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Religion historian Martin Marty puts it this way: "The mainstream Protestant laity has been roughly where the public is as long as I've known them. Barring some special factor, the laity is indistinguishable from the larger culture."

The mainline is indistinguishable from the larger culture? Hey, he said it. Not us.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Evangelicals is keeping clear of the should-we-or-shouldn't-we debate. Rich Cizik, the group's vice president of government affairs, has been one of the more hawkish voices in the religious debate lately, but a press release from new NAE president Ted Haggard calls for prayer without taking sides. "I encourage prayers for a peaceful resolution to this situation," Haggard says. "As the likelihood of armed conflict increases, I ask Americans to pray for God to protect innocent lives, give wisdom to our leaders, and advance the cause of freedom."

More on war with Iraq:

• US churches urge Blair to stop war | Sojourners spent an estimated £100,000 ($156,000) placing ads in British newspapers (The Guardian, London)
  
  
• Bush's Messiah complex | He may have discarded the word "crusade," but it's a crusade that he's on. (The Progressive)
  
  
• Church groups urge John Howard to peacefully resolve Iraq crisis | Even fundamentalist Christians such as Dr Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, remain unconvinced (The World Today, Australian Broadcasting Corp)
  
  
• Field day of doom prophets | One is stunned by the creativity the prospect of the final battle manages to stir in the virtual world of the Web. (Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI)
  
  
• Southern Baptists publicly support war | Among the nation's major religious orders, only the Southern Baptist Convention publicly supports war with Iraq (The Daily News, Galveston County, Tex.)
  
  
• Jeeeee-hawd! Bush's war cry? | After reading a load of Bush's speeches and interviews when he has talked about God and Iraq in the same breath, I see a guy who prays for strength and counsel and who has a religious faith that good will triumph, somehow. I don't see a guy who thinks he's God's personal agent. (Dick Meyer, CBS News)
  
  
• Religious groups go online for peace | Groups representing Christians, Jews and Muslims are using the Internet to express antiwar sentiments and, in some cases, rally support for the broader peace movement (The Washington Post)
  
  
• Iraqi Christians fear post-Saddam Islamists | Iraq's Christian minority fears that religious tolerance may be an unintended casualty of any U.S.-led war to topple President Saddam Hussein (Reuters)
  
  
• Sermons of 1776, with a spirit of 2003 | Members of the First Presbyterian Church in Greenwich Village have discovered two sermons dating from the Revolutionary War  (The New York Times)
  
  
• Also: A battle cry for revolution | In a sermon excerpted here and dated Jan. 14, 1776, the Rev. John Rodgers, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New York, issued a call to arms (The New York Times)

Persecution and violence:

• Christians brace for more hits | One year after a suicide bomber killed four worshippers in a Christian church in Islamabad, church leaders warned on Monday that a war on Iraq could trigger more deadly attacks against the Christian minority (The Daily Times, Pakistan)
  
  
• Also: Fears for Pakistani Christians (BBC)
  
  
• No particular concern | Leaving Saudi Arabia off the list of countries that have "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom" is a particular affront to fact and logic (Editorial, The Washington Post)
  
  

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March (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47