What makes a Christian is a popular question these days. As one who is usually counted out, I try to avoid participating in the calculation. That is more a moral than an academic sentiment, however. It asks for courtesy in granting others equal opportunity for self definition and not merely religiously.

But, we academics are category folk: we box things in to examine them more closely. We may not keep our boxes once our examination is through, but it is hard to think without them. Even the much lauded “thinking outside the box” requires the existence of a box, no? So, for the sake of answering the question, I would say that – for me – the Christian box contains those who believe that humankind is saved through the merits and mercy of Jesus Christ. As for what “saved” means, that happens outside my box. There, in an unboxable conversation, the issues are legion and, not least, concern whether salvation includes a literal, physical resurrection for Jesus and, through him, for the world. Christians over the centuries have disagreed about this and, based on the extant texts of the New Testament, equally rational interpretations reach opposite conclusions.

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Obviously, as shown by yet another case of a death sentence for speech considered an insult to the Prophet Muhammad, some Muslims hold beliefs that preclude certain kinds of speech. And, yes, the death penalty has a distinctly chilling effect on free speech.

It cannot be said, however, that all Muslims do or that Islam in general does preclude such freedom. Neither can it be said that only Islam has this problem with some of its proponents. A similar variety of response to heresy and insult has historically characterized Christianity. Even today, many Christian communities censure, shun, shame, disfellowship, and excommunicate those deemed a threat to the faithful. Thankfully, burning people at the stake has fallen out of fashion.

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The Latter-day Saints buried their prophet on Saturday. Thousands attended the service in person and millions more faithful watched in chapels around the globe, as well as on the internet. What they saw was an unusually personal ceremony for a very public man who led and to large degree defined the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Notwithstanding the numbers and titles of participants, Gordon Hinckley’s funeral was a family affair both in word and sacrament. It was an extraordinary display of what makes Mormonism tick.

Gordon Bitner Hinckley died at the age of 97, having been in the church’s leading councils since 1958 and served as its fifteenth president since 1995. He shaped the church through a half century of growth in 160 countries. A third of its present membership joined during his tenure as president. His counsel to them was more practical than sublime: be better neighbors, stand a little taller, and choose the right. He was much loved for living these virtues. Displaying remarkable vigor late in life, he traveled to meet church members on every continent, responding to their needs with curricular, welfare, and building programs whose costs are impossible to imagine and no one will admit.

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After nearly thirty years of overt pandering to and exploitation of religious fear and sentiment, the Republicans have unleashed the dogs of sectarianism on one of their own and probably their strongest candidate. As a Democrat, I confess that such self-destructive behavior is gratifying. As a Latter-day Saint, it’s not that much fun to watch. I have fantasies of sending the dogs back on self-proclaimed “Christian leader” Huckabee. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjtGgfhKIvo. But, two wrongs do not make right. Which point gets me back to Mr. Romney and his speech and the difficulty of running with the pack.

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The common definition of cult is captured in the common joke: my faith is a religion, yours is a sect and that guy over there whom we don’t like, well, his is a cult.

In its more scholarly usage the term tries to measure socio-cultural distance. The greater the mismatch of the customs between believers and their host culture, the more likely the believers are deemed somewhere on the spectrum between sectarian to cultish.

This doesn’t capture the negative connotations of the word cult, however. The Amish, notwithstanding their oddly old-fashioned and standoffish ways are, today, never referred to as a cult. The Latter-day Saints, notwithstanding their modern ways and successful integration with their host societies throughout the world, are frequently called a cult.

Obviously, then, separation from culture is not the definitive aspect of cult. Rather, the word has become a means of asserting separation, even if it doesn’t exist. Cult asserts religious difference in value-laden terms at the expense of one religion and for the benefit of another. Cult is a way of saying “you are not like us, the good guys, and don’t you forget it.”

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What else is there to say to religious extremists besides “no”? No, you are wrong. No, whatever merit there might have been to your aspirations or your complaint, your violent means have nullified it. No, you will fail eventually, as do all who attempt to coerce the conscience. However much these words need to be said to those who murdered 2,974 people on a single day six years ago and are still committing mayhem, I am not that someone. These words need to be said within Islam, by Muslims to extremist Muslims; just as they need to be said within all human communities oriented to an ideal – religious or secular. In religious matters, too, we must think globally, but act locally, if we are to have any effect.

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The question “why do bad things happen to good or even not-so-good people” seems especially if not uniquely well suited to harass theists of all stripes. But, nobody has the answer to this question; only ways of thinking about it. Mostly we prefer not to think about it. Life is too often and casually assaulted, crippled and lost to bear much scrutiny. Everyday horrors, the vast majority of which do not make the nightly news, much less get an anniversary observance, are the rationalist’s evidence of God’s absence. Faith’s only reply is irrational hope and disciplined endurance oriented to succoring those in need.

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It neither makes me think less, nor more of Mother Teresa that she doubted. It does, however, remind me of the integrity of her commitment -- her fidelity or, yes, faithfulness -- to a life oriented to God, even the imitation of Christ. Indeed, the discovery that Mother Teresa sometimes doubted and despaired may be best understood as a necessary dimension of that imitation and the “taking up of [her] cross,” as the Gospels describe discipleship. It was, after all, Christ who exclaimed on his cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In these words, lament is joined to Christian faith and informs the command to “endure to the end.”

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Pope Benedict’s preference for the Latin Mass is a good way to enter the question of what makes for good worship. I like the Latin Mass. I love the combination of sound, sight and scent that is the medieval rite in a cathedral setting.

But, I am not a Catholic and I do not rely on the rite as an instrument of grace. Rather, I appreciate it as art: art that stirs, not saves my soul. The Eucharist is, however, the central rite of salvation for billions of worshipers. What is it that communicates to its participants the hope of salvation, even immediate divine presence, and what impedes it? My Tennessee neighbors drive considerable distance from the parish around the corner to attend a Vietnamese mass. They are not Vietnamese and as close as he has gotten to Asia in his 92 years was Guadalcanal. So, why not Latin?

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Few words in religion are as ironic as “pagan” and that’s saying a lot. Stung by Jewish accusations that they were Pagans (for having two gods) and intent on theologizing their differences from the Roman cult, the followers of Jesus eventually succeeded in folding him into their mother’s milk of Jewish monotheism. He was spooned into the mix by the formulaic categories of Greek philosophy and the heresy-slaying councils of Christendom.

The determinedly triune dogma of traditional Christianity was made more rigid by Protestantism’s turn in the kitchen. Demonstrating an even greater jealousy on their god’s behalf, Protestants evicted the saints, as well as broke altars and images. Even the Americans, who despised creeds in favor of “Bible words for Bible things,” could not cut this cream out of their diet, but have kept whipping it through the centuries. God’s singularity and radical unrelatedness to creation defined his sovereignty and his sovereignty was the measure of his power to save.

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I can answer a very qualified yes to the first question; so qualified that some may think it’s a no. The picture of post moral life is, for me as a Latter-day Saint, much more complex than the two-sizes-fits-all tradition of heaven or hell. And, whatever “hellish” options there are, they are slim to none for virtually all of us. In sum, I subscribe to the sentiments of KJV John that in the next world “there are many mansions” or habitations for the resurrected soul – with emphasis not only on the “many,” but also the “mansions.”

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