Faith

The Churches of Charles, an annual series of lectures sponsored by churches in North Baltimore along and near Charles Street, will focus this year on how faith is reflected in various art forms. The lectures, "Religion and Art: Faith Taking Form," will examine how Christians have given form to their faith using music, drama and varieties of visual art. The first lecture is planned for 11 a.m. Sept. 27 at the Walters Art Gallery, 600 N. Charles St. A tour will explore religion in the Walters collection.

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama announced yesterday the creation of his faith-based outreach office, expanding its agenda beyond funding social programs to work on policies aimed at strengthening family life and reducing abortion. Obama's office leaves in place rules that allow faith-based groups receiving federal funding to hire only people of their own faith, but White House aides said that the hiring rules would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis when there are complaints and that the Justice Department will provide legal assistance.

PIEDMONT, Ala. -- This is a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven. This is a place where the song "Jesus Loves Me" has rocked generations to sleep, and heaven is not a concept, but a destination.Yet in this place where many things, even storms, are viewed as God's will, people strong in their faith and their children have died in, of all places, a church."We are trained from birth not to question God," said 23-year-old Robyn Tucker King of Piedmont, where 20 people, including six children, were killed when a tornado tore through the Goshen United Methodist Church on Palm Sunday.

YOU CAN COUNT me as another evangelical Christian, once enthusiastic about Joe Lieberman's vice presidential candidacy, now disillusioned and disheartened by the politics of it all. I was there several years ago when the Democratic Connecticut senator was a guest speaker at the National Religious Broadcasters' convention in Washington. Talk about Daniel in the lion's den. An observant Orthodox Jew and the solitary representative of his faith in the room, Senator Lieberman walked calmly to the podium in a crowd of Christian radio and television executives and began to state his case.

It was an extraordinarily emotional moment this fall when the Helen and Reynoud Duplessis hugged Scott Adams in gratitude for bringing them to Baltimore and helping them settle in a newly rehabbed rowhouse in West Baltimore. The Duplessis family was left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. I met the family in September, long after their harrowing journey fleeing New Orleans and living in shelters. When Reynoud Duplessis bought one-way tickets to Baltimore for his wife, Helen, and their six children, he didn't know what the future would bring.

Denver.-- Young people from the Archdiocese of Baltimore, hundreds of them, began a spiritual pilgrimage this week where the mighty beauty of the Rocky Mountains reflects God's glory. They came with the conviction that they are a part of something bigger. Here in Denver, their convictions were confirmed as they encountered crowds, a convergence of cultures and languages and the many faces of the Church.These World Youth Days teach us all. A delegation from Russia, whose own pilgrim steps brought them through Baltimore last week on the road to Denver, deeply touched our young people with their account of a Catholic community emerging from persecution.

BOSTON -- It was barely a week past the 2001 inauguration when the new president's plan to fund the "armies of compassion" was reported on the evening news with more than a touch of skepticism. The story of a White House office for faith-based initiatives was illustrated with a large cross and introduced with a question: "Is there a reason to be nervous?" This broadcast followed an election in which the three R's - religious, right and Republican - had been tightly woven. The minister at the inauguration had invoked Jesus Christ the savior, and millions of Americans, from Sikhs to Unitarians, had to choose between saying amen and feeling excluded.

Why is it that Faith No More sounds like no other band on Earth?Critics might point to the band's aural audacity, its willingness to cross genres and make connections that other bands simply couldn't imagine. On the band's current album, "King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime," note how the song "Evidence" slides from slick, Isaac Hayes funk to eerie, Ennio Morricone atmospherics without missing a step. Or look how "Star A.D." condenses two decades of movie-music cliches into a single, dazzling blur.

Miami. -- With butchers stealing gold from the jaw teeth of corpses and peeling off human skin for use as lampshades.With flakes of ash that once were women and men spewing from the smokestacks of mass crematoria and infants being tossed live from third-story windows.With hunger, privation and fear gnawing the joy from her soul, and with all the world at war, she wrote: '' . . . in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.''Sometimes, I think it's the most troubling thing anyone has ever said.

LEARNING THAT more than 6 million Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, numerous survivors understandably became atheists. For many others, their religious beliefs were surprisingly strengthened. Are those who have been subjected to the cruelties of their fellow humans also victims of their own self-delusion and manipulation by clever priests? Yes, according to philosopher Crispin Sartwell. In a Jan. 3 article sparked by reflections of a funeral for an acquaintance who committed suicide, Mr. Sartwell is dumbfounded over how otherwise rational persons still embrace religious convictions.