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Ernetta never even thought to ask about Rose Merriman. Maybe if she’d shown the photograph of herself in Tops to the red–bearded, deep–voiced editor on the fifteenth floor of the Pierce–Wright building, he’d have put two and two together and dialed Rose’s number.

“Greetings, Merriman. This is Tom McLeesh. Remember that photo we ran with Jimmy’s review of your book? Well, she’s sitting out in my lobby at the moment. The woman in the photograph. Yeah, I want you to get rid of her.”

Rose would have dropped what she was doing (a free–lance assignment at the Smithsonian), skipped dinner with her mother, and rushed over to rescue Ernetta before nightfall. Probably she’d have put new sheets on her guestroom bed; at the very least she’d have set Ernetta up in a good hotel for the night. Rose was a kind–hearted woman, frequently showing mercy to the unwanted and the irritating (her downfall when it came to men). She might have spared everyone a lot of trouble, at least in the short run.

But Ernetta didn’t mention Rose to Tom McLeesh. When she reached the Pierce–Wright building, late on the same day her truck had broken down, she found the building already locked. Locked! Ernetta had not reckoned on that. What she’d imagined, based on having seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington eight times, was a rambling, domed structure with a statue of Abraham Lincoln on the steps out front; inside, a high–ceilinged auditorium (not unlike the Senate chambers) open to the public both day and night, where she could wait in a leather chair until such time as Stan E. Colfax agreed to see her. She hadn’t reckoned on this windowless blade of a skyscraper, thrusting upward with its sharp edge toward the road and its point holding up the sky.

And now she was dizzy and thirsty, and she couldn’t lock onto a welcoming sight anywhere. Not a restaurant or even a Starvin’ Marvin—nothing but office buildings and cars sweeping back and forth on the black road, between rows of lime–green baby trees. She looked down and the sidewalk appeared to bend up towards the clouds; the sky drooped near her shoulders, grey and hot. Blisters burned like fire on the balls of her feet and the sides of her pinky toes. She had no idea what to do next.

A short flight of steps led up to the glass doors of the Pierce–Wright building. Ernetta lowered herself to the bottom of the steps and sat there huddled up with her purse on her knees. To passersby she looked like a homeless woman: ankles swollen, face leathered and caved–in, short hair matted down with sweat. She could have been anybody, any age, with any story to tell. A young black fellow walked by and gave her a kindly look. “Hidey,” she said, and he nodded. He reminded her of her pharmacist back home. She watched him cross the street and turn at the next corner. Other folks came by: a tall white woman in high heels and a red suit, a scattered group of black teenagers, a couple of businessmen. Nobody looked her way at all.

Then an elderly woman rushed past with three small tow–headed boys. Ernetta couldn’t help herself. “They’s good–looking children,” she said loudly, and the smallest one turned to wave at her. But the old woman hissed and gave him a hard push. The boy tripped over his own feet. He caught himself with his hands on the sidewalk, then burst into tears and took off running. The woman frowned at Ernetta and Ernetta frowned back. “Plain ugly way of behaving,” she said to herself, shaking her head.

A half hour passed without much change. Then suddenly the sky turned dark, though it was still early evening. The traffic light on the corner glowed fire–red against a patch of blue cloud between buildings. Ernetta put her tongue out to lick the air. It tasted like rain, like heavy rain that would fall for a long time. She had already made up her mind that she’d have to sleep here all night, hungry and thirsty. Now she looked around for an awning or an archway—any place to hide so her clothes wouldn’t be soaked next morning when the folks upstairs came back and opened their building up. She moved to the top step and curled up under the small overhang, with her hands around her legs and her head tucked between her knees.

She’d been thinking a lot lately about the “incident.” Used to be she’d only remember it when she felt unhappy or scared—not too often, really, but when she did feel unhappy, then something let it fly, something inside her freed the memory like an arrow leaving a string to go way high, to rise above all else and then fall again. Nowadays she thought of it even in normal times, sometimes up to two or three times a day, for as long as ten minutes at a go (she kept track). She thought of Arvin’s careful, bony hands tying ropes around her ankles, around her wrists. She remembered the days and endless days of lying on her side, curled up under a grey bedspread in his room with the grey lace curtains made by his recently dead mother. How she had stared over the edge of the bed at the patterns in the red shag carpet. Sometimes the cat with blue eyes had come to stare, or roll up and fall asleep against her back.

She hadn’t tried very hard to get away. She had been curious maybe, and even glad for the attention from Arvin. Aside from tying her up, Arvin was always gentle with her—so gentle and sweet when he wanted to be that, well without belaboring a point, that’s how’d she ended up in the mess to begin with—but when Arvin believed something, it was like there was no in between to anything: no words but no or yes, no place but stay or go, no way to be but alive or dead.

She always figured he’d die for his cause—or even let her die—in a second, in an instant, even if he did love her like he said he did. Love didn’t count for too much with him. At the most it was just fuel for the fire that kept burning in him, raging and exploding in new places. Maybe in the end Arvin really had died for his cause like the police said and the government said, but Ernetta couldn’t think so, not while the battle still continued and the odds still tilted to the other side.

Arvin had talked about himself as John Brown. He had called himself John Brown’s spirit—”all rose up again to free the oppressed and the weak.” He had used those words a lot, even as he spooned food in her mouth or helped her use the toilet, looking away respectfully and apologizing for the ropes. She had listened, feeling deep down in love with him because there was something about Arvin’s fire and Arvin’s craziness all for the sake of righteousness that made her desire him, and yet she knew, too, all while she was lying on her side and tied up and prisoner, that on her own for half an hour she’d go and spoil his cause, give victory to the other side. That’s why it was good that he’d tied her up. She considered him strong and herself weak, and so she submitted to Arvin’s bonds and Arvin’s cause, and through him she found herself able to do what she believed in; through him she really could deny the other side the victory.

But that was long, long ago. Much was changed, now. The cause was Ernetta’s own and she was her own kind of soldier, no longer a captive, and Arvin was out there and he did need to be found and crushed and defeated before more innocent people came to harm. And yet he must be crushed in the right way, and by somebody who loved him. Not by one of his victims, but by one of the saved, one of the rescued and the innocent who owed him everything and knew nothing about him.

A police car swished down the street and pulled up near the steps. Ernetta watched curiously. The officer got out and walked over to her. He was a wiry black man with a wide, frowning mouth. “Don’t expect to take up residence here,” he said.

She lifted her head. “No, sir. My truck broke down. I got an appointment inside but the building’s locked.”

His face changed. “Can’t you call somebody to let you in?”

“I guess I might could.”

He pointed to a telephone across the street, next to a bank.

She smiled down at her feet. “I’m shamed to say it, but I don’t got no change left.”

He nodded and reached in his pocket for a couple of coins. His fingers felt warm when they touched hers. “Hurry up, now. Don’t stay around here after dark. It’s dangerous, for one thing.”

“Thank you, sir. I sure do appreciate it.”

He left and she rose up with difficulty, feeling the coming rain in her knees. She limped a few yards down to the corner, waited for the light to change, then crossed the street and limped a few more yards to the payphone. It took her a long minute to think of unrolling the limp magazine in her purse and dialing the number printed right on the second page next to a picture of Boone’s Farm. Once she did, a recording told her to press “4” for help after–hours.

“Subscription services,” said a cool female voice. “May I have your name, please, and the address you’re calling from?”

She was shaking so hard she could barely keep the phone to her ear. “Is this Tops Magazine?”

“This is subscription services. May I have your name, please?”

“I am needing to talk to Stan E. Colfax. He’s one of your important writers.”

“Ma’am, I can’t do that for you. You’d have to call the Washington office—”

“I am in Washington. I’m right outside the building. Could you transfer me to Tops magazine?”

“In Washington?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well, all right—”

Ernetta heard a buzz on the line, and then another voice said, “This is the answering service for Tops magazine, Tops, Jr., Tops Clothing, and Tops, Inc. Our regular business hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, if you know your party’s extension and would like to leave a message … “

She waited for the end of the recorded speech, the little bit where the voice said, “Please remain on the line and an operator will be with you shortly.”

“Hello?” she said.

“Answering service.”

“I am needing to talk to Stan E. Colfax. He’s one of your important writers.”

“The staff doesn’t take calls after regular office hours, Ma’am. You’ll have to call back tomorrow morning.”

“Well, it’s just a little bit of an emergency.” Ernetta was thinking about the policeman. He’d been so nice, but he might not like her sleeping over there on the steps of the building.

“You can leave a message on your party’s voice mail.”

“No, Ma’am, I need to leave a personal message for Stan E. Colfax.”

“You can leave it for whoever you want, but it’s up to them if they want to answer it.”

Ernetta frowned at the phone. “Give me whatever you can give me. I’ll take it.”

A moment later she was connected to another recording, a male voice that sounded just a little familiar. “Yo. This is me. Your message. Here. Now.” She didn’t know the appropriate response to that so she just said loudly, “This is … well, I’d really like to talk to Stan E. Colfax. I’m his relative. I’m Ernetta Duckworth. I’m his real close relative. And it is a little bit of an emergency. I been through so much today. I done walked a long way from Alabama and I don’t got no money left. I reckon I’ll just stay here at this phone down here on this street and wait to hear from you. I’m about fifteen feet from the front door of your building. Could you give me a call at the number I’m about to read?”

She feared, now, to cross the street and sit back on the steps. She stood in front of the telephone, instead, holding the receiver near her ear but keeping down the hang–up button. A minute passed. Five minutes. Ernetta waited with her elbow propped on her stomach, shaking almost uncontrollably with hunger and fatigue. A few brown spots appeared on the pavement: the first raindrops. Maybe the dark clouds would just pass and nothing come of it all.

And then like a miracle, like lightning straight from God, a bolt of electricity surged down from the Pierce–Wright Building and shot right up into the metal box. The phone rang out so loudly that Ernetta jumped. Her feet left the ground, all but the very tips of her blistered toes. She cupped both hands around the mouthpiece of the receiver.

“Hello? Hello?” The voice on the other end sounded like firecrackers popping, long ways off. “I just caught your voice on the machine when I was walking through Stannie’s office. You say you’re a relative of his?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am a close relative. I need to see him.”

There was a pause and a cough. “Where are you?”

“Across the street. At the payphone.”

“Yeah, I think I see you down there. I’ll tell them to let you in downstairs. Come on up to the office—it’s on the fifteenth floor.”

Ernetta put the phone down and looked up across the street , half expecting to see people staring down from open windows somewhere above her head. She couldn’t make out anything on the sheer glass face of the building—not even where one floor started and another stopped. She tried not to limp, crossing back over. Hateful to think somebody might be laughing at her up there. When she reached the steps of the Pierce–Wright, again, a guard in a uniform unlocked the large doors and let her in. He pointed her to an elevator down a purple–carpeted hall.

“Ain’t there no stairs?” she said.

He shook his head.

“There’s got to be stairs. Emergency stairs.”

He shook his head.

“Well that’s just not right,” she mumbled.

She hated elevators, but she got on. Probably couldn’t have walked all those steps anyway with these sore feet and the limp. She felt slightly sick going up; rising into the knife’s blade of that building. Something was about to happen: an arrow would leave a string and she would be upon it. She wasn’t Catholic but she crossed herself the way she’d seen Arvin do as she felt the settling of the floor and heard the creak of the cable. Then the doors opened and she stepped out onto blue carpet with a paisley pattern.

Across the hall, between two small trees in gold planters, was a huge glass door with the word Tops printed on it in golden letters. Ernetta caught a vision of people walking back and forth soundlessly behind the door, like actors in a silent movie. But her eyes were drawn quickly back to the hall, to the red–haired man standing a few feet away from her, holding his keys. He had a pointed beard and thin oval glasses.

“I’m Tom McLeesh,” he said.

“Oh!” she said quietly.

“You Mrs. Duck—?”

“Yes I am. You’re the fellow I talked to, ain’t you?”

“It’s noisy in there. Let’s go around to my private office.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to the right, walking fast, and she followed him as well as she could down a long, quiet hall and around several corners. He finally stopped and unlocked a glass door, letting her into a spacious waiting room. She glanced around nervously, then sat down on a white bench and took a tissue from a box on a little white table. She mopped her forehead with it. He leaned against a bare–topped desk by a large window.

“That the window you looked out and saw me?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“I’m Ernetta Duckworth,” she said.

He nodded slowly, turning down the corners of his mouth. “Oh, that’s right. Duckworth. And you’re related to Stannie?”

“I’m his mother.”

The man’s eyes opened wide. His mouth twitched. Ernetta saw plainly that he was struggling not to laugh and she knew that she must look like a crazy woman, like the old woman at the grocery store back in LeCrane who never paid in anything but nickles and pennies. Everybody hated to see that woman coming.

“I thought Stannie’s family all lived in Florida,” she said.

She was interested to hear this. “They’s his adopted family, I reckon. I’m his real mom. You call him ‘Stannie?’ do you?”

“Yes. What do you call him?”

“I don’t call him nothing. I ain’t met him yet. I come all the way from South Alabama to find him because I need him to do me a favor. I ain’t got nobody else I can trust but him.”

“Oh, this is rich,” he mumbled, and then he cleared his throat. “Listen,” he said, “Stannie won’t be back in the office for a few days. But I have an idea how we might arrange a meeting. Do you have someplace you could stay for the night in Washington?”

She shook her head.

“No place,” he said. “Hmmm. I do know these people in town who have a place. They’d probably come pick you up. Let me give them a call—”

Tom went around the corner and Ernetta waited. She couldn’t hear him talking to the YMCA behind the wall, or the ringing telephones next door, or even the rain beginning to pour outside. All noise, even her own breathing, was muffled in the thick, soft carpet and textured wallpaper. The room felt cool and dark to her, like a closed coffin. Her head began to nod. For a little while before Tom came back, she fell asleep, slumping down on the little bench. And then suddenly she woke up, stiff in the joints, and sat up to find him standing over her, smiling in the grimmest way—looking exactly like the devil.

Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.

NOTE: For your convenience, the following product, which was mentioned above, is available for purchase:• If It Ain’t Got That Swing, Mark Gauvreau Judge

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Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.

Speakers of Arabic scattered from South America to Japan will have access to shows in their native tongue via the Internet by January 2002.

Sat-7, a Christian satellite television service that works with indigenous Arabs to create original programming and entertainment for the Middle East, will increasing its Web presence and add more hours to its satellite broadcasting schedule.

Sat-7 now broadcasts over the Middle East and North Africa for four hours every day. But the company plans to increase broadcasts to 24 hours a day by 2003. Sat-7 is also moving toward making all of its programs available as free videocasts on its Web site (Sat7.org).

While Sat-7 has a potential Middle Eastern satellite viewing audience of 100 million, its new Web audience might benefit even more from its broadcasts. In South America alone there are at least 20 million Arabic speakers, but that continent has no known Arabic radio stations or TV programs. But through Sat-7 on the Web, Arabic speakers in Brazil and Peru will be able to watch newscasts, children’s shows, comedies, and dramas in their own language.

More than 65 percent of Sat-7 shows in 2000 were locally produced, reinforcing the company’s emphasis on hiring and training nationals in television production. The ministry offers free training sessions in everything from scriptwriting to set-lighting and sound effects. Experts from all over the world—from Hollywood script doctors to retired BBC executives—volunteer to teach these courses.

Sat-7’s programs are not openly critical of Islam, though they do include some Christian testimonies and teachings.

“We work within certain limitations,” Sat-7 President Ronald Ensminger told Christianity Today. “We work hard not to disparage Islam. Our channel’s purpose is not to make political statements or embarrass governments. Our programs serve the community.”

Because the company doesn’t engage in face-to-face evangelism, Sat-7 builds partnerships with indigenous churches and Christian relief agencies. Groups like United Bible Societies and Campus Crusade for Christ reach out to local Arabs who want to understand more about the Bible.

Because of the high illiteracy rate in the Middle East, handing out tracts, or even Bibles, can be an exercise in futility. But nearly every household in the Middle East has a TV and a satellite dish. Broadcasting is the “most powerful way” to communicate in the region, Ensminger says.

“We’re especially excited about the prospect of having all of our broadcasts available online,” Ensminger told CT, “because this is going to allow people to do their own programming-to select the shows that relate to their lives and watch topics that are of particular interest or help to them.”

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Visit Sat-7’s homepage, where you can read testimonies, find ways to get involved with the ministry, or see images of Sat-7 services and viewers.

Variety ran an article about Sat-7 in 1997, “Sat takes to Sabbath.”

The FBI estimates computer crime losses at up to $10 billion in 1999, and the year 2000 saw crippling attacks on top sites like Yahoo and eBay, not to mention $8 million in damage when the “I Love You” virus crippled personal and corporate computer systems.

Attempting to curb future outrages, and to raise a generation of Web-savvy users, the United States Department of Justice and the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) have formed a partnership to educate Americans in the virtues of responsible online behavior.

“This is a first-of-its kind government/private-sector initiative to help kids realize that the rules of the road in the offline world also apply in the online world,” says Harris N. Miller, ITAA president.

“As the Internet becomes more important to our daily lives, this initiative will help kids make informed decisions about online behavior.”

Harlan Jones, a professor of media studies and theology at Xavier University’s Clyburn College in Cincinnati, says he believes the Justice Department’s willingness to admit that kids need a moral compass indicates the depth and scope of the department’s Internet concerns.

“I don’t believe the government would attempt to teach kids about right and wrong unless they were afraid that this was going to be an even bigger problem in the future,” Jones said.

“Lots of kids know how to use computers better than adults, so even many Christian parents might not feel equipped to instruct their children on appropriate uses of technologies.”

The Cybercitizen Partnership Awareness Campaign (cybercitizenpartners.org) seeks to engage children, young adults, and their parents and teachers on the ethical use of the Internet and the limits of acceptable online behavior.

The Awareness Campaign will focus on 9- to 12-year-olds. Using interactive games, in-school programs, and printed materials, the Cybercitizen Partnership will teach about Internet problems like hacking (illegally penetrating someone else’s computer system), vandalism, privacy, and plagiarism in terms and circumstances kids can understand.

“Lots of kids think of being online like being in an imaginary world,” says Pete Smith, executive director of the Cybercitizen Partnership. “We need them to understand that there are real consequences for themselves and others when they make decisions online.”

A poll conducted by an educational publisher, Scholastic, found that almost 50 percent of elementary and middle-school students think hacking is acceptable.

In her statement to introduce the Cybercitizenship Awareness program, Attorney General Janet Reno told her audience that “we cannot allow cyberspace to become the Wild West of the information age.”

Reno said that while the U.S. has raised a generation of computer users who are comfortable using powerful technologies, the country has failed to communicate an “understanding of the responsibilities that come with such power.”

But are Internet ethics classes going to help kids make wise choices online?

Steve Watters, an Internet research analyst for Focus on the Family, told Christianity Today, “We agree that kids need to have timeless virtues emphasized in their school curricula, but we also believe it is important to teach kids that those values transcend Internet use, that character values apply to all aspects of children’s lives.

“Most schools protect themselves from liability by adopting acceptable-use policies or by installing filters, but kids need to learn a system of portable values that can apply to any situation they might face in the future,” Watters said. “You face a different series of decisions when you are at a friend’s house and he wants to show you a porn site he has discovered than you face when someone on the soccer team wants you to help them hack into the school’s grading system.”

Watters said Focus on the Family would also like to see the Justice Department back up the idea that there are consequences for crime online with more vigorous prosecution of cybercrimes.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

The Information Technology Association of America‘s homepage hosts technology news and links to various government online affairs.

The Cybercitizen Awareness Program offers resources to parents and teachers like the ITAA’s Berkowitz Report on Children Online or a crash course in “Understanding the Internet“

The FBI also offers safety tips for kids on the Internet.

Kids who take the Cyberspacers oath pledge to ” do my best for the good of cyberspace—to follow the rules of common courtesy, mankind, and God along the Information Super-Highway.”

The Cyberspacers site is also home to D.O.T. Comics (Defenders Online Team), a cartoon series about kids who make decisions with the help of a magic computer, but Disney’s CyberNetiquette Comics are much more entertaining and instructive.

Sesame Street’s Family Tech Tips help users figure out everything from online purchases to cookies, spam, and e-mail techniques.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reviewing tax laws for nonprofit 501(c)3 organizations and trying to determine how to apply them to nonprofit sites on the Internet. The agency has published a series of proposals for comment that have angered some Christian organizations and been applauded by others.

Some groups, especially those that regularly comment on political and social issues, are concerned that the proposed regulations would limit free speech. Others, such as the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), share the IRS’s goals, believing it is necessary to begin setting guidelines for online ministry and fundraising.

The major concern of some advocacy organizations is that they will not be allowed to link to political sites, or even sites with a small percentage of political content on the Internet. Other proposals would require nonprofits to take greater responsibility for message-board postings and chat-room conversations.

Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey condemned the IRS review, saying that “turning the tax man into a Net cop would have a chilling effect on free speech on the Internet.”

Wendy Wright, director of communications for Concerned Women for America, agrees. She worries that the IRS proposals would limit the amount of political coverage her organization supplies to Christians.

“We should all agree that we want Americans to have access to the maximum amount of information and political commentary,” Wright told Christianity Today.

The IRS review was open to comment from nonprofits through February 13, 2001, after which, the IRS said, it would reassess its proposals. Even if the IRS eventually decides to enforce the guidelines, adopting them would very likely be “a very slow process” according to Paul Nelson of the ECFA.

“We’re in a for quite a shakeout period,” Nelson CT. “The technology, the number of players, and the size of investments on the Internet changes radically every six months.”

Nelson believes that while this rapid turnover complicates ethical issues, it also creates a unique opportunity for Christians to serve as the voice for ethical standards that benefit all Web users.

The ECFA has held seven Internet symposiums for its member organizations in the past six months. It plans to offer at least five more meetings this year to spur Christian ministries to develop acceptable protocols for issues like Internet fundraising and distinguishing between hyperlinks to other nonprofits and those to political or business sites.

“We don’t think that having a hyperlink is really the problem, but visitors should be able to tell when they leave a nonprofit site,” Nelson said. “There are plenty of ways that organizations can make it clear.”

If the IRS turns the proposal into policy, some nonprofits hope that John Ashcroft, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, will lend some leadership to the debate.

Ashcroft’s record as an advocate for privacy and encryption on the Internet have earned him respect from many Internet libertarians, while his support of federal funding for faith-based programs has earned him respect from Christian organizations. The ECFA, for example, worked with Ashcroft’s office when he was researching faith-based initiatives.

“The ECFA doesn’t make political statements,” Nelson told CT, “but my personal opinion is that John Ashcroft’s principles as a Christian will help him to take a balanced stance on many difficult issues.”

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability has all its members pledge to uphold seven standards of responsible stewardship, and it urges organizations with Web sites to set up even stricter standards than are currently required by law.

Other stories about the IRS’s Internet proposals for tax exempt organizations include:

IRS Internet review worries tax-exempt groups—The Associated Press (Dec. 27, 2000)

New IRS Rules Could Hinder Work of Christian Groups—Chritianity.com (Nov. 12, 2000)

A growing number of nonprofit charities are encouraging direct online contributions, but new for-profit “giving portals” are also developing sites that allow visitors to contribute to multiple charities in one place—and earning commissions and fees for the service.

Giving portals like Createhope.org, iGive.com, and Charitableway.com list a variety of charities and accept money on their behalf. In return, they deduct a handling fee and pass the remainder of the donation on to a designated charity.

Michael Nilsen of the National Society of Fund Raising Executives told ABC News that these sites operate with a different mindset from most charities because they are businesses first and foremost.

“There’s a bottom line,” Nilsen said. “While they are certainly useful in raising awareness of philanthropy and acting as a conduit for donations … they need to make money.”

Some for-profit portals take commissions as high as 15 percent off every contribution. Most deduct a service fee of about $5 per contribution, depending on the size of the gift.

Thegivingnetwork.com withholds 8 percent of donations and Helping.com deducts about 3 percent of the gift.

Many sites list charities and ministries among their sharing clientele without permission. Organizations like the American Lung Association (ala) now receive so many small contribution checks from various sites that they find it impossible to monitor the actual amount of money flowing in through indirect giving. The amount of money passed on to the ALA is “so minimal that we don’t even track it,” CEO Joseph Bergen told The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Bad press?

Some nonprofit Web sites worry that unregulated for-profits could sour people to online giving.

Stan Goude of the Salvation Army told Christianity Today he hopes that, as some giving portals’ operating practices come to light, “the charities that are being responsible don’t suffer from bad press too.”

“About $200,000 was given at our site last year,” Goude says. “All of that money was maximized to help people in keeping with our financial standards for contributions.” The American Red Cross raised $1 million online in a single month last year.

The lack of regulation has the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), and the Better Business Bureau all searching for the best way to create guidelines for e-charity.

“There is a serious need for Christian organizations to set quality standards for Internet giving,” ECFA president Paul Nelson told CT. “We encourage all our members to implement credit-card security, firewall protection, and to register as a nonprofit organization in every state they plan to accept donations from.”

The IRS is concerned that many donations people make may not be tax deductible. It advises online donors to make sure any charity they give to is registered as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and to always request a receipt for each donation. The IRS site allows users to check the status of a charity (www.irs.gov/search/eosearch.html), but Guidestar.org offers more complete information.

But the best advice for consumers is to give directly at the sites of charities they know and trust, says Bennett Weiner of the Better Business Bureau.

“We don’t usually get complaints when people give online to institutions they have contributed to by mail for years,” Weiner says. “Our concerns are more about the legitimacy of some of the newer sites springing up that don’t answer to anyone.”

Such a wide variety of charitable sites has developed that some portals now run contests and give prizes to try to distinguish themselves. 4charity.com offers the charities it lists a percentage of its stock. Other sites, like Greatergood.com and Shop2give.com, send a small percentage of customers’ purchases, through links to online shops like Amazon.com and CDNow.com, to the charity of the customers’ choice.

Nonprofits that hope to compete against giving portals by promoting direct giving at their own sites might soon follow the model of Food for the Hungry (FFH). Through its eSponsorship.org Web site, FFH allows sponsors to send e-mail directly to sponsored children. FFH also provides periodic audio and video clips of sponsored children’s villages.

“We are reducing our overhead and allowing people to interact more directly with the people who benefit from their gifts,” says Roe Ann Wood, director of FFH’s eSponsorship program. “Our site is proof that online giving can be more than a credit transaction.”

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Some of the charity mall sites mentioned in the article include: 4Charity.com, Createhope.org, iGive.com, Greatergood.com, and Charitableway.com.

Christian non-profits like World Vision and Food for the Hungry allow you sponsor a child or make other direct contributions online.

HitDonate.net tells how much various nonprofits are making online.

Other media stories about e-charity include:

Can E-Commerce and Charity Co-Exist? — Newsfactor (Dec. 12, 2000)

E-charity isn’t an efficient way to donate — The Holland Sentinel (Dec.3, 2000)

The Business of E-Charity — Newsfactor (Aug. 8, 2000)

A Brave New World of Giving | Rapid rise of online ‘portals’ raises big questions for charities — The Chronicle of Philanthropy (June 15, 2000)

Online Philanthropy | Charity web sites let donors give with a click — ABCNews.com (Dec. 11, 1999)

Welcome to E-Charity — The Financial Express (Oct. 3, 1999)

Valley Talk: E-Charity — Fortune (June 18, 1999)

Earlier Christianity Today articles on giving and technology include:

Electronic Giving Struggles to Catch On | Despite benefits, automatic electronic transfers still rare in churches. (Jan. 31, 2001)

Nonprofits Tap New Donors with Internet Fundraising (Dec. 7, 1998)

IRS Spurs Nonprofit Disclosure on Internet (Jan. 12, 1998)

Reachtruth.comThe Map, a new CD-ROM from Exodus International, hopes to help teens struggling with homosexuality traverse the perilous world of sexual identity. The Map combines personal stories, peer testimonies, Bible studies, and personal journals. The CD-ROM format offers an intensely personal way for teens to explore questions and feelings, while still affirming the Bible as the ultimate guide to understanding who God created each of us to be. “We know that this can help a lot of kids out there who are terrified and ashamed of their own feelings,” says Map creator Jason Thompson. “Not only do we want to help them journey to freedom, but we want to help them realize that they don’t have to walk that road alone.”

Previewport.comThe only thing keeping PreviewPort.com from becoming the preeminent site for authors, publishers, and book-lovers is its extremely slow loading time. Founded by author Susan Bergman, one of Christianity Today‘s “up and comers” (CT, Nov. 11, 1996, p. 20), the site should appeal to bibliophiles with its helpful features like a floating “more info” tab that allows readers to follow up on myriad questions about their favorite books and authors. Besides showcasing writers and selling their work (Philip Yancey, Anne Lamott, Leonard Sweet, Steve Martin, and Scott Turow are among those who have signed on), PreviewPort.com is compiling a national literary calendar, selling e-books, and offering articles from literary magazines. With this level of information and expertise, Bergman and company are building a site the literary world cannot afford to ignore. But Amazon.com needn’t worry yet: readers could drive to a bookstore and back in the time it takes some pages to load.

www.gutenbergdigital.de/gudi/eframesThe British Library has scanned two different versions of the Gutenberg Bible, page by page, onto its site (http://prodigi.bl.uk/gutenbg/default.asp), but the scanned copy at Gutenbergdigital.de offers more background reading and a slightly better navigation. The illuminated letters and marginal embellishments in the British Library copies are also lovely, and have been scanned at a higher resolution. But unless you know Latin, expect to look, not read. With all the talk about how the Internet is another printing revolution, it’s only appropriate that so many Gutenberg Bibles would make their way online.

www.Damaris.orgLots of people talk about keeping up with pop culture in order to better share the gospel with friends and family immersed in it. Damaris.org is for those who actually mean it. This U.K.-based site offers Bible study and discussion materials that take films like Blade Runner, or bands like Radiohead, and compare their message to Scripture. It also includes intelligent essays about everything from Eminem to the holistic dualism in popular TV shows. Most of the topics hit at current trends on both sides of the pond—pop seems to ignore national borders in much of the Western world.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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Other Christianity Today stories about the Web include:

Is God.com Dead? | Investors lost faith in iBelieve.com, Lightsource.com was extinguished, and Crosswalk is being run over. What happened to the for-profit Christian Web site boom? (Feb. 9, 2001)

And Now, a Web Site to Help You Reflect on Your Sins | UK Christian radio station’s ‘reflective’ site already a hit. (Feb. 2, 2000)

The Best Internet Sites of 1999 | ChristianityToday.com‘s Matt Donnelly and Christianity Today magazine’s Ted Olsen discuss their favorite URLs of the past year. (Jan 24, 2000)

Onward, Christian Surfers! | The Church of England gives marching orders to Christians on the Web. (Nov. 23, 1999)

Church of the Web | More ministries fund Internet evangelism. (June 14, 1999)

After losing two children to a deadly genetic disease and aborting a fetus that tested positive for the same disease, an unidentified French couple gave birth to France’s first genetically screened baby in November. But the process that ensured the couple a healthy baby, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), is furrowing eyebrows internationally over difficult ethical issues.

PGD uses the same techniques as prenatal diagnostic testing, but is done at the moment of fertilization, before doctors have implanted the embryo in a woman’s womb. That means fertilized embryos testing positive for unwanted genetic traits can easily be discarded in the search for a child with specific genetic code.

A U.S. couple gave birth to a PGD-screened child in October. Adam Nash was tested as an embryo to see if his DNA matched that of his older sister, who needed the blood from his umbilical cord to help fight her rare case of Fanconi anemia. The Nashes’ decision is the first known case in which parents used genetic testing to select a baby on the basis of his ability to save a sibling’s life, setting what many bioethicists are calling a worrisome precedent for other desperate parents of ailing children.

Overall, PGD has been performed in over 40 genetics centers around the world. Nearly 400 children have been born from approximately 2,000 cycles of testing performed for genetic or chromosomal disorders. That means roughly eight of every ten embryos were not implanted and carried to term.

Proponents of the new technique say PGD is simply a method of helping couples in a painful predicament who desire to have children of their own.

But Ben Mitchell, senior fellow at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Bannockburn, Illinois, disagrees.

“There is very little we can actually do once an embryo or fetus has been diagnosed with a genetic condition, ” Mitchell told CT. “So the main function of the test is really used to inform parents to abort or to discard an embryo before it is implanted.”

Mitchell says he has much sympathy for the Nashes’ situation, but he worries about the “almost grotesque precedent” their decision has set for the biotech community.

“We have gone against Christian and even Western tradition here. Instead of saying that each person is an end unto themselves, this case says that people can be used as a means to the end. … You are having a child expressly to serve the needs of another child.”

Mitchell says that cases like this might wake Christians up to the implications of new biotechnologies.

“This is a chance for the church to contribute to some important questions involving procreative liberty and personhood,” Mitchell says. “Right now the unborn are not recognized as legal persons, and technologies are rapidly developing that will use them as commodities.”

David O’Steen of the National Right to Life Committee says that it also finds PGD “a terrible waste of human life.” “Human life begins at fertilization,” he says. “Those embryos are human beings just like you and me.”

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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Read more about PGD from the National Human Genome Research Institute’s ethics forum.

Trinity’s Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity has several genetics issue papers on its site including these three by Ben Mitchell: “Genetic Renaissance in a Moral Dark Age,” “For the Patient’s Good or for the Company’s Profit?,” and “The Coming Clone Age.”

Read about “France’s First Gene-Screened Baby” from Wired.

The Nash’s decision is detailed in “‘Don’t judge us,’ mom says” from the Rocky Mountain News and “Baby Conceived to Provide Cell Transplant for His Dying Sister” From The New York Times.

The Washington Post‘s tech site offers a story about parents who are testing themselves to determine whether they carry genetic diseases they could pass on to their children.

Christianity Today‘s previous stories about embryonic genetics include:

A Deceptive Good | The uneasy morality of rescuing spare humans created in vitro. (Sept. 18, 200)

Embryo ‘Adoption’ Matches Donors and Would-be Parents | ‘Snowflake’ program is only of its kind in dealing with leftover fertilized eggs. (Dec. 2, 1999)

No Room in the Womb? | Couples with high-risk pregnancies face the ‘selective reduction’ dilemma. (December 6, 1999)

New Stem-Cell Research Guidelines Criticized | NIH guidelines skirt ethical issues about embryo destruction, charge bioethicists. (Jan. 28, 2000)Human Embryo Research Resisted (August 9, 1999)

The Biotech Temptation | Research on human embryos holds great promise, but at what price? (July 12, 1999)

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, sponsored by the Pew Center for Research, surveyed 1,309 congregations with Web sites in December 2000 to gather data about who was using the Web to get spiritual information and what kind of information was available. Some of the results:

Religion is popular

• 20 percent of Internet users in the United States get religious and spiritual information online, making it more popular than online banking (18 percent of Internet users) or online auctions (15 percent).

• About 20 million people sought spiritual information over the Internet between October and December 2000.

• 2 million people in the United States seek religious information online each day.

Users aren’t homogeneous

• Middle-aged African-American women (and other middle-aged women) are the most likely to seek religious information on the Internet.

• Wired African Americans are 65 percent more likely than whites who go online to seek religious materials on the Web.

• Those seeking religious materials online are 26 percent of Internet users (in the South), 22 percent (the Midwest), 20 percent (the West), and 14 percent (the Northeast).

Clergy keep clicking

• 81 percent of clergy use the Internet to gain information for worship services.

• 77 percent seek information from the Bible or other religious books online.

• 72 percent use Internet devotional resources.

• 57 percent have learned about other denominations and faiths online.

Keeping in touch

• 82 percent of clergy use e-mail to connect with parishioners

• 45 percent of clergy use e-mail to communicate with colleagues at other churches.

• 25 percent of clergy send e-mails containing spiritual instruction to church members frequently.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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See today’s related article: “Not Just for Visitors | Churches are discovering their Web sites can do more than tell people how to find the building on Sunday morning.”

About 60 percent of churches have developed Web sites in the last three years. But any frequent visitor will tell you that most church sites are little more than glorified maps listing driving directions and service times.

That will not be the case much longer.

While new research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates that many church sites are bare-bones operations, the study also indicates that churches are starting to recognize the Web’s potential to streamline office work and provide up-to-date information to large numbers of people. If the Pew study’s findings are correct, church Web sites are well on their way to becoming community-building tools. (The study can be found at www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=28.)

Pew researchers found that 83 percent of church sites were specifically designed to encourage visitors to attend worship services. Such sites are heavy on maps and mission statements. And more than half of the sites surveyed are beginning to post weekly schedules and meeting minutes on the Web.

Almost 80 percent of the churches surveyed had been running a Web site for more than year. More than 40 percent were in their second year of operation. Most of these sites, however, were created by volunteers from within the congregation without direction by clergy or a church committee. Consequently, pastors and leaders are just now beginning to become involved in strategizing the potential uses of the Web.

Churches in the Pew study hope to upgrade their sites in a variety of ways. Most give high priority to developing youth materials at their sites. Because more than 60 percent of youth reported spending “a significant amount of time” online every week, youth directors have begun to develop plans for weekly Bible-study materials, interactive games, and chat rooms for junior high and high school ministries.

One youth pastor is developing weekly quizzes about the Scripture passages the group is studying, and creating a chat room for kids to discuss what they’ve learned.

“Just giving Christian kids a better way to share the triumphs and failures of the week with each other is going to have a tremendous impact,” says Darren Oldman, a director for Youth for Christ, told Christianity Today.

In an effort to promote a greater sense of community, churches also indicated high interest in developing online photo albums of congregational events, and including features that would allow congregants to sign up for classes and Bible studies, or volunteer for service opportunities online.

Creating a sense of community or belonging is also the motivation behind many churches’ plans to develop weekly topical e-mail lists for things like prayer requests and missions updates. Some are even considering a full congregational e-mail roster to announce births, marriages, deaths and other news of interest.

Fewer than 5 percent of the wealthiest churches interviewed provided live Webcasts of services, and even fewer indicated plans to do so in the future.

“People know that clicking on the Internet can’t replace the vital work of the church,” said one respondent, “but we are just beginning to figure out how it can help it.”

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

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See today’s related article: “Whole Lot of Clicking Going On | Some results of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.”

Pew’s findings that 20 percent of Internet users in the U.S. get religious information online helped its study “Wired Churches, Wired Temples: Taking congregations and missions into cyberspace” make a big splash.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project researches everything from the number of users online to the backgrounds, preferences, and online habits of people who use the Web the most. Some recent studies have focused on: Tracking Online Life, ‘Freeloading’ Music on the Internet, Who’s Not Online, Trust and Privacy Online, and The Online Health Care Revolution.

Some churches are so convinced that the Web is the way to grow that they are pouring a great deal of resources into their sites, like Fellowshipchurch.com near Dallas, Texas. The church officially changed its name in January to include the dot com, hired a “technology pastor”, and has developed a church site with movie reviews, stock quotes, and free customized e-mail.

Other media coverage of Pew’s wired churches study includes:

Church presence on Net growing, study finds — The Washington Post (Jan. 6, 2001)

‘Wired churches, wired temples’ — The Christian Science Monitor (Jan. 4, 2001)

Congregations Put Their Faith in the Net — The New York Times (Dec. 28, 2000)

Blacks post Net gains — USA Today (Oct. 23, 2000)

Churches Use Net to Reach the Faithful — The Washington Post (April 10, 1999)

Previous Christianity Today articles about churches using the Internet include:

And Now, a Web Site to Help You Reflect on Your Sins | U.K. Christian radio station’s ‘reflective’ site already a hit. (Feb. 2, 2000)

Onward, Christian Surfers! | The Church of England gives marching orders to Christians on the Web. (Nov. 23, 1999)

Church of the Web | More ministries fund Internet evangelism.(June 14, 1999)