by UrbanFaith Staff | Jan 15, 2015 | Feature, Headline News |
c. 2014 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
WELLSTON, Mo. (RNS) They filed into the gym Monday (Jan. 12) for an assembly about graduation and applying for colleges — an intentionally vague description that wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a senior class.
Instead, the seniors at Normandy High School learned that full-tuition scholarships would be given to 11 of them in honor of Michael Brown, who graduated just days before he was fatally shot by a Ferguson police officer.
Ferguson’s death — and the subsequent grand jury decision not to charge the white officer with his death — set off protests and heightened racial tensions coast to coast, followed by a similar case of a unarmed black man on Staten Island who died in a police chokehold.
“The way we deal with this situation is we breathe life into you,” said George T. French, president of Miles College in Birmingham, Ala., which is offering two of the scholarships. “We believe in you, Normandy High School seniors.”
More than a dozen local and national church leaders sat in folding chairs on the gym floor, inside a high-poverty school south of Ferguson where opportunity runs short and paying for college doesn’t come easily for most.
The scholarships would cover four years’ tuition at colleges and universities operated by each of the three African-American Methodist denominations: African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Christian Methodist Episcopal. And the scholarships would target not necessarily the top students, but those who want to go to college and wouldn’t otherwise have the chance.
The idea came from a meeting in North Carolina last month. Leaders were lamenting that, unlike during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the religious community at large hasn’t played much of a role in the Ferguson movement, said the Rev. Jamal Bryant of Baltimore, who was at that meeting and who has been part of some Ferguson protests.
“This is a young people’s movement,” Bryant said. “We figured the best way to help support that was to educate them.”
Sitting with church leaders were Michael Brown Sr., and his wife, Cal Brown. Their foundation, Michael Brown Chosen for Change, is partnering with the denominations in awarding the scholarships. Doing this “means a lot,” Brown Sr. said.
Normandy seniors must apply for the scholarships. Fort Valley State University in Georgia and Texas College are the other colleges offering the full rides. They will be awarded at graduation in May.
Ahniya Gilmore said she’ll be applying. “Some people don’t get the opportunity for scholarships,” she said. “It tells us that we can make it.”
(Elisa Crouch writes for The Post-Dispatch in St. Louis)
Copyright 2015 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Jan 12, 2015 | Feature, Headline News |
c. 2015 Religion News Service
(RNS) Nigerian Roman Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama says his country needs a similar march to the one held in Paris on Sunday (Jan. 11) to pay tribute to victims of Islamist militant attacks.
While 20 people were killed in the Paris rampage (including three terrorists), Boko Haram’s ongoing campaign of terror in Nigeria has left hundreds dead. Last week, as many as 2,000 were killed as Boko Haram militants took over the town of Baga in Borno state.
Kaigama said he wants the international community to show determination to stop the advance of militants, who are indiscriminately killing Christians and Muslims and bombing villages, towns, churches and mosques.
“I hope even here a great demonstration of national unity will take place, to say no to the violence and find a solution to the problems plaguing Nigeria,” Kaigama told Fides, a Catholic news agency.
On Saturday, three female suicide bombers — one reported 10 years old — blew themselves up in a crowded market in the town of Maiduguri, killing more than 20 people.
A week earlier, militants wiped out the town of Baga, along the western shores of Lake Chad. More than 2,000 people were feared dead and 10,000 displaced, in what has been described as the most deadly attack in the militants’ history of mass killings.
Ban Ki-Moon, the U.N secretary general, condemned the attacks saying he was ready to help the Nigerian government in “bringing an end to the violence and alleviate the suffering of civilians.”
“This marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram’s ongoing onslaught against the civilian population,” said Daniel Erye, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International, in a Friday statement.
Copyright 2015 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Jan 10, 2015 | Feature |
c. 2015 Religion News Service
(RNS) Bishop Talbert W. Swan II has worked with police departments in western Massachusetts for two decades, speaking to new cadets and riding in patrol cars with officers as their chaplain.
He sometimes coordinates meetings at his church with witnesses to crimes who didn’t want to visit a police station, but says only “pockets of the religious community” have fostered that kind of regular communication with law enforcement.
“The unfortunate reality is that many predominantly black churches have thrown up their hands and decided that the police departments just are not willing to respect communities of color and so they’ve given up,” said Swan, pastor of Spring of Hope Church of God in Christ in Springfield and an adviser for social justice policy in the predominantly black denomination.
“And then there are many predominantly white churches who don’t see a problem. Therefore, they see no reason to work with the police.”
As racial tensions continue to simmer in the wake of the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white officers in Ferguson, Mo., New York City and elsewhere, churches have offered themselves up as trusted go-betweens for the police and angry residents, particularly in black communities.
Yet as the new movie “Selma” focuses on the harsh treatment that police meted out on civil rights activists 50 years ago, clergy and police say there is still much work to be done. Black pastors, especially, find themselves in the uneasy spot of giving voice to the rage in the pews while also trying to work as honest brokers with police.
“There’s tremendous similarity between what was happening in Selma and what’s happening in Ferguson,” said the Rev. Traci Blackmon, pastor of Christ the King United Church of Christ in nearby Florissant, Mo., who joined protests against police brutality in the wake of a grand jury decision not to charge the white officer who shot and killed Michael Brown.
Blackmon has seen both sides of the church-cop relationship in suburban St. Louis. Two years ago, a police officer friend helped her track down a missing 14-year-old when others told her there was nothing they could do. In December, her church joined two other predominantly black congregations to distribute toys to poor children alongside police officers and members of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.
“At least from the churches’ standpoint, it’s never been an attack on all police,” she said. “This is more, for the church, about a response to a system of repression.”
After months of exacerbated racial tensions, black clergy and police officials say bridge-building between the people in uniform and those in the pews is needed now more than ever.
In South Los Angeles, LAPD Inspector General Alexander Bustamante began meeting with clergy and lay leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church last year. Soon, he hopes to meet with Catholic leaders to build inroads to Latino communities.
“The idea is to try to team up to educate their constituents and to make sure that they know that they have recourse if they believe the officers have been performing misconduct,” he said.
From coast to coast, clergy and cops say personal relationships are the key to improving police-community interactions. As the Ferguson protests rippled across the country last fall, the Rev. Tony Lee gathered police officers and former inmates at his Community of Hope AME Church in Hillcrest Heights, Md., just outside Washington.
Even as he supported the Rev. Al Sharpton’s national protests against police brutality, Lee wanted to highlight the positive local relationship his church has with the Prince George’s County Police Department.
“They literally have sat down with young brothers and sisters who have records or who have had major issues with the department,” Lee said.
In nearby Baltimore, the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant gathered hundreds of youth and police at a town hall meeting about what to do during a police stop.
“I had lawyers, public defenders, parents to try to bridge that gap of communication,” said Bryant, pastor of Baltimore’s Empowerment Temple, who was recently appointed to a city task force to consider use of body cameras by police officers.
On the Sunday before the upcoming Martin Luther King Day holiday, some black churches are calling for a “walk out” to make their presence visible in local communities. But the Rev. David Isom of Fairfield, Calif., is taking a different approach.
His St. Stephen Christian Methodist Episcopal Church will delay its morning service to meet members of a mostly white church in a unity walk that will end at the local Police Activities League center.
Isom, joining with other ministers and the former police chief, co-founded the group Faith Partners Against Crime that mentors local youth and gives them PAL scholarships.
“I am concerned about what has happened to African-American lives — period,” said Isom. “But I don’t think that all police are bad, and I don’t think that all kids are angels.”
The current police chief in Fairfield said work with churches has improved the community and helped establish a Public Safety Academy in the local school district. He praised the “moment of blessing” ceremonies initiated by Isom at local crime sites, where clergy, police and families of victims come together.
“It has helped with putting a personal face on those that are involved in this and that are going to support a family through the process,” said Fairfield Police Chief Walter Tibbet.
Kenton Rainey, the police chief of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, who helped found the Faith PAC in Fairfield, said black ministers were among the first groups he approached when he started his new job in 2010. He said it was important to gain their trust before a crisis.
His message to them was simple: “We can’t do this without you guys.”
Copyright 2015 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Jan 9, 2015 | Headline News |
Andrae Crouch, the Father of Modern Gospel Music
On Thursday afternoon gospel artist Andrae Crouch died in Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles where he was admitted on Saturday following a heart attack. The 72-year-old “Father of Modern Gospel” was a consummate artist who not only wrote and sung some of the best known gospel songs but was instrumental in providing popular artists with a gospel sound. From Elvis Presley and Elton John to Michael Jackson and Madonna, Crouch had a midas touch when it came to music and he breathed inspiration into all he touched. The recipient of seven Grammy Awards and one Academy Award nomination for his work on the score for “The Color Purple,” Crouch was certainly a legend. His music not only crossed genres but it crossed cultures with classic songs such as “The Blood Will Never Lose It’s Power” which is a mainstay in not only black churches but predominantly white and multicultural churches the world over. It is the song that gathers many around the table for communion in remembrance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and yet now that Crouch has left us it will also be a song that we sing in remembrance of one of God’s greatest gifts to the gospel music community.
We here at UrbanFaith.com and Urban Ministries Inc., want to pay tribute to him in the only way that makes sense, and that is to share some of our favorite Andrae Crouch songs.
A Moving Moment in Cinema
Crouch and his twin sister Sandra were the music arrangers for “The Color Purple.” In this scene Suge Avery is beckoned to come back to her father’s house–and her Father’s house–by the sounds of “God Is Trying to Tell You Something,” a classic Crouch song.
Giving God the Glory
Crouch composed the choral work “My Tribute” in 1971 being both inspired by the classic hymn penned by Fanny J. Crosby and his own gratitude for God’s works. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, since it’s composition the song has been utilized during the Easter season, in service with Scripture readings, spoken testimonies, the Lord’s Supper, and at other times of thanksgiving for God’s mighty acts in Christ.
Can’t Nobody Do It Like Him
We have all come to love a good “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus” moment in church. You know how it is. There’s a break in service that is ripe for a shout and a dance and, without fail, the music ministry always goes to this song. We can thank Andrae Crouch for inspiring us to sing of the savior in such liberating ways.
Amen Always
“Let the Church Say Amen” was the song that introduced Andrae to a whole new generation of listeners. Released in 2011 it instantly hit the top of most gospel station’s playlists and it remains in rotation to this day. The song is resonant amongst generations past and present and declares that God is (still) working.
It Will Never Lose Its Power
And we conclude with one of Crouch’s most powerful songs to date, “The Blood Will Never Lose It’s Power.” As stated earlier, it is sung the world over to usher in the sacrament of communion. It symbolically reaches to the highest mountain and flows to the lowest valley, and wherever voices may be heard. It is the song that tells of the strengthening effect of the blood of Jesus. It has power and we pray that effective power will be remembered from here to eternity.
Thank you Andrae Crouch for your ministry in music for the last five decades. Our prayers go out to your family, friends, fans, and all who were and are touched by your music.
Do you have a favorite Andrae Crouch song? Share it and your well wishes to the family below.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Dec 23, 2014 | Headline News |
(RNS) It’s a tough sell: A young, unmarried teenager gets pregnant, but the father isn’t a man but God himself. And the girl is a virgin — and (some believe) remains one even after she delivers a strapping baby boy.
That’s the story of the Virgin Birth, one of the central tenets of faith for the world’s 2 billion Christians. The story is embraced by every branch of Christianity, from Eastern Orthodoxy to Mormonism, Catholic and Protestant.
And yet, many theologians, pastors and other Christians say the Virgin Birth gets short shrift at Christmastime. Finding the idea hard to swallow, many believers would rather focus on the cute little baby in the manger instead of the unusual way he got there.
Yet for other Christians, the Virgin Birth is a deal-breaker. You can equivocate about other biblical miracles, such as whether Mary’s son was really able to turn water into wine, but the Virgin Birth must be accepted as gospel.
Without it, they say, much of Christianity falls apart.
“To remove the miraculous from Christmas is to remove this central story of Christianity,” said Gary Burge, a professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. “It would dismantle the very center of Christian thought and take away the keystone of the arch of Christian theology.”
Why is the Virgin Birth the lynchpin of Christianity? Was it miracle or metaphor? And can you call yourself a Christian if you can’t accept the idea?
For Burge, an evangelical and author of “Theology Questions Everyone Asks,” the Virgin Birth is essential. His thinking goes like this: If Jesus was not virgin-born, then he was not the son of God; if he was not the son of God, then he was just another crucified man and not the sacrifice that would redeem the sins of the world.
“In Jesus, we don’t have a prophet who simply speaks as a human being about God. We have a son of God who presents the father to us,” he said. “It is a huge difference, absolutely huge. Put in jeopardy the Virgin Birth … and Christianity simply becomes a human gesture instead of a divine revelation.”
Burge’s thinking has a lot of followers. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that nearly three in four Americans think the Virgin Birth is historically accurate. Among evangelicals, the figure is even higher: 96 percent.
But the Virgin Birth is found in only two of the four Gospels. In Matthew, an angel tells Joseph: “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” In Luke, an angel tells Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God.”
Mary’s famous response – “How can this be? – has been echoed by skeptics and believers ever since. Some translations have Mary citing her virginity or her status as a single woman or, more cryptically, “I know not a man.”
Some scholars see the absence of the Virgin Birth in the other two Gospels — John and Mark — as evidence that the story originated after Jesus’ death. It was a way to make Jesus special, to prove he was who he said he was to a skeptical world.
But Ben Witherington, a professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, finds proof of the Virgin Birth in its supernatural aspects. Why, he said, would anyone wanting to create a new religion craft such a far-fetched story?
“Matthew and Luke feel compelled to tell us the story because they are utterly convinced that is how it happened,” he said. “Nobody would believe them unless there was clear, compelling evidence it actually happened. If you just wanted nice metaphors that would not raise anyone’s hackles, this is not the story you would come up with.”
Other scholars point to the writings of the Apostle Paul. Paul’s life overlapped with Jesus (even though they never met), yet he also never mentions the Virgin Birth. He says Jesus was “born of a woman” and his birth was “under the law.” Some scholars say Paul doesn’t specify a Virgin Birth because there wasn’t one; others say his words imply Jesus did not have an earthly father.
However the story originated, by 381 A.D., the belief in it was formalized in the Nicene Creed, a profession of faith used by all branches of Christianity except Mormonism. Although different versions vary in the exact wording, the creed says that Jesus “came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”
But some contemporary Christians see it as a metaphor, not a miracle. For John Shelby Spong, a retired Episcopal bishop and author of “Born of a Woman,” the story becomes more powerful when stripped of its supernatural elements.
“Mary had to produce without losing her virginity and that’s an interesting trick,” said the famously liberal Spong. “I think that denigrates our humanity. Biology is kind of wonderful — a man and woman are in love and they create a child that represents both of them, and I think that is a powerful symbol and wonderful one.”
Yet rethinking Mary to that extent goes too far for Christian Smith, a Notre Dame sociologist of religion.
“If God is not capable of a miracle like the Virgin Birth, then what kind of God is that?” he said. “If you abandon the doctrine of Jesus being fully God and fully human, then he becomes just a great teacher. But then what is the point of the death on the cross if it doesn’t tie back to God incarnate, God with us?”
Gay Byron, a Presbyterian minister and a New Testament professor at Howard University, said one reason some Christians question the Virgin Birth is the church has done a generally poor job of explaining it.
“There are many ‘Mary’s’ out there who find themselves in unexpected situations and often marginalized from support and encouragement to make it through to a song of praise,” she said. “So this story matters today just as much as it mattered over 2,000 years ago. So we who believe continue to share the story and open up new possibilities for connecting to the realities in our world today.”
Copyright 2014 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
