Christian Century: Century marks - a collection of news snippets and ponderings on various topics

GRACE UPON GRACE: Biblical scholars have long debated whether the Bible has a thematic center or literary unity. Acknowledging the risk of oversimplification, J. Clinton McCann Jr. summarizes the plot of the Bible this way: "Sinners do not get what they deserve," which is "precisely what grace means." Unless we perceive this single plot, we are "in danger of missing the simple but profound biblical message that God is essentially, characteristically, and fundamentally gracious." McCann maintains that a hermeneutics of grace is needed as a corrective to the use of the Bible as "an instrument of hatred, discrimination, self-congratulation, and exclusion." This is a hermeneutic which yields an ethic of gracious living toward others: "only when we interpret by grace will we live by grace" (Interpretation, January).

YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR, YOUR SKILLED: Much of the world may resent the United States, but people still want to come live here. About 800,000 a year, in fact, are illegally entering the country. James Ziglar, outgoing commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, thinks that American immigration policy is schizophrenic, torn between the extremes of the open-door policy and xenophobic exclusion. Although Ziglar's tenure was brief (less than two years), he sparked a fresh look at policy. For instance, he recommended the formation of Immigration Education Centers to teach English and civics to immigrants. Without such a program, he argued, immigrants don't assimilate into the mainstream. He also proposed that longer-term immigrants should be encouraged to become naturalized. "Why not ask immigrants to make a permanent commitment to our country after some reasonable time?" he asked. Recognizing that corporate America needs immigrants for the labor force, he also proposed industry co-ops, based on a Canadian model. The co-ops would make a good-faith effort first to find American workers, but then would recruit and train foreign laborers, based on skills and needs. Ziglar will continue to promote his innovative perspectives on immigration as a fellow at Harvard's JFK School of Government (Georgie Anne Geyer, Chicago Tribune, February 25).

PRAYER CHAIN: The Internet is increasingly becoming a medium for prayer. People send out prayer requests by e-mail, prayer instruction can be found online, and numerous Web sites enlist prayer support for a multitude of concerns. Prayer requests can be placed at such sites as dailyguideposts.com; volunteers log on to pray for the requests posted there. And virtual "prayer circles" are organized at beliefnet.com. About 15,000 have participated in the past three years. Some doubt, however, whether Internet prayer will replace the old-fashioned kind. "If we're talking about prayer and not simply human sharing," says Don E. Saliers of Candler School of Theology, "you need a living community.... The Internet becomes a surrogate for that so long as we don't think that rambling on about concerns is the same as prayer" (Washington Post, March 2).

LET'S DANCE: When evangelical Wheaton College recently changed its Statement of Responsibilities to allow student dancing and to give faculty and graduate students the freedom to drink alcohol or smoke when off campus, the initial reaction from its conservative constituency was predictable. Responses ran 2-1 against the change, and many threatened to withhold support. However, prospective students must like the change: applications are higher than they've ever been (www.wheaton.edu/welcome/cov/).

GULF WAR I: Doug Rokke, a forensic scientist with a Ph.D. in health physics, was assigned to prepare soldiers for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare in the first gulf war. The immediate Americah casualties in that war were relatively few (294 dead, a little over 400 wounded), but the longer-term effects have been staggering: 221,000 veterans from that war have been put on disability, according to the Veteran Affairs department. Many of the casualties were the result of contamination from depleted uranium (DU) used in munitions from friendly fire. DU is particularly effective in weapons used to penetrate tanks because of the heavy weight of its metal. But it was also used in Iraq to destroy Saddam's stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, releasing contamination on American soldiers and others in the region. The half life of uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years, and according to Rokke the U.S. military left more than 320 tons of it all over Iraq (Yes! Magazine, Spring).

HOT FORECAST: Some say the world will end in ice. But Andrei Linde, cosmologist from Stanford University, thinks it will end in fire. He foresees a terminal "Big Crunch, in which everything collapses to a fantastically hot, dense dot." It could happen 10 billion years from now, which puts the universe past middle age (Discover, January).

EUPHEMISTICALLY SPEAKING: The 1990s won't be known as the Age of Affluence, but rather as the Age of Euphluence. Before running for your dictionary, euphluence is a neologism constructed by wordsmith William Safire to describe the tendency to cloak reality in euphemisms. Artificial flowers are now permanent flowers, jungles are rain forests, a sale is a special purchase, illegitimacy or out-of-wedlock is rendered as nonmarital birth, a prostitute turns into a sex worker and a gun is a home-protection weapon. Imagine a robber saying: "Don't move, I have a home-protection weapon!" (Watching My Language: Adventures in the Word Trade, Random House).

TRAVEL ADVISORY: Delta Airlines is testing homeland security software in three undisclosed airports to do background checks on passengers' criminal, banking and credit records. The background checks result in a green, yellow or red rating. Those with a red rating will not be permitted to fly. The Bush administration is considering use of this screening software throughout the country by the end of 2003 (utne.com, March 17).

THE `VIRTUES' OF VICE: Socially responsible mutual funds stay away from companies whose products, practices and policies are offensive to their investors. The offenses may be gambling or weapons production, unfair labor practices or environmental pollution. Now there is VICE Fund, which specializes in tobacco, spirits, guns and gambling stocks. According to its prospectus, "It is our philosophy that although often considered politically incorrect, these and similar industries and products ... will continue to experience significant capital appreciation during good and bad markets. We consider these industries to be nearly `recession-proof.'" The managers quote Abraham Lincoln, who said: "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues" (VICE.com).