was still a sitting bishop.

And in the letter, he promised "not to lose sight of my responsibility to help lay a good foundation for the transition that you must now lead." In the Episcopal Church, it takes up to two years to search for, elect and install a new bishop.

Instead, he walked out a bit early. At the beginning of this week, various Catholic web sites were announcing he had shown up at St. Mary Major in Rome for the official ceremony, presided over by the disgraced former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law.

Suddenly — whammo — his bishop's see in Albuquerque was vacant.
The folks left behind in the Diocese of the Rio Grande were in disarray, as he had not told them.

"Presumably he told our presiding bishop," his administrative assistant, Mary Jewell, told me. "We don't really know."

I called up to church headquarters in New York to find out what Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori knew of the sudden exit but no one there could tell me either. Bishop Steenson comes back next week to clean out his desk.

The diocesan standing committee is in charge of things now but affairs are in an uproar. Right now they are scrambling to find a bishop to preside over the many events happening around Christmas, some of them things only a bishop can do.

I can't help but thinking a few "what ifs." What if Jeffrey Steenson's name had not been submitted late in the game? What if Martyn Minns had won the election and moved to New Mexico? Without him, I doubt there would have been a CANA. Without the force of his personality, I even wonder if 11 Episcopal churches would have voted a year ago to leave the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, setting off the denomination's biggest property lawsuit ever.

Little decisions have big consequences, folks.

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

Religion stories are popping up everywhere this week. In Sacramento, there's Michael Newdow's revived lawsuit on the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, a cartoon Nativity scene making the rounds in Europe and tonight's Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza's Christianity-vs-atheism debate tonight at George Washington University. [I'm moderating the event at the Marvin Center, so brave the snow and come on down.]

Meanwhile, journalists are flying to College Station, Texas, for Mitt Romney's Big Religion Speech tomorrow. I'm not going but I loaned political reporter Joe Curl -- who is going -- a copy of my dog-eared Mormonism for Dummies by Jana Riess and Christopher Kimball Bigelow. I read it from cover to cover last year.
Feel free to tell this blog what question YOU would ask Mitt if given the chance.

My question: Assuming that Mr. Romney identifies himself as Christian, how would he define Jesus Christ? Mormon doctrine says, among other things, that Jesus was Lucifer's spirit brother. He is also the elder brother of all humans, all of whom are the offspring of a God, Who is married to a heavenly Mother. Does the candidate agree with these doctrines?

On a closing note: This blogger is very amused to hear all the huffing and puffing going on by media critic Howard Kurtz at the Other Paper about CBS News' Nov. 7 ad for an environment reporter. The listing asks for a "wicked smart, funny, irreverent and hip" reporter for whom "knowledge of the enviro beat is a big plus but not a requirement."

"I'm all for hiring smart and funny people," said Mr. Kurtz in a Dec. 3 column. "But wouldn't it be nice if an environmental reporter knew something about the environment? Or is my thinking on that hopelessly Old Media?"

Whoa, Howard. Your employer for years has been placing folks on the religion beat who have little or no background on the topic. Please see my 2005 Poynter.org column about this exact topic. Please comment.

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

Today's Erev Hanukkah — the day before the start of Judaism's best-known holiday, when the giant menorah is lit on on the White House lawn. I'm taking this occasion to thank the Lubavitch movement, an Orthodox group known for its missionary fervor, for teaching me nearly everything I needed to know about Judaism.

I say "nearly" because I knew nothing about the religion until I stumbled across a music group called "The Liberated Wailing Wall" at a Christian coffeehouse in Bellevue, Wash., in 1973. The debate on the group's sponsor, Jews for Jesus, belongs to another blog post, but let's just say my interest in things Jewish was piqued. It blazed up when I was assigned to live with a Sephardic Jewish family while an exchange student in Strasbourg, France in 1975. I figured their habit of substituting beer for Sabbath wine was due to proximity of the German border.

When I returned, I signed up for a Sabbath course at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center in Portland, Ore. There I learned how to bake challah, the braided bread usually served on the Sabbath. I learned Hebrew songs, Israeli dance steps and how to say the Hebrew berakhot (blessings) over the Sabbath bread and wine plus a candlelighting blessing that only women recite.

By 1983, I was working as a reporter in Hollywood, Fla., when into the newsroom walked one Rabbi Raphael Tennenhaus, press release in hand.

Back then, the rabbi was a little-known 20-something from Montreal who was deputized by the Lubavitch headquarters in New York to bring his lively brand of Orthodox Judaism to Broward County. Rabbi Tennenhaus was one energetic guy and a genius at publicizing his tiny synagogue, Congregation Levi-Yitzchok Lubavitch. Back then, it was a storefront in Hallandale, one of Miami's northern suburbs. He had just founded Chabad of South Broward, a Jewish educational outreach, and he was always coming up with outrageous publicity stunts. I still remember him hauling about town a "sukkah mobile;" a tiny house-like structure perched atop a U-haul trailer with Israeli music blaring from the loudspeakers. That was his way of publicizing the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The Christian evangelists I knew from the Jesus movement had nothing on this guy.

Although some of the Jewish reporters in my newsroom were not thrilled with him (the rabbi would not shake hands with unrelated women, for starters), I found him very interesting. Being that our newspaper sat in the middle of America's fourth largest Jewish community, the management wanted some sophisticated religion reporting beyond the usual holiday piece. As I dove into features about the Jewish get (a divorce decree) and a local family who made aliyah (a move) to Israel, it was this rabbi whom I called for help in fact checking.

We became friends and I was introduced to his wife, Goldie, and their growing family. I attended services at his temple and showed up at their home for a Sabbath dinner. His children, who were quite young at the time, could already recite the 10 plagues of Egypt from memory, so I brought along a game of Bible Trivia and we used the cards that applied to the Old Testament. The kids won. It was this rabbi who told me the term "Old Testament" is offensive to many Jews and that if I wanted to get anywhere on my interviews, I should refer instead to the "Hebrew Bible."

In return, I helped the rabbi to see what was and was not considered newsworthy. He would always drop things off at my office, such as guides on candle lighting times for the Sabbath and bios about the messianic leader of the Lubavitch movement of Hassidic Judaism: Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who later died in 1994. These days, there are workshops on Judaism for aspiring religion writers but back then, there was nothing, not even Google. Aside from sympathetic rabbis, my only reference book was the venerable "Jewish Catalogue: A Do-It-Yourself Kit."

I eventually moved away to Houston but the rabbi faithfully stayed in south Broward. I have since learned that his annual Hanukkah festival is now the world's largest. Last year, it attracted 8,000 people and a congratulatory message from President Bush. This year, he's expecting 10,000 people to attend a Hannukah blow-out next Tuesday at Gulfstream Race Track in Hallandale.

He is also 50, the father of seven children and grandfather to four and his beard is a lot longer than when I met him at the age of 25. His much-expanded synagogue now owns the shopping center on Hallandale Beach Boulevard that once housed the storefront.

A lot can be said for sticking with something until you succeed at it.

For those of you who can manage the Hebrew, here's the holiday blessing: "Baruch atah Adonai, Elohainu melech ha-olam. Asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Hanukkah."

Or: "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah light."

A cold, blustery night is no deterrent to the crowd gathering for the lighting of the National Menorah, celebrating the first night of Chanukah, on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, December 4, 2007. (James R. Brantley/The Washington Times)

Dreidel Man attracts much attention during the lighting of the National Menorah. A dreidel is a spinning top toy associated with the Jewish holiday Chanukah. (James R. Brantley/The Washington Times)

— Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times

George Cornell, the late and revered religion writer for the Associated Press, did one of his best stories before he died in 1994: An account on how people spend millions on sports, but billions on religion.

He added up the gate receipts in a given year of the 10 most-watched sports in America and compared those with giving statistics in the country's 10 largest denominations. Religion outspent sports by far as peoples' biggest source of weekend entertainment.

Not only is religion big business, it's big news, which is why we felt it was about time this newspaper premiered a religion blog. It's not the first to do so in the secular media. About 30 outlets are ahead of us on this one. But, better late than …

Today, Dec. 3, is an appropriate launch date for Belief Blog, one day after the first Sunday in Advent and one day before Hanukkah. We did some mulling over the title and decided for alliteration and simplicity (although I do think one editor's suggestion of "Papal Bull" could have attracted attention a lot quicker.)

I plan to make this stand out amongst many of the current faith blogs, many of which are little more than daily religion digests with uplinks. Not here. I'm aiming at something closer to Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith blog in the London Times that has juicy details not in the dead tree version.

I plan to go behind the scenes, add more details and do some original reporting. I hope to spread a wide net and touch on a non-Christian religion at least once a week.

Why me? I've been the Times' chief religion writer since 2003 although I contributed many articles on the topic in my previous seven years previous at the paper. I also covered religion for newspapers in New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania and Oregon, have a master's degree in religion and two of my three published books are on religion.

And I've done plenty of religion reporting from abroad, such as the 2005 election of Pope Benedict XVI in Rome and in 2006, an update on religious persecution in India. I hope you'll come to agree with me that religion is the queen of beats and worthy of a hallowed place in the blogosphere firmament.

--Julia Duin, assistant national editor/religion, The Washington Times