Archive | Religion RSS feed for this section

The Death of Life

15 Jun

Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, 11, shot and killed in 1994 after having shot and killed a local neighborhood girl.

This following sermonette was brought about by a story I stumbled across on the web about a mother in Chicago receiving the high school diploma of her slain son.  Her son was killed on the sidewalk after walking up to a group of three young men.  No arrests have been made.  I read the story and was disturbed by the rosy picture of the slain son.  The story reports he wanted to go to college and how happy and jovial he was as a person, but somehow I felt it was only a half image.  I’m not trying to pathologize young black men, but if a brother walks up to three people on a street, apparently there’s some familiarity–meaning he probably knew his killer.

The code of silence of the community keeps this violence happening.

We stand by and say nothing. We peer out of our windows and say nothing.  We see injustice and we don’t bat an eye.  Why? Because we may be the next dead body found in our homes or the street?  We very well may be.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

******************************************************************************

“The Death of Life”
Ecclesiastes 2:16-17

For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
the days have already come when both have been forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise too must die!
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.
All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

It has become commonplace in the context of our community too see t-shirts airbrushed and stamped with the view of the sky and a sunburst in the background and pictures of a young black male in various casual and posed shots.  At the bottom is their name, a nickname in quotes and all too familiar two words “sunrise” and “sunset” with two anno domini years placed beneath it.  It has become an all too familiar occurrence to log onto Facebook and run across a status update that refers to the death of a young person; to come across a memorial photo with a name and the phrase “gone to soon” and the ubiquitous “rest in peace” tag.

Death remains a mystery to all of us in the room, but it’s a final mystery.  The reality and finite qualities of death always grab our attention, pulling us from life, tapping us on the shoulder and reminding us of its existence.  However, it has become too common a moment when death does not gently tap us on the shoulder reminding us, but knocks us out with a heavy blow laying us flat on our backs.  It is here and it is real.

Dealing with the death our young people is common in the inner city black community.  We have gotten accustomed to Death as a part of Life.  Yes, while all people succumb to that ultimate statistic—ten out of ten people die—we ought not recognize Death as the norm to Life.  The death of Life ought not be normal in our community. When recognize the death of Life as normal, then life is seen as abnormal.

When Life becomes abnormal, it’s not unusual for our young black men to have kids at age sixteen and seventeen because they expect death by age 25.  If we have moved to point in our collective and communal consciousness that the lives of young black men beyond the age of 25 is abnormal, it should come to no shock that the young black women of our community are promoting manhood by age five. Telling a five year old to “Be a man” and to “Man up” and not show any emotions is considered normal, because by age 13, they will be considered middle age in a community that accepts the death of Life as just the way it is.

If we have moved to a place in our black communities where complacency has set in like dry rot in an old house, permeating the essence of our conscience, then we have already lost the battle.  If the death of the lives of our young black men is Life itself, we have conceded our consciousness over to the enemy at the gates.

One would think that we would tire of seeing “sunrise” and “sunset” dates differing no more than 25 years for our beloved Pookie. One would think that we would tire of seeing Facebook memorial pages dedicated to our black brothers, dead before 25…but we don’t.  One would think that we would grow weary of hearing preachers eulogize slain brothers repeating the bankrupt and hollow phrase “heaven must have needed an angel”…but we don’t.  The people who make airbrushed t-shirts with the computer generated images shouldn’t be making any money in our communities—there should be no need for such forms of memorializing.

It is a problem when Death defines the context of a community.  No longer do we measure time by kindergarten promotions, baby dedications, weddings, eighth grade and high school graduations, senior proms, but we measure them by distances between shootings, deaths and funerals.  When optimism moves to pessimism and pessimism moves to cynicism and cynicism moves to nihilism, we have experienced the death of Life.  When a community experiences the death of Life, God becomes an afterthought.

The title of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Masoretic text is “Qoheleth” and has been translated as “The Speaker” or even “The Preacher.” Some even understand it as “The Voice.” From whatever point of view one understands it, I think the sentiments and emotions that are voiced in these two verses speak to where many of us in the black community see ourselves.  This concept of nihilism, this belief in nothing beyond you yourself, is not a new concept; it is as old as the world is young.

However, the redemption of this nihilism is what is at issue.  What a sad state of affairs to be living waiting on Death.  A false bravado that “I ain’t afraid of nothing” including Death is a false hope in the known certainty of the unknown character of Death.  Tempting Death with your lived experience does not a man make.

For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered. Might as well make your mark on the world you say; all of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind you may reason.  Well, I’m not here to preach Jesus and have you give your hand to the preacher and give your heart to God.  I’m not here to tell you that if you get S-A-V-E-D you’ll be S-A-F-E from hell. My job is to not offer you Christ and then suddenly you’ll change your ways.  My assignment is to offer you the chance of Life.

I want to offer a chance at a life that moves from nihilism and enters into a new wonder and consciousness of you and of God.  Now if that consciousness comes through Jesus, then so be it.  But if it doesn’t, I won’t lose any sleep over it.  But I be  damned—the name of Jesus— if I am okay with seeing any more violence begetting more violence that results in one more black man being killed.

We are not allowed to be okay with seeing teddy bear and candle memorials on street corners with rain faded posters and Mylar balloons listing in the

Angel Brown holds tight to the diploma awarded her son, Isaiah Carter, at Manley Career Academy High School's graduation Sunday. Carter was killed this past November. 6/12/11 (Heather Charles, Tribune photo)

afternoon sun.  We do not have the privilege to be okay with seeing single black mothers accept  high school diplomas on behalf of their murdered child cradling a posthumous award as the last accomplishment of the fruit of their womb.  We do not have the authority to accept t-shirts and FB page memorials of our slain youth as normal ways of Life.  We are not given divine permission to be okay with news stories and funeral sermons that act as if the deceased and their relatives and all friends present are removed from corporate responsibility for the death of the one laid out in the casket.

When will we as a community move from grief to action?  We’ve become inured to the pain of death and unable to recognize and accept the joys of Life.  In too many of our communities, our pessimism about our children making it is really shrouded nihilism.  If we already don’t believe that our children are going to make it past 25, what’s the point of preparing them for a life past that age.  If a post-25 year black male life is a foreign concept, one that is filled with vast blankness, it’s no  wonder that we are okay with the death of Life as we see it.

This myopic inability to see Life outside of the context of death is supposed to be saved for those to succumb to natural causes.  At the morgue the coroner and medical examiner have hundreds of reasons to choose for cause of death.  One of the simplest is “natural causes.”  But too often in our community, we see “death by gunshot wound” as a natural cause. Recognizing death through murder as a natural cause, and even going out like a man, we have ceded control of our own lives resulting in death having the final say over our Life.

But I stand here today and decree and declare in the name of the One who sent me that Death will not have the final say over  Life as long as there is breath in my body. As you eat, live, breath, move and have your being about you; every moment and every second of every day you have another chance to live.  Every moment, you have one more chance to say to hell with Death and say yes to Life. You are empowered to do things different; you are empowered to stay in school and be somebody. As a community we are empowered to say to hell with the statistics, to hell with nay-sayers and the haters, to hell with the system hell-bent on keeping us left behind, to hell with the people who choose Death over Life.

You shall live and NOT die!

If Paul can say “O death, where is thy sting; O grave where is your victory” I can say that this is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it—I CHOOSE LIFE.  To hell with the killings, to hell with the murders, to hell with nihilism, to hell with pessimism and to hell Death.  And no I’m not using “hell” as some colloquial cussin’ but hell as a eschatological and imaginative destination and hell as an existential reality.  The things that cause Death in our community, we need to confront them, stand in its face say Get the hell out of our Life, you are no longer welcome here.  I dare each and every one of you to make up in your mind to speak the Death of Death and proclaim the joys of Life.

If Death no longer has its sting then we can put a new song in our heart, receive the joy of the Lord—this joy that I have, the  world didn’t give it and the Lord can’t take it away.  If the grave no longer has it’s victory, then I can say “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is my strength.” If Death no longer has the final say, then I can say with an assured voice weeping may  endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning light.

For Black Religious Intellectuals Who Considered Suicide When The Foolishness Was Too Much

8 Jun

Black America paid close attention last fall when New Birth Missionary Baptist Church pastor Bishop Eddie Long was accused of sexual impropriety and misconduct.  Four young men were launching a civil case against Long for misconduct during their teenage years under the tutelage of Long as members of New Birth.  Suddenly picture text messages surfaced that Long had allegedly sent to these young men, and sordid stories of Long financially supporting one of these young men, and then cutting them off began to surface.  Long stood defiantly in his pulpit the next Sunday after the civil suit was filed and said that he was going to fight to the end; he compared himself to David fighting Goliath that he had “five rocks, and [hadn't] thrown one yet.”

He was preparing for a fight, and from all accounts his congregation was with him.

For almost two days, black Twitter was all abuzz with Eddie Long puns, lampooning his hairpieces and his trademark muscle shirts.  People automatically considered him guilty to saying that we should “cover” him.  I did a blog piece back then about the various categories persons seemed to fall in with regards to how they felt toward Long.  The point was, however, that everyone had an opinion.  But who didn’t?  It was a story that was covered by CNN leading to news anchor Don Lemon admitting on air his previous sexual abuse as a child, and it, yet again, propelled the mysterious and labyrinthian institution that is the Black Church into America’s living room.

And that’s when things got murky.

The last time America had been treated to seeing a black preacher hailing from a megachurch battling a national image, it was Jeremiah Wright’s homiletical treatises that famously included “goddamn America” and other strategically spliced soundbytes from previous sermons.  Not to mention Wright gave a full out press conference that mainstream media pounced on like a pack of rabid wolves after live prey.  Nonetheless, America’s image of the black preacher, the black church as individual churches and as a institutional behemoth, and more importantly for the purposes of this article, the image of black megachurches, was all put on display and America gave a failing grade for all categories.

Not only did America give our formerly esteemed institutions a failing grade, so did we, in the black community.

In an odd admixture of Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers, in the black community, they have contributed to this post-Soul, post Hip-hop pluralistic concept of “spiritual, but not religious” section of the black community.  These persons, reject “church” and “churchiness” in most forms.  This 35 and younger crowd, predominantly, very much enjoys engaging in the postmodern and post-critical thought that our pluralistic society offers.  This generation questions foundations, allows truth to be relative often times in the hope of searching out new truths.

I too, am a part of this culture.

This generation claims spirituality over religion in an attempt to seek the purity of the divine without the logical contradictions that organized religion offers.  This generation holds dear to them the quote from Mahatma Gandhi that “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians” as a pinnacle of their belief in spirituality over religion. However, as this article attempts to argue, what boggles my mind is relatively traditional and often times inaccurate image that this generation has towards the Black Church and black churches.

I recently rediscovered Kelefah Sanneh’s article that originally was published in The New Yorker back in 2008 entitles “Project Trinity: The Perilous Mission of Obama’s Church.”  Just from his telling of his experience at a Good Friday Seven Last Words service, he writes about it as a novel experience and as an outsider.  While one is entitled to one’s opinion, as I offer mine, it seems as though Sanneh’s ignorance of the black church religious experience was sorely lacking.  Contextualizing his background of being born in Birmingham, England (not Alabama) and being raised in New England, and being the son of mixed racial heritage, his view point certainly offers a unique spin on the topic.

A unique spin, however, does not make up for ignorance.  While I certainly am appreciative of Sanneh for his literary offering, I think his piece though intellectual it is, is indicative of the multifaceted problem we face when it comes to the black religious community.  There are commoners offering up an opinion based on misconceptions and willful ignorance and persons who know better and have exhibited higher levels of cognitive processing and still fall into the same trap of being willfully ignorant.

It doesn’t surprise me though.  The image of the black preacher has been caricatured for an entire generation.  This post-______ generation who does not have a cultural and collective memory of a tangible civil rights struggle, neither boasts of having an image of the Black Church nor the black preacher venerated.  Sure those venerations were probably uncalled for in specific instances, but from Arsenio Hall’s image of Reverend Brown in “Coming to America”; Bernie Mac’s image of the preacher in “Friday”; James Brown in “The Blues Brothers” complete with the ubiquitous “church scene” to boot and even to the image of Rev. Rollo Goodlove in “Boondocks” there are more mainstream images of the black preacher as coon, buffoon, bamboozled, a black male Buck who’s a womanizer, a charlatan, a pimp and a myriad of other negative images.  These images are what we think of black male stereotypes that we project onto our black male preachers.

There is a segment of those in the black community who have allowed their preconceived notions and perceptions of the Black Church and black churches to automatically dictate their response to anything having to do with black people and religious life in this country.  Granted I have had the privilege of going to seminary and going to a seminary that allowed me to purposely intermingle with different denominations stemming from different religious reformations, most people are ignorant of other denominations and I dare say ignorant of their own!  This ignorance has turned into arrogance with some when they speak vehemently about topics that they think they know something about and don’t.

Less than 24 hours prior to the publishing of this post, a YouTube profile posted a recent clip of Pastor Creflo Dollar alluding to Long’s settlement and members in a Sunday, June 5, 2011 worship service.  The clip is below.

 

[the clip was removed drat!]

Aside from the YouTuber’s commentary in the pop-up bubbles on the screen, I stumbled upon a Twitter feed that completely and unapologetically castigated megachurches.  Just in general.  No qualifiers.  She now has a public problem with all megachurches.

Just like that.

Now yes, Eddie Long and Creflo Dollar do not help the image of black preachers, black churches nor black megachurches, but I still have to ask, to what level of critical thinking are we using here to have this discussion?  Let me first be transparent and say that when I posted that clip on my Facebook profile page that I publicly compared an imaginary demise of Creflo Dollar to the murder of Osama bin Laden; the ending of life is never pleasant, particularly in cases of murder, but I would not shed a tear over the riddance of their rhetoric.  Granted on a spectrum bin Laden’s rhetoric was not just hateful and vengeful, but injurious to the body as well.  However, Dollar’s rhetoric is injurious to the collective consciousness of black America’s psyche.  As cooler heads prevail, I’m sure what I had to say wasn’t the most constructive, but my own bombastic rhetoric was only checked by one of nine separate commenters.  Which let me know that out of persons willing to comment, only one felt strongly enough to disagree with what I had to say.  Therefore, others shared in my, what was then, righteous indignation.

What I saw on social networking sites and what I observe and listen to when I tune into mainstream media when it comes to issues concerning the black religious community is a lack of depth and a willing ignorance of most topics.  The perception of black churches falls neatly into the traditional church of one’s grandparent or a megachurch where the pastor is taking all the money from mindless bots who sit in the pews every week.  Again, as with the caricatured image of the black preacher being prevalent, it’s no wonder that the image of the black church is shaped by what one sees on television.

If one turns on the Word Network, that channel that tends to carry more black preachers with predominantly black congregations, you’d see pastors, preachers and churches that present a somewhat monolithic image to the untrained eye.  For the most part these are congregations that qualify as megachurches (scientifically designated as having more than 2,000 members on a role) and their worship style and doctrinal beliefs fall into the neo-Pentecostal tradition.  These are mostly men.  Many of whom are attractive men at that.  Many of whom sport designer clothes from suits to lavish robes and some wear jewelry meant to appear expensive whether it is or not.

The average black religious viewer irrespective of income strata or educational accumulation wouldn’t be able to tell the doctrinal and worship difference between seeing Jamal-Harrison Bryant who is AME over that of Apostle R.D. Henton and his Holiness beliefs.  They might see generational differences and other functional differences, but certainly not begin to parse the differences that certainly exist.  The average viewer is merely listening to certain catchphrases and a rather basic and non-intellectual theology that requires a basic fourth-grade level of cognitive skills.

The sad thing is that now when we speak of the “black church” and make reference to a black preacher, we conjure up an image in our heads as though every black church is properly and appropriately situated in a megachurch setting.  [Usually I take that moment in a conversation with my peers to point out that the average church in America is between 150-200 persons and this number includes Joel Olsteen's Lakewood Church and St. Matthew's AME Chapel in Nowheresville, Georgia with three persons on the role.]  This meta-narrative of the this image is so dominant that most people don’t challenge it in the midst of conversation; it’s as though it’s a given.

I watched Obery Hendricks, author of The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted, attempt to discuss Black Liberation Theology and Rev. Timothy MacDonald, a local Atlanta pastor and friend of Jeremiah Wright both attempt and fail miserably at discussing the nuanced nature of the Black Church on “The O’Reilly Factor” back in 2008.  Of course I understood what they were talking about, but the rest of America didn’t and apparently neither did a sizeable portion of the black community–both religious and non religious.

Simply put, we cannot afford to be ignorant of the things that directly affect our community.

Seeing as how blacks are a demographic in this country that associates themselves overwhelmingly with the Christian faith tradition, let’s do ourselves and our sisters and brothers a favor and actually take the time out to be aware of what we’re talking about.  Just because a preacher is found in a YouTube clip spouting all types of foolishness that you do not understand, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are preaching.  If we learned nothing else from the Jeremiah Wright situation, we should learn that we ought not jump to conclusions with soundbytes from preachers.

While I am an unashamed apologist for the institutional Black Church and the many other newer traditions that the institutional Black Church has birthed from the neo-Pentecostal tradition to other forms of emergent worship that have become subsumed under the idea of the Black Church, please believe am not an apologist for Dollar’s comments.  Even in their entirety, such statements are homiletically irresponsibly and morally reprehensible as far as I’m concerned.  If Jesus was quoted as saying that “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea,” then I don’t think I’m too far off in being repulsed by the emetic and wretched sentiments that Dollar was putting forth.

In an appeal to black intelligentsia (yes, the same one that I eulogized some weeks back), and certainly with an emphasis on a black intellectual religious community, I appeal to logic and an inner sense to hold one’s self intellectually accountable for the thoughts and rhetoric that we utter.  When we publish tweets, write blogs, leave comments after an article, write a book and certainly when one speaks from the pulpit, you are influencing the consciousness of the listener!  I cannot stress enough how imperative it is that we do a better job.  Seriously, members of the black religious community feel that they have the trump card to any and all discussions and argument by saying “My preacher said…” as though that effectively should end any further discussion.  That couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Although many feel that by uttering “The Bible says…” should seal the deal, neither statement does anything to foster intellectual thinking.

As members of a post-_________ (fill in the blank) generation that has owned the concept of being “spiritual, but not religious” that feels free to question any and all things and dare declare the death of God, how have we failed to question our own perceptions of religion and ask is it truly a fair perception.  If we fail to be fair to others in the human struggle, are we not crippling ourselves?  Being a self avowed Christian Universalist with humanist leanings, I do myself no good if I castigate my atheist brother and sister.  Religious Christianity would say we’re ultimately connected through Christ, but I say we’re connected through our humanity.  If we don’t expect better from ourselves, what good does it do to complain and expect better from others?

Sad to say, I’m somewhat regarding some clergy as lost causes when it comes to expecting better.  Today Creflo Dollar joined that group.

Keep it uppity and truthfully radical, JLL

The Unnatural Politics and Religion of Natural Disasters

12 May

A man takes a picture of a flooded mobile home park as floodwaters slowly rise in Memphis, Tenn., May 8. (Eric Thayer / Reuters)

This was a post I had been planning to write for some time after some of the major natural disasters we had seen in the news.  It probably began around the Haitian earthquake, but I’m sure my mind was more focused on the horrendous theology of Pat Robertson and his comments surrounding a deal with the devil to overthrow the French in the Haitian Revolution.  I remembered I thought about it again following the Japan earthquake and tsunami, but between work and another topic on the subject I wanted to address, this topic didn’t get published.  However, as I am directly affected by the Mississippi River floods of 2011, I can’t help but write about it this time.

In the wake of the Tornado Outbreak of 2011 and the immediacy of the Mississippi river spring floods, the United States is a bit full at the moment when it comes to natural disaster.  The Japan earthquake, tsunami and now nuclear disaster is well within reaching distance to recall the images of the walls of water coming into harbors and overtaking the streets.  We remember the images of a coach at the University of Alabama filming a massive EF4 tornado rip asunder structure after structure in Tuscaloosa, Alabama only to be replaced by images of houses submerged in West Memphis, Arkansas and farmers watching their crops disappear under a toxic soup of river water on Missouri farmland.

Even though we often times see the good in people after the events occur, it seems that before and during the events we see the horrible marriage of politics and religion manifest themselves in ways that are simply inexcusable.  Although I’m not an ethicist, I will try and parse the ethics of this situation.

Politically speaking, we hear and see local politicians from mayors, city council members, state representatives all the way up to governors pitted against each other all clamoring for attention from the federal government when it comes to what monies to be released after the event occurs and what to do before it occurs.  In Missouri and Illinois it was the difference between flooding 100,000+ acres of farmland for the sake of protecting tiny, yet historic Cairo, Illinois.  Cairo, who’s boom years have long since been behind them is mostly black and mostly poor.  The decision was made to bomb the levees and flood the farmland on the Missouri side of the river and Cairo was spared.  Now farmers have to contend with fields that are covered in river waste and garbage possibly polluting the land for the next season or two.

A river levee is blown up at Caernarvon, Louisiana during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. SOURCE: US Army Corps of Engineers

I personally felt in that case, from my armchair perspective that authorities should have just let nature take its course and hope the levees hold.  Cairo was in no more immediate danger than anyone else in the region.  However, in such cases, citizens want something to be done even if it has zero effect or even an adverse affect on someone else.  This was experienced when famously the levee at Caernavon, Louisiana was dynamited below New Orleans on the river in the landmark Mississippi River Flood of 1927; New Orleans wasn’t in imminent threat, but something was done even though it flooded St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes that were wholly rural and poor.

We see the same anxiety with residents of Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the present.  Baton Rouge’s mayor is advocating strongly for the opening of the Morganza Spillway above the city to flood the Atchafalaya river basin* to take pressure off of levees in his city.  There’s no regard for the people of those lower parishes; we’re more worried about big city infrastructure and revenues than those who have less resources in the first place.

The politics of this go back long before floodwaters flowed down the the river to the zoning and the establishment of homes and business in flood plains.  The land was cheap so naturally less upwardly mobile persons were able to settle it.  What I noticed while watching the scenes of the flooding in West Memphis, Ark. and across the river in Memphis, Tenn. that all of the faces of the metropolitan residents experiencing floods were majority black faces.  Certainly the fact that both cities have a majority black population increases that likelihood, it still shows the income and subsequent race gap that still exists.  It is easier for us to disadvantage those who have less means of recovery after a natural disaster than those who would have the insurance and the money and other resources to recover.

This is nothing new.

In the aftermath of the Flood of 1927, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover made promises to blacks with regards to recovery, but failed to deliver.  How he promised versus how he handled the situation spurred another wave of blacks to move north in the Great Migration and his failure to deliver on promises resulted in blacks shifting party alliance to the Democratic Party and voting for Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election (not to mention a little thing called the Great Depression).  We see this yet again here in these floods where the faces of victims are oftenblacks with lesser resources than their white counterparts.

If I could push the envelope, I would say that has even less to do with race than it does have to do with how our society deals with the economically disadvantaged.  The well-to-do family cares nothing about persons living in a flood plain regardless of skin color just as long as their well-being and lifestyle isn’t affected.  We do nor say anything on behalf of the poor people of the country, we only pay lip-service to the middle class meanwhile protecting the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Old River Control Structure at the juncture of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers

The creation of human made structures to control river flow and spillway flood plains places supernatural power on something that is indeed natural thus giving humanity the false assumption of controlling the supernatural.  If the human fashioned structures weren’t in place, no one would be living in these floodplains in the first place.  If that was the case, the ethical dilemma of flooding out rural residents versus urban dwellers wouldn’t be up for questioning.

Religiously speaking, we can count on the nut jobs to claim any type of divine retribution.  We heard it with Hurricane Katrina, we heard it with Haiti and we can open up our Bibles to Genesis 19 and read about an egotistical deity who not only destroys two entire cities, but goes and turns someone to a pillar of salt just because it’s within their power to do so.  Usually when instances like this happen (and even when it comes to government sanctioned assassinations on foreign soil of terrorists), we run to the seemingly black and white Old Testament that gives us prescribed and proscribed understandings of justice from supernatural sources.  Employing the basic understanding of the sovereignty of divinity, either God caused it or God allowed it to happen.  That leaves us humans wrestling for an explanation of the seemingly unexplainable.  Using a New Testament scripture outside of Revelation might leave you with more questions than answers, so back to the Old Testament we go.

The Old Testament widely uses the dichotomy of cause and effect to get across the idea of retributive justice.  We see it in “you shall reap what you sow” and “eye for an eye” versus “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  This concept of justice is what we see in western society where everything is supposed to fit into a one-size-fits-all box from our legal system to how we’re supposed to do politics and even religion as a whole.  When it comes to religion we act as though if some malady came upon you, it was because you failed to please God. [Even as I wrote that last sentence I almost wrote "it was because you failed to please the gods" borrowing from the idea that in Greek and Roman mythology sacrifices and behaviors were to be done to please the pantheon of gods.  I think such a parallel is a damning critique against the foolishness of western religion at times.]  

Frankly, I’m tired of hearing fools on Facebook or Twitter in their update status use a natural disaster as a moment to point toward God and further alienate non-Christians from associating themselves with a sentient being that would cause such utter pain on their own alleged creation.  The blind trust and authorative emphasis placed on the biblical scripture, especially rape has been used to justify rape, sexual harrassment, misogyny, gender inequalities, racism and religious intolerance.  It’s certainly time we question our purpose for which we use the Bible to explain supernatural occurences: are we using them to support a myopic view of justice or are we using it to uplift those who are experiencing hardship.

This line of reasoning proves problematic for me because not only are victims hearing this theological agenda preached directly or subversively in their ecclesiastical settings, but it eventually becomes internalized.  I’d suppose that there are hundreds of flood victims who have gotten to this point in their lives and are asking themselves “What did I do to deserve this?” and trying to figure out “where they went wrong” with their relationship with God to allow this to happen.  Even in the understanding of the sovereignty of God and the allowing of an event to happen, deep down we’ll still say God caused to happen somehow and some way.  Victims are left feeling guilty wondering what do they need to do in the future to prevent it from happening again or even to successive generations. 

This internalized oppression, as I see it, does nothing to strengthen communal bonds with other people and does nothing for the already broken spirit.  I’m not advocating that persons brought this on themselves in the traditional sense of “you reap what you sow” but certainly, when you live by a river, you will become a victim of circumstances because one year, it will flood.  Same with persons who live in the midwest who deal with tornadoes or Californians who deal with earthquakes or those on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts who have to encounter hurricanes, it simply is what it is.

A towboat pushes barges down the flood-swollen Mississippi River south of Memphis, May 9. (Danny Johnston / AP)

Religion and politics failure to equip a person’s consciousness to deal with the vicissitudes of natural disasters, both good and bad has resulted in a society that operates out of harmony with the world we inhabit.  We now have added super- to the phrase “natural disasters.”  We act as though there’s something else at play than just the natural ebb and flow of seasons.  No longer does the Mississippi river naturally flood as it did thousands of years ago, but is corralled by levees.  The incredulity of humanity to act so privileged as if this is not supposed to happen stands as a monument to our own arrogance.  These events should be humbling moments, reminding us not just of our mortality, but also of our status as creatures of this terrestrial ball: there are some things that are out of our control.

Rather than feeling powerless going forward, we should be empowered to not make the same mistakes as we did before.  Instead politics allow us to rebuild bigger and better in the same places as a testament to our wanton hubris and religion allows us to go in and conquer the land, then guilt ourselves and question our relationship with the deity if something terrible from nature befalls us.

My word of advice, after placing on the hat of ethicist today, is that we should learn to live in harmony with the natural that surrounds us.  Nature is indeed supernatural in an of itself, much like we are too!  While yes the after effects are devastating and disruptive to our everyday lives I think we should find an inner resolve to seek the inner divine and inner peace that will help us endure the hardship.  As humans, we were designed to endure pain.  It doesn’t make it easier, but our survival is a testament that it takes a lot to break the human spirit.  Even if we emerge on the other side with our bodies bruised and our material accumulations taken away, we still have our minds and each other.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Possible avulsion track of the Mississippi River through the Atchafalaya Channel.

* The Old River Structure is built at the juncture between the Red River of Louisiana and the Mississippi River. It is a diversionary waterway that keeps 70% of volume down the current meander of the Mississippi River channel and 30% down the Atchafalaya (pronounced as ‘ah-CHAF-fah-Lie-ah’) River, a distributary of the Mississippi River.  It was noticed as early as 1900 that volume flow was ticking upward from 13% to 34% following the 1973 floods where the Mississippi almost changed channels and began diverting through the Atchafalaya basin rather than it’s current course. 

Naturally, this would pose a serious economic threat to both Baton Rouge and New Orleans ports.

Living In Lo-Debar: The Miscommunication of Religious Politics

15 Mar

Last night I received an email last night on Facebook email that led me to the blog of Rai King.  The article was sensationally entitled “Taking A Stand Against a Child Molesting Pastor.”  I went on to read the article and realized that this was a piece written naming Bishop Johnathan Alvarado of Total Grace Christian Center as a child molester.

Whoa!

Strong words.

I put the blog post into context and began connecting the dots.  Rai King is the wife of Shaun King, pastor of the Courageous Church in Atlanta, Georgia.  Rai King acknowledged in her post that her and her husband had formerly been associated with Johnathan Alvarado.  Actually her husband used to be on staff at Total Grace.  There was a falling out of some kind and the two parted ways.

In the interest of full disclosure, I used to keep up with Pastor King.  In fact his blog, Shaun In The City used to be on my blogroll and I used to follow him on Twitter.  Only reason I stopped following the brother and took his blog roll off of my blog was that he began to get preoccupied with two major events: the Atlanta floods (fall 2009) and the Haiti earthquake.  He began to stop tweeting and blogging about various other issues that I tend to like to read and talk about.  It wasn’t anything personal against him, just as a matter of personal preference.  In fact, I send kudos to him for being involved with those two events.

From other people in the city, I began to learn of his parting of ways with Bishop Alvarado, so when I’d read a blog here or there, or even when I went to hear him at King Chapel during Holy Week 2009 program schedule, it just seemed to be a tinge of bitterness that he had toward Alvarado.  Although he never called out Alvarado by name, it seemed like it was there.

I also learned about the nature of Bishop Alvarado as well.

This was a pastor who was known for having a mouth on him so to speak: he called a spade, a spade no matter the venue.  Alvarado, as told to me, was a pastor who was known for calling out fellow clergy for their misdealings.  I had even heard of his antics whilst being professor at Beulah Heights Bible College from other students–he just called them as he saw them.  That is to say, Alvarado didn’t exactly go quietly either after he and Shaun King parted ways.

Whatever the case may be, to say I was shocked and appalled at the blog that Rai King wrote is somewhat of an understatement.

I guess I felt the need to  make a comment because, well, the Kings decided to make it public.  I went on over to Shaun’s Twitter page and realized that he had went on an impassioned rant about child molestation and the connection between Atlanta being an international hub for child and sex trafficking and mega-churches.  (For the record, King never drew any apparent connection.  I’m not saying that their isn’t, but even I was hard-pressed to see what it was.)  And he went so far as to actually name Bishop Alvarado a child molester.

So I paused and thought this through.

In fact, I thought back to the last major scandal that graced our recent social consciousness in the ecclesiastical arena, and of course my mind went back to Eddie Long, another Atlanta megachurch pastor.  In my blog post “And The Walls Come Tumba’ling Down: The Religious Politics of Eddie Long,” I took the time to parse the different levels of reaction towards such charges: those who believe we should “cover the man(d) of God,” those who actually believe he did it (and would probably throw a charge of homosexuality in it) and those who are outsiders who use this an opportunity to unfairly criticize religion and church people in general.  So I filtered this new charge of allegation against the old one, and thought through and came to the conclusion that the two are incomparable.

While there is a culture of silence that is crippling and maiming the ecclesiastical community when it comes to issues of sex and sexuality, I’m not convinced silence is the apparent culprit in this case.  From my perspective this is the unhappy marriage of religion and sexuality taking up residence in Lo-debar.  For those of you still scratching their heads, Lo-debar was location mentioned in 2 Samuel 9 where Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth, is to come from.  Most use the metaphorical connection between the fact that Mephibosheth is has two lame feet paralyzed from youth and the fact that Lo-Debar has a literal translation from teh Hebrew Masoretic text of “no word.”  (Debar being the Hebrew word for “word” often times in the opening phrases of a chapter or book saying “And the word of the Lord….”)  If I can translate myself, I would say “no communication.”  I think often times when having the discussion where religion and sex and sexuality intersect we find ourselves often times in a place of no communication at the worst of it all and miscommunication at the best of circumstances.

It’s clear that communication doesn’t exist when one’s Twitter timeline is dedicated to calling out someone, particularly someone who you had a spiritual relationship.  And then his wife jumped in the foray with her blog piece.  Both are entitled to their opinion; I’m certainly not trying to abridge their free speech, but honestly, to put it bluntly, I just thought it was tacky.  As Rai King said, some news reporter called to get some information concerning rumors about child molestation allegations.  After Shaun King heard from someone who was said to have been victimized by Alvarado, he felt compelled to say something about it.

Right.

Are you just as confused by the levels of “he said, she said” and hearsay as I am?

Now Shaun King leveled some serious issues concerning child molestation and our church culture of silence, but of course much of that took a backseat to the fact that he actually named someone in his allegations.  What makes this different than the Eddie Long case was that in Long’s case, the accusers were named and went public and we knew who they were.  In this case, frankly, the only person discussing it is King himself.  Neither the Atlanta Journal-Constitution nor any other major Atlanta news outlets have made the decision to cover the story–perhaps with good reason and erring on the side of journalistic integrity.  Frankly, if a news reporter is calling some third party about the veracity of a lawsuit filed and settled out of court–when I’m sure court records are public record–it makes even me question just how much of a story this truly is!

Being who I am, I tweeted Shaun King directly and asked where was this vitriol during the Eddie Long case to which he tweeted:

@theuppitynegro I actually made some public comments. Difference was this time I know the victims. Seen the facts. I didn’t in Long case.

And in a follow-up tweet:

@theuppitynegro But, I have spoken out against molestation, trafficking, abuse, and more my entire adult life. Read all 30k tweets to see.

I finished up by saying:

@ShaunKing i’m with ya brother being against molestation, but, iono, calling out Alvarado like that just seems–tacky.
@ShaunKing As an outsider looking in, it just seems like this wasn’t so much against child molestation as it was against Alvarado
@ShaunKing But God bless you and your ministry and hopefully all works out for the good on both sides: victims and victimizers.

I have long since been an advocate of agitating and righteous indignation on behalf of justice and the righteousness of God, but one shouldn’t use the catalyst of sexuality in order to advance one’s personal agenda.  Sorry, from the outside looking in it looks like Brother King has a personal axe to grind against Alvarado.  Perhaps if this had been the stance King had taken against Eddie Long then I could understand, but King certainly took a much more conciliatory tone toward discussing child molestation on his blog. So I’m left wondering, again are King’s motives about speaking out against child molestation or defaming the name of Jonathan Alvarado.

Well, honestly,  I don’t know.

All I can go is off of what I’ve read online.  What I’ve observed has less to do with the personhood of Shaun King and his wife and more to do with a general breakdown of civil behavior.  It’s just a bad look to do that. So Uppity, why are you doing what you just accused Shaun of doing? Well, let’s look in the manner I’m doing it: I’m trying not to do ad hominem attacks against him, and I’m trying to use this example as a case study of a larger issue about religious civility.  Beyond that, this is a cultural issue and I’ve certainly branded myself as a cultural critic; it’s not much that I really consider off limits.

Pastors and preachers in the black church tradition have made a habit of calling out those who they don’t agree with.  From calling out white oppressors by their names (think former Alabama Governor George Wallace to Birmingham public safety commissioner “Bull” Connor), to my own memories of a public spat between my former pastor and recently deceased pastor Arthur Brazier of Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois.  One famous fight was between a faction of black preachers including Martin Luther King and Gardner C. Taylor versus the then president of National Baptist Church, USA Joseph H. Jackson in 1961–and it was public!

So while I’m not against the religious politicking that goes on, I am concerned about unfounded claims.  The nature of the accusations against Alvarado seem salacious and sensationalized accounts–as of now.  For whatever it’s worth, it seems to me to be a reason why a reporter was calling around because so far the story seemed bogus.  For all I know, as by daybreak of me publishing this story the AJC breaks some news story about another Atlanta bishop who has fallen from “total grace.”

I understand Shaun King’s passion for seeking justice for the defenseless children that could possibly have been molested, but in the midst of the passion, one must use discretion.  Justice could be sought out privately.  Justice in this case could simply be making sure that the culprit sees the inside of a courtroom, not necessarily seeking one’s own vigilante justice by smearing his name on Twitter.  It also means waiting until all the facts come to the fore, or rather, enough facts to move forward with one’s assumption.

Whatever the case may be, we have to be a responsible ecclesiastical community.

All of us, myself included.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Editor’s Note, 3/17: It has come to my attention that WSB News in Atlanta carried a story on 3/16 that the DeKalb County District Attorney’s office has launched a review into alleged criminal charges against Bishop Alvarado, mainly spurred by Shaun King’s Twitter timeline.  As of this post and update, Alvarado has not been charged with any crime, nor is D.A’s office conducting a full-scale investigation.  It seems as though Shaun King is getting the publicity that he was seeking.  For the sake of King’s integrity and future endeavors, I hope Alvarado is found guilty just so Shaun King can be proven right.  Otherwise, Shaun King’s name will be tarnished in most circles–and rightly so.

For Colored Persons Who Have Considered Suicide When Being “Black In America” Is Enough: An Uppity Negro Response to CNN’s Black In America III

22 Oct

I know that’s a long title and certainly hyperbolic, but I think it addresses the gutted and eviscerated feeling that I experienced watching CNN’s Soledad O’Brien “Almighty Debt” a Black In America special.  Granted I went into this third installment of the Black In America series with some serious preconceived notions.  Rightly so I believe. The first installment in summer of 2008 told us just how bad and awful it was to be black, and the second installment in 2009 focused on the middle class to upper middle class blacks, the “our kind of people” who were so far removed from reality, one could have labeled them ontologically white.

God knows what we suffered through tonight.

I felt a bit more at ease commenting on this latest installment “Almighty Debt” because of the route CNN decided to do with the intersection of religion and culture.  Initially my thoughts, with my seminary background, prepared me for an onslaught of yet more one-dimensional journalism.  Choosing a megachurch as the pool from which pull journalistic subjects to explore this concept of debt, finances and how blacks in America were handling the recession, in my opinion was lazy.  I say this because the average church size in America is less than 200 members on the roll.  So while reality states that average church goers are used to attending smaller churches, the face of the black church is purported to be one of a megachurch.  Perhaps this was to justify the presence of Bishop T.D. Jakes later on in the program.

So, this program already has strike number one for me because I’m already seeing how this is going to be skewed away from portraying an average life of blacks in America.  Yes, perhaps average for megachurch congregants, but admittedly, that’s a smaller subset than what was portrayed.

Tonight’s focus had three major story lines.  The first was a 17 year old burgeoning actor named Fred, graduating from high school and entering college and the debt he would be saddled with when it came to student loans.  The second was a married couple with their children who were facing a serious threat of foreclosure, and the third man named Carl who had been employed for 25 years and due to the recession had lost his job.  What ensued was typical documentary film style that weaved the stories together as all of these persons were members of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in New Jersey under the pastorate of William Soaries.

Fred Phillips and Pastor Williams Soaries from CNN's "Almighty Debt" Black In America special

We saw Fred, an ambitious young black male trying to get into college and applying for scholarships from ACT-SO Awards, and not getting money.  Still getting accepted to college, he was forced to get student loans amounting to $16,000 for just one school year.  However, he had some issues with his grades and we would see, essentially, that the pastor made some phone calls on this young brother’s behalf.  I have no issue with that; that’s what the community is for!

However, I began to have some issues with the images painted of the other two stories.

This couple who was facing foreclosure lived an apparently comfortable lifestyle.  The had a mini-mansion that was clearly in some cul-de-saced enclave, in the suburbs.  They had a BMW truck in the driveway, and the inside was marvelously decorated, and all of this that seemed to allow them to have the American dream.

Then they lost their jobs and couldn’t cover the mortgage.

So now they’re faced with this theological dillemma: is God causing this to happen or is God allowing this to happen?  This line of logic is based on the fundamental principle of God’s sovereignty however.  So in the interest of not losing all of my witnesses by questioning that fundamental principle, I think it does speak to just how do black Christians appropriately respond to this American capitalistic dream.  No doubt it’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep in order to believe it.

As I watched with my friends and what numerous people on Twitter were tweeting, it became apparent that this family needed to just downsize.  Trade the BMW in for a Toyota Camry.  Get a four bedroom bungalow in the city or closer in.  Park the car on the street, a garage isn’t necessary.  Stop paying dues at the country club and go jogging around the neighborhood for exercise; you need to play tennis with Buffy and Jack twice a week.

Because of the intricately weaved connection between Americanity (the religion of American culture) and religion (the theological brand) itself, this family seemed to be unable to divorce itself from the mere idea that perhaps the trappings of success were not an appropriate lifestyle choice.  It seems to be very easy for us as Americans, black, white , Asian and Latino alike, to associate God’s blessing with material abundance.  That because I drive the BMW, I have the four bedroom mini-mansion with 3,500 sq. ft., and I live in Lithonia, Ga, that God has ordained this because I possess it.  This mindset allows preachers to implant the bad theological seed that “Favor aint fair” in the minds of the listeners.  We believed “favor aint fair” when back in 2005 people were qualifying for houses and credit cards without earning enough money — no, sorry to burst your bubble, that was unfair lending practices and actually illegal.

This idea that God was intimately involved in the lives of these people was no more apparent in the man named Carl who lost his job after 25 years of work.  He was clearly dealing with some form of depression when he uttered that he didn’t feel like a man because his wife, as an administrative assistant, was supporting the household.  Carl was shown numerous times seated at his kitchen table reading the Bible and crying and praying.  (Seriously, I was expecting a little tongue to come forth.)  He appeared to be the most churchy of them all, or rather the most fundamental in his beliefs.  He even asked for persons to stand and hold hands for prayer in a veritable job interview that the pastor set up for him with other potential employers from the church.

The last 30 minutes Pastor Soaries and T.D. Jakes were interviewed in front of a live studio audience.  I’ll come back to T.D. Jakes later.

As I was driving home, I realized what I really having problems with and it was that primarily this was not a Black in America special, but rather just an In America special.  The three main stories were not stories that were unique to the African American experience in this country.  Certainly having Dr. Julianne Malveaux speak about jobless statistics, and education statistics does create a matrix out of which these stories were birthed.  But CNN could have went to a Lutheran church in Des Moines, Iowa and easily have found carbon copies of the persons for tonight’s story.

I think had they highlighted this story based out of some churches with a membership around 200, it would have given a different feel to it.  Let’s be clear, the persons in the three stories all benefited because they were members at a mega church that had the resources to help them.  At a smaller church, the pastor wouldn’t have been able to assure Fred a spot at a university; the pastor wouldn’t have been able to go to bat for the couple about to lose their home; and the number of business connects that Carl would meet possibly landing him a job wouldn’t have occurred. This is not to say that that would have been a uniquely black in America experience, but it would have done better than the racially neutral roles that seemed to be portrayed.

Secondarily, but equally as important this unhealthy tie that we, as African American’s, have to middleclassism.  I’m certainly not saying that one shouldn’t have nice things if they can afford it, but as this special showed and financial analysts and planners alike have said, just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you can afford it.  People in the suburbs are living pay check to pay check just like those in the inner city, the difference is just that it’s a bigger pay check.

Thirdly, I don’t appreciate T.D. Jakes being the go-to person on issues such as this.  I certainly think that Dr. Jonathan Walton now of Harvard Divinity School proved himself on how he handled the Eddie Long scandal when it initially made headlines.  This is not saying that what T.D. Jakes had to say was invalid or that he’s not qualified to say what he said, but as a pastor, there are something that I think Jakes would be restricted from saying.  Not to mention Jakes is such a monumentously public figure, what he says makes it law.  Having a professional ethicist such as Walton, who’s wheelhouse is religion and culture, I think he would have been able to shed some light on that elephant in the room of what does American culture say about my material abundance and what does my Christianity have to say about my accumulation of said things, and ultimately what does it mean if I don’t have them anymore.

What I didn’t hear, not unless it was amidst crosstalk between me and my friends, was the pastor dealing with that issue of equating God’s blessings with material abundance.  Which logically would mean, if I have to give it up, does that mean my relationship with God is in jeopardy or that God doesn’t love me anymore?   Although Jakes did say that tithing does not automatically mean that you get something back from God, but using jacked up analogies about “tipping the waiter 15% and not being able to give God 10%” is mind control in my honest opinion.  Flat out, God doesn’t need your money, but the church does.  But, the pastor had to say that because that’s his bread and butter–clearly the pastor has a job.

I know I haven’t had much positive to say about this documentary, but frankly I wasn’t impressed by it.  From the cheesy intro’s to the God-awful soundtrack it just wasn’t dynamic.  Whereas the first Black In America in 2008 was hyped up all surrounding the impending nomination of Barack Obama to the Democratic nominee for president, it had cool intros, had spoken word with it’s lead ins, just an overall better production.  If the first Black In America was to Barack Obama, Black In America “Almighty Debt” is to Barack Obama’s long lost brother named Barney or something.  Seriously, that sad organ music in the background was the pits!

This leads me to question how are we as blacks in America to view mainstream media?  Not to mention the good chunk of followers who saw Anderson Cooper discuss the “doll test” that get s trotted out every few years as thought it’s monitoring the temperature of the racial fever that is plaguing our country.  Ever since Kenneth and Mamie Clark devised it as a study, the racial temperature has always neared a feverish point.  We’ve been maligned with an ague that we’ve yet to fully diagnose: we know the symptoms, but we refuse to agree on a diagnosis, therefore treatment cannot begin.

This special hosted by O’Brian, no, was not enough to consider suicide, but certainly left a bad taste in the mouths of many blacks.  For many blacks, and I’m sure this applicable to many blacks who have suffered through yet another long post by the Uppity Negro, that we peered through a glass by watching this special and we were able to see how mainstream America attempts to view us and portray us back to themselves.  We balk at this image because it’s overly homogenous and I think it’s an insult because we see ourselves being defined by others who certainly don’t always have our best interest at heart.

Yes, I’m still talking about CNN and not BET.

Nonetheless, who knows what CNN or any other mainstream media outlet will cook up next.  I’m sure I won’t be impressed then either.  As far as I’m concerned, CNN should have either shown “Roots” or “Eyes On The Prize” and called it a day.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Mainstream Media Gets It Wrong Again: The Black Church in American Culture

21 Oct

On Wednesday, October 20, CNN.com posted a news article entitled “Black preachers who ‘whoop’ — minstrel or ministers?” that amongst the black churchy folk was a subject of tweets and Facebook status updates; many went so far as to link the news story to their Facebook pages engendering comments aptly defining the “whoop” (pronounced “hoop”) as either minstrel, ministry and for some it’s both.

If you’re still lost as to what I’m talking about and you haven’t clicked the link of the story, the “whoop” is the end part of the sermon when the preacher goes from a speaking voice into a musical pitch.  To someone unfamiliar, it kind of comes off as singing, but usually most black congregants wouldn’t recognize it as such. The preacher finds a different cadence that previously before that is in sync with the musicians.  Esteemed homiletician and professor Dr. Henry Mitchell has dubbed this part of the sermon as the “celebration.”

To a large swath of the African American church populace ranging from those in urban settings to rural settings and all in between, this practice of whooping at the end of a sermon is relatively common and considered normative for the preaching moment.  However, as the title of the CNN.com article posed, the big question amongst scholarship and black preachers alike is whether or not this is minstrelsy or ministry.  Unlike the video clip, the article does decide to push the envelope further by asking is this something that only black preachers can do or is something in which white counterparts can partake.

To deal with the premier question, that truly depends on one’s background as to whether whooping is minstrelsy or ministry.  I think in mainstream media’s attempt to dissect all things in the black community in the Age of Obama combined with an American listening public that has grown attached to 10 second sound-bytes like conjoined twins, that certain topics don’t get their full breadth of how to understand them and deal with it.  Such as was this piece published on CNN.com.  While the written article did take the time to get quotes from well known homiletics professors such as Drs. Teresa Fry Brown and Henry Mitchell, get an opinion from white Pentecostal preacher Paula White well known in black evangelical and Pentecostal circles, the video was a shoddy piece of journalism.

Rev. E. Dewey Smith, pastor of Greater Traveler's Rest Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia

I say this because it seemed as though CNN went no farther than their Atlanta backyard to find a preacher who exuded the performative aspects that are generally associated with a black preaching style–namely the pastor’s ability to whoop at the end.  While this is not an attempt to castigate Greater Traveler’s Rest Baptist Church or malign the integrity of their pastor E. Dewey Smith, Jr. for his interview, it’s just simply that that was one pastor’s understanding of this aspect of black preaching and the black church experience.

The reason why person’s see whooping as minstrelsy is because of it’s apparent reliance on emotionalism.  This idea of emotionalism has been around since the days of slavery out of which the black religious experience was birthed in what Albert Raboteau called “slave religion.”  It has its geographical genesis in middle of woods with “brush arbor” meetings away from plantations and masters’ houses in order to have an encounter with God on their own terms.  This form of black religion began to bump heads with a Eurocentric style of worship by the 19th century after the establishment of the African Methodist Episcopal church (denomination) that even had critics looking down on worship that maintained the African retentions as having “fist and heel” music according to AME Bishop Daniel Payne.

This article presents black church life as homogenous.  Particularly accompanied with a video clip, most persons will watch the video clip rather than read the article.  This is a problem for me because I get concerned when I imagine how residents of mostly white suburbs or states (such as Iowa or New Hampshire or Montana or suburban enclaves where mixture with urban dwelling blacks is kept at a minimum) would react to seeing this.  Combined with Hollywood images that when a black church scene is done they seem to take their cue from the scene from the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers.

 

 

Mainstream media fails to portray that there are black Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and various forms of Methodism and even non-denominational churches that don’t have such performative aspects of worship or preaching that is familiar to them.  To nuance it even further, many of the older all black congregations in black Baptist denominations and few Church of God in Christ churches do have preachers and pastors that do not whoop.

The reason why is because general thinking is that whooping applies to one’s emotions rather than one’s intellect.  Personally, I’d have to agree with that logic.  To use Smith’s analogy of the meat and gravy concerning the body of the sermon and whooping respectively, not all meat needs gravy to be enjoyed.  In my own personal, non-scientific observation, for many listeners one has not preached unless a certain intonation in the voice has been reached, a certain cadence has been established or some type of “frenzy” has been incited.

Amongst fellow preachers, it’s almost an issue of bragging rights.  Who’s whooping can kill a crowd?  How well are one’s vocal acrobatics that can incite a frenzy amongst a crowd.  Many black churchgoers have observed that when a preacher, usually male, gets to the close of their sermon that the whole pulpit, again, usually male, stands up and sometimes even pats the preacher on the back while in the midst of them whooping.  Often time the first row of deacons and other ministers who couldn’t fit on the pulpit vacate their pew and approach the pulpit as preacher has begun their whoop.  Engaging in the call-and-response each finding a resonant pitch with each other between the preacher, the musician and the congregation yelling back “You preachin’ Docs” and “You pullin’ it Revs” and “Put ya weight on it sirs” and the ever popular “YEAHs.”  To the untrained eye, it almost looks staged.

As much as I may have criticism about it, it’s not necessarily a staged or pre-planned production.  Rather I think the nuanced word of anticipatory describes it.  Most preachers who whoop do it every Sunday and it’s just as standard as having a morning hymn or the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed.  For some that means that it is staged and not real.  For others its a cathartic release of emotionalism that may be needed.

My personal opinion is that it becomes homiletically irresponsible when preachers whoop out of habit without being aware of how their congregation is listening to their sermon.  By listening, I don’t just mean the auditory function of hearing sounds by the receptacle of the ear, but how are their digesting and processing the information in the sermonic moment. (Granted this opens the doors to how do we as a society understand preaching, but that’s for another blog post, more certainly, a book.)

Dr. Teresa Fry Brown

 

As my preaching professor said in my Introduction to Preaching class, “the preacher informs the consciousness of the listener.”  Because many listeners expect the whoop, if they don’t get it they feel the preacher hasn’t preached, moreover, they don’t get that rush of adrenaline that high emotionalism can produce.  That’s why the article quoted Emory professor Dr. Teresa Fry Brown as saying

 

They [referring to preachers who whoop without a substantive sermon body] deliverdiabetic sermons. You have a shot of insulin, but you have to come back later…It’s like a candy high. They never look at the text; never any substance. All they give you is sounds.”

I’m quite clear that I marvel at whooping–as an art form.  In fact I get goosebumps sometimes when I hear someone do it who can do it right.  However, usually I’m most moved after a good sermon.  If I didn’t feel anything during the sermon, one doing vocal calisthenics  with a whoop and squalling into a microphone will do nothing to move me either.

If I can let you, the reader in on a little secret about being black in America: when a black person is interviewed on a national network such as CNN about a topic such as this, that one black person is the spokesperson for 37,000,000 other black folks in this country.  Let’s be honest, for that subset of whites and other non-blacks in this country who have little or no interaction with African Americans, such interviews and news stories become foundational in how they view various aspects of black culture be they negative or positive.  I’m certainly not suggesting that this portrays blacks in a negative light, but this story about whooping certainly does enforce major stereotypes about blacks being emotional in religious settings.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle O.

As I hinted earlier, it is my belief that in the Age of Obama, there has been this need for understanding black culture beyond a Dateline or Nightline special here and there.  I think this is because of the image of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.  The image of a black married couple, outside of the fictional depiction of Clair and Cliff Huxtable, has not been prevalent in the social ethos of this country.  Prevailing images of blacks are usually not shown in positive or leading rolls in media outlets.  This ranges from primetime television show casts, images on the evening and nightly news, or even to Hollywood movie leads.

Then here comes Barack and Michelle.

As a result, certainly following the Jeremiah Wright situation during the campaign season of 2008, many Americans were left scratching their heads because Obama and his wife didn’t quite fit the image that they had imagined a black man.  That’s why such sideways comments were uttered even from fellow Democrats such as now Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Harry Reid.

Mainstream media has long since diverted from having integrity in my own opinion.  They have become beholden to large corporate owners who certainly have a political agenda.  No longer are we getting our news from local newspapers with foreign bureaus or even our nightly news, but from some outlet with a 24 hour news cycle.  That’s why for CNN to portray this facet of the Black Church in America as it did surrounding whooping as so blindingly one dimensional makes me upset because I’m left wondering is this the best that our media outlets can do?

This is a time for us as a collective people to learn to think for ourselves.  In this technologically saturated society, information is at our fingertips literally. It doesn’t require us to traipse down to a library and search through dusty volumes of already dated material to learn some information, but a Google or Wikipedia search can do wonders for increasing one’s knowledge of a subject.

We have a responsibility to ourselves and above all, we have a responsibility to each other as fellow citizens living together.  Let’s do better.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

“Don’t Talk About My Mama!” and Other Problems With Black Intellectual Rhetoric

2 Oct

We’ve all had that moment when we realize that a conversation somehow strayed down a rabbit-hole and turned into a debate, and that debate got intense and turned into an argument.  Somewhere deep down inside you were maintaining your cool when all of a sudden the other Negro made it personal and said something about your family member–probably your mother.

Then all hell breaks loose–generally.

Sometimes chairs get overturned as you jump up ready to fight yelling the infamous “Don’t talk about mama!” catchphrase that has become synonymous with American black folk history.  We’ve heard it called many things from “the dozens” to “signifyin’” or simply put “yo mamma jokes.”  It was a time honored tradition if you will, on many playgrounds across this country where black kids would form circles around one another just to see if they could tell the best “yo mamma” joke.  I remember growing up in elementary school and some persons had actually published a book that all of us in 5th and 6th grade were trying to get our hands on just to memorize the jokes and become immortalized at least for a few days in the kid-dom of the Recess/Playground lot at James E. McDade Classical.  I’ll never forget the one liners:

YO MOMMA so fat, she needed a boomerang just to put on her belt.

YO MOMMA so poor, I came to your house, stepped on a cigarette and she said “who turned off the heat?”

YO MOMMA so old, she fart dust or her social security number is one!

YO MOMMA so ugly, she fell out the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down!

In Chicago, growing up, we said “uh oh, he heatin’ up” and I discovered that each region had their own catchphrase to describe the process to which this time-honored tradition began. From “clownin’” to “gassin’ up” to “readin’” to “s/he snappin’ off” to “he jappin’ off” to any other verb known to the elementary schoolkid’s vocabulary.  Whatever “bookin’” had to be done it was always capped off with a “…and dats why yo’ momma __________ (fill in the blank).”  And the older we got, the more sexually crude that fill in the blank became.  Of course these were wild hyperbole’s only meant to instigate an already heated situation for the sake of momentarily personal fame from a crowd and were never true.

Except if you’re name was Delonte West and you fell out with LeBron James circa 2010.

After the “yo momma…” line was emitted into the atmosphere like a direct pepper spray hit to the eyes, it acted as the ultimate verbal trump card.  There were three options that the victim (yes, victim) had, two of which maintained their viability: one was to simply throw a punch, preferably in the mouth of the verbal assailant; two was to simply up the ante and throw back another “yo momma…” line and the third was simply to opt out.  Granted third was not the preferred choice if one cared anything about playground or classroom reputation, but it was the one our mothers and Sunday School teachers told us to do.  While secretly older brothers, older male cousins, uncles and even fathers were preparing us options one and two.  No wonder when it actually happened we were so conflicted; it wasn’t the devil that made us do it, but the damn adults who couldn’t get their message straight!

So before I make a ethnological faux pas, I’m putting out a disclaimer that I may have some of the following wrong: flat out, our white counterparts weren’t quite socialized like this on the playground.  Sure there was the playground bully and the general art of childhood disagreements, but I would certainly say that that “yo momma” punchline has not been immortalized quite as much as it has been in the black community.  Because of this, maybe not directly so, (but I am making a distinct connection surely with other factors that I’m not discussing), it has directly influenced American black rhetoric.

To believe that Black Americans do not think differently, speak differently and most certainly listen differently is to succumb to American hegemony as logically correct that what is associated with Black is indeed other. A famous case in point is the coded speech that we observed from Barack Obama during the campaign season of 2008.  Blacks across the country knew when he was speaking directly to the African American populace from when he spoke of “a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream” in his Democratic nomination acceptance speech to telling the story of Ann Nixon Cooper on November 4, 2008: it was a message that aligned himself with the black community.  Or to put it bluntly, when former New Orleans Mayor C. Ray. Nagin made his famous “chocolate city” comment, it was a direct nod toward the black citizenry.

After establishing that blacks speak and listen differently, it’s not a hard stretch to believe that this is all psychological–which I think it is: we think differently.  That is to say, our collective and individual experiences lead us to process information differently; through a different set of variables.  If this were a Venn diagram, there are certainly many shared experiences in the overlap that come just from being part of a westernized culture and being Americans, however many things are viewed differently.  Certainly blacks will regard the medical community with ever-increasing fear and trepidation in light of the recent discovery of American health officials purposely infecting Guatemalan men with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases to see how the body and infection would react to penicillin treatment from 1946 to 1948.  This of course was a concurrent “study” as the Tuskegee Experiment taking place in rural Macon County, Alabama lasted from 1942 to 1972 under federal government sanction.  For many whites, this isn’t even something they worry about if they’re not going to a free clinic, or if medical malpractice occurs they have the ability to file a lawsuit.

Okay, now that the groundwork has been established, I think that far too often, amongst ourselves, we have this bad tendency to try and outdo one another when we talk.  And this gets magnified when amongst a crowd of people.

As I said earlier, I’m not specifically saying that blacks have a monopoly on this particular oratorical ploy, but certainly there is a particular flare to it.

More and more I’m beginning to think town hall forums that gather blacks in one spot to listen to black intellectuals dish in front of them produces, at times, a zero-sum gain.  The hope is that someone in the audience or listening on radio or television is inspired to do something different or to think some new thoughts, but I would bet that easily 50% of the crowd is just merely listening for certain catch-phrases that already align with their embedded beliefs.

Clearly, Rev. Jamal Bryant slipped into preacher mode whilst talking.  And in the middle of it, he went for the kill by slandering Tony Smith.  Granted, I suggest you click on the highlighted name of Tony Smith and watch the Youtube clip and you’ll see that Jamal, believe it or not, might have been relatively justified in such a public dig, but it still a) diminished a truly intellectual conversation and b) Jamal’s rhetorical style appealed to listeners ears and not their minds.

I’ve pontificated for over 1,000 words just to simply say that when we, as blacks and certainly amongst black academicians and intellectuals, we ought not try and play an intellectual game of cards and try and trump someone else with our silver-tongue.  What truly incenses me is the groupthink. We hear it on the radio talk shows to town hall forums when persons question the panel and even from panel members themselves.  There seems to be this weird idea in search of a meta-narrative that speaks to all of the social and economic ills within the black community.  We’ve all heard them trotted out like a magical big joker in a game of spades: the breakdown of the family, black men in jail, HIV/AIDS, downlow black men, hip hop culture etc.  Sometimes you hear folk get real specific about it, some people write on comment sections or blogs or call into Al Sharpton or Warren Ballentine’s show and go off about black men saggin’ as if this is the one problem that would solve all other problems.

This puts the “dialogue” (and I use that term loosely) in the realm of one making a statement that trumps the other, neither ever engaging the idea behind an individual’s statement.  As what Jamal Bryant did, he totally disregarded what Bishop Carlton Pearson had to say and contribute to the conversation, and went for the audience kill.  To frame this discussion in my wheelhouse, black folk certainly have the tendency to go the Bible, quote a scripture as though that would end all debates.   Perhaps that worked last century, but in a post-modern era, that doesn’t work for an increasingly growing swath of the population.

We can’t have an honest and open dialogue in our community when primarily we can’t even listen to one another for failure to listen to one another. All we’re doing is waiting for the other person to stop speaking just so we can say what we wanted to say and we don’t respond to what has been said.  Also, when we do decide to listen we need to make sure that we’re listening properly and not just hearing.  Hearing is merely the physical response of the ear doing its job; listening is comprehending those sounds into speech patterns and allowing those speech patterns to be processed (i.e. critical thinking).

The masses ought not expect “appointed” leader to just be the projection of what they already believe and think.  But, I guess then they wouldn’t be “the masses.”

Meh, point taken.

Nevertheless, the “appointed” leaders and talking heads and Negro intellectuals that are in our midst must take some courage and help frame the discussion appropriately.  We can no longer afford to turn every public gathering into a “church meeting” when each speaker begins sermonizing and the audience slips right back into call-and-response mode.  Just like your average church goer would be hard-pressed by Wednesday to tell you what the sermon was about, we’ll equally forget what was said in a town hall forum.  The non-passivity of call-and-response listening is uniquely African, but still in todays setting, we must question are we responding because we agree with what’s been said?  Are we responding because we already know what’s being said?  Are we responding because it just sounds right?

This sets up a dynamic whereas in a town hall setting the panelist preaches speaks with the intent of garnering a response.  Therefore certain phrases are fashioned, a certain cadence is established both orally and grammatically through parallel structure–all of which are very hard for black church folk to resist.  Moreover, black preachers who are aware of the “game” involved in preaching and speaking often know that preaching, isn’t dialogue.  No matter how many books we read, papers we write, sermons we preach, it’s not a dialogue–I speak, you listen.  The only way it’s dialogue is if mid sermon, you stop and say “Any questions?  Is everyone clear about the new vocabulary word “soteriological” and what we mean by “justification” and “sanctification.”

Black religion makes an interesting intersect in this topic simply because the vast majority of blacks in this country self-identify with Christianity of some sort.  Even with significant numbers aligning with Islam or even Buddhism, still, most blacks have genealogical roots with the Black Church.  So naturally the idea of a charismatic leader coming out of a religious setting is a familiar idea.  Even more so, many blacks certainly feel that at issue to our social ills is squarely a spiritual problem, which results in most black people referring to 2 Chronicles 7:14 that plainly reads

If my people who are called my name, shall humble themselves and pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sins and heal the land.”

Usually that’s quoted in an attempt to shut down all other discussion, which as I’ve already stated, I categorically disagree with.  I honestly think most people deep down disagree with it as well, if they didn’t they would actually change their behavioral patterns, but clearly from a larger point of view, things are very much the same.

So the next time you get in a debate, actually take the time to listen to them.  The best call-and-response isn’t just an “Amen” or “That’s Right” but actually engaging what got said for the mutual benefit of both participants.  We have to do away with the intellectual “yo momma” jokes and press for the deeper things in life.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

UNN.com Throwback Week — The End of the Age

25 Sep

A couple of weeks ago, one of my professors had us read the “Mini-Apocalypse” in the biblical scriptures found in the Gospel of Matthew 24:3-8

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ, and will deceive many. 6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains.

Most Christians are familiar with this type of speech and usually we allude to this scripture when it comes to trying to explain natural disasters that leave wanton devastation such as the tsunamis in the south Pacific and the destruction of Hurricane Katrina or the terror of 9/11/01 in New York City or even the wars in the Middle East.  Many Pentecostals and charismatic Baptists run around declaring that we are indeed living in the end times and if you’re John Hagee, you’re quite sure that Jesus is coming back in ___ amount of days, hours, minutes and seconds.

That being said, my professor went immediately into astrology.

Of course I was taken aback of course because I was wondering how he was going to tie it all together.  He went back to the Hebrew Bible and just brought up the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel and how interesting it was that the twelve tribes are good correlations to the twelve zodiac signs.  He went on to use the Joseph dream motif in Genesis 37 to highlight how the writer did mention moon and stars and the sun, of course astrological symbols to get the point across about Joseph’s greatness.

Okay….and…

…was what I was saying.  I had grown up hearing that one time from my youth pastor, and that was enough for me to really not get caught up in astrology like some people.  How they try and peg your personalities based on your astrological symbol.  I usually just chalked it all up as self fulfilling prophecies if you use to believe it.  So, he went on and asked the class if they had heard of the Year of Precession.

Of course we hadn’t.  Didn’t even have a clue what he was talking about.

He went on to say that we are clearly approaching the Year of Precession as we live in 2009 C.E.  Approximately 2,000-2,100 years ago was another Year of Precession.

See, where I’m going with this.

For those who are still lost check this out:

I recommend the first and third clips to fully understand what I’m talking about.  Especially the third clip, because it drives everything home.  I just put them all up because I really got caught up in watching them and maybe you will too.

[Editor's Note: I had five Youtube clips that apparently broke some copyright laws and have since been pulled.  Sorry for the inconvenience.]

Whew!

I never felt so small in my life after watching that.

But for those who skipped down and didn’t have the 50 minutes to take to watch that, in a nut shell, due to the rotation of the earth on it’s axis, the rotation of the earth around the sun and the apparent rotation of the actual sun, ergo the Solar System, at the point of our vernal equinox (the first day of Spring in March) we seem to be in a different position with reference to the zodiac signs.  Approximately every 2,000-2,100 years we move into a different house, backwards in the zodiac calendar.  This is commonly known, as the precession of the equinoxes.  Below is a picture to further drive that point home.

Equinox_path

Okay, Uppity, now I’m really confused, you’re asking.  Don’t worry, I know where I’m going with this.

As anyone knows we are seeing a shift in culture, not this major shift that was noted by the actual ages of the Greco-Roman calendar of Silver, Bronze, Iron and this ultimate Golden Age comprising what’s known as The Great Year (a total of approximately 24,000 earth years), but still, a shift in an age of thinking.  Most people will admit that we are indeed living in a post-modern society.  Where modernity has dominated solidly for at least half a millennium, we clearly are seeing this shift.

Our professor had said that isn’t it interesting that often times in the Hebrew Bible that the ram was considered the premier sacrificial offering but that in the ages prior to Jesus’ here on earth it was the Age of Aries, the ram and before that the Age of Taurus which was the bull?

Ram in a bush anyone?

So of course everyone knows that Jesus went after disciples who were fisherman.  And Jesus now asked them to be “fishers of men” drawing them into the concept of Jesus’ christology.  And many people know that the symbol for early “followers of the Way” was the symbol of the fish.  Do you honestly think that there was some cosmological coincidence that the historical Jesus entered the scene shortly after the beginning of the Age of Pisces–symbolized by the fish?

So where does this leave Jesus?  The disciples in Matthew asked Jesus how would they know the end of the age and not the end of the world. The Koine Greek clearly has two separate words aionos being age and cosmos being world.  The disciples ask about the end of the age and Jesus simply says in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:20 that “lo, I will be with you, even until the end of the age.”

Whoa!  That’s heresy you’re talking Uppity, you say.

No, I’m just stating the obvious facts.

What I’ve said about The Great Year and the precession of the equinoxes is observed fact and observed fact for a few millennia it seems and something that pre-dates the Bible.  After watching this documentary and allowing myself to be a bit more free-thinking that traditional church would probably prefer, for me the question is how does Jesus fit into all of that?  I know the typical church question would ask how does all of that fit into Jesus–but just for fun let’s flip it and see what we get.

I think all that it shows is that yet again, there was this dominant thought and for the most part, thanks to Constantine and St. Augustine, the father of church doctrine as we know it, something that still not even Martin Luther and Calvin were able to undo totally, were a dominant force for the last two millennium and that indeed the promise was to get us to the end of this age.

We are indeed moving into a new era.

I think the children of today that are blessed to live to the end of this century and maybe even beyond will definitely have stories to tell that will rival the stories of centenarians today who talk about World War I, the Great Depression and World War II with stories of nuclear armaments of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Standoff.  Actually, I’m rather inclined to believe much of what I saw in the above clips–why? because it just simply all of that information told me its bigger than that.

I’ll always have questions for Jesus, particularly the Constantinian and Augustinian Jesus that has presented itself in church dogma (thanks Paul) today.  Too often we approach the Bible as though all of it speaks with one voice and has one audience.  How do we reconcile the fact that it wasn’t until St. Augustine that we began to “preach” from the Bible?  Before that if someone had a word from the Lord, they spoke and if it came true, then so be it, otherwise they were labeled a false prophet or as the writer of I John called them simply “the antichrist”–anything that was against the messiah.  But that Jesus, I’ll always have questions about, but as for a God that I fully believe is bigger than all that I saw in that documentary, I have no problem with believing that.

Perhaps because the scientists have shown us that there is some order to the cosmos beyond our own earth.  Does it answer the questions about dinosaurs and what not?  No, not even remotely, but again, given this age, it’s quite clear as humans we are limited in our comprehensions.  Do I wish I were alive in this fabled “Golden Age” and witness the “comprehension of God”?  Probably, but clearly that’s not going to happen.

I’m putting my trust in God.

I really don’t know what’s going to happen when I die.  If there is a heaven, I definitely wanna go.  I think most people here on earth are rolling the dice of religion and hoping that their chips have been placed on the right number when the end comes.  I think that documentary showed me that our human capacity has only reached to the point of barely understanding a true faith concept; there is a gnosis–hidden knowledge–that we seek to understand, but simply can’t.  That being as it is, we do the best we can, and me believing in God is doing the best that I know how.

Seriously, I’d love to hear your reactions to this post! Does it rock your world?  Is it something you can live with?  Does it make you uncomfortable or does it give you ease?  If you’re Christian, will you have some questions come the next mid-week Bible study or in Sunday School this coming up week?  Or do you just outright reject this notion and think that since none of this was mentioned in the Bible then it’s all bollocks?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

UNN.com Throwback Week — Being Black and Dealing With Postcolonialism in a Postmodern World

24 Sep

Editors note: This is probably going to be one of my longer posts, maybe not, depends on how quickly I work it out. But if I go over my standard 1,500 characters so be it.  So go get get the tea, coffee or print this bad boy out because I’m here until it’s done.

A Journey from Athens to Rome to Paris

As anyone who’s followed this blog for any length of time knows that I have just completed seminary which means that my primary field of study is theology.  I can tell you pretty much basic approaches to systematic theology and the various disciplines that earned me my red hood.  So admittedly this assessment in the field of philosophy is strictly from my armchair position.  And particularly seeing as how this is a blog and not a dissertation nor a book, I’m sure there are holes in my argument. But be that as it may I’ve promised myself to do this blog and some others are on the look out for it, so here goes.

I took a crash course in philosophy, and I do mean crash course this last semester as a TA’d for a class entitled “Biblical Preaching in the Postmodern World” and the first few classes the professor tried his best to lay a framework for understanding the progression of thought from classical philosophy to modern philosophy and now this idea of postmodernity.  The long and short of it is that classical philosophy (think Aristotle, Plato et. al.) had its epistemology rooted in the rejection of mythology (the gods) in favor of reason and logic.  For the sake of Christianity, this new movement of reason and logic gave birth to the notion of scholasticism that used reason and logic to solve these conundrums that the early church fathers were stumbling upon.  Finally somewhere around the Renaissance period give or take some years, we have this new thought concerning rationalism and empiricism entering Western thought.  Rationalism was the basic “I think, therefore I am” approach to epistemology and empiricism that rested on the idea of knowledge beginning with sensory experience.

Finally, postmodernity.

Jacques Derrida

Let me add another disclaimer that my definition of postmodernity is my definition and based on what wikipedia says or other famous postmodern philosophers such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard or even Michel Foucault have ephemerally written. For me, and the purposes of this blog and based on what I got from the class, postmodernity rests in the notions surrounding deconstructionist theory and ideas surrounding reader-response.  Its a basic rejection of metanarratives and favors the subjective over that of the objective, with the caveat of relativism.

Too heavy for you? Let me try another way in terms of religion.

Agnostics, who are skeptics, have deconstructed Christianity (for example), and the idea that God is sovereign as a metanarrative.  They still believe that for one to fully believe in Christianity as a religion is fine, but don’t want others to castigate them for their beliefs, and they won’t persecute others for their beliefs.

Postmodernity also engenders the whole notion of reader-response and the philosophy of semiotics–signs and symbols (such as words) that point to something greater.  Example: the grass is green because we say that it is green.  Postmodernity would come and ask “what is green?” or even better yet “what is grass?”

In postmodernity, there are no absolutes.

Personally, I take a stand point of relativism, which irks one of my friends to no end.  For me there is no master truth that waits for us to seek in all of is objectivity.  I think religion plays a heavy role in providing us with a metanarrative that points toward an objective truth that fits for all.  Many major religions do this, even some of the eastern ones.  Whether its the truth of inner-light or inner spiritual awareness or a truth that rests in a deity in the metaphysical realm.  To me, there are many truths: all subject to the lived reality of the individual and the community in which they reside.

That’s why I reject this social justice platform of “speaking truth to power” which I still don’t fully understand, and always begs the question “what is truth.”  But rather I’d opt for a phrase saying “speaking truths that empower.”  I think I halfway arrived at this point because after going to a school that was a purporter of black liberation theology specifically, and was home to womanist theologian Jacqueline Grant, and I heard all of this great rhetoric which technically I agree with, however, I had some questions at its pragmatic future. For me, liberation theology only operates in the retribution stage of existence, but seems to almost never deal with reconciliation.  Generally, what I hear almost supports the notion of “the oppressed becoming the oppressor” which tells me truth is relative.  Too often humans are interested in a brand of truth that supports their personal point of view and will go so far as to impose that truth and that point of view on others even if it is deleterious to their human existence!

Where I stand personally on the issue engages broad views of relativism.  For me truth is relative. Where it gets sticky, admittedly, is how do we allow for those that live in the nether regions of human communal existence?  For example those that commit crimes against human existence such as murderers, rapists, those that support genocide and other forms of racial and ethnic superiority because clearly their understanding of truth should be heard and listened to according to my original logic, should it not?

No it shouldn’t and here’s why not.

First of all, anyone that commits any of those human atrocities and anything along those lines, has allowed their version of truth to impose its will upon another’s free will to live and exist in this earth realm, thereby violating my main argument against metanarratives; they want their narrative to dominate so much that they would restrict human existence in favor of one over the other.  Secondly, I believe that anytime we feel that one “truth” or one form of enlightenment supersedes another just because, then we’ve begun the slippery slope toward devolution.

The main pushback against fundamental postmodern beliefs is that a) postmodernity really doesn’t exist, and at best is a perfection of modern thought or b) that the ideals of deconstruction and relativism (reader response) ultimately lead to no boundaries and therefore anarachy.  I’ll address the second one first.

Its the same argument that many have about religion, that without rules then we’ll head down the proverbial slippery slope toward anarchy and chaos.  And my main rebuttal is who is to say that we’re not already there?  That is to say, even with the rules it is MORE than easy to point toward vast examples of people gone amok of the system, which means to me the system is not a sure-fire way of preventing this alleged anarchy.  Corruption in big business and in politics still occurs despite laws on the books and persons still murder one another and governments still sanction war and genocide against other ethnic groups.  Frankly, I’m more concerned about the current Nevada GOP frontrunner in the primary Sharron Angle who wants to get rid of the Department of Education and do away almost completely with the IRS tax code–and replace it with what?

Secondly, some are making the argument that postmodern philosopher are doing nothing more than chasing the wind because of its elusive nature that which it claims to believe doesn’t really exist.  Even just a wikipedia search provided a decent enough quote from Kalle Lasn that seems to probably capture what many feel:

Post-modernism is arguably the most depressing philosophy ever to spring from the western mind. It is difficult to talk about post-modernism because nobody really understands it. It’s allusive to the point of being impossible to articulate. But what this philosophy basically says is that we’ve reached an endpoint in human history. That the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of the frontiers of innovation are now dead. Originality is dead. The avant-garde artistic tradition is dead. All religions and utopian visions are dead and resistance to the status quo is impossible because revolution too is now dead. Like it or not, we humans are stuck in a permanent crisis of meaning, a dark room from which we can never escape.

If I can move into the metaphysical before I broach the subject of postcolonialism, for me, Lasn’s quote falls magnanimously bankrupt because I believe in progressive (continuous) revelation as embodied by the United Church of Christ’s most famous quote “God is still speaking” with a comma and not a period.  I fully believe that metaphysically we receive revelation through the ages and I think a simple glimpse into human history shows that.  From linguistics, to technology, to human interactions we’ve all seen a progression.  Things that used to be considered pure fact has now been considered easy superstition; our perceptions of race and ethnicity have morphed; our technology went into warp speed in the short time of one century after crawling at a comparatively snails pace for such a long time.

This understanding of metaphysical progressive revelation was inspired by one of my professors who wrecked my little world when he went off into a rabbit hole in astrology one day in class and I heard about the Great Year and the Year of Precession and he linked it to the final verse of Matthew in chapter 28, verse 20 when Jesus says “I will be with you until the end of age” and not “world” which some really believe it means.  If you get where I’m going with this, then bravo.  But yes, I believe that there will be another–another messiah and savior for the next age.  That, according to Greco Great Year, we’re now leaving the Age of Pisces and entering the Age of Aquarius.  I’m basing this on the idea of the astrological Great Year, that does provide a 24,000-26,000 (approx.) earth year cycle for human thought and progression, and right now, according to calculations, we’re on the upswing.  I did a whole monster blog post on it a while back, and here’s the link for it here.

The aforementioned paragraph was really just to hold out hope that there is more to be seen and more to be heard concerning what’s already here.  I think those that take the near nihilistic approach that Lasn captured in his quote are falling victim to classic cynicism that’s really not afraid of death because of it’s certainty, but more afraid to live.

Now to Post-colonialism.

I know even less about this field of thought. So when in doubt, go to Wikipedia right? But I really don’t need to. This one is easy enough to understand.  I first came across an entry on postcolonial thought when doing an exegesis paper on one of the parables.  And yes, even as a black male who grew up in a church that openly practised black liberation theology and fully aware of basic tenets of liberation theology, it is still a shocker at the level in which we, as black Americans approach the biblical text with a view of empire, or should I say postcolonial lens.

We rarely read a biblical text siding with the loser in the text.  This professor for whom this class I was doing the exegesis paper loves to read Matthew 25 and the parable of the talents from the perspective of the last slave who buried the talents.  He chooses to interpret it as the slave was really telling the slaveowner to take the money that had been made on the backs of oppressed people and to shove it where the sun don’t shine. And that Jesus, in telling this story was really using the parables as subversive speech, ultimately leading to him being a political prisoner that was attempting to upset the Roman Empire.  The prof uses this logic by asking did he not die a death of a political prisoner who had challenged the Roman government?  It was common practice to kill dissidents by hanging them on a cross of wooden beams.  However,tcolonial thought, or rather, the philosophical lens of those living after colonialism has taken place and the hegemony has done its damage, has taught us to image the slaveowner as God, and the good slaves as good Christians, but the one who rejects the slaveowner as bad Christians not worthy of God, or the slaveowners praise.

Frantz Fanon

Postcolonialism seeks to rectify the domination of colonial thought, or for the uses of this blog, empire speak.  It attempts to give voice to the voiceless and provide a platform for those who are marginalized.  Many famous black writers fall under that category such as Frantz Fanon and his premier work The Wretched of the Earth and bell hooks (pick almost any of her writings) or most certainly Cornel West.

This postcolonialism is probably much more tangible for people to grasp than what I wrote concerning postmodernity, however, as I said with my thoughts on postmodernity, I have a fundamental problem with metanarratives. As I critiqued liberation theology and all of its offshoots, I stand prepared to critique postcolonialism with the same response: while I’m in favor of one shaping a narrative to fit one’s own social location and political agenda, it runs the risk of one doing to others what was done to them.  Seriously, I want to ask liberation theologians what would their world look like if suddenly white folks apologized for slavery, and as a culture changed their ways and began the healing process?

I dare say that general thought of liberation theology and those that fall well within the postcolonial extent (which is nearly 100% of black political pundits we see on television, and almost all of liberal black intellectuals as we know them and a wide range of non-black liberals ranging across the ethnic spectrum) has not tangibly worked out what life after the revolution looks like.

What Does Paris have to do with Harlem?

Me and my friend, The Critical Cleric have had this conversation as to where do black folks lie in this whole millieu of esoterical philosophical discourse.  So, as I suffered from my own self created disease of Black-man-who-read-a-book syndrome coming out of this postmodern and preaching class, I was convinced that black folks suffered, yes, suffered from tragic modernity: locked into religion and strict and rigid ideas of morals and ethics, overall going to lead to their demise.  So, The Critical Cleric informed me about the nature of postcolonialism, which naturally I said yes.  He was convinced that blacks would be much more affected by postcolonialism, or rather the effects of colonialism than postmodernity and modernity.  And then we kind of went down the rabbit hole discussing one of our favorite Princeton professors Eddie Glaude who wrote In A Shade of Blue that discussed pragmatism and black Americans, however, as Tavis asked him, what does John Dewey have to do with black folk in America?  Essentially, The Critical Cleric was asking me the same thing, what does Derrida, Lyotard or Foucault have to do with black folk in America.

And this was my answer:

For me its not been a “this or that” dichotomy that dominant culture a la conservatives, the Tea Party movement and certainly the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity would have you believe, but much more of a “both/and” situation.  Black folks historically have always talked in terms of “both/and” however we don’t recognize it.  From early black intelligentsia from W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington to Alain Locke and E. Franklin Frazier who had published works, they all spoke of the plethora of issues the plagued the black community from intrinsic to extrinsic ones, but yet and still they all attempted to synthesize these issues into one succinct issue that needed to be addressed.  Granted these are all pre-modern Civil Rights era examples, but the same holds true for current writings from between the 1970s to current.  Still the discourse within the black community understands and speaks pluralities, but still looks for a monolithic answer.

I believe we understand the basics of postmodernity and natures of relativism and plurality.  Black folks know how to be tolerant of the “other.”  Probably because we’ve been the “other” before for far too long.  Don’t get me wrong, we still have a long way to go in some respects, but one of the current mantras in the black community has been this idea of “going back” or “getting back to…” usually referring to a much more stricter set of morals and social ethics surrounding many aesthetic values which some people think will translate into a different mindset.  For example: by not wearing a hat indoors or not sagging my pants will give me better self esteem.  That’s a FAIL in my book if there ever was one, but I think that’s indicative of colonial thought, which is where postcolonialism should enter and reify the colonial thought–but in which direction? Toward conservative values or those of liberalism.

Personally I think religion, specifically the “old time religion” associated with many mainline black churches, and even still those a part of the neo-Black Church all err comfortably on the side of conservative values which would align them more with the likes of evangelical Christendom than they would probably like.  I’m not convinced that postcolonialism is here to aid black folks to move into the 21st century.  Is it helpful? Yes.  Am I in favor of it?  Good God yes.  However, I think we need to bring postmodernity into the conversation.

After reading M.K. Asante’s Its Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip Hop Generation and taking into account Cornel West’s notions behind nihilism in the black community out of his book Race Matters, really, on some level blacks are spinning their wheels philosophically.  Granted, on the surface the question what does Athens have to do with Harlem (yeah, I know it’s not all black anymore, but you get the question) doesn’t really generate much thought, but I do believe that humanity does operate in the zeitgeist of philosophical thought.

The general thought of the time is locked into a certain pattern, and we look for answers based on perhaps faulty assumptions.  We, us, in the black community operate from certain foundations that we do not question.  Primary among those is that God is real and that God is sovereign; God does what God wants to when God wants to and how God wants to.  And this means that either God cause events to happen or God allows them to happen–no ifs, ands or buts about it.

This is where I think postmodernity can come in and help.

It provides a framework to step outside of the comfortable boundaries of current thought.  Even if deconstruction doesn’t take place, it provides a plurality of voices.  We, as a collective people are afraid to ask questions, due to the effects of colonialism and still trying to break the chains of psychological slavery.  It is my opinion that taking a postmodern approach, incoporating the both/and strategy to the everyday lives of black people we can move forward.  If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times, “we are not a monolithic people” and that statement is never truer, so we should stop acting like it.

We act like it on talk radio programs such as The Al Sharpton Show or the bastion of mediocrity that is the Warren “I call People Porch Monkey’s on National Television” Ballentine Show most when one caller calls in as if they are now the person that has the proper answer to the problems.  Or God forbid we bring in a preacher or some church person who brings God and religious doctrine and dogma into the situation completely oblivious and ignorant of other religions and faith communities.  I’ll be the first to say that blacks, as a whole need to back off of the hardline that we take when we have these discussions.  Contrary to popular opinion, I am really not interested in converting anyone to my specific point of view per se, but I am interested in being able to sit down at a table and have a dialogue with others of differing opinions.

So what’s you agenda Uppity?

Well, yes, I do have an agenda.  The main agenda is that we sit down and have dialogue, and not a dialogue that calls names or accuses the other of narrow-mindedness, but rather one that engages each other on a basic human level.

Usually I don’t make the following statement, but since I’ve written all of this I might as well say it: I do believe in a superior moral and ethical right.  One can see where I stand just through this blog series that somewhat engenders secular humanist ideals, and I’m an unapologetic Christian universalist at my core Carlton Pearson style and I’m sure this post will come and bite me in the ass when I try and get ordained.

That’s it, been wanting to work all of this out for a long time, so here it goes.

What say ye?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

And The Walls Come Tumba’ling Down: The Religious Politics of Eddie Long

22 Sep

Hot off the press from tonight, the latest in news to affect the institutional Black Church, both old and new, has been the lawsuit against Bishop Eddie Long of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church of Lithonia, Georgia.

This seems to be yet another brick chipped away in already bruised and battered institutional Black Church.  First Professor Eddie Glaude earlier this year essentially said the Black Church was dead.  Then Steve Harvey rallied the black female church crowd with Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man and then Deborrah Cooper came back told black women that the black church was keeping them single.  Not to mention the death of gospel legend Walter Hawkins, and the recent death that has shaken the black Pentecostal crowd of Bishop Kenneth Moales.  Then this with Eddie Long has cause somewhat of a wall to ” come a’ tumbalin’ down.”

This is the same pastor who was the subject of U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley-R, Iowa and his tax investigation a few years ago.  This is the same pastor who was the subject of Jonathan Walton’s Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism the story of black televangelists in this country.  This is also the same pastor who in 2004 marched down AuburnStreet in an effort to support George W. Bush and the Defense of Marriage Act and decried homosexuality.

And I found out through Twitter, of course.

So as I type both #EddieLong and #EddieLongsaid are high trending topics.

Naturally, if this is true, this brings forth a plethora of issues concerning clergy and the members at churches.  And this truly isn’t just a case concerning black churches.  From the Earl Paulk situation at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, to Ted Haggard out in Colorado, to the Roman Catholic Church dealing with their priest abuse scandals being a global problem this is a situation that goes across the board.  This isn’t even a situation dealing with homosexuality versus heterosexuality, but a case of properly addressing sexuality within the walls of the church.

Without going too deep on sexuality, we need to admit that the church probably could do a lot better with addressing sexuality with its members.  It’s still a problem even amongst the most conservative groups for married couples to even talk about sex out in the open; many still act as if it’s something dirty and taboo.  Let alone among more liberal groups, the general failure to understand sex between two consenting adults.

But, I guess that would require your average person to understand the difference between sex, sexuality and sexual intercourse.

Even in what our society considers the optimal way of having sex–between a man and a woman who are married–I know married couples who still blanche when they read the biblical passages of Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) and their sexually charged passages.  And our churches don’t even want to entertain the idea of young teens having sex, unmarried persons having sex, and many churches still shun gay couples who are in committed relationships.  This in the face of many churches being predominantly populated by women who often arrive at church with their children and no husbands or having never been married (because of course the black church is keeping black women single), and God-knows how many other sexual church stereotypes being fulfilled.

And we remain silent in the church.

However, my issue with Eddie Long isn’t a sexuality issue.  As far as I’m concerned and information disseminated, I, along with most everyone else aren’t qualified to speak on it.  My issue truly is a theological one. As Walton pointed out in his book, Long ascribes to this “kingdom business” (Walton 129-131).   While it sounds good, churchy even, as far as I can see it, this theological train of thought is warmed-over ecclesiastical patriarchy straight out of the Roman Catholic church.  Well, Walton places it much more within the Victorian era as far as familial and patriarchal values (171).

I think the patriarchal system of theology allows this to happen with clergy and their followers.

When the man is the head, it’s anything goes.  Be it in the family or in the church.  The man acts as the mouthpiece for God be it good or bad or indifferent.  The same way parishioners take their frustrations with God out on figureheads of the church from the Pope, to Bishops, to pastors, to priests or even other lay leaders, is the same way parishioners are able to believe that their clergy can do no wrong. As far as this situation is concerned with Long, the hierarchy allowed Long to get close to these young men.  While of course on the surface, this seems normal and maybe even encouraged because no one automatically assumes the worse, but this is when clergy are NOT supposed to take advantage of the situation.  Long is well known for having his “spiritual sons” in the ministry with Long as their “spiritual Father.”  However, there have been many instances that have been reported that this particular relationship has been exploited for the benefit of Long.  Since I don’t dabble in rumors, I’m not here to say that this is verifiably true or not, just merely pointing to the fact that such situations create an atmosphere for nefarious activities to take place.

Warped socio- and politico-religious teaching is also at play surrounding this news about Long. There seems to be three camps at play here: 1) Christians who support Eddie Long, namely his parishioners, fellow inner circle clergy of course, and other random lay people and outside clergy who have been affected by his ministry in one way or the other; 2) Christians  who view Eddie Long as a homophobe, a “prosperity gospel” preacher, those who don’t like megachurches in general, and just an overall charlatan pimping his congregation; 3) non-church goers who may or may not fall into the “spiritual, but not religious” category, who generally have an overall disdain for preachers and most church-goers, and this latest incident acts as a catchall for ALL clergy across the board and does nothing more but entrench their beliefs about “those hypocrites” who go to church in the first place.

Those in the first camp are of this idea that in a time like this Christians should be “covering the man of God.”  At first, this sounds right, particularly as a soon to be clergy member or at least someone with one foot in parish ministry, but further thought renders it moot.  At what level do we need to expose bad behavior?  This “touch not my anointed, and do my prophet no harm” mentality gives clergy a carte blanche with the people.  And we need to be honest that this line of thinking only extends to certain clergy members.  Let’s be honest, this notion of “covering the man of God” barely extended to Jamal Bryant ofEmpowerment Temple AME Church and his sexual dalliances with his members and this same section of the neo-Pentecostal black church that is calling for the “covering” of Eddie Long were certainly no where to be found when Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ and his church members were going through the wringer submitting to public protests on the church property, news vans parked outside, metal detectors because of bomb threats and news reporters getting the Sunday bulletin and calling up members on the sick-and-shut-in list trying to conduct interviews.

It seems to me that the black church has attached mega-ministry with spirituality and the evidence of God’s “anointing.”  That is to say, it’s easier to support someone in a mega-ministry or who we see on television whom we don’t know, versus the pastor up the street in our community whom we’ve interacted with on occasion–but they don’t have a mega-ministry.  Ricky L. Jones in his book What’s Wrong With Obamamania? Black America, Black Leadership and the Death of Political Imagination said

The black community, maybe more than any other, is affectively linked to churches and their pastors to the degree that criticism of either (no matter how rational) is often viewed as nothing short of an attack on God.  Such loyalty may be degenerative as well as generative in that it has opened the door equally wide for the entree of many of the race’s greatest freedom fighters, as well as some of its most infamous demagogues.  Unfortunately, black ministers (be that emancipators or collaborators in oppression) are often protected from secular intellectual confrontation by the almost certain ire of their flocks, which is heaped upon any critic who questions their leaders’ decisions and/or motivations. [Emphasis mine]

The second group believes this supports their idea that the biggest homophobes are closet homosexuals.  I think that’s bad logic, but that’s just me.  Anything short of the alleged pictures and emails that the plaintiffs’ lawyer B.J. Bernstein claims she has, I’m really not ready to go so far as to believe that there was a sexual relationship at play, but again, that’s just me.  But this second group also has major aught with Long for where he has come down on the side of social and political issues.  These people are full of lay people who are still connected to the traditional denominational churches, on which they pride themselves.  Clergy of other churches love to talk bad against Long for his perceived bad theology concerning “kingdom business” and of course they are convinced he’s pimping the people out of their money.

I mean, honestly, I agree with some of that.

I do honestly think it’s unconscionable to own a private jet, live in a multi-million dollar mansion, own Bentley’s and Rolls Royce’s and members of your church are taking public transportation to get to church on Sundays.  But that’s just me. And that’s a charge I level with any mega-ministry.  I think pastors would do a lot better for the larger community if they took that money and funneled it into church owned businesses that employed members of the church as well as the community from clothing stores, restaurants, and other ventures.  I fail to see the future worth in buying up land to erect monuments to ourselves that do nothing but provide more parking for our larger and larger edifices, and provide space to hold various and sundry worship conferences–all creating a traffic jam on Sundays for other persons who don’t go to that church!

The third camp of people are the ones with whom I take what they have to say with a grain of salt.  While they are entitled to their opinion, of course, in all fairness, in the back of my head I somehow don’t consider them qualified to speak on such issues.  Admittedly it may be my own arrogance at play, but its almost equivalent to discussing the evils of the hip-hop culture in the inner city, but you live in some suburban enclave and you just found out that Black History month was in February just in 2010! *

These are the people who are the outsiders looking in on the situation.  Some of them have been hurt by the church in the past and don’t want to have anything to do with it–and I fully understand.  Others have just merely grown tired of the church foolishness over the years and slowly backed away–and I fully understand.  Then there are those who suffer from the I’m-the-only-enlightened-one syndrome thinking that they’re more evolved because they don’t go to church (anymore).  Sorry, but its really hard for me to have a conversation with some of these people, because they look down on me for having a faith system in which I believe.  These are the people who have a tendency to stereotype all of the ills of religion on me without giving me a chance to talk.

********************************

What really is bothering me, and has been for some time is the level of misinformation and stereotypes that people are interpreting religious information.  It seems as if people automatically fail to think critically it’s either “all church folk are hypocrites” or “you aint gonna talk about my pastor and my Jesus” type of people. No one takes the time to understand the nuances of theological rhetoric, the biblical canon, denominational history, or even general church history.  Folks act as if mega-ministries are the devil–right along with storefront churches.

It’s just really appalling to me.

As this situation with Eddie Long progresses I encourage all of my readers to keep an open mind and let the facts present themselves; ultimately, to let truth itself be our guide. Understanding truth, and the ethics of truth isn’t an easy task however.  The ethics of truth mean understanding the impact of the truth.  In this light, we must be fair to Eddie Long and fair to ourselves.  Yes, we need to call a spade a spade, but we ought not jump to conclusions either.

Let me be clear, I am not coming out in full support of Bishop Eddie Long through what I’m sure will be a public relations nightmare for both he and his church, nor am I casting aspersion on a situation that we only know about through mainstream media and only from the plaintiffs’ point of view.  I am just merely saying that in this case, I’m quite sure the truth will come out, and both parties will be set free.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL


* A mixture of two true stories. I was once told by a white suburbanite that hip hop was from the prison culture and my cousin who works for a downtown hospital informed me that one of her Indian co-worker who was born in raised in NW Chicago suburbs didn’t know when Black History month was.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's a link with Prof. Jonathan Walton discussing the Eddie Long situation that was dropped on September 22d.]
← Older Entries
Newer Entries →

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 104 other followers