Theology

When a Salvadoran army death squad dragged six Jesuit priests from their beds in the middle of a November night in 1989, then dumped their bloodied bodies on a lawn, Father Jon Sobrino was 11,000 miles away, delivering a lecture. But for that assignment, Sobrino would have become another of the "martyrs," the long line of priests, nuns and other religious workers killed during years of civil strife in El Salvador.

For some ministers, the most advanced technology used in a church service has been a wireless microphone. But with people growing savvier about computers, home theaters and the Internet, Fuller Theological Seminary is trying to find ways to make spiritual connections through high tech. "Many people who come to church browse YouTube for two hours in the morning," said Fuller President Richard Mouw.

Recent gay-sex scandals involving evangelical pastors have prompted much soul-searching among conservative Christian leaders. No one has proposed rethinking the theology that homosexuality is a sin. Instead, there's a growing consensus that the church must do a better job of helping pastors resist all immoral desires, such as a lust for pornography, an addiction to drugs or a lifelong same-sex attraction.

IN A RADIO INTERVIEW last week, prominent evangelical activist James Dobson said that Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's Mormon faith "could pose a serious obstacle" if he decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Dobson said he thought that conservative Christians wouldn't feel comfortable casting a ballot for a Mormon. Chances are, he's wrong. Sure, plenty of evangelical Protestants refuse to consider Mormonism a branch of Christianity.

He was just 12, the son of a former Conservative Party organizer in a neat suburban neighborhood of single-family homes and duplexes, when the father he adored died. He started drinking, neighbors say. Getting in fights. But six months ago, Don Stewart-Whyte stopped drinking and smoking, and became calmer and more polite, those who know him say. The 21-year-old had converted to Islam, the currency of some of the toughest and hippest young Asian students in his High Wycombe neighborhood.

A theology student was arrested Wednesday and held on $1-million bail, charged with killing her husband with a kitchen knife to the chest Nov. 10. Anaheim police, acting after a long investigation, said Jee Hyun Song, 28, killed Dong Uk Kim, 24. Authorities said his body was discovered in the kitchen of the couple's home. Song and Kim were students at Bethesda Christian University in Anaheim. If convicted, she could be sentenced to 26 years to life.

It was just a few nights before Christmas as Pastor Santos Carrasco, smiling broadly, sat in his small storefront church in Echo Park strumming his guitar and singing of God's goodness. "How good God is. How good he is," Santos sang out in Spanish. "He forgives my sin. How good he is." But whatever else the pastor would sing that night -- or any other time this week including Saturday or Sunday -- it wouldn't be Christmas carols. Neither Christmas trees nor presents are thought appropriate.

There's an Irvine house of worship that changes religions at least once a week. Irvine United Congregational Church sports golden crosses for Sunday morning services. Jewish High Holidays see it transformed into a sanctuary for Congregation Kol HaNeshamah, filled with Torahs, ram's horns and yarmulkes. And Friday afternoons, worshipers carefully unroll prayer rugs onto the floor of what becomes the United Mosques of Irvine. "Our theology is inclusive," says the Rev.

PUT ASIDE the question of whether "intelligent design," the latest alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, is good science. The more interesting question is whether it is good theology. ID argues, supposedly on purely scientific grounds, that the complexity of life, especially at the cellular level, points to an Intelligent Designer. It's adherents won't call that designer God, but the conventional wisdom is that Christians can only be pleased if ID gains traction.

"Schott's Original Miscellany" was a bestseller in 2003, though it had no plot, no character development, no "Da Vinci Code"-like twist or mystery. Nothing. All it offered was information in the same riveting format found on a Chinese takeout menu or a parking ticket. Yet, with 2 million copies in circulation worldwide, the book and its siblings -- on food and drink, on sporting and gaming -- have demonstrated that what many readers love is raw, unadorned trivia. Now there's "A Theological Miscellany."