>> lawton: coming up: in the muslim world, the struggle between traditional islam and modern ideas. and joel hunter, the evangelical megachurch pastor who is an advisor to president obama. >> i hope along the way i could be of encouragement in the president's spiritual life. captioning sponsored by the lilly endowment

>> lawton: welcome. i'm kim lawton sitting in for bob abernethy. thank you for joining us. roman catholics this week expanded their majority on the u.s. supreme court. before leaving on its august recess, the senate confirmed sonia sotomayor as the newest supreme court justice. she's the first hispanic to serve on the high court. her confirmation means that six of the nine justices are catholic. there are also two jewish justices and one protestant. also this week, the senate confirmed miguel diaz as the ninth u.s. ambassador to the vatican. the cuban-born diaz is the first hispanic and the first theologian to hold that post.

diaz and his family will be moving to rome soon. he says he is anxious to present his credentials to his fellow theologian, pope benedict the sixteenth. two episcopal dioceses have included openly gay priests on their slates of potential new bishops. in the diocese of los angeles, a gay priest and a lesbian priest are among the six candidates to become an assistant bishop. and in the diocese of minnesota, one of the three candidates for bishop is a lesbian. elections will take place in the coming weeks. the moves come after delegates to the episcopal general convention last month voted to move forward in allowing more gay bishops. the episcopal church is the u.s. branch of the worldwide anglican communion. the communion has been wracked with division since the episcopal church approved its first openly gay bishop-- gene robinson of new hampshire-- six years ago. the american psychological association has issued new guidelines for counseling gays and lesbians who are conflicted about their sexual identity.

the a.p.a. says there is no solid evidence that therapies aimed at changing sexual orientation are effective. it urges therapists to make clear that homosexuality is not a mental disorder. however, the report also says that mental health professionals should respect the religious beliefs of their clients. and if those beliefs oppose homosexuality, the therapist should help the patients find ways to reconcile their behavior with their moral convictions. according to the report, that could include choosing celibacy or learning how to deflect sexual impulses. a wisconsin man who relied on prayer instead of medical care for his dying daughter was found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide. dale neumann testified that he believed god would heal his 11- year-old child. she died in march of undiagnosed diabetes. meanwhile, in another faith- healing case, an oregon judge sentenced carl worthington to two months in jail and five

years of probation for failing to provide medical care for his dying daughter. religious observance among american jews has dropped sharply over the last two decades, according to a new survey from trinity college in hartford, connecticut. the study found that in 2008, 37% of jews described themselves as non-religious or only culturally jewish. in 1990, 20% of jews described themselves as only culturally jewish. over half of all u.s. jews-- including those who identify themselves as religious-- said they have a secular worldview. religious leaders around the world called on pakistan's government to do a better job of protecting its minority christian population. eight christians, including women and children, were burned alive or shot to death during mob violence in eastern pakistan. the attack was apparently sparked by unsubstantiated allegations that a quran had been desecrated.

the world council of churches, the archbishop of canterbury and the pope all condemned the violence and urged greater security for pakistan's christians, who are estimated to make up less than 5% of the population. muslim clerics in nigeria have appealed for calm in the wake of sectarian violence there which killed at least 800 people. the clashes exploded after authorities moved to stop an uprising by a militant sect called boko haram. the group wants a strict version of islamic law to be imposed across nigeria. mainstream muslim and christian leaders said they had been warning the government about boko haram's views. and in sudan, a court case challenging the islamic dress code for women has captured international attention. there were public protests this week in support of lubna hussein, a former journalist and united nations employee who was arrested for wearing pants in public. hussein is being tried for violating sudan's indecency

laws. if she's convicted, she faces a punishment of 40 lashes. hussein was one of several women arrested at a restaurant last month for wearing pants. most of the other women pled guilty and were whipped at the police station. hussein decided to challenge the law. in the muslim world, there's an ongoing struggle between the beliefs and practices of traditional islam, on the one hand, and, on the other, the ideas of the modern western world. how should someone be a devout muslim in a globalized, high- tech environment? earlier this year, kate seelye traveled to cairo for this report. >> reporter: here at al azhar, one of the muslim world's oldest and most respected centers of learning and worship, muslims come to study and pray and to ask how to live a devout life in the modern world. they come for fatwas-- religious rulings that are non-binding.

clerics give advice on how to be good muslims in matters of religion, family and even finance. this vendor says fatwas are indispensable. >> ( translated ): you feel very reassured after getting a fatwa and you know you can build your future plans on it. >> reporter: but recently, some of azhar's fatwas have come under criticism. last year, a cleric ruled that an unmarried man and woman could work together alone, which is normally forbidden in islam, but only if the woman established a maternal relationship with her colleague by breastfeeding him five times. the cleric was suspended for his fatwa, which raised questions about islam's relationship with modernity. in egypt, the modern and the traditional live side by side. like other developing countries, egypt has been flooded in the last decade with new technologies, like satellite tv and the internet.

and that's exposed this conservative society to a confusing mix of western values and culture. islam online is trying to help muslims navigate this fast- changing environment. it's one of the muslim world's most popular internet sites and provides religious advice, as well as counseling and information about health, science and culture in both arabic and english. clerics, like ragab abu malih, take questions during live fatwa sessions four times a day. he says he receives more than 700 queries daily, but can only answer a fraction of them. >> ( translated ): i think if we answered the 700 questions, then more would come. people are asking questions they never had before because of new technologies and influences. >> reporter: questions include whether it's permissible to find a spouse through the internet? can a man divorce his wife in a text message? and what about internet chatting?

flirting between men and women is forbidden in islam, but can they chat online? according to clerics here, it's best if a third party monitors the chat. >> ( translated ): the qu'ran did not mention these details in their entirety, but it guides us in our advice. >> reporter: but critics question the advice being given. islam online may be using modern technology, but it's spreading a very traditional message. the cleric who founded the site, yousef qaradawi, is considered a moderate in the region. but his fatwas have opposed women traveling alone without a male guardian and he's ruled against women being heads of state. for secular muslims, like dalia ziade, such views are decidedly anti-modern. ziade is a human rights activist. the 26-year-old accuses religious institutions in egypt of spreading fundamentalist

beliefs, like the veiling of women. >> in my mother's age, when she was my age, i see her photos. it was tremendously different. it was, you know, she wore shirt skirts and she used to wear t- shirts, without sleeves, sleeveless t-shirts and nobody used to ask her or to instruct her not to wear this or wear that. >> reporter: ziade says in today's environment she has to wear a headscarf in order not to be harassed. she blames this on what she calls the growing piety movement. >> everyone now believes that if only he gets religious, all his problems will be solved. >> reporter: as part of her work, ziade's been compiling fatwas that target women. some clerics say they can't walk on the same side of the street as men. this fatwa from a high-profile islamist claims they're not fit to be judges. ziade says in this day and age, the principals of modernity should be universal.

principals like the acceptance of individual and women's rights, reason, doubt, and the separation of mosque and state. instead, she says, islamists are taking egypt back to another era. >> you know, now i can travel anywhere in the world through my internet connection. i can go to the u.s. right now and see anything there. so how come in this open communication with the whole world, i'm still in prison with these ideas? >> reporter: these ideas like... >> these fundamentalist ideas that go back 1,400 years ago. >> reporter: egyptians have always been religious, but just a few decades ago, society was far more secular. now islam is increasingly part of the public sphere. qu'ranic chants are played in taxis, restaurants and shops. signs encouraging women to wear the headscarf are plastered on walls.

the niqab, the full face covering virtually unseen in the past, is increasingly common. more and more men display prayer bumps on their foreheads. the piety trend, say analysts, is fueled by political frustration, poverty and increasing saudi influence. and it also has the support of much of egypt's middle and professional classes. ahmad abu haiba is a prominent media professional. he's launching the region's first islamic music video channel to spread faith-based values. this video is about a farmer's >> reporter: abu haiba named his station "4shebab" or "for youth" in english. he says he's using the power of satellite t.v. to help rebuild a muslim youth identity. >> we don't have a clear, stable, strong identity and that's what i'm trying to do. i'm trying to help the young people to establish their identity. this is the same identity that the prophet mohammed presented

to his companions. >> reporter: abu haiba hopes his videos will help counter some of what he says are the negative influences of western music videos and television. >> and this drove us now to drugs and relationships, which really doesn't fit with ourw culture. >> reporter: in contrast, his videos emphasize community and family values, like respect for elders. women mainly play the role of wives and mothers in the background. abu haiba says he doesn't chose to embrace the principals of modernity because they're not in keeping with islamic values. >> i don't think that modernity is part of these values. i mean, when i learn islam, i know there's a part of it that cares about people's life and people's life changes. but still always the major values and the major pillars as

it is, never change with time. modernity is something linked with time and islam is timeless. >> reporter: that view of islam is the problem today, says gamal al banna, a reformist cleric. he says islamists have a fixed reading of the qu'ran because long ago scholars banned new interpretations of the religious texts. >> ( translated ): the religious institutions tell us that innovation will lead us down the wrong path. anything that has to do with innovation is dangerous. and that's wrong. you can't say that religious opinions made over 1,000 years ago are valid for all times. we must have a revolution in the understanding of islam, a revolution almost like martin luther's. >> reporter: until then, says banna, islam will not be able to accommodate itself to the modn world. the 88-year-old has written dozens of books about the need for the renewal of islam and the

importance of the separation of he's even issued a fatwa saying muslim women don't have to cover their hair. banna says muslims must stop relying on scholars to interpret the holy texts. instead, he says, they should read the qu'ran directly keeping in minds its emphasis on knowledge and wisdom. >> ( translated ): the qu'ranic verse goes, "it was revealed to them, the qu'ran and wisdom." the search for wisdom has proven itself to be a successful experiment for all peoples and all times. we have to adapt and we have to learn from all other experiences with wisdom, so that islam isn't a closed box but it has an open window to the world. >> reporter: banna believes such reform will take place, but long after his lifetime. for "religion and ethics newsweekly," i'm kate seelye in cairo. >> lawton: one of president obama's early moves when he took office six months ago was to establish an unprecedented new council of religious and secular

leaders to advise him on faith- related social policy. evangelical megachurch pastor joel hunter from florida is part of that council. hunter is becoming an increasingly influential leader for those he calls "a new kind of conservative." i visited him at his church near orlando. it's sunday morning and people are heading to church. one might expect them to be bringing along a bible; maybe their tithes and offerings. but at northland church, just outside orlando, they're also bringing obsolete computers and printers, old stereos and other hard-to-recycle items. the evangelical megachurch has made a commitment to the environment-- what members here call "creation care." it's part of a wide-ranging social agenda championed by northland senior pastor joel hunter. he says that agenda signals a maturing of the evangelical movement. >> we like to call it "growing up." i think especially in the political realm, we went through

a phase more recently when we were known for what we were against rather than what we were for. we were pretty narrow in what we were paying attention to rather than very broad. now, that wasn't true in jesus' time, because jesus was very broad in what he did. >> lawton: like most evangelicals, hunter opposes abortion and gay marriage. but his agenda also includes the environment and issues of poverty, torture, peace and interfaith dialogue. hunter does describe himself as a "pro-life registered republican." yet, his views captured the attention of president barack obama. hunter was part of a group of religious leaders who prayed privately with obama during the campaign, and he's now a member of obama's advisory council on faith-based and neighborhood partnerships. hunter believes evangelicals have a spiritual obligation to have a positive influence wherever god places them, even if that may be among democrats. >> i hope that along the way i could be of encouragement in the president's spiritual life

because that's what a pastor does, that's what we care about. but beyond that, i'm very excited about working with a very broad spectrum of people to see how our faith communities can really solve the problems, or help solve the problems, of this country. >> i don't know where we would be without you. >> well, i don't know either. let's never find out. >> ok. >> lawton: despite his national responsibilities, hunter makes it clear that his base of operations is northland. the non-denominational church was started by 11 people in 1972. hunter, who was a united methodist pastor, came here in 1985. today, about 12,000 people attend the church every week. northland calls itself "a church distributed." >> we emphasize what goes on outside the building rather than what goes on inside the building, and we want to equip people for living great lives where they are. >> lawton: the internet helps

with that distribution. thousands of people around the world participate in the worship services through an innovative online webcast. >> so when we built this building, we built it as a communications device. and the selling point to the congregation was, "look, you're not building a building that can just seat 3,000 people at a time. we can seat three million people at a time if we have enough broadband and we have enough people who can gather around a computer screen." and for those of you who are worshipping with us online... >> let's hear from a couple of folks who worship with us online. >> somebody texted in from the last service. >> lawton: some people watch individually, others gather in small groups in people's homes, fast-food restaurants, even a prison. northland knows of alternative worship sites as far away as argentina, egypt and ukraine. as the church grew, so did hunter's vision of having an

impact on the wider culture. in july of 2006, he was chosen to be the new president of the christian coalition of america, the political advocacy group founded by pat robertson. but hunter withdrew even before he took office when it became clear that coalition members were uncomfortable with his broad issue agenda. mark pinsky is a veteran religion writer in orlando who has covered hunter for 14 years. >> even though he didn't take that job, eventually he was forced out. he really won, because the issues on which he lost his job were the right issues as far as the coming evangelical movement is concerned. >> lawton: in many ways, hunter has become a national voice for evangelicals seeking a new style of leadership. >> there is a whole new generation of young evangelicals that are coming up that really don't care about any of the labels. i mean, they could care less-- democrat republican, liberal, conservative-- they don't care. what they care about is, can we change the world for the better? >> lawton: but hunter still gets push-back from evangelical

traditionalists. >> he believes in making coalitions on an issue-by-issue basis and that puts them together with, sometimes, with people who support abortion rights for example. but there are people in the evangelical movement both in his congregation and nationally who won't do that, who won't sit down at the table with people they don't agree with on other issues. >> lawton: hunter has also made some evangelicals uncomfortable by building coalitions with people from other faiths. he's part of a project to improve dialogue between islam and the west, and he advocates building strong personal relationships with people from other religions. >> the better relationship you build, the more free you are to share with people what you really believe, and then you let god take care of the rest. it's not my job to convert people. you know? only god can move in the spirit to change somebody's heart or to establish a relationship. >> lawton: hunter raised a lot of eyebrows when he tried to show interfaith respect at the 2008 democratic national

convention. he was chosen to give the closing prayer after obama's acceptance speech. when he got to the end, he stopped and gave the crowd some instructions. >> on the count of three, i want all of you to end this prayer, your prayer, the way you usually end prayer. to make somebody or to cow somebody into silence as you pray in jesus' name, or to somehow make them seem like they're praying in jesus' name, is really a sacrilege because only christians can pray in jesus' name. one-two-three. in jesus name, amen. let's go change the world for good. >> lawton: he got some strong reactions afterward. >> on the one side, i had a wonderful encouragement especially from non-christians, you know, and from many christians who understood what i was doing.

i got raked over the coals with a lot of christians because i didn't hijack the prayer and pray it only for christians. >> lawton: there are those who worry that hunter's relationship with obama, and his position on the advisory council, could hinder the pastor's ability to speak truth to power. >> the president has made it very clear-- and this is another thing i like about him-- is he is not looking for "yes" people here. he's looking for people on this council that will have a prophetic voice and all of us made the agreement that we would not be on the council unless we could be blunt honest. >> lawton: hunter acknowledges it can be a heady thing to be inside the oval office. and he knows power can be seductive. he tries to keep it in perspective. >> the idea here that goes through my mind is that this is not the person that i'm going to be answering to. that's a way higher thing and on judgment day when i stand before god, i'm going to have to answer

to what i've said. >> lawton: hunter says his family and his church life keep him grounded. he says he doesn't seek the limelight. in fact, he really doesn't like it at all. >> i have no desire for people to really know who i am. i'm an-- you wouldn't believe this-- but i'm an introvert. you know, i could spend all day in a library and just be perfectly content as long as my wife was one stack over. >> no one is perfect, and he's not perfect. he's a man of some ambition, i think he will admit to that. but he lives his faith, he has a good family life, at least that which we can see. he doesn't live extravagantly, he's relatively modest in the way he lives his life. and with him i really believe what you see is what you get. >> i've probably trusted god more than i ever have. >> that's so great. that is so great. >> lawton: for hunter, it all comes down to a simple calculus. >> i think what i do is not so different than anybody else except maybe in different circles, but i just live my life

as best i can. and i just pray that i'll do god some good. >> lawton: i'm kim lawton in finally, maybe it doesn't hurt to branch out a little bit. geffen records, the label of rock group guns 'n roses and rapper snoop dogg has signed a new artist: pope benedict the sixteenth. geffen is putting together a new album called "alma mater," which will feature the pope singing and praying in five different languages. the pope's voice was recorded during various services at st. peter's basilica and on papal trips. it will be mixed with other background music. alma mater is set to be released on november 30, just in time for the christmas shopping season. that's our program for now. i'm kim lawton. there's much more on our web site. audio and video podcasts are also available. join us at pbs.org.

as we leave you, a children's group performs at last month's episcopal general convention. captioning sponsored by the lilly endowment captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org