by Christine A. Scheller | Jun 7, 2011 | Feature |
In a recent Wall Street Journal review of Baylor University sociologist Byron R. Johnson‘s new book, More God, Less Crime: Why Faith Matters and How It Could Matter More, James Q. Wilson questions Johnson’s assertion that religion reduces crime.
Johnson looked at every study conducted between 1944 and 2010 that measured the possible effect of religion on crime. In 273 such studies, he found that “even though their authors used different methods and assessed different groups of people, 90% of these studies found that more religiosity resulted in less crime,” writes Wilson, who then assesses what he alleges are the weaknesses of Johnson’s approach. The key weakness he identifies is the lack of control groups in the cited studies. Nonetheless, Wilson concedes that the sheer number of studies show “a religious effect.”
Dr. Harold Dean Trulear is an associate professor of applied theology at Howard University’s School of Divinity, as well as the director of the Healing Communities Prison Ministry and Reentry Project in Philadelphia. He’s also a longtime colleague of Johnson’s. In an email response to UrbanFaith, Trulear said he thinks the Wall Street Journal review is “honest and fair.” He added that, as a fellow social scientist, he has “found it best to … use data to be suggestive, but not conclusive.”
“I use Johnson’s work, my own research in religion and social behavior, and the work of others to point academics, researchers, and policy makers toward religion and religious institutions as valuable contributors to our common good. But I always stop short of saying ‘religion works,’ precisely because it is God — not human religious activity — that has true efficacy,” Trulear wrote.
“As a person of faith, my ultimate allegiance is to Christ and His Kingdom, and my sociological training is but a tool for His use. That said, I do not rely on sociology to ‘prove’ the effectiveness of religion or Christianity,” he added. “The whole idea of Christian ‘proofs’ is a late phenomenon in Christian history, coinciding with the scientific age, and the faith’s unfortunate sense that it needed to be scientific to have validity. I use social science to point in the direction of religion’s efficacy concering crime reduction, but strict cause-and-effect language is inconsistent with Christian faith, whether in social science or in prosperity ‘name it and claim it’ theology.”
Wilson’s review mentions Prison Fellowship as the largest effort to increase the religiosity of “convicted offenders.” The Christian organization utilizes a three-stage approach that includes Bible study, community service, and commitment to a church and mentors upon release.
“Johnson looked at the program’s effectiveness in Texas and found that those who completed all three phases were much less likely to be arrested or incarcerated for a new crime than those who dropped out. The key question is whether the inmates who go through all three phases differ in other ways from those who never join the program or drop out early,” writes Wilson. He concludes that in an earlier study Johnson found “no difference between Fellowship and non-Fellowship groups over an eight-year period except for those members of the program who worked hard at Bible studies” and then “the effect lasted for only two or three years after prisoners’ release.”
Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson responded to Wilson’s review in a Breakpoint commentary that praised Johnson’s work.
“What Johnson’s book More God, Less Crime shows so clearly, is that we’ve been right all along: The Gospel changes lives, and it’s the best hope for keeping men and women out of prison,” wrote Colson.
But Trulear would temper any enthusiasm about the book with this caution: “As valuable as Johnson’s work is — and it is extremely valuable in pointing us to religious institutions and behavior as available loci in the fight against crime — people of faith must remember that their ultimate allegiance is not to what works, but to what is best and right. The answers to these two questions will not always coincide.”
by Christine A. Scheller | Jun 2, 2011 | Feature |
ERASING HELL: Francis Chan is the latest Christian author to take on the topic of man's eternal destiny.
“Hell’s a-Poppin'” is how the headline began on a Publishers Weekly article yesterday about best-selling author and pastor Francis Chan‘s new book, Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity and the Things We Make Up. It’s no wonder, given months of public discussion about the topic generated by publication of Rob Bell‘s controversial new release, Love Wins.
David C. Cook is so confident about the potential marketability of Erasing Hell, it has committed to a 250,000 unit initial print run, “a six-figure marketing budget, and a simultaneous audio release from Oasis Audio,” Publishers Weekly reported.
God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins will debut in July, even though its author, Chrisitianity Today senior managing editor Mark Galli already reviewed Love Wins for his magazine. Hell Is Real (But I Hate to Admit It) by Brian Jones and Is Hell for Real? Or Does Everyone Go to Heaven? a compilation by Tim Keller, Albert Mohler and others are also scheduled for summer 2011 release, Publishers Weekly reported.
Dr. Brian Bantum, an associate professor of theology at Seattle Pacific University, is reticent about the current public obsession with hell. Bantum shared these thoughts by email this afternoon:
“In many ways the attempts to revisit the question of hell have been refreshing. Refreshing in the sense that Christians are being confronted by the wonder and transcendence of God in such a way that we believers become displaced or our misplacement is revealed. That is, these discussions have surfaced Christians’ not so uncommon tendency to turn God’s grace towards us into judgment upon others.
“But at the same time I worry that the outrage over Rob Bell and others so often seems to be more intense and vehement than reactions to the many injustices that plague our society. I worry that we do not acknowledge how hell is not a distant reality for some, how the existence of some is marked by perpetual exploitation and suffering that points not to their ‘choice’ for or against God, but of the exercise of power, greed and dehumanization. In this way, I am grieved that some become so incensed over articulating the mystery of a life after death while being so unconcerned with the lives God places before us in this world.”
Harvard professor Robert D. Putman and Notre Dame professor David E. Campbell reported in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us that Americans’ doctrinal commitments are weakening and that a growing number of Christians don’t believe that God will send their non-Christian friends and relatives to hell.
Given this climate, do you think the focus on hell and the afterlife is a distraction from the suffering that exists in our world? Or is it a necessary response to the doubts raised by Bell, and the culture at large, regarding man’s eternal destiny?
by Christine A. Scheller | Jun 2, 2011 | Entertainment, Feature |
The “Godfather of Rap,” musician and spoken-word poet Gil Scott-Heron, died May 27 at the age of 62. Although no cause of death was reported, Scott-Heron struggled with drug addiction and had contracted HIV.
The influential artist rejected the “godfather” label, according to an Associated Press report. Instead, “He referred to his signature mix of percussion, politics and performed poetry as bluesology or Third World music. But then he said it was simply ‘black music or black American music,'” the report said.
His signature composition, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” appeared on his debut album, A New Black Poet: Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, which was recorded live at a Harlem nightclub at that address. In 2010, he released I’m New Here. There were many albums in between.
Atlantic editor Ta-Nehisi Coates grew up listening to Scott-Heron and lamented the fact that “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” overshadows Scott-Heron’s other work.
At The Grio, Earl Ofari Hutchinson downplayed the importance of the song and Scott-Heron’s influence on rap.
“Neither of these do justice to Heron,” Hutchinson wrote.
“In fact, by the time ‘Revolution’ hit the airwaves in the early 1970s, black singers, jazz musicians, and spoken word poets had been pouring out incendiary black radical lyrics, sounds, and poetry for several years. The rap cadences were pronounced in many of their works. In the decades before the 1960s, legions of black jazz, bee bop, and blues singers ‘rapped,’ scatted, and hooped in their songs,” he explained.
Hutchinson prefers Scott-Heron’s Winter in America album, which he described as “a grim, bitter look at racial and political oppression in America and optimistic call for the forces of hope and change to renew the struggle against it,” and From South Africa to South Carolina, which he said “forcefully and brilliantly linked the struggles of Africans and African-Americans.”
“To Heron, the struggles were one and the same,” he wrote.
Scott Heron was no fan of the rap music he was given credit for. He criticized some artists’ “resort to shock, demeaning, and degrading lyrics” and their “lust for the bling and opulence, at the expense of socially grounded and edgy lyrics that blasted oppression and injustice,” Hutchinson wrote.
Greg Tate published an eloquent obituary for The Village Voice that begins with a deconstruction of the “Godfather of Rap” identifier.
“You know why Gil never had much love for that ill-conceived Godfather of Rap tag. If you’re already your own genre, you don’t need the weak currency offered by another. If you’re a one-off, why would you want to bask in the reflected glory of knock-offs? If you’re already Odin, being proclaimed the decrepit sire of Thor and Loki just ain’t gonna rock your world. Gil knew he wasn’t bigger than hip-hop—he knew he was just better,” Tate wrote.
He had much to say about Scott-Heron’s social activism, but this part provides speculative context for the evolution of the man and his work.
“Many cats of Gil’s generation became burnt-out anachronisms from trying to wage ’60s battles on ’70s battlegrounds; some are still at it today. Gil knew The Struggle was a work-in-progress—a scorecard event of win-some-lose-some, lick your wounds, live to fight another day. Keep your eyes on the prize—a more Democratic union—but also on the ever-changing same. Keep it progressive but keep it moving too. Not so difficult if you’re the type of self-medicating brother who gets lonely if he doesn’t hear the yap of hellhounds on his trail,” Tate wrote.
At The Root, Martin Johnson shared this interesting tidbit.
“In the summer of 1991, when I interviewed him between sets at the Blue Note in New York City, Scott-Heron’s complexity was apparent. He surprised me twice, once by defending Clarence Thomas on the grounds that ‘self-determination means that everyone gets to choose who they want to be rather than be who other people want them to be.’ He also noted that he was no fan of rap music. He shrugged it off as a generational thing. ‘My parents didn’t like my music, even though I felt it was in the tradition of what they listened to. I feel the same way about rap.’ During the interview, he chain-smoked marijuana,” Johnson wrote.
In his redemptive conclusion, Johnson reminds us that Scott Heron’s work transcended his human frailty.
“There have been scores of artists whose careers were marred by drug abuse, but no one who could write poetry and songs with so much social awareness and political bite as Scott-Heron. And no one could sing them with such depth and passion. His artistic legacy is far too great for the sordid details of his final decades to ruin,” he wrote.
What none of the reports I read mentioned is Scott-Heron’s religious upbringing or identity. With a body of work as large as it, one assumes his faith or lack thereof is there to be found, but I don’t know Scott-Heron’s work well enough to assess the roots of his activism. Perhaps you do. If so, please share your thoughts.
by Christine A. Scheller | Jun 1, 2011 | Feature, Headline News |
BEFORE THE STORM: Bishop Eddie Long and Rev. Bernice King. (Newscom)
This week’s news that Reverend Bernice King would leave her leadership post at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta led to immediate speculation about the nature of her departure. But both King and Bishop Eddie Long, New Birth’s senior pastor, denied this week that she resigned as an elder because of the controversy surrounding Long’s and New Birth’s financial settlement with four men who accused Long of sexual coercion. Both said King left because she sensed a calling to start her own ministry.
In a statement published on New Birth’s website, Long said he and King had been in “discussion and prayer” for some time about her decision and that “New Birth is planning a wonderful and fitting farewell tribute in honor of Reverend King.”
The announcement was delayed until after Memorial Day “because we felt it was appropriate to first honor the service men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service of our great Nation,” said Long.
“I heard I resigned. I was a little confused about that, because I’ve never been on staff. I’ve never been an employee of New Birth. I didn’t step down because I didn’t step up,” King told Rhodell Lewis of Atlanta’s Praise 102.5.
“Elder is a title they use in their church as Ebenezer [Baptist Church] would use Reverend. They’re the same, so if you leave a Baptist church, they don’t say you stepped down as reverend,” said King. “I’m just no longer a member of New Birth.”
King, the youngest child of Martin Luther King Jr., said her sole function was to occasionally preach, but she also described herself as a leader in the church and said there is an appropriate way for leaders to leave. She wrestled with the decision for two years, she said, and met with Long in early April to tell him that May 29 would be her last Sunday worshiping at New Birth.
King was “tremendously blessed” by the ministry of Long in the eight years, eight months she attended the church, she said, and thanked him and the congregation for its love and support through several difficult situations she endured.
Those trials included the illness and then death of her mother, Coretta Scott King, the death of her sister Yolanda King, a legal conflict with her brother Dexter King over their parents’ estate, and another with the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, from which she resigned as president in January.
“I know that I have a pastoral calling on my life and I have to accept it,” said King.
“I’m going to launch a ministry. I’m not calling it a church right now because I believe that Christ builds his church. …What God is showing me doesn’t look like what people are accustomed to,” she said. “We must raise up true disciples of the kingdom of God so the kingdoms of this world came become the kingdoms of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. That is my mandate as I go forward.”
Though King has refused to comment on the controversy that has engulfed Bishop Long and New Birth since last fall, others are projecting that her departure will lead to a further implosion at the church.
by Christine A. Scheller | Oct 29, 2010 | Headline News |
ANTI-HUNGER ACTIVIST: Rev. David Beckmann.
David Beckmann is president of Bread for the World and the recent winner of the 2010 World Food Prize. In addition to being an anti-hunger activist, he is a Lutheran minister and an economist who formerly worked at the World Bank. His latest book is Exodus from Hunger: We Are Called to Change the Politics of Hunger. UrbanFaith columnist Christine Scheller interviewed Rev. Beckmann about his work, hunger in the African American community, and why we should be aware of the federal policies that influence issues of poverty in America.
URBAN FAITH: Congratulations on the World Food Prize. What are your thoughts about the selection?
DAVID BECKMANN: I think it recognizes what Bread for the World’s network of people and churches have done to reduce hunger in our country and around the world.
I saw that you’re the first clergy member who was chosen. Did you serve in parish ministry before you went to work for the World Bank?
I served briefly as a parish pastor but my call when I was ordained was to be a missionary economist, to connect Christian faith and moral teaching to economics, especially poverty.
I’m always interested in what motivates people. How did you get interested in hunger and poverty issues?
I grew up in a Christian home and my parents cared about people in need. My dad was really concerned about making democracy work. But then I was a student in the late 1960s and that was a time when African American neighborhoods across the country were angry and when our government was supporting a lot of developing country governments that didn’t seem to be doing right for their people. Being a young man at that time made me start asking questions about how we can get our country to do what it should do to address justice issues, poverty issues especially, in our country and around the world. So that really was a turning point. Since I was a boy, I thought I might be a Christian minister. As I got into the policy and politics of poverty, it seemed to me that underlying the lack of political will to do something about poverty was a lack of spiritual commitment. So for me it has always made sense that it’s God, politics, hunger, and poverty.
I tend to think that living in the United States, hunger is more invisible. How has it changed you working for the World Bank and Bread for the World?
What’s most striking is that the world as a whole has made remarkable progress against hunger, poverty and disease. I believe in God and I see that hundreds of millions of people have escaped from poverty in places like Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Brazil and Britain. That’s why, for me, it makes sense that this is God moving in our history. And then I come back to the U.S.A. where we haven’t made any progress against hunger and poverty since about 1973 and it informs, I think, the U.S. situation. If Brazil and Bangladesh can reduce poverty, it’s clear that we could do it in the U.S. We just haven’t tried for a while. But we did try as a nation. In the ’60s and the early ’70s, we had economic growth and we had a concerted effort under both Johnson and Nixon to reduce hunger and poverty and we cut poverty in half. So it’s doable here too. … I think the fact that we work on world poverty and domestic poverty together makes it all much clearer that our problem in this country is lack of commitment.
I saw on Bread for the World’s website that one-quarter of African Americans live in poverty. Does that sound right to you?
That’s right and its worse for kids. Thirty-six percent of [African American] kids live in poverty.
Do African Americans have the highest rates of poverty and hunger in the U.S.?
Yes, they’re similar to Latino numbers but for kids it’s even worse for African Americans. For Latino kids its 33 percent.
What do you attribute these high figures to?
I think it’s very feasible to reduce hunger and poverty in this country, but it requires political change and that political change won’t happen without the leadership of African American people. Of course, we’re already getting a lot of leadership from African American people, but it’s got to be stronger.
In what way?
Well, for example, the election of November 2nd is really important. This is important for all of us, but it’s especially important to hungry and poor people.
So African Americans need to vote.
People need to vote. They need to get their family members to vote. They need to get people in the neighborhood to vote. After the election, they need to stay involved. In December, Congress is going to finalize the Child Nutrition bill and they’re going to decide on tax credits for the working poor. In all the debate about taxes, all the focus is on the top 2 percent [of income earners] but the current provisions for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit also expire at the end of the year. If we don’t maintain those tax rules, it will push a million more kids into poverty next year. Both those decisions are being made in December, but they’re not even in the newspaper. So I think virtually everybody in the African American community knows what the Earned Income Tax Credit is and I think through organizations like Bread for the World, African American people can become active in ongoing advocacy on poverty and hunger issues. But I think that the extent of ongoing advocacy on these issues is really pretty weak.
In the African American community?
Yes. A typical pattern is that members of Congress that are sympathetic come to visit, and the pastor [in an African American Church] may be active, but it’s the people who need to be mobilized to push their senators and representatives on an ongoing basis on these issues. That’s weak in the whole population.
Do you think that part of that has to do with the fact so many African Americans are living in poverty and dealing with the stresses of just trying to put food on the table?
Sure, people are busy with their own lives, but it’s also that middle class African Americans could do a lot more because maybe middle class African American people have a sister-in-law or somebody who’s in poverty. They know what it’s about. Also, I think they could speak from their own experience or their relatives’ experience and they speak with a passion. It’s not just the right thing to do, it’s also self interest and that changes the conversation. Of course African Americans are doing a lot already, but I think we have an opportunity right now to change politics in a way that will result in substantial help for people in need during the economic crisis. And then as the economy recovers, we can see dramatic progress against hunger and poverty. If there is really an opportunity now, it’s probably because Obama is in the White House, and he’s made important commitments to hungry and poor people. But he just can’t get it done unless Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, help to support and shape his proposals and get them into law. This is the time. It’s not just because of Obama. In fact, in general voter attitudes are more sympathetic to poor people in this country then they were ten or fifteen years ago.
Do you think that’s because so many people are struggling?
I think Welfare Reform did more harm than good, but one piece of good it did was it changed the attitudes of Americans. If we look at voter surveys even before the recession, the idea that people are poor because they’re lazy was much stronger in the early ’90s than it was even before the recession. Now with the recession, everybody knows somebody who is poor through no fault of their own. So voter attitudes are more favorable than they’ve been since the ’60s.
ON THE WORLD STAGE: Rev. Beckmann rubs shoulders with U2's Bono and other high-profile activists who target global poverty, but his latest mission is to shine a light on the hidden hunger of the domestic poor.
Bread for the World’s website cites stats that say the federal government spends roughly $760 billion a year through programs and the tax code and 12 percent of that goes to programs directed at low-income individuals. That’s a pretty good percentage of the budget. Many of us want to help people in poverty but are concerned about being able to sustain these programs. How do we balance these concerns?
My own view is that the most important thing in terms of reducing the government deficit is economic growth, so I think it is premature to cut spending. Right now we need to have credible plans to balance the budget over the next few years, but when unemployment is 10 percent, there’s a lot of factory capacity that’s not being used. This is not the time to cut spending.
When we do have to make cuts, and we will, then the big-ticket items are taxes. Our total tax rates, in fact, are lower than they’ve been since the 1950s. That’s really striking to me. … And then, three items take up one-fifth of our spending each. The military is one-fifth, Social Security is one-fifth and health care is one-fifth. All the spending programs that benefit people in need — all kinds, not just poor and hungry people, but disabled people, unemployed people — all that’s 18 percent. So I just think from an ethical point of view, when we’ve got to cut, we’ve got to go for the big things and that is higher taxes. I think we can trim the military budget without affecting our security. We’ve got to trim Social Security spending for upper and middle class people. In my judgment, those programs for people in need should be preserved. We should work hard to just make them as effective as they can be, but that is not the place to cut.
Do you think it’s a harder sell right now to get middle class support for things like continuing the Earned Income Tax Credit?
People are concerned about the deficit. Almost everybody’s taken some hit. So people are also concerned about themselves and their families.
But you’re saying it’s counterproductive to our ultimate good not only for the people who are in poverty but for those who are not?
Right. We can’t have a robust recovery if a large fraction of our population is in financial crisis. I don’t know if you know people who get [tax credits] but they reward work, so if you’re just sitting you don’t get it. You have to go out and get a minimum wage job, or you work at Applebee’s and you get a part time job. As you know, they won’t employ you full time. For low wage workers, many of the jobs available are part time and irregular. It’s hard to hold three jobs if you have a job at Applebee’s because your schedule changes every two weeks. How do you hold a second job? For people who are on the edges of the job market, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit bump up their wages a little bit so they can support their kids.
You said that ceasing these programs would push a million more people into poverty. Can you unpack that briefly?
During the stimulus package, they made some enhancements in the tax credits, so that’s what expires, not the entire tax credit. But the other issue that’s also [being voted on] in December is the Child Nutrition Act. One in four American children lives in a household now that runs out of food and one in three African American kids lives in a household that runs out of food. If we’re trying to manage this economic crisis, we want to manage it in a way that doesn’t allow two year olds to go without adequate nutrition because if those two year old kids don’t eat properly, that does permanent damage to those kids. They will never be as productive and creative as God meant them to be. So we should pass a strong [Child Nutrition Act]. It would improve school lunches and strengthen the programs that reach low income kids with food. And then the other issue is the Senate saying, “Okay, let’s do a little of those things, but let’s take the money from Food Stamps.” Seventy percent of the households that get Food Stamps have kids. So we ought to have a strong Child Nutrition Act that does not cut Food Stamps. It’s the right thing; it’s the economic thing. …It was Milton Friedman’s idea. Ronald Reagan loved the Earned Income Tax Credit because the incentives go towards work. But there are people, especially young workers, who are way on the fringes of the job market and so they’re working, but their kids will not eat if we let it just be dependent on what they can bring home from the wage checks.
You’ve written a number of books, so what is your goal with Exodus from Hunger?
The basic message of the book is the same message we are talking about. I’m struck by the progress that the world has made against poverty and hunger. I think that can encourage people. It’s written especially to people who are spiritually grounded in some way. I do think that when people realize that hundreds of millions of people have escaped from extreme poverty, if we think of that in religious terms, this is a great liberation; this is the Exodus of our time. It encourages us to think about our own country and think, “Well, let’s get with the program!” This is something God wants us to do. The second message of the book is that God is calling us to change the politics of hunger because the need is especially great right now, but the opportunities are also very clear. We can do a lot, but we can’t food bank our way to the end of hunger.
That is a great quote.
It’s true. All of the food that we provide through food charities amounts to about 6 percent of the food that poor people get from the federal food programs: food stamps and school lunches and so forth. What we do through charity is really important, but the churches and charities cannot fix this problem. We’ve got to get the government to provide leadership and we have clear opportunities right now. People are kind of wailing about the dysfunction of our politics, but in fact Congress and the president have done a lot for poor people over the last couple years…. I just think God has put it on a plate in front of us. We can make changes.
We live in a very powerful country that has worldwide impact. It really is a democracy, so it puts a call to the faithful to get off the couch, right now! I hope we don’t have one in three African American kids hungry ten years from now. There is no reason for that. Forget everything else; we know how to feed kids. We can feed kids without distorting incentives and stuff. We allow one in three African American kids to go hungry; it’s a decision that this society has made. It’s clear that there’s an important leadership role to play in changing the politics of hunger. I think God is telling all of us to get with the program, but we really need the energetic leadership of African American people of faith.
Bread for the World is sponsoring Harvest for the World: Exploring Strategies to End Hunger with the African-American Church, a two-day dialogue at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago on November 4-5, 2010. The goal of the event is to highlight anti-hunger and anti-poverty work of the African American church in the greater Chicago area. For more information or to RSVP, contact Kristen Youngblood at [email protected] or (202) 464-8123
