by Christine A. Scheller | Jul 11, 2011 | Feature, Headline News |
What’s worse: signing a potentially racist statement about traditional marriage, or relentlessly attacking a political candidate’s faith?
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has drawn a barrage of criticism since July 7 when she signed a conservative group’s traditional Marriage Vow. The document’s preamble made the outrageous claim that a slave child in 1860 was more likely to be raised in a two-parent household than a black baby born after the election of the first black president.
Osha Gray Davidson of Forbes quoted Indiana University sociologist Lorraine Blackman about the pledge’s slavery claim, given that her 2005 study, The Consequences of Marriage for African Americans, was cited as its source.
“That’s just wrong,” she said. “It is a serious error.”
At Jack & Jill Politics, Cheryl Contee had this to say:
Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive. … When will Republicans inquire with actual Black people whether or not we’re ok with invoking slavery to score cheap political points?
Zerlina Maxwell added a heap of hyperbole at The Loop 21, but used the misstep to attack Bachmann’s faith.
If Michele Bachmann is a “submissive wife” as she claims to be based on biblical teachings, then how can she be President of the United States? How can Bachmann be the leader of the free world when she is not the leader of her own household?
The Grio piled on:
If idiocy needed a spokesperson, look no further than Minnesota congresswoman and GOP presidential hopeful, Michele Bachmann.
Politico reports that Bachmann and the group have backtracked.
“In no uncertain terms, Congresswoman Bachmann believes that slavery was horrible and economic enslavement is also horrible,” said [Bachman] campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart.
“We agree that the statement referencing children born into slavery can be misconstrued, and such misconstruction can detract from the core message of the Marriage Vow: that ALL of us must work to strengthen and support families and marriages between one woman and one man,” the group’s statement said.
The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates isn’t buying it.
The group never acknowledges that they offered no factual basis for their claim. They just are sorry that it “can be misconstrued,” and may have caused “negative feelings.” No one’s actually wrong anymore. They’re just sorry that you can’t handle the “truth.”
At The Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg zeroed in on her underlying concern:
Those who follow Bachmann’s career know that her evangelical commitments are even stronger than her fierce hostility to government. On Thursday, she demonstrated that once again.
Urban Faith wholeheartedly agrees that implying that black children were better off under a system of slavery displays a gross level of historical ignorance and insensitivity. On the other hand, Michele Bachmann’s personal ignorance should not give her political detractors a license to lambast her Christian beliefs. We should be able to call out her prejudice — no matter how unintentional — without resorting to prejudice ourselves.
by Christine A. Scheller | Jul 11, 2011 | Feature, Headline News |
The gates of hell will not prevail against the work of the church, but what about that massive bank loan?
An April CBN News report on church foreclosures was rebroadcast online last week and got Urban Faith digging into the topic. The report focused on two black churches in Atlanta that were threatened with foreclosure. One church, Higher Ground Empowerment Center (HGEC), renovated (and changed its name) after a 2008 tornado damaged its building, but couldn’t repay its $1 million mortgage when attendance and giving declined during a year-long displacement.
When the story originally ran, the church’s fate was uncertain. Urban Faith tried to contact HGEC both by phone and email to find out what the outcome was, but didn’t get a response. Citi-Data.com lists the church (under its former name) as the owner.
The church’s Facebook page is active and advertises a Financial Fast on the first week of every month in 2011. Congregants are advised to meditate on Scripture verses (Exodus 22:14; Proverbs 22:7; Matthew 25:14-20; Malachi 3:10) and refrain from discretionary spending and credit card dependency. The fast was scheduled to kick off in May with a 4-week Bible Study on Becoming Better Financial Stewards.
“The fast is really about curbing the need to consume. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a good steward or a spendthrift; all of us consume more than we need,” the announcement said.
If any of our Atlanta readers know the fate of this congregation, please let us know. Whatever it is, we applaud its willingness to advocate better financial stewardship.
“More than 90 metro Atlanta churches were posted for prospective foreclosure from 2006 to 2010, according to a review by the Kennesaw-based real estate research firm Equity Depot for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,” AJC reported in February. Fifty churches, most of them small African-American congregations, “dominate the foreclosure lists,” AJC reported.
In January, The Wall Street Journal published a story that explored the roots of the church foreclosure crisis nationwide. The bottom line: Historically, churches have been accustomed to obtaining specialized loans that allow them favorable repayment structures. But after the economic downturn, many of those churches were faced with situations similar to the subprime mortgage crisis that devastated countless homeowners.
“Since 2008, nearly 200 religious facilities have been foreclosed on by banks, up from eight during the previous two years and virtually none in the decade before,” The CoStar Group real estate services firm told the Wall Street Journal. A representative at CoStar told Urban Faith Friday that the group hasn’t updated its church foreclosure data since then, but promised to keep us posted if it does.
In April 2010, Reuters published an in-depth report on the situation, which also noted that African American churches have been hit particularly hard.
“Their congregations have suffered higher unemployment, and often the churches provide more services,” Reuters reported.
Rev. Grainger Browning, senior pastor of Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington Maryland told the news wire, “At a recent meeting with the 100 top pastors in the country, it was amazing how all of us were facing some sort of challenge with the banks.”
A historically high rate of church building preceded the most recent economic collapse. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, money spent on the construction of religious buildings rose sharply in the late 1990s and peaked at $9 billion in 2003 before leveling off. A study by the Barna Group found that more than half of U.S. churches said they have been hurt by the recession, according to the Reuters report.
Then, on July 8, BusinessWeek published a grim article about the residential housing collapse titled “The Housing Horror Show Is Worse than You Think,” which makes us suspect the crisis is far from over for churches.
“The housing decline will be a long, multiyear process, and the multiplier effect across the economy will be enormous,” Doug Ramsey, an analyst at Minneapolis investment firm Leuthold Group told BW.
“What was real and what was never meant to be?” Ramsey wondered.
It’s a good question for struggling congregations as well. With iconic churches like Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral going bankrupt, perhaps its not only the end of the McMansion era, but also the church expansion one.
The situation leaves us with questions:
What was done in faith and what was bad stewardship?
What do church foreclosures and bankruptcies do to the church’s collective witness?
How do we respond in faith to this crisis?
If your church is being foreclosed upon or facing serious financial hardship and you think your story can help others, we want to hear from you. Email me at [email protected]
by Christine A. Scheller | Jul 5, 2011 | Feature, Headline News |
MOTHER AND SON: UrbanFaith's Christine Scheller with her late son, Gabe.
“During the early days of the AOL Huffington Post merger, we had a chuckle when Arianna Huffington was named editor-in-chief of an array of AOL blogs outside her area of expertise … perhaps most glaringly, Black Voices.” So began an article in The New York Observer about the site’s re-launch.
“There’s no need to cringe anymore,” said the writer, Emily Foxhall, because Huffington has hired a black managing editor named Rebecca Carroll and a black strategic advisor named Sheila Johnson. They, in turn, will hire a core of black writers and editors.
“It’s not black voices if it’s not black,” Carroll said. “Oftentimes when white reporters and editors go out to cover black America what happens is you get the same headlines. That’s because it’s about black folks as opposed to being of black folks.”
Carroll makes a good point. As news and religion editor at Urban Faith, I’m keenly aware of my own limitations in communicating stories that reflect authentic African American experience and interest, which is why I’m enormously grateful for the black men and women who contribute the majority of UF’s content.
“I feel like I have been working on this idea of creating a place where people can go and read about and learn about and understand a nuanced narrative about race for my whole life,” Carroll said.
Creating a nuanced narrative about race that excludes both the positive and negative contributions of non-blacks to black life and history, however, is like celebrating our first African American president and ignoring the fact that he was born of a white mother and raised by white people.
In her book, Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America, Renee Christine Romano writes, “The taboo on intimate personal relationships between blacks and whites served a crucial function in creating the American racial order. Arguably, without such a taboo, the very categories we now think of as ‘black’ and ‘white’ would not have existed in the same way.”
She notes that in 1960, when the United States Census Bureau first tracked interracial marriages, there were 157,000 of them (roughly one-third of which were black-white). In 2000, there were more than 1 million (363,000 of which were black-white). In 2010, the figure rose 20 percent to 4.5 million interracial marriages.
The future is brown, not black or white. In advocating exclusivity, Carroll may be clinging to a past that only really existed in our racialized society’s imagination. Urban Faith, on the other hand, has a specific, yet broad vision. Here’s how it was described in a 2008 pre-launch email I received from editor Ed Gilbreath:
“Urban Ministries, Inc. is an African American-owned company. Our core audience is black, and UrbanFaith.com will naturally be rooted in that perspective. At the same time, recognizing the beauty of diversity in God’s kingdom, UrbanFaith.com will strive to also be ethnically inclusive and multicultural in flavor.
Today, urban culture transcends racial boundaries and covers many different socio-economic backgrounds. What’s more, Christians who are engaged in the exciting call to urban ministry come from all races and walks of life. UrbanFaith.com will be more about a way of looking at the world than where folks live or the color of their skin. It will be both for those who make their home in an urban setting and for those who care about the people, culture, and issues related to urban life.”
This description accompanied an invitation to write for the site. At the time, I had a lot of confidence about the contribution I could make. I had raised a black son, after all, and he encouraged me to “go for it.”
His affirmation is important because after he died by suicide one month later, I couldn’t imagine writing for any audience, let alone an African American one. Among myriad losses, I experienced a profound sense of identity dislocation. For 24 years I belonged to a racially integrated family and suddenly I didn’t feel like I did anymore because our one non-white member was gone.
Rereading Ed’s description, I’m assured that my values correlate with his vision, but I also have slowly regained both my confidence and my sense of identity. I will always have carried a black child in my womb. My surviving son will always only have had a black brother. My husband will always have fallen in love with and adopted my biracial baby. Ours will always be an integrated family; it’s just that now this defining feature is veiled.
There’s something else too, and that is the grief I share with too many black mothers who’ve watched their young, brilliant, beautiful black sons come to tragic ends.
Carroll is apparently tired of hearing about this. She intends to avoid “black headline fatigue” that emphasizes negative statistics about African Americans. Urban Faith avoids dwelling on these statistics too, but we don’t ignore them.
Perhaps when Carroll told Foxhall that she sees the audience for Black Voices as “a broad one of ‘race-conscious, race-savvy people,’” what she really meant was that she is after HuffPost’s affluent audience for whom these statistics don’t represent sons and cousins and brothers, but instead reinforce stereotypes about a dangerous other.
UrbanFaith is up to something else. That something resonates with me not only as a mother, but as the daughter of a cherished only child and a former gang leader who came to faith through the work of urban ministers. My earliest memories are city ones.
Psalm 46:4 says, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.” My son resides in that city and one day I’ll be reunited with him there. Then I won’t feel the need to explain why my voice belongs in a conversation about black life. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to bring you stories that convey authentic interest–and, I hope, you’ll let me know when I miss the mark.
by Christine A. Scheller | Jul 1, 2011 | Feature, Headline News |
Rev. Sam Andreades
The big news out of New York last weekend was the legalization of gay marriage, but The Village Church in Greenwich Village is under threat of eviction from the public school where it meets and a New York Times op-ed writer says it should be because its ministry to people struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction doesn’t represent the community. News & Religion editor Christine A. Scheller spoke to the church’s senior pastor, Sam A. Andreades, about the church and it’s unique position as the only Exodus International affiliate church in New York City. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Urban Faith: The Village Church was mentioned in a recent New York Times op-ed about a legal battle over churches renting space from city schools. What is the legal challenge that you’re facing?
Rev. Sam Andreades: One church, the Bronx Household of Faith, represented by the Alliance Defence Fund, has been in a legal battle with the New York City Department of Education over whether public schools should be allowed to rent space to churches on Sundays. This effects the 60 or 70 churches that rent public school space in New York. Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a closely-related issue (in favor of religious freedom) a few years ago, the New York Second Circuit Court ruled against the churches. Since an appeal has been filed, the ruling does not take effect immediately, but the future of churches meeting in schools is uncertain.
The reason [Katherine Stewart] mentioned The Village Church by name is because she said we were running this [Gender Affirming Ministry Endeavor] and that she didn’t think we were representative of the Village. That’s what I responded to [in an article on the church website] and said, “No.”
Has Stewart contacted you since then?
No. We sent our piece to The New York Times, but for whatever reason they declined to publish a response.
The two main ministries listed on your church website are the Mercy Network and the Gender Affirming Ministry Endeavor (GAME). Did you start both of those?
Mercy was here as part of the church since the beginning. It’s been going through different iterations over the years and it’s done some really neat things. We’re looking for more to do.
GAME was something I decided we needed to do. It took a few years of praying about it for the right leadership to come along, because I would go into the gay bars and I would go to some of the transvestite parties in the Village, but I kind of lacked credibility because it’s not really my issue. I could get to know folks and see how we could help, but I realized it really needed [a leader] for whom this is an issue, but who is following Christ while having same-sex desires. … We have a great lay leader with the ministry now. I don’t give out his name because, for the group, confidentiality is very important.
If somebody wants to come to the group, we meet with them first and see if we can be of help to them. The people who come to the group, many of them aren’t in The Village Church. They come from other churches. We realized after we started it that this is actually a gift to other churches in New York, because …people come here and they have a place to be open about it, and not necessarily have this known about in their congregation.
Is it a pretty active ministry?
We get one or two inquiries a week, I would say, from people who are interested. Some of those decide not to be involved and some of them get involved. So we’ve had a fluctuating size of ten or twelve on a weekly basis. For a while we had a women’s GAME group, but that is taking a hiatus right now.
Is that because of disinterest or not having a leader?
It seemed to come naturally to a close in terms of interest and leadership. We’re certainly trying to address women who inquire, but we’re seeing if there will be enough interest in the fall to have a group for women.
How is the church’s relationship with the local gay community?
I think part of the reason nobody has picketed or protested is because we’re kind of under the radar. We’re not a very big organization. We have this support group and people who want to come come. We’re not big enough to cause a lot of discomfort.
The Village Church is the only church in New York City listed as an Exodus International affiliate. What is your relationship to the organization?
There’s a level of connection where you become an official Exodus ministry. We’re kind of waiting to see how we do. We might do that in the future, but as of this moment we’re just part of their church network and then GAME is a ministry of our church.
Is Greenwich Village as diverse as people assume it to be?
Racially it’s not as diverse, but that’s changing as the immigrant population is making its way into the core. … We have a lot of racial diversity in the visitors, but it’s still very white and very affluent. Diversity of viewpoints, that’s a different thing. Diversity of worldviews, that we have.
It’s got its layers. There’s a layer of older population that have made their lives here and many of them have rent-controlled or rent-subsidized apartments and they’re going away slowly. That’s one layer. You have New York University, which has made its home here and is gobbling up various parts of the Village, so it’s a kind of university situation as well. And then you have people who choose to live here if they can … because it’s more bohemian [than the upper east side or the upper west side]. You get people who may be in different occupations, but they don’t fit in the grid. Their views can be anything. The Village sort of attracts the eclectic and the unconventional. For a lot of the couples here, one of them is an artist and the other one works on Wall Street or works in the financial district, because to get a place here, somebody has to be making money.
And the gay community has a presence as well?
Yeah, the center of things has kind of moved into Chelsea, which is the neighborhood to the north, but it’s still the Village.
How did you come to pastor in Greenwich Village?
I’ve always had a non-conformist streak. My wife and I actually met in the Village and I went to school here for a master’s degree. I used to be a street musician; I would play at different places around the Village. A lot of threads of our lives come together in the Village. It was always very important to me to see Christianity applied and the culture engaged as part of the emphasis of my own faith. The Village seemed like a great place to conduct Christ’s revolution as we say, because Jesus was the ultimate non-conformist, so it just made a lot of sense. … The Village Church was planted here out of Redeemer Presbyterian 16 years ago by another pastor. … I’m the third pastor, but I’ve been here the longest. I’ve been here eight-and-a-half years.
What is your goal as an urban minister?
What I want to do is what we say is our vision, which is to bring about Christ’s revolution to exemplify in the Village urban eternal life, meaning to see the life of Christ manifest in people in a place where history is going. History is going towards a city, right. So, we want the see the life of Christ manifest in city people.
What are the unique challenges to accomplishing that goal?
Any revolution is an engagement in the midst of resistance. Not everybody wants to see that happen, so it’s helping to overcome that resistance by moral suasion that I think is our big challenge.
Another big challenge that’s more prosaic is building community because New York City, especially Greenwich Village, is a stopping place for many people on their way somewhere else. … It’s very difficult to build community for people to come and stay, and say, “Yeah, we want to see this vision happen here,” and be able to commit to that for more than a few years. We have a high turn over. That’s part of what my wife and I are trying to do, is show people that you can raise your kids in the city and they turn out okay. It’s actually glorious.
by Christine A. Scheller | Jun 28, 2011 | Entertainment, Feature |
Michael Tait
Michael Tait is lead singer of The Newsboys. He and the Grammy-nominated band performed an electric set at the Jersey Shore Will Graham Celebration in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, last month. Best known as a member of the pioneering Christian rock/rap group dc Talk, Tait’s career in the Christian music industry has been defined by stretching the boundaries of art, faith, and culture. Urban Faith News & Religion editor Christine A. Scheller caught up with Tait as he prepared to take the stage. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Urban Faith: Congratulations on the success of Born Again, your first CD with The Newsboys.
Michael Tait: Thanks. After 44 weeks, we dropped off and then were number one again, so it’s mind-blowing.
Urban Faith: You’ve played with cross-cultural bands pretty much your whole career, right?
Michael Tait: Oh yeah. I call it “living integration.” I want people to see that the beauty of the human race is found in the diversity of the human race. We are God’s bouquet. We could have all white flowers or red, but man, wouldn’t it be pretty to see a bouquet of different flowers, different styles? That to me is the beauty of it.
Urban Faith: You did a lot to promote racial reconciliation when you were with dc Talk. Are you guys still involved with race and justice issues?
Michael Tait: Obviously, dc Talk is disbanded for the moment, or as we say, ‘double-parked in the city’ … but my heart’s always been for racial reconciliation because I grew up in the inner city of D.C. and my dad’s heart was for it.
Urban Faith: My editor wrote a book called Reconciliation Blues about his experience as a black person in the evangelical world. What are your thoughts on that experience?
Michael Tait: It’s funny you should mention that because the other day the band was like, “Tait, you’re like the only black guy in Christian rock.” It’s true. We have Kirk Franklin, who’s my friend, but that’s gospel. In CCM, as broad as it is, I’m the only little spot in that whole conglomeration.
Urban Faith: Did you grow up listening to rock music?
Michael Tait: I grew up listening to Oingo Boingo, U2, and Duran Duran, but also Kool & the Gang, Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson. My friends gave me a hard time, but I was like 12 or 13 and I was like, “Forget you guys, man.” In other words, I’m not going to be pigeonholed. I like basketball and soul food, but I also like tennis and sushi — and rock ‘n’ roll.
ROCKIN' DIVERSITY: Tait onstage with the Newsboys at the Will Graham Jersey Shore Celebration.
Urban Faith: In an interview with the Gospel Music Channel, you talked about your sister who died of AIDS after a history of drug abuse and your brother who is in prison for drug offenses. In her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander talks about the war against drugs as a backlash against the civil rights movement. Do you think structural racism has impacted your own family in this regard?
Michael Tait: Speaking directly, in a real tangible way, no. We weren’t put down or put in jail because of our color, nor did we become victims of HIV because of our color. But I think down the line, in the very nature of racism, most African Americans have been affected by it. Is it an excuse? No, it’s a fact. Should we stop and throw in the towel. No way. I’m not doing that. I want to climb higher. Not everybody has that drive.
The sad part is, because of the system and racism, a lot of families are broken up. That was the whole nature of racism in the beginning, to tear apart families. It’s still going on. That’s the part that’s so bad, because then little Johnny and Stevie and Bernard are alone at home. Mom is working two jobs and dad can’t be found because the world says he’s not worth anything. He’s looked down upon. He feels inferior to others. It’s a stinky mess, so sometimes it’s hard to grasp what to do, but all you can do is take one day at a time and do one act at a time.
Urban Faith: Some Christians have been identified with the “birther movement” that cast dispersions on President Obama’s birth. Would it happen if he wasn’t black?
Michael Tait: I think the bigger issue here is that many of us are not happy with what’s happening in our country under his leadership. That’s going to make us say, “Hey, by the way, you’re not even da da da.”
Urban Faith: Are you speaking of yourself or in general?
Michael Tait: Yes, myself. I’m not satisfied with Obama’s current direction for our country. … The scariest part about it is I’m a Republican, and I’m not sure I see anyone coming up that I can even vote for next time. Who knows, [Obama] might get four more years.
Urban Faith: Another personal question for you. I read somewhere that you have a supermodel in your life.
Michael Tait: Yes, her name is Mari. We met in New York and started dating about a year ago. I’m going to pop the question one of these days.
Urban Faith: In your interview with the Gospel Music Network, you said, “I get lost in church. I can be jaded, go on cruise control. I know the Christian clichés and phrases to say to capture the audience.” That’s a spiritual dilemma. How do you keep going?
Michael Tait: I think it’s mind over matter. … The more real I get every night and the more I get into the Word in my personal life, the more it stays fresh. Otherwise it becomes karaoke. … Also, I look at the crowds and the people. Every state’s different and every situation is different. It’s like God inspires me and fills me in that moment for that work and I feel it every night. So I can say the same thing and God uses it because his Word never comes back void.
