Faith

Manny Hamelburg, 68, a retired businessman, had fought prostate cancer for years. First, he tried radiation, then a drug with side effects that nearly killed him, and finally Lupron, a drug that blocks production of testosterone, the hormone that can fuel prostate cancer. The cancer disappeared. But life was miserable. Without normal levels of testosterone, Hamelburg says, he had no energy, and "zero libido for seven years. I was like a eunuch. I was chemically castrated. Sex was just hugs."

It is the X factor in Mitt Romney's candidacy, unpredictable because it is unprecedented: How will voters react to his Mormon faith? Never before has a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints been a major party nominee for president, and surveys have shown that as many as one-fifth of Americans would be reluctant to entrust a Mormon with the highest office in the land. White evangelicals--a key Republican constituency--have been especially skeptical. Romney's own actions suggest that he may believe it is a political liability.

CINCINNATI - The Rev. Chris Beard is a theological conservative, make no mistake about it. He believes the Bible is the word of God. He believes the Holy Spirit speaks to him directly. He believes, as an article of faith, that abortion and same-sex marriage are wrong. Still, when a group of religious leaders in Ohio held two days of meetings in Cincinnati recently to talk about economic and racial justice, issues usually associated with the political left, there was Beard, a fourth-generation Pentecostal preacher with a disarming smile, a shaved head and a set of convictions that knock holes in the stereotypes about white evangelical Protestants.

LYNCHBURG, Va. - Seeking to connect with the community of evangelicals that has been cold to his candidacy for many months, Mitt Romney delivered a commencement speech at Liberty University on Saturday that delved deeply into his faith while arguing that Christians of all different creeds could come together in the name of service. Speaking to a crowd of more than 30,000 at the school founded by the late televangelist Jerry Falwell, the presumed Republican nominee took the stage after an admonition from Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. - who was quoting his father - that the American people will be “electing a commander in chief, not a pastor or a religious leader” in November.

In their new book, "American Grace," Robert D. Putman and David E. Campbell make two assertions about the decline of religious affiliation in the United States, which they summarize in their Oct. 17 Times Op-Ed article, "Walking away from the church. " They correctly observe that Americans, especially the youngest generations, are rapidly losing a lot of their faith. The nonreligious are far and away the fastest-growing group, with nonbelievers having tripled as a portion of the general population since the 1960s and nonreligious twentysomethings doubling in just two decades.

Start-up companies generally get their money from two sources: professional venture investors and, a few years down the road, stock market investors. What's the difference? Here's how one of the smartest high-tech entrepreneurs I know puts it: "Venture money is expensive money, but it's smart money. Stock market money is cheap money, but it's dumb money. " Facebook is about to cannonball itself into a vast pool of dumb money. The big social media company is expected to announce its initial public offering as soon as Wednesday.

Today, a century and a half after Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," the overwhelming majority of scientists in the United States accept Darwinian evolution as the basis for understanding how life on Earth developed. But although evolutionary theory is often portrayed as antithetical to religion, it has not destroyed the religious faith of the scientific community. According to a survey of members of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, conducted by the Pew Research Center in May and June this year, a majority of scientists (51%)

Faith, Interrupted A Spiritual Journey Eric Lax Alfred A. Knopf: 288 pp., $26

“Conservatives lose faith in science,” trumpeted the headline on a story in last week's Times.   “A study … in the American Sociological Review concludes that trust in science among conservatives and frequent churchgoers has declined precipitously since 1974, when a national survey first asked people how much confidence they had in the scientific community. At that time, conservatives had the highest level of trust in scientists.” Though the article ran inside the paper on a weekday, it certainly didn't go unseen by Times letter writers.

Each weekday, when classes are done and the last bell sounds at Dorsey High , Jeremiah Allison steels himself. He folds his lean frame into a weathered SUV and drives three miles to a convalescent home in South Los Angeles. Slowly, somberly, sneakers sliding softly against the linoleum floor, he enters room 214. "Hi, Mom," he says, voice hushed. "Mom?" Time slows. Jeremiah, 17, holds her hands and kisses her cheeks. He tells her about his day, speaks of the prom and the future, of his college scholarship and how good it will be to live far from the troubled neighborhood where she raised him. Tugging his black baseball cap to shield his watery eyes, he flips through Bible verses on his cellphone and reads to her. "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you....

LYNCHBURG, Va. - When it came to evangelicals in this year's primaries, Mitt Romney was most often the rejected suitor - struggling to overcome suspicions about his authenticity as a conservative and his Mormon faith. On Saturday at the evangelical university founded by the late televangelist Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Romney tried to tackle those lingering misgivings as the presumed Republican nominee - by delivering a speech that delved deep into his faith and by urging about 30,000 in the audience at Liberty University to look beyond their differences with his religion.

BEIJING - For several hours, it appeared the U.S. and China had struck a deal that would allow Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng to walk free - and avoid a diplomatic disaster. American officials said Wednesday that they had obtained promises from Chinese authorities that the blind 40-year-old lawyer could live in a Chinese city of his choice and attend a university to continue his legal education. They portrayed Chen, who had dramatically fled house arrest in his village for the protection ofthe U.S. Embassyhundreds of miles away in Beijing, as exuberant over the deal.

Lately, attending the Crystal Cathedral has been like going to a reunion. Longtime members have returned, along with a 60-person robed choir. Traditional hymns fill the church. And on Sunday, a recognizable face unexpectedly took the pulpit for the first time in years: the Rev. Bobby Schuller, the charismatic grandson of founder the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, participated in a brief interview and read Scripture. "I'm excited to be back," he told congregants, who learned that the 30-year-old pastor will be appearing at the Crystal Cathedral on an occasional basis, while still maintaining a separate ministry in Orange.

DENVER — On the Dodgers' most recent day off, reliever Josh Lindblom visited the Dream Center in Echo Park, which offers residential drug rehabilitation programs and other services. Later on Thursday, he distributed food on skid row and took 15 to 20 homeless people to church. There weren't any news cameras or reporters around. "I'd be sitting at home anyways," Lindblom said. "It's a small, small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. It was one of the most fulfilling days I've had all season.

Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane - for skeptics and true believers alike. The study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, indicates that belief may be a more malleable feature of the human psyche than those of strong faith may think. The cognitive origins of belief - and disbelief - traditionally haven't been explored with academic rigor, said lead author Will Gervais, a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

It's the economy, brethren. That's the basic idea behind a new campaign launched Wednesday by a progressive faith-based organization to influence the 2012 election. The PICO National Network said it is enlisting clergy nationwide to register voters, get out the vote and spread a message of economic equality. Calling the campaign "Land of Opportunity," PICO said its goal is to sign up 75,000 new voters and reach a total of 1 million people who will support its message and vote for … well, there's the rub. Presumably restricted by IRS rules that prohibit churches and nonprofit organizations from supporting political candidates, PICO isn't supporting anyone in particular, its director of policy, Gordon Whitman, said in a conference call.

What hath God wrought? In the Bible, that's an exclamation, not a question (Numbers 23:23). Still, it's a common response to any natural disaster, especially one on the scale of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, now compounded by the unnatural disaster of a nuclear crisis. If there is a God, and if He (for the sake of convention) is all-powerful, what in God's name was He thinking? This is perhaps the oldest of theological questions ? the one that may, in fact, explain the nearly universal human yearning for faith, what evolutionary psychologist Jesse Bering calls "the belief instinct.

For my niece Rachel, it was that magical summer between high school graduation and the start of college. I hoped our trip would be the beginning of a new set of memories, the adult life realized. I had already treated a niece and nephew to graduation celebrations in Hawaii, but the islands somehow seemed the wrong fit for Rachel, a devout Catholic and, at 18, already a cancer survivor. She is a remarkable young woman, my sister Tina's middle child, who, even before her illness, had exhibited a graciousness that continued into adolescence, lifting her past the awkward it's-all-about-me stage into an early serenity.

Up, up and not quite away. That's the frustrating story of human-powered helicopters and the prize coveted by virtually everyone who has designed the cumbersome beasts and tried to get them aloft. So far, nobody has come up with a muscle-driven machine capable of hovering for 1 minute and rising 3 meters - requirements for the Igor I. Sikorsky Prize, an honor the helicopter industry has dangled before aeronautics buffs for 32 years. The prize has been offered so long that the booty, initially $10,000, became embarrassingly small.

Mayoral campaign politics again spilled into a controversy over lagging Los Angeles Fire Department response times Tuesday as the City Council voted to launch yet another investigation into the agency's faulty data. The department has been under scrutiny since fire officials acknowledged last month that they have been releasing performance reports that made it appear that first responders were arriving at medical emergencies faster than they actually were. Tuesday's decision to hire outside experts was pushed by two mayoral contenders at the same time that a rival candidate, City Controller Wendy Greuel, has pressed her own audit of the department.