As their ranks swell, Hispanic immigrants are seen as slow to assimilate into American society.

Abraham Gonzalez came from Mexico at age 17 to pick crops in Idaho. He became a U.S. citizen 12 years ago — but only to avoid paying renewal fees on his green card.

He has never registered to vote. Members of his family who are eligible to become citizens or to vote have not done so.

The Fort Worth family illustrates many Hispanic immigrants’ experience in the U.S.: intensely focused on work but not as involved in other aspects of American life.

While some who study immigration say that Hispanics are integrating into U.S. society, a number of others agree that today’s Hispanic immigrants are not assimilating as quickly as previous immigrants.

But they disagree about whether the trend is harmful.

By 2050, the number of Hispanics in America will be triple what it was in 2005, jumping from 14 percent to 29 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center of Washington, D.C., which studies the growth of America’s Latino population.

The numbers are even higher in Texas, where Hispanics already make up more than a third of the population.

The large influx allows Hispanics to hold onto their culture and language longer than the last great wave of immigrants did a century ago, experts say.

Current immigrants confront challenges different from those of the early 20th century, when immigrants assimilated into a largely low-skilled society. They compete in a more educated work force and in a climate of low wage growth for workers on the bottom rungs.

Further hindering assimilation, many Latin Americans are from cultures where the lack of trust in people outside the family keeps them from full participation in society.

The result is a bitter debate at every level of American society — from cities like Farmers Branch, which is trying to ban illegal immigrants from renting apartments in the city, to state and U.S. capitals, where lawmakers fight over whether to help illegal immigrants fit in or to force them out.

The debate

American history is full of immigrant groups taking a turn as persona non grata. Benjamin Franklin hated German immigrants. America’s first significant restrictions on immigration targeted once-detested Asians with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Irish immigrants seeking work were met with signs telling them they need not apply.

Today, German immigrants’ descendants are indistinguishable from other white Americans. Asians are celebrated as a “model minority” for their academic achievements and now make up the largest share of immigrants coming to the U.S. on student visas. Irish-Americans fly Irish flags at St. Patrick’s Day parades without any of the invective that’s heaped on Latinos for waving Mexican flags at immigration rallies.

But Hispanics have been slower to assimilate than these past immigrant groups, says Jake Vigdor, and the numbers show it. The associate professor of public policy and economics at Duke University in North Carolina measured indicators such as the ability to speak English, educational attainment, military enlistment and rates of becoming citizens.

An assimilation index he put together found Mexico far behind other countries that also send lots of immigrants to the U.S. Mexico scored 13 on the index. Canada had the highest score, 53. Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines scored more than 40.

“That is troubling,” Vigdor said. “What really distinguishes Mexican immigrants from other immigrants both past and present is that they don’t make a lot of progress over time.”

Lawrence Harrison, director of the Cultural Change Institute at Tufts University in Massachusetts, said Hispanics are too resistant to assimilation to make it in America.

“Latin American culture has a number of attitudes that help explain why it has been so slow to develop democracy, social justice and prosperity,” Harrison said.

Harrison, who is fluent in Spanish from decades of work as a U.S. government aid worker in five Latin American countries, said that Hispanic immigrants are hardworking but that they lack the entrepreneurial, small-business-founding tendencies that turn other immigrant groups into success stories.

Stanford University historian David Kennedy said the idea that the newest immigrant group doesn’t have the right background to fit in has been heard many times before.

“Many other groups have been perceived in their historical moment as so culturally distant from the norm that they were not thought to be assimilating. In fact, all of them assimilated,” Kennedy said.

The Gonzalez example

The Gonzalez family is an example of both immigrant progress and slowness to participate in American life. Abraham and his wife, Isabel, have seven children, some legal permanent residents, some U.S. citizens by birth.

Friendly, hardworking, honest, religious and family-oriented, they are the type of people most organizations or societies would want.

But other than an unshakable commitment to the Catholic Church and an intense participation in the job market, the Gonzalezes are involved in few other aspects of American life.

Abraham, an electrician and head of the household, became a citizen in 1996.

Life with the proper paperwork became easier, but his lifestyle changed little. He continued going to work early every day and to church every Sunday but took little interest in what else America had to offer.

Abraham’s 28-year-old daughter Yldefonsa Flores said voting does not interest her father.

“He feels like it doesn’t matter: Whatever you vote, your vote doesn’t count,” she said.

His 15-year-old daughter Monica said her parents “don’t even know the difference between” the two presidential candidates.

Missing church is unthinkable, but the family participates in few community activities, no civic groups and, for all its children, few school programs. So deep is the family’s piety that, when one daughter graduated as valedictorian of her high school class in 2000, she passed up college scholarships and became a nun.

While the family’s participation is nearly nonexistent in areas outside church, it is robust in the work force. Everybody of age works, except for Abraham’s wife, Isabel, who gets up at 4 a.m. to make and pack her husband’s lunch and spends the day watching her grandchildren while their parents work.

A study from the University of California at Los Angeles found that the strong emphasis on work is typical among Mexicans in the U.S., often at the expense of an education.

“School enrollment is lowest among first-generation Mexicans. . . . On the other hand, the group least likely to be in school, foreign-born Mexicans, is also the group most likely to be at work: 80 percent of men in this group hold a job. . . . Mexican young adult men work at the highest rates of all,” 89 percent, according to “Second-Generation Mexicans: Getting Ahead or Falling Behind?,” a paper by UCLA sociologist Roger Waldinger and UCLA graduate student Renee Reichl.

This huge commitment to work is what Abraham’s 20-year-old daughter Isabel continually brings up when she expresses annoyance with anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic voices.

“Yeah, we might not have an education, but we’re working,” she said. “Is there something wrong for us to come and work?”

Although she was born and raised in the U.S., Isabel said she identifies more with Mexican culture.

“I come from here, but this is a big country, and they have traditions over there that my parents told me on their knee” as she was growing up, she said.

Slow progress

Whether that sentiment or other factors are hampering Hispanic progress, just about everyone agrees that there are causes for concern.

“Enrollment is lowest among first-generation Mexicans, among whom only 40 percent are in school,” the UCLA study says. “Mexican immigrants are just as disadvantaged at the turn of the century as they were three decades before.”

Joel Perlmann studied school enrollment, employment rates, income and other data to write Italians Then, Mexicans Now. Data show that Mexican immigrants take longer to progress in the U.S. than southern, central, eastern, non-Jewish European immigrants did about 100 years ago, the 2005 book says.

But Perlmann counters his own research with two statements:

First, so what if it takes longer than the immigrants of yesteryear? They’ll still make it, and there’s no reason to believe that the romanticized immigrants of Ellis Island have to be the measure of all things.

And second, don’t blame today’s low-skilled immigrants; they’re trying to get ahead in an economy where wage growth is much more sluggish than it was 100 years ago and labor unions don’t have nearly the strength to help immigrants as they did in the past.

The Gonzalezes, like many immigrants, offer an example of economic advancement when their lot in life is compared not with others but with where they came from.

Abraham and his wife grew up in poor Mexican villages without electricity or running water. Abraham was a migrant farmworker in his first years in the U.S. But things have improved greatly. The couple have owned their own home for 18 years. One daughter took some college classes, and another is taking community college classes.

A matter of trust

Paola Sapienza said Mexicans and the Italian immigrants of several generations ago might be alike when it comes to trust in others.

The native Italian and associate professor of finance at Northwestern University in Illinois said Italian immigrants, coming from a dysfunctional society, trusted no one except family and didn’t have the confidence in others needed to participate in society. She said this slowed their progress in America and might do the same for Hispanic immigrants.

She pointed to World Values Survey data showing that Latin Americans have less trust in others than most other nationalities.

Narciso Flores, a third-generation Mexican-American who is Abraham’s son-in-law and Yldefonsa’s husband, expressed such distrust with Hispanics and others.

When Flores was young and struggling to make ends meet, he lived in a house crowded with illegal immigrant workers. He liked and respected them but did not trust them. Flores said he hid his Social Security card and other papers from his roommates.

As Flores talked about how he progressed to better jobs and homeownership, it was clear that a sentiment of distrust lingered. He socializes almost exclusively with Hispanics, and although he counts his non-Hispanic co-workers as friends, he does not fully trust them.

“I got friends at work, but it’s not like I’m going to bring them home,” he said.

Sapienza said trust in others leads to more group participation, which strengthens communities. For the individual, it could mean new contacts, new allies, new opportunities.

For example, Yldefonsa took her stepson to Pee Wee football, and the participation led to a new opportunity.

She met a bank manager who hired her away from her fast-food-restaurant job because she needed a bilingual teller.

Several of her younger siblings said they got jobs in retail stores that needed people who could communicate with Spanish-speaking customers.

Language and traditions

Harrison said such efforts to accommodate Spanish speakers are wrong and prove that assimilation is not taking place.

“The problem is there’s never been any [other] immigrant group that’s accounted for even close to 15 percent of our national population,” Harrison said. “It’s so easy now to speak Spanish, particularly because of the concentration” of Spanish speakers in American cities.

A study released by the Pew Hispanic Center last year found that three-quarters of Hispanic immigrants do not speak English well. But the second generation is bilingual and the third generation barely speaks Spanish, the study found.

That parallels the Gonzalez family. Abraham does not speak English well. His wife does not speak it at all. His children speak it perfectly.

Abraham said he has trouble understanding his youngest child, 5-year-old Jesus, because he is so attuned to the English-speaking world at school and on television.

“The smallest doesn’t speak Spanish very well,” Abraham said. “He understands me, but I don’t understand him.”

The children watch mostly English television shows, but they speak Spanish with their parents and often help them translate.

Isabel, the daughter who said she identifies with Mexican culture, said people are sometimes rude to her and her family for speaking Spanish in public.

A gas station attendant asked her mother for her identification when there was a problem with the pump, and a customer yanked a clothing item out of her hand when she spoke Spanish to someone else.

“When I am at work and I speak Spanish, some people look at me like, ‘Why are you speaking Spanish?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I can speak both languages, and it’s a free country, you know,’ ” Isabel said.

She talked appreciatively of her parents’ efforts to tell the children about life in Mexico and to preserve Mexican traditions such as quinceañeras, special birthday parties for 15-year-old girls.

Some see these as ties that hamper assimilation, but Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said there’s no rule that says people can’t honor their home traditions and embrace their new country.

“To imply that you can’t teach multiculturalism and love of America is rubbish,” he said. “I don’t think it’s any accident that we’re a nation of immigrants and we’re also the world’s foremost superpower.”

Hopeful signs

Wilkes is among those who say plenty of evidence shows that Hispanic immigrants are integrating into American life.

In July, government figures showed a nearly 50 percent increase in Mexican immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship compared with the previous year. Anti-illegal-immigration efforts have propelled many Hispanics into politics to protect their kin, and both presidential candidates have tried to woo Latinos.

Michael Fix, a senior vice president of the Migration Policy Institute in New York, said Latinos might register to vote less than groups such as Asians, but those who are registered vote at higher rates than Asians.

For his own part, Narciso Flores sees hope for the future in the unity of the Gonzalezes, a family so religious that they demanded he get baptized as a Catholic before he could marry their daughter.

He said their traditional Mexican family values give them a strong support system for making it in life.

“This family is pretty strong. When things go wrong, they work things out. They try to advise each other about what’s right,” he said. “A lot of people don’t have that.”

Hispanics in America

America’s largest minority group and fastest-growing ethnic group lags behind others in some aspects of American life.

College enrollment

Forty-five percent of young Hispanics were enrolled in college in 2006, compared with 49 percent of blacks and 61 percent of Anglos.

Teenage births

Hispanics ages 15 to 19 had the highest birthrate of any group in 2005. There were nearly 105 such births per 1,000 for Hispanics, 61 for blacks and 26 for Anglos.

Becoming citizens

In 2005, only 10 to 30 percent of eligible Mexican immigrants became U.S. citizens, compared with 50 to 65 percent of European immigrants and 65 to 70 percent of Asian immigrants. Mexican immigrant applications for citizenship jumped nearly 50 percent last year, partly because of Hispanic organizations’ push for citizenship and a rush of people trying to apply before higher fees took effect.

Civic involvement

Less than a third of Hispanics volunteered for neighborhood or civic groups, compared with 38 percent of blacks and 40 percent of Anglos.

sources: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. census, U.S. Defense Department, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics, Pew Center on the States, Afterschool Alliance, Barna Research Group

Saturday’s open house and other outreach efforts reflect mosque leaders’ attempts to put controversy behind them with careful mediation among disputing members.

ARLINGTON — Leaders of the Islamic Society of Arlington thought they had finally healed their fractured mosque.

A battle over the ouster of a controversial spiritual leader had cooled. The high-profile trial of a former mosque member who worked for Osama bin Laden was coming to a close.

And attendance at the 600-member mosque was returning to normal.

Then hijacked planes slammed into the Pentagon, World Trade Center towers and a Pennsylvania field.

The terrorist attacks that set every mosque in the nation on edge hit particularly hard at the Center Street mosque, resurrecting ghosts of former members who put it in the national spotlight when their ties to bin Laden were revealed.

“Before Sept. 11, the community was congealing. They were coming together. Attendance was at an all-time high,” mosque President Najam Khan said.

Mosque leaders quickly and publicly denounced the attacks. They presented $40,000 to the Red Cross for the Sept. 11 victims. The new imam, or spiritual leader, said he wants to visit area churches to talk about Islam. And on Saturday, the mosque is hosting an open house.

The open house aims to debunk stereotypes about Islam. But some say the event also is designed to restore the reputation of Tarrant County’s largest mosque.

“This mosque is going extra steps because we were in the limelight for some time,” said Hanif Akuly, who has been worshipping at the Islamic Society of Arlington for more than 10 years.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has encouraged mosques to hold open houses, and Mohamed Elmougy, president of CAIR’s Fort Worth-Dallas chapter, said an open house is particularly important for the Center Street mosque.

“I think that mosque really has a bigger obligation to open their doors,” Elmougy said. “We’re here as Americans, and it is an obligation on us as Muslims to educate the general public who we are, otherwise we have no excuses. That’s the lessons that we’ve learned.”

A National Case

The Islamic Society of Arlington, commonly known as the Center Street mosque, grew out of the Muslim community at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Construction of the house of worship was completed in 1989, and Moataz al-Hallak became its first imam.

As the city’s only mosque for nearly a decade, it flourished, attracting immigrants representing every corner of the Muslim world: North Africa, the Middle East, India and Asia. Services are conducted in Arabic, and Islamic education is available for all age groups.

Sajjad Haider, a Muslim who started attending the mosque when he was a student at UT-Arlington, said he gets up at 4:30 a.m. and drives from Mansfield to join fellow Muslims in prayer at the Center Street mosque.

“It gives you very a spiritual, clean mind when you leave from the mosque,” Haider said. He said it is more meaningful for him to pray with his fellow Muslims.

Khan said the mosque’s first priority is to promote Islam and teach local Muslims about their religion.

Ihsan Bagby, lead researcher on a study of American mosques that was released this year, said Islamic houses of worship have a special place in this country.

“The mosque in America, unlike the mosque in the Muslim world, serves as the community center in the Muslim community. … It is where Muslims worship, but more so it is where they socialize,” Bagby said.

A severe test for Arlington’s bastion of Islam started after Wadih el Hage, a Lebanese convert to Islam, moved here from Kenya in 1997. El Hage, bin Laden’s former personal secretary, moved to Arlington after the FBI, working with Kenyan officials, confiscated papers and a computer from his home and reportedly advised his wife to leave the country.

Federal scrutiny of el Hage intensified after truck bombs ripped through the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He was subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in New York that was investigating the terrorist attacks, believed to be the work of bin Laden.

El Hage subsequently was arrested and a lengthy legal process began, involving several Arlington Muslims, including al-Hallak.

Al-Hallak and Khader Ibrahim, el Hage’s former boss at a Fort Worth tire shop, testified before a grand jury, and Essam al-Ridi, another member of the mosque, testified at the trial.

The 76-day trial led to el Hage’s conviction on charges of conspiracy to kill Americans. Before being sentenced to life in prison last month, el Hage proclaimed his innocence. His statement drew sympathy from some in Arlington’s Muslim community.

“A lot of people know him. They know what kind of person he is. He’s a really peaceful person,” said Abdullah Jibaly, a mosque member who said he’s among many who believe el Hage is innocent.

During el Hage’s trial, FBI agents began contacting members of the mosque. FBI spokeswoman Lori Bailey said the contacts were routine community outreach efforts.

Al-Hallak’s attorney, Stanley Cohen, said his client believes the agents were meddling and sowing seeds of division.

Tarrant County Medical Examiner Dr. Nizam Peerwani, an original member of the mosque who has since moved on to become head of a Fort Worth Islamic school, said the trial hurt the mosque.

“I think the reputation was somewhat damaged because of what took place,” Peerwani said. “But I think the Muslims in Tarrant County do know now that the mosque is pretty stable, and they’re willing to support the mosque, and they’re willing to associate with the mosque.”

Internal disputes

While el Hage was facing legal problems, the mosque administration decided not to renew al-Hallak’s contract as imam.

Former Chairman Hasan Ali said it was because of poor performance, but he would not elaborate. The administration filed a civil suit against al-Hallak and his supporters, seeking a court order to temporarily restrain them from a host of disruptive activities, from allegedly assaulting and threatening board members to tampering with mail. The case is expected to be dismissed Nov. 15.

Supporters say al-Hallak was espousing a traditional interpretation of Islam, but his critics contend he was a divisive leader guilty of favoritism. Al-Hallak eventually gave up his fight to stay on as imam and moved to Maryland.

Main Al-Qudah, a 32-year-old who had lectured on Islamic studies in Saudi Arabia, was hired to replace al-Hallak, a new board was elected, and the new leaders set about trying to heal the wounds.

The first step was to ban all feuding and controversial members from leadership positions. Only those deemed Islamic scholars by the mosque’s religious leaders would be allowed to speak.

Further mediation laid the groundwork for a panel – yet to be formed – to hear banned members’ pleas to be eligible for leadership roles again.

Khan and Al-Qudah said these steps, attempts to carry on the normal work of running a mosque and the simple passage of time, had helped mend the rifts.

“There was a dispute and argument here … but now everything is OK,” Al-Qudah said.

Jibaly, who is named as a defendant along with al-Hallak in the civil suit, said the disputing parties now greet each other, but have little else to say.

Sept. 11

Sept. 11 put the mosque under intense media scrutiny once again. The FBI was looking for al-Hallak for questioning. The former imam, who sometimes visits Arlington, was leading prayers at the Center Street mosque two days before the terrorist attacks.

One of al-Hallak’s supporters, Mohamed Abdo of Arlington, was arrested in a national dragnet of people the FBI wanted to question about the attacks. Abdo, a defendant in the civil suit, is being held on immigration charges in Denton County Jail. He and his wife have declined interview requests.

Members worried that their mosque would become a target of hate crimes. They are installing surveillance cameras.

Mosque leaders have publicly denounced the attacks.

“We don’t encourage any kind of terrorism,” Al-Qudah said. Islamic law requires Muslims here to obey U.S. laws, he said, because they have accepted visas or become citizens.

Al-Qudah said he’s tried to maintain a sense of normalcy in the mosque since the attacks and will try to do Islam justice at Saturday’s open house.

Khan hopes the open house will put the controversial days further in the past.

“We’re trying to get away from that,” Khan said. “Instead of focus on any internal politics, focus on the faith.”

Teachers would use the Bible as a secular text to teach Western culture under a bill in the House.

AUSTIN — The Book of Joshua commands that one meditate on the Bible “day and night.” A bill before the Texas House offers something a little less time-consuming: an elective high school class.

The bill’s author, Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, said learning about the Bible is necessary to understanding America and Western culture.

“We need for people to know why we are the sort of country we are,” said Chisum, who teaches Sunday school at a Baptist church. “We ought to know where we come from and why we do what we do.”

The bill instructs teachers to teach the Bible from a secular point of view, Chisum said. No text other than the Bible would be required, according to the bill. School districts and students could chose which version to use, and teachers would not need special training, Chisum said.

Bible classes would be offered in the next school year if the bill becomes law.

Opponents question whether the Bible can be treated like another textbook in public, secular schools and whether teachers can offer unbiased instruction in a subject they may know only from their own religious backgrounds.

“Without the training, without the financial support they need [for training], school districts across Texas are going to be riddled with lawsuits,” said John Ferguson, a Baptist minister and constitutional scholar at Howard Payne University in Brownwood. “Everyone would rather you spend your money on textbooks and teachers rather than attorneys and court fees.”

Ferguson spoke at a news conference organized by the Texas Freedom Network, which often clashes with social conservatives on religious issues.

Kathy Miller, president of the network, said the bill would needlessly put the schools in the crosshairs of the culture wars.

“I’m concerned the bill can be used to play politics with God or to grandstand about the Bible,” she said.

Her group wants much tighter controls written into the bill to ensure that teacher training and scholarly reviews keep instruction secular to avoid trampling on religious instruction that parents might be nurturing at home.

Last year, the network produced a report on the effects of Texas’ existing law, which allows school districts the option of having a class on the Bible. The study found that only 25 of the more than 1,000 school districts offered a Bible class.

“Of those 25 school districts, 22 would not pass legal muster,” said Mark Chancey, assistant religion professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and author of the report. He said one teacher had a presentation titled “God’s roadmap for your life” that included a slide reading, “Jesus Christ is the one and only way.”

“This can be taught in a way that rips communities apart,” Chancey said.

But Ron Flowers thinks the bill might lead to students learning about the Bible in an enlightened way. Flowers, a retired professor of religion at Texas Christian University, still teaches a course on church-state relations there.

“I think the idea of teaching the Bible as literature, as a source of historical information and the like is not only constitutional, but a good idea,” Flowers said. “The Bible is a source of a tremendous amount of literary references. It’s the basis for a lot of historic references. It’s been a very formative document in Western history, and for students to be able to understand history and literature and the like, studying the Bible seems to be a good thing.”

Flowers said he thought Chisum’s bill is written well enough to stand up in court.

Terry Ann Kelly of Grapevine, whose children attend Grapevine-Colleyville schools, said she supports the bill.

“It’s really just teaching a book that has had an incredible influence not only in America but in the world,” said Kelly, who founded Students Standing Strong, a group of teachers and students that promotes Christianity. “I think it’s amazing that we haven’t spent more time teaching about a book that’s had so much influence worldwide.”

The Rev. Benjamin Cole, pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, said he is wary about having untrained teachers take on the job of teaching Scripture.

“I cannot agree with a prescription that thrusts the handling of those texts by teachers who will be, in many circumstances, as biblically illiterate as the students they purport to teach,” Cole said.

What makes someone a Christian? A local pastor thinks he knows, and George Gallup Jr. is listening.

The New Jersey-based Gallup Organization plans to conduct a nationwide poll early next year based on the Christian Life Profile, a spiritual assessment test developed by the Rev. Randy Frazee, pastor of Pantego Bible Church in Fort Worth.

The George S. Gallup International Institute, with Gallup as chairman, will coordinate the nationwide poll using about 30 of the 120 questions from the profile.

“I think it’s something that will work for the broad spectrum of Christians,” Gallup said. “It will provide some benchmarks for determining where a church or region is spiritually mature.”

Frazee said the nationwide poll will cost about $50,000 and will be financed by several prominent Christian research groups that he would not identify.

The profile is intended to reveal one’s strengths and weaknesses as a Christian through responses to questions that range from one’s sex life to how often one prays, reads the Bible and helps others.

Kevin Miller, editor at large for Leadership, a journal for clergy, said the profile provides pastors with a way to measure the spiritual well-being of their congregations.

“The genius of it is that virtually every church will tell you that they’re in the business of making disciples … but they have no idea how they’re doing, so they measure their activity on the basis of giving and attendance,” Miller said.

Based on responses to the questions, the profile can show, for example, whether one needs to pray more or read the Bible more or whether one should be more humble or more forgiving of others.

Gary Lawrence of Arlington said the profile helped him see that as a Christian he should share his faith more and be gentler with others.

“It immediately changed my approach,” said Lawrence, 45, a member of Pantego Bible, a nondenominational church of about 2,000 that recently moved from Arlington to east Fort Worth.

“The things that I had wanted to happen in my life actually got done,” Lawrence said.

More than 400 churches from around the country have requested copies of the profile, and some leaders say it will change the way they pastor.

The Rev. Al Dangelo, a leadership development pastor at River Tree Christian Church in Massillon, Ohio, said a pilot group at his church gave the profile high marks and the church will now offer it to more of the congregation.

He said the pilot group found the test provoked discussions about spiritual issues that previously were difficult for members to grasp.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” Dangelo said.

The Rev. David Nemitz of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., said he’s using a version of the profile for a program aimed at getting newcomers more involved in the church.

“When I first read it, it was fabulous,” said Nemitz, pastor of adult ministries. “It was scriptural, and it was based on the commandments.”

Ted Wueste, an associate pastor of Christ Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth, said he and the pastoral staff are developing their own version of the profile.

“It was great to come see what someone else had done and kind of bounce some ideas off of it,” Wueste said. “We’re just looking at it from a different angle.”

Miller said the profile has already provoked a national dialogue.

“It’s starting, but nothing like what you’re going to see happen,” Miller said.

“I get an e-mail from a church every two or three weeks begging to be a lab test for the Christian Life Profile,” said Miller, one of several experts who reviewed drafts of the profile.

Frazee, who has a master’s degree in biblical studies from Dallas Theological Seminary, said the profile was based on the New International Version of the Bible. It was refined by experts, including Gallup and Miller, and reviewed by an ecumenical clergy group.

“What we’re doing is a way to do it. It’s not the only way,” Frazee said of the poll. “If you don’t like this particular one, come up with your own.”

Some Christians are praying for Muslims’ conversion during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, but others say the timing is wrong.

ARLINGTON — Mike Humphries has been saying special prayers every day during Ramadan, Islam’s holy month.

But he’s not a Muslim. He’s a Christian praying that Muslims will convert to Christianity.

While many Christian leaders say it’s time to reach out to Muslims in friendship, Christian missionaries who seek Muslim converts said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks should be a wake-up call that Christians should pray more for Muslims and step up proselytizing in the Islamic world.

“We’re trying to reaffirm our commitment to loving Muslims and to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them wherever we find them,” said Don McCurry, president of the Colorado-based Ministries to Muslims.

The efforts might be well-intended, but some Muslims find them insulting.

“I don’t see it as a good gesture at all; I see it as very offensive,” said Yushau Sodiq, a Muslim who teaches about Islam at Texas Christian University.

Humphries, a member of Grace Community Church, is taking his cue from one of several prayer books published by Christian groups for Ramadan. He’s following one published by WorldChristian News & Books. A similar prayer book published by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention was distributed at First Baptist Church and Tate Springs Baptist Church, both in Arlington.

Cliff Lea, Tate Springs Baptist Church minister of missions mobilization, said the churchwide effort to pray for Muslims is not meant to be offensive.

“We are simply obeying the commandments of our leader, our Lord, to pray for and share Christ’s love with all people,” Lea said. “It is not meant to be critical of their beliefs.”

The Southern Baptists stirred controversy several years ago by praying for the conversion of Jews during their High Holy Days, which start with Rosh Hashanah and end with Yom Kippur. The Mission Board has also published prayer books for the holy days of Buddhism and Hinduism.

“The prayer guides are designed to help Southern Baptists understand another world religion and the people who follow it and to help them pray that God would reveal himself to them during this special time when they are seeking God,” said Mark Kelly, a Mission Board spokesman.

Earlier this month, the Rev. James Merritt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s second-largest denomination, issued a statement calling on his 16 million members to fast and pray Dec. 16 for God to “reveal himself through Jesus Christ to Muslims.”

Ramadan, the month when Muslims say special prayers and fast, is based on the lunar calendar and is expected to end Dec. 16.

Christians and Muslims both believe in the God recognized by Abraham, but Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, while Christians believe he is the son of God. Muslims believe the Quran is the authoritative expression of God’s will, as told to the prophet Muhammad.

Kenneth Cracknell, a theology professor at TCU, said tension between evangelical Christians and other religions is not a new phenomenon – especially with Islam.

“Both are missionary religions, and both have a vision that one day everybody will become Christians or everybody will become Muslims,” Cracknell said.

He said that for more than 1,000 years, Muslim and Christian rulers expected their subjects to convert to their religion when they expanded their empires. Now, he said, both religions are pouring millions of dollars into the latest battlefield of missionary work: Africa.

Scott Jones, director of the Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Evangelism at Southern Methodist University, said he supports Christian efforts to evangelize – but not now.

“In light of Sept. 11, the crucial thing is to be neighborly … which means you de-emphasize evangelism temporarily,” Jones said. “Now is a time to promote understanding and inclusion in American culture.”

But a few Christian missionaries argue Islam encourages violence, making missionary attempts more urgent.

“Sept. 11 means to me that fervent Muslims took the teaching of Islam very seriously,” McCurry said.

McCurry said he believes it’s time to bolster Christian proselytization and said he has been getting calls from Christian groups nationwide about how to do that.

Ashton “Tat” Stewart, director of the Colorado-based Persian Ministries for the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, said he also has been inundated with calls from Christian groups asking about evangelizing in the Islamic world.

Stewart, who speaks Persian and works with Iranian Christians, said the key to evangelizing Muslims is approaching them in their own language and “demonstrating” Christianity by meeting their basic needs.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he doesn’t object to Christians such as Humphries praying for Muslims, but he takes issue with the kind of missionary work espoused by Stewart.

“They come in with a lot of money, a lot of backing, a lot of resources and they use these to their advantage,” Hooper said. “We’re confident in our faith, but when they go to vulnerable individuals, this is when we have some objections.”

Eight aid workers, including two from Waco, were jailed in Afghanistan in early August on charges of spreading Christianity. The eight were freed by the Northern Alliance after the fall of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Among them were Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, both graduates of Baylor University.

Cracknell said missionaries might be well-intentioned, but their efforts have barely made a dent.

“In Muslim countries, the churches are extremely small and in some places are barely tolerated,” Cracknell said. “In other countries like Turkey and Egypt, there are hardly any Christian converts. In fact, it is very rare to hear of somebody who has been converted from Islam.”

But Stewart contends he is making progress. He said the number of Christian Iranian churches outside Iran has grown from zero to about 100 since 1979, including more than 30 in the United States. One of them, the Iranian Baptist Church of Arlington, conducts services in Persian at Lamar Baptist Church.

The Rev. Diba Betdaniel, pastor of the Iranian Baptist Church of Arlington, said he is encouraged to hear Christians are praying for Muslims’ conversion.

“That’s what we need to do,” Diba said. “We need to pray that God will work and touch people’s hearts.”

CUAUTITLAN, Mexico — Some doubt he ever existed. Others quarrel over how he should be depicted. No one can deny his influence on Mexico.

Today, Pope John Paul II will make it official. A canonization Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe will make a saint of the hugely popular, sometimes controversial Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. The 16th-century peasant’s vision of the Virgin Mary helped spread Catholicism over Mexico and Latin America in a way Spanish missionaries could promote, but never match.

“This is something solid that God in his mysterious way did to show we’re his children,” said Facundo Trajo, 45, who lives here in Juan Diego’s hometown. “It fills me with hope.”

Trajo is like many in this community, just outside of Mexico City. He is seeing a surge in tourists coming to visit what is said to be the ruins of Juan Diego’s home, and he is feeling a swell of pride that the town’s favorite son is about to become the first full-blooded Indian saint.

Cuautitlan resident Raquel Moreno Guterez, 77, is so devoted to Juan Diego that she named the first of her 14 children after him.

Such reverence is common. People make the sign of the cross when they pass the many small shrines to Juan Diego and the Virgin. Pilgrims approach the Basilica de Guadalupe, where the sacred image of Mary is enshrined, on their knees, and pictures of Juan Diego are outnumbered only by reproductions of his famous vision of the Virgin.

Guterez has made so many needlepoint renderings of the placid Virgin framed by a oval rainbow that she can do it from memory without having to paint the mat first.

Today’s canonization of Juan Diego is the latest step in the 470-year history of the church recognizing Juan Diego’s powerful sway on Mexico, the world’s second-most Catholic country.

The church was initially reluctant to accept an Indian version of Catholicism.

In 1531, 10 years after Hernando Cortez defeated the Aztecs, the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego on a hill and spoke to him in his native tongue, according to the story. She instructed him to tell the bishop to build a church dedicated to her on that site. When the bishop didn’t believe the peasant’s story, it is believed that the Virgin appeared to Juan Diego again and arranged flowers on his cloak.

Tradition holds that when Juan Diego unfolded the cloak in front of the bishop, an iridescent image of Mary appeared. The bishop ordered a church built.

Nine million Indians were baptized in the following 15 years, according to T.R. Fehrenbach, author of Fire and Blood; A History of Mexico.

In 1737, the plague struck Mexico City, and the Virgin was declared its patron.

Ten years later, she was declared patron of the whole country. In 1945, Pope Pius XII called her the empress of the Americas.

In 1990, Juan Diego was beatified, an important step toward becoming a saint. In February, the Mexican bishops petitioned Rome to have Juan Diego canonized.

It’s a powerful story of a humble peasant whose faith elevated him to a pivotal role in the conversion of millions, but some say it isn’t true.

“He didn’t exist,” the Rev. Stafford Poole said of Juan Diego. “He is a figure of fiction, pious fiction.”

Poole is author of Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531-1797, a work that sheds doubt on Juan Diego’s existence.

“You do not really find any evidence of the story or of his existence until 1648, 100 years after his death,” Poole said. “The most that you can say is that it’s very dubious.”

Guillermo Ortiz, auxiliary bishop of Mexico City, acknowledged that the story was passed on orally for several generations before it was written down, but he said there were several witnesses passing on the story, and it was legally recognized at the time by church and civil authorities.

Jim McDonald, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said he does not doubt the pope’s good intentions, but he also sees the canonization of Juan Diego as a way to institutionalize the church’s strong hold on Mexico.

“The church is actually losing its grip on big parts of Mexico right now, and this is a way to re-establish their strong presence,” said McDonald, who specializes in Mexico. “Without a doubt there’s a market share element to it.”

The Rev. Bob Pelton, an expert on Latin American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., said he sees the canonization more as an official recognition of a beacon of Christianity to Mexico and Latin America.

“It’s something deep within the psyche of Mexicans to begin with, so I think it’s going to affirm them and strengthen them,” Pelton said.

The pope agrees. This canonization fits into the vision of Catholicism that he has been carrying out for years, experts said. The pope has canonized 463 saints.

Kenneth Woodward, author of Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn’t, and Why, said the pope has put a priority on canonization petitions from countries and peoples that do not have their own saint.

“It is part of his evangelization effort. He’s a great evangelist,” Woodward said. “It’s a way of saying, ‘Here is yet another way that you can be a disciple of Christ.’ ”

The “official” image of Juan Diego, selected because it is the oldest-known portrait, makes him look European.

MEXICO CITY — The debate broke out in a busy gift shop crammed with religious trinkets. Which was the correct version of Juan Diego, one that makes him look Caucasian or others that depict him more like an indigenous person?

The pope will make a saint of Juan Diego today, and some wish that Mexico’s revered holy man had an official likeness more like the indigenous people he called his own.

“The image should be native,” Aldela Domingas, 62, of Mexico City, said standing in the crowded gift shop.

“But senora, there are no original images of him,” said Guadalupe Rodriguez, 41, of Chihuahua.

Rodriguez’s mother, Josefina Saenz, 72, joined in by pointing at a large portrait of a Caucasian-looking Juan Diego and saying, “Look, it says, ‘true portrait.’ ”

It may say that, and it may be plastered all over Mexico City, but not everyone is convinced. One of the most important aspects of Juan Diego’s story is that the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to him, an Indian, and spoke to him in his native tongue. This should be reflected in any rendering of him, some say.

“I think it should be like this,” gift shop clerk Teri Platero said, pointing to a book cover with an indigenous-looking Juan Diego on the cover. “The believers ask for it more like this.”

Eduardo Moreno, 16, sells souvenirs a few blocks from the Basilica de Guadalupe where the famous image of the Virgin on Juan Diego’s cloak is enshrined, and he said he sells more key chains with the indigenous-looking Juan Diego than the more full-bearded, European-looking one.

But business is fine for Aurora Ramirez, 25, who is next door selling T-shirts emblazoned with the official picture, the kneeling Juan Diego clasping hands with Pope John Paul II.

“This is the official one, the people don’t want the other one,” she said. Ramirez said she sells 200 to 300 T-shirts a day, and business is picking up as Juan Diego’s canonization nears.

In many places, Juan Diego’s images are mixed, and many Mexicans say his appearance doesn’t matter as much as the humility before God that made him a great man.

“It’s very meaningful for us because he’s from our race,” said Juanita Ramirez, 56, but that didn’t stop her from buying a bag full of religious items with both images of Juan Diego.

Guillermo Ortiz, auxiliary bishop of Mexico City, said the official image of Juan Diego, a 17th-century painting by an anonymous artist, was chosen because it is the oldest-known picture of Juan Diego.

“The important thing is it says, ‘Servant of God,’ ” Ortiz said, pointing to the wording at the top of the painting.

He said this image of Juan Diego, painted several decades after his death in 1548, was used in 1990 when the pope beatified him.

Ricardo Cervantes, who made a 30-hour bus ride from Quintana Roo to be in Mexico City for the pope’s visit, is among those moved by the canonization and unmoved by the controversy.

“What’s important is what we have in our heart,” he said.

Before starting their Bible study session, the group of men at Franklin’s Grace Baptist Church bowed their heads in prayer for a dying 12-year-old.

For religious people, the sickness of the innocent boy provokes one of the most unsettling questions of all: Why doesn’t God stop suffering, especially the suffering of those who don’t deserve it?

After praying, the men opened their Bibles to the book that wrestles with this question, the Book of Job.

The book has been studied for centuries by clergy and scholars alike in a constant search for better understanding of human suffering. In recent months, three area Bible study groups also grappled with the book and found the ancient text deeply relevant to their lives.

The Baptist in Franklin, a group of Jews in Holliston and Catholics in Hingham, who just finished the book last week, all struggled with Job’s suffering and relationship with God.

Some of the differences in traditions showed in the group’s interpretations. The Jewish group continually compared Job’s undeserved suffering to the Holocaust, while  Tom Flaherty, a member of the Catholic group, said suffering can be interpreted as a good thing – as an invitation to join Jesus on the cross.

Although traditions and versions of the Bible were different, the three groups found far more similarities than differences.

They drew parallels between Job’s suffering, comparing it with bouts of cancer, deaths of loved ones and sickness of children such as the boy the Baptists prayed for, Matthew Gignac. The 12-year-old eventually died from tumors that plagued his body.

Holliston resident Eric Rosenkrantz looked for a reason why his 6-month-old daughter was afflicted with so many illnesses so early in her life. Flaherty, a Norwell resident, said the book threw him into such a deep examination of his own conscience he asked God to stop.

“We studied Job because it gives an opportunity to think about some of the traditional responses to evil in the world,” said Rabbi Jonina Pritzker, who led the Bible study at Temple Beth Torah in Holliston.

“There’s no question that this is a masterpiece,” said Celia Sirois, instructor of sacred scripture for the Boston Archdiocese. She led the study of Job at St. Paul’s church in Hingham.

“If there’s one lesson we learn out of the Book of Job, it is that God knows what He’s doing, whether we do or not,” said Pastor Kirk DiVierto, who led the Baptist study. “And then the corollary of that is that knowing that God is good and knowing that He loves us, whatever he does is good for us and His glory.”

The challenge

Considered one of the world’s best pieces of poetic literature, the book tells of Job so “blameless and upright” that he is a source of pride for God. But God is challenged by adversity – or Satan, according to most Christian interpretations – and told God that Job would surely curse God if he lost his considerable wealth and happy family.

God accepted the challenge and the suffering of Job began. In a violent sweep, Job was stripped of his herds by bandits who slayed his servants. The house of Job’s elder son collapsed, killing all of Job’s children, who were inside.

Job did not lose faith, but fell on the ground to worship and utter the famous words, “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

God was pressed further by Satan and told Job would give in if he was robbed of his health. God tested Job again and infected him with a terrible disease that caused boils to break out all over his body.

Job’s wife told him to, “Curse God and die.” But he did not. He lost everything including his happiness, but kept his faith.

“I hated this. I hated this,” Laura Matz said at the Temple Beth Torah. She turned the pages with disgust, telling how it pained her to read how God – whom she understood to be loving – could inflict such suffering on a good man.

Job’s friends tried to answer why. The three of them came to Job and told him he suffered because he must have done something wrong.

“They’re arguments worth listening to. They do have something to say,” Sirois said, explaining divine retribution was the belief of the times.

“When you read the Bible, the theory of divine retribution is all over the place,” Pritzker said.

Job insists he did nothing wrong and launches into a debate with his friends.

After offering their “wisdom,” Job barks at his friends, “If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!”

This sparked laughter from some of the participants in the area Bible studies.

“The friends are very much like us,” Rosenkrantz said, pointing out how people sometimes believe they have all the answers and are sometimes more hurtful than helpful when they’re trying to console people.

Coming from the action oriented tradition of Judaism, Pritzker said one of the messages of the book is to refrain from blaming those who suffer, as Job’s friends do. She said a recent example of this finger-pointing was in the 1980s when fundamentalists proclaimed that AIDS was God’s wrath on sinners.

“I think the Book of Job teaches us righteous people do suffer and people shouldn’t be further persecuted for having brought this upon them,” Pritzker said.

Laypeople who read the book said Job’s friends showed them how futile it can be to try to comfort those who have suffered a great loss and how it may be better to be silent instead of  peppering the mourner with theories of God’s purposes.

In the Bible, Job’s friends continue to harangue Job with the theory of divine retribution, but Job rebuts them and their responses become shorter and shorter.

DiVierto pointed this out that Job was winning his argument – that good things sometimes happen to bad people.

Job continues to insist he did nothing wrong, and he complains bitterly about his suffering. He even calls on God to come and vindicate him.

This sparked some laughter again.

Who, the participants asked, is Job, or any person for that matter to demand an answer from God?

“When you’re doing all this, you’re making yourself equal to God,” said Hanover resident Eleanor Silva of the St. Paul group.

“This reminds me of my mother and father and how they said, ‘The world doesn’t revolve around you,’ ” said Hull resident Helen Van Praet of  St. Paul’s.

This comparison to parenting was one that several people from each group drew from the story of  Job.

When Job’s righteousness is described at the beginning of the book, it’s said that he made  burned offerings to God every day, including burned offerings for each of his children – just in case they sinned by accident.

“He’s a parent what can I tell you?” said Roger Sullivan who threw the Catholic group into laughter with his suggestion that Job is the classic worried parent.

And as for living God’s will by being good, Bill Wechsler, of Temple Beth Torah, said it’s similar to telling his children that they should brush their teeth. Brush won’t always prevent pain, or in this case, cavities – but you should still do it.

The real test

Near the end of the book, God appears and asks Job who he was to question. Participants said that’s similar to the recalcitrant outbursts of their children – often teenagers – who think they know best.

After hearing God, Job immediately recognizes that he had no place questioning his maker and resigns himself to humble worship. When the rebuke of Job ends, God has harsher words for his friends.

“You have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has  done,” God tells the friends.

God orders them to make an offering to Job and tell them, “I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your own folly.”

DiVierto said he believes this passage is the birth of the priesthood. Many of the participants said this may have been the real test, to see whether Job would forgive the friends who agitated him in his worst hour.

God gives Job no answer to explain Job’s suffering, and some of the participants continued to struggle with how meek an explanation of suffering the book offers.

“Look how little there is,” Matz said at Temple Beth Torah.

“Do you need more than that?” asked her friend Ralph Esterman. Other participants said the book made them think of how much they already have and how ludicrous it must be to ask God for more.

To the relief of many participants, God restored Job’s fortunes and let him live on till old age.

Mysteries of faith

Exploring – if not solving – the issue of suffering, the story is one to which almost everyone can relate. The unknown author’s literary genius takes the exploration of suffering to such depths that some participants said they were awestruck by the issues raised.

“If your head’s swimming, you’re getting it,” said Framingham resident Bill Smith of the Baptist group. “People go to Job to find out why people suffer. They’re not going to find it, it’s not there.”

Drawing their own conclusions, participants said suffering gives one a chance to test, and possibly deepen their faith.

“I think in the end Job became in awe of the mystery and awesomeness of God. I get the feeling Job grew up a little bit,” Rosenkrantz said.

Some said the books spells out how God is too large to fit into human understanding – as Job’s friends thought they could do.

“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes that we don’t see, and we have to trust God. He knows what he’s doing,” said Baptist group participant Jerry Stearns of Franklin.

When Sirois ended the Catholic group’s study of Job, she said, “And so we shall stop here, having solved nothing.”

Quotes from the Book of Job in this article were taken from the New Revised Standard Version. The Jewish group used the Jewish Publication Society version, the Baptist group used the King James Version and the Catholic group used several versions, including the New American Bible and New Jerusalem Bible.

Recovery of 3 local people supports study.

The recovery of three MetroWest residents from life-threatening illnesses seemingly proves religious faith is an effective healing aid, as recent studies suggest and even more doctors acknowledge.

But the power of healing is no revelation to the congregation of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Holliston, which is celebrating the recovery of three parishioners who almost died last year.

“Not only did they survive, they’re thriving,” said the Rev. Jerome Janisko, the church pastor. Janisko led the congregation in prayers for Tom Tibbetts, Fred Romsey and Louise Courtney.

“God was definitely working in our lives,” said Tibbetts’ wife Deb.

A study released this week by the American Academy of Family Physicians showed that 99 percent of doctors believe there is an important relationship between faith and healing.

Another study suggests that patients’ chances of survival increase when others pray for them. Experts are skeptical of that study, but do believe that religious conviction can enhance healing, Harvard Professor Herbert Bensen said yesterday.

“There are many, many studies showing that belief can heal,” said Bensen, author of “Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief.”

Bensen, founder of the Mind-Body Institute at Beth Israel Hospital, participated in Harvard Medical School’s conference on spirituality and healing which ended yesterday.

The conference at the country’s premier medical school is a sign of the serious treatment of a subject that doctors once scoffed at as unscientific: the healing power of faith. The conference and the Academy of Family Physicians’ study signifies a shift in modern medicine, which has traditionally relied heavily on laboratory-proven facts.

The healing power of religion was never underestimated by the faithful.

“It did not surprise me at all. It’s something in which I have believed in for years,” Janisko said. “I just believe that healing and faith are intricately connected. I think God’s healing spirit move into people’s lives.”

At every Sunday service, he said he asked the congregation to pray for Tibbetts, Romsey, Courtney and other sick people.

“As a member of the prayer group, we definitely feel that prayer does help,” said Louise Doane, a Medway resident who is part of Christ the King’s Prayer Chain which, when asked to, prays for a sick or troubled person and passes on the request by phone.

Members of the Prayer Chain kept Tibbetts, Romsey and Courtney in their prayers from the onset of their illnesses to their recoveries.

“We certainly don’t feel like it’s all our doing, but I guess we do feel like we had a part in their recovery – a small part,” said Milford resident Jean Bellucci, another member of the Prayer Chain. “It makes us feel hopeful that prayer is important.”

Members of Christ the King had their work cut out for them when they prayed for their ailing parishioners. Doctors had little hope for the three.

Milford resident Tibbetts, suffering from leukemia, was told he had only a 30 percent chance of finding a bone marrow transplant.

Romsey’s doctor later admitted that he didn’t expect the Medway resident to survive his kidney transplant.

Doctors thought they wouldn’t see Franklin resident Courtney live, or even speak when taken off the respirator.

Courtney said she remembers sitting in a pew, hearing Janisko ask for prayers for Tibbetts, a 40-year-old father of two young boys who was diagnosed with leukemia.

Tibbetts decided to see a doctor after he noticed his nose was running every time he bowed his head to take a swing in golf.

The day after the tests were taken, Tibbetts’ doctor called and said, “We need to see you and your wife right away.”

“I knew I was in trouble right away. I knew something was up,” Tibbetts said.

He was diagnosed on July 26, 1995 with leukemia, or cancer of the blood. He was told he only had a 50 percent chance of finding a sibling donor and a 50 percent chance of surviving the transplant.

Tibbetts’ sister donated the bone marrow, and the transplant was scheduled for Nov. 9, 1995 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The operation was successful but his recovery was extremely difficult.

Because of his stressed immune system, he was placed in a sealed, germ-free room. Tibbetts sometimes vomited 35 times a day during his recovery and spent Thanksgiving 1995 “in a fog” unaware of what was happening.

When he was released, his house was virtually sterilized and stripped of most items. His wife and children could only touch him with rubber gloves. A moratorium on visitors to his house was finally lifted on Nov. 9.

Tibbetts returned to church on July 14, when an outdoor service made it possible for him to attend without being exposed to the germs of an enclosed building.

Janisko saw Tibbetts in the back and said, “Ladies and gentlemen we have a miracle with us today.”

“People had been praying for us for such a long time,” Tibbetts said. “It was really great for them to say ‘Oh my gosh, there he is.’ ”

Tibbetts, who said he didn’t attend church regularly, hasn’t missed a service since his recovery.

“I was the type of guy who would pray if I got into trouble and when I got out of trouble, I would go on with my life. Now I’m more consistent with it,” he said.

Romsey was next on the congregation’s prayer list.

The father of three had four heart attacks in less than a year. Doctors weren’t sure what was causing it, but tests showed his kidneys getting damaged with each attack.

By August 1995, Romsey was on dialysis, a procedure used to clean the blood because his kidneys were not ridding the body of toxins.

Doctors said a transplant was needed and tests were taken on his family. Romsey’s youngest son, Eric age 25, tested positive for a match.

The transplant was scheduled at Beth Israel Hospital for March 19, four days before his 56^th birthday.

“Before I went into surgery, I said, “God, I’m in Your hands,’ ” he said.

Romsey woke up to a doctor who told him the operation went so well he wouldn’t be moved to intensive care as planned.

That night he had another heart attack.

“The next thing I know, a bunch of people came in and a crash cart comes in like you see in the movies,” Romsey said.

He said he watched his heart rate fluctuate wildly on the monitor as doctors took four hours to get it under control.

The heart attack kept him in the hospital for three more days and he returned home gaunt and exhausted.

“I looked like somebody just took me out of a coffin and stood me up,” Romsey said.

The change in his appearance was so drastic, members of the congregation didn’t recognize him.

“They didn’t know it was me until I talked, and they said, ‘Is that you Fred?’ ” he said.

People were having coffee in the parish hall when Romsey saw a woman who once drove him to his doctor appointments. He waved, but she didn’t wave back; she didn’t know who it was.

Romsey said his illness and recovery was “tough” but boosted his spirits in the end.

“I appreciate things a lot more. I guess you get a different look at life when you almost lose it,” he said. “Getting more religious I think has put me at an inner ease that I didn’t have before.”

Courtney’s medical problems came suddenly on June 15 when she woke up with an excruciating headache. She called 911 and was taken to Milford Hospital and then flown to UMass Medical Center in Worcester.

The blood vessel that burst in her right temple put the 68-year-old woman in a coma. Doctors operated immediately and found they had to treat two more blood vessels at risk of bursting.

Still in a coma, Courtney was transferred to Columbia MetroWest Medical Center in Natick so she could be closer to her five children and 10 grandchildren.

“They came day after day for weeks and weeks, and nobody could wake me up,” she said.

She came out of the coma after six weeks and started proving the doctors wrong as soon as the respirator was removed.

“The surgeon who operated on my head told my kids I would never come out of the hospital, but I proved them all wrong,” she said patting the side of her head.

She said she believes the prayers of her church of four decades helped her recover.

“You realize that you’re very dependent on the Lord for your life … I know a lot of people who have been praying for me. I can’t let them down. I have to work hard to get better,” she said. “When you stop and think of it, we’re all a little miracle.”

Franklin group finds politically incorrect answer: Man leads, woman follows.

FRANKLIN — Kirk DeVitro rested his thick forearms on the table and chatted with the men about car parts.

Then they got down to business. They bowed their heads for a prayer , then opened their Bibles.

This isn’t any Bible study group. This is guy talk.

After two years, the seven men from Grace Baptist Church’s congregation have finished  their Bible study that sought to answer an age-old question: what does it mean to be a man.

So what’s the conclusion? Not one a feminist would come to, that’s for sure.

“God has made man to be the leader. That’s his role, and the role of the woman is to support the man,” said Jerry Stearns of Franklin.

“He’s the leader in the home, and he’s the one responsible for what happens in the home,” said Bill Smith of Framingham.

DeVitro said the woman can take important household responsibilities “if she does it with his permission and encouragement (because) he’s (still) being the head” of the house.

“The whole reason for this is I believe churches need to be built around men. If you don’t have a good core of men, you’re not going to get anything done,” said DeVitro, who is  pastor of the church.

But DeVitro said  he organized the Bible study group to prop men up, not to put women down.

“We don’t have a problem with women taking their places in the church. It’s the men who sit back and don’t do anything. We’re not trying to push women out, we’re trying to get the men to sit up and do right,” DeVitro said.

“What I’m hoping is that out of this Bible study group we’re going to form a core of men that will become the natural leaders of the church just by doing right,” he said.

He said he expects some to disagree with the group’s interpretation of the Bible.

As a study guide, the group used, “Is There a Man in the House” by William Kroll. DeVitro said he studied under Kroll at Liberty Baptist College in Virginia, which is now Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.

The seven MetroWest men emerged from the two years of study with a deep conviction that the Scriptures is their guide to life.

“All the right answers are right here,” said Bellingham resident Kenneth Beauregard, tapping the cover of his tattered, ancient looking Bible.

Regardless of whatever counsel you get … you need to take it back to the Bible and make sure that it’s grounded  in Scripture,” Smith said. “If it’s solid advice you’ll see the principle repeated and repeated in Scripture.”

The advice the men said they repeatedly found was that the man must  take responsibility for his house and family.

Smith said he sees God placing responsibility on man’s shoulders right from the first book of the bible, Genesis.

“God gave Adam an instruction and Eve changed that instruction. She added to it and she took away from it, but nevertheless, God said that Adam was responsible,” Smith said.

Although the men concluded that the man is meant to be head of the house, they also found God laying down tough standards for men.

DeVitro said they read every Biblical passage with the word husband.

“There weren’t very many good things said about husbands,” DeVitro said with a laugh. “We just realized that God didn’t have a very high opinion of most men. Most men don’t live up to the standard.

Smith said the Bible commands men to instruct and praise.

In one session, the men flipped back and forth in the Bible finding passages that urged them to encourage other such as Hebrews 10:24 which says, “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.”

DeVitro told the group Peter who is “constantly putting his foot in his mouth” is praised by Jesus when he finally gets it right.

The men said they found the Bible’s instruction to encourage others ironic because Christianity teaches them not to seek encouragement.

“I really think the biggest problem with any man is  pride,” Beauregard said. “It’s funny how pride is preached so much by the world. Everything is pride, pride, pride and Christianity teaches humility.”

DeVitro said they shouldn’t seek encouragement from others but from the Bible.

“The way I become most manly is to yield 100 percent to the spirit of God,” DeVitro said. “He’s not going to steer me wrong.”