A rotating panel of experts from the worlds of philosophy, psychology and religion offer their perspective on the dilemmas that come with living in Southern California.

Today’s question: Pat Boone lost his weekly gospel show on the religious Trinity Broadcasting Network after he showed up for a music award ceremony in heavymetal attire. He says the stunt--a promotional gimmick for a new album--had nothing to do with his mission to spread the Gospel. Is it ethical for people professing to be Christians to be so unforgiving by removing Boone from the air?

Richard J. Mouw

President, Fuller Theological Seminary

Pat Boone’s leather-and-tattoos masquerade was not unforgivable, but neither was it a harmless spoof. We evangelicals have come a long way since the days when we simply issued wholesale condemnations of “Hollywood” and “worldly music.” We have become more discriminating, even creating our own versions of “contemporary Christian” music. But there is much about the heavy metal culture, with its in-your-face flaunting of promiscuity and Satanic imagery, that we find deeply repulsive--indeed, blasphemous. For Boone to proclaim his innocence in donning the attire that many of us associate with moral nihilism, and for the court jesters to treat the controversy as a joke, is to display an amazing naivete about the power of symbols.

Miriyam Glazer

Director, Dortort Writers Institute, University of Judaism

Boone’s blooper clearly touched a raw nerve, and as an outsider to Christian culture, I’ve been alternately amused and astounded. Were he Jewish, and this being the Hebrew month of Adar, I would have simply assumed he had costumed himself for our upcoming frolicsome holiday of Purim. Aside from his foolishness and utter misreading of his sponsors and his audience, what astounded me was their knee-jerk reaction, suggesting both the fragility they feel within the American cultural context as well as their readiness to ignore his long dedication to his religious community. I’d hope that for his sake and theirs they’d reconsider. None of us, whatever our faith, is honored by an unwillingness to forgive another’s merely misguided, embarrassing, error.

Tom Choi

Pastor, Los Angeles United Methodist Church

The abiding issue in Jesus’ time was: “What is the difference between the faithful and the non-faithful?” The Pharisees decided that it was superficial differences such as circumcision, dietary and Sabbath laws. Trinity Broadcasting Network and their constituents have unfortunately decided the same. It would probably shock them to know that Christian leaders such as Luther and Wesley--like Boone--set the “vile” music of their day to Christian lyrics to be relevant and meaningful to those who felt distanced from the church. Jesus taught that the substantive quality of God’s love made the difference in faith, not superficial biases. As a contemporary song of faith says, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

Compiled by K. CONNIE KANG, Times staff writer