by UrbanFaith Staff | Apr 22, 2014 | Feature, Headline News |
c. 2014 Religion News Service
(RNS) Christians began a three-day prayer and fasting period after Islamist Boko Haram militants kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria and desperate parents joined the search in a remote forest.
The girls were abducted last week while at school in the Chibok area of Borno State. Initial reports said about 200 were kidnapped, but government officials lowered the figure to 130. On Monday (April 21), school officials said 234 were abducted and 40 girls had managed to escape.
“We know no religion (that) prescribes abduction or infliction of pain as a way of devotion,” said the Rev. Titus Pona, an official with the Christian Association of Nigeria. “We are calling on them to sheathe their arms and pursue their case in dialogue with the government.”
Boko Haram translates to “Western education is forbidden,” in the Hausa language. For five years, the insurgents have unleashed violence in northern Nigeria, but the girls’ abduction is viewed as the most terrifying so far.
More than 1,500 people have been killed in the insurgency so far this year, compared with an estimated 3,600 between 2010 and 2013, according to The Associated Press.
“This violence continues because the militants have support from powerful people in Nigerian society,” said the Rev. John Bakeni, a Roman Catholic priest in Borno.
Nigeria’s top Muslim leader, the sultan of Sokoto, Al-Haji Sa’ad Abubakar III, condemned the abduction.
“We sympathize with the victims and their teachers and families,” he said in a statement. “We call on the authorities to put all the needed efforts to free these innocent girls and get them continue with their studies.”
Copyright 2014 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Apr 14, 2014 | Feature |
c. 2014 Religion News Service
(The following is an exclusive excerpt from the new book, “Jesus: A Pilgrimage,” by the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America magazine and the author of many books. This excerpt is taken from the chapter “Gethsemane.”)
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus utters his agonizing prayer, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”
At this grave moment in the life of Christ, when he struggles to discern the will of the Father, we are invited to learn more about Jesus of Nazareth, about God, and about ourselves.
Who among us hasn’t found ourselves in a situation where the inevitable seems impossible? Where the unavoidable seems unimaginable?
Who hasn’t said to God, in so many words, “Remove this cup”?
The most difficult thing in such a situation may be its crushing inevitability. You want to escape from your life, which suddenly feels like an oncoming train about to run you down. It is the shock you feel when you receive a frightening diagnosis from your physician. When you are laid off from a job. When a friend dies. When a relationship ends. You say to yourself, “This cannot be happening.”
What’s worse, these situations throw us into panic, which make finding God’s “will” far more difficult. At the very moment you want to feel most tethered in God you feel unmoored. Sometimes panic and fear feel like the only rational responses.
When my father was first diagnosed with the cancer that would take his life, and when I heard that the treatments would only lengthen his life by a few months, I couldn’t believe it. “No, no, no,” I thought, this is not the way it is supposed to be. Everyone, if they live long enough, will one day know this feeling. Recently when a friend discovered that his father had an inoperable cancer, and had only one year to live, he said he felt lost. “I don’t even know where to begin,” he told me.
Even when confronted with situations that are not life-threatening we still may say, “Remove this cup.” Long-term suffering can be just as confusing as a catastrophic illness, and it can likewise test our faith. Perhaps you are stuck in a miserable job with no prospects of relief. Or you are caring for someone living with a chronic illness, and you wonder how much longer you can go on. Or you receive a diagnosis of a minor medical problem that will mean a change in the way you live. In each of these cases you want to say, “Remove this cup.” And, again, exacerbating the situation is a fear that can sap our ability to make good decisions. Panic can so master you that you can barely think, let alone pray.
How can we continue? One way is to look at Jesus in the Garden. He does not avoid the hard truth of his situation. He does not ignore his pain or the pain of his friends. If you are ever tempted to hide your struggles from friends or conceal from your loved ones your deepest pain, listen to what Jesus said to his own friends in Gethsemane, in the New Revised Standard Version: “I am deeply grieved, even to death.” These are not the words of a person who is hiding his feelings.
Let’s look a little more carefully at those words, which can be better translated as “My soul is sorrowful unto death.” The NRSV’s “deeply grieved, even to death” does not capture the connection to the soul. Jesus may be echoing the words of Psalm 42: “My soul is cast down within me.” Or perhaps he is thinking of a passage from Sirach that expresses the feelings of a person betrayed: “Is it not a sorrow like that for death itself when a dear friend turns into an enemy?”
In his magisterial study “The Death of the Messiah,” the New Testament scholar Raymond Brown suggests that if Jesus had intuited his friends’ coming betrayal and their scattering after his death, it must have weighed on him terribly. Thus not only his arrest, but their coming betrayal, may have caused him intense sorrow. The very thought of this, writes Brown, may have felt as it were enough to kill him.
Overall, the meaning seems to be: my sadness is so intense that it feels as if it may kill me.
The disciples were probably terrified to hear his words, and they may have found themselves “deeply grieved” as well. Imagine what it must have been like for them to see Jesus visibly upset. The calm person upon whom they depended to help them in every situation — a terrifying demoniac, a frightening storm at sea, an immense crowd asking for food, two sisters grieving over their brother’s death — now admits to being “greatly distressed.”
Expressing your feelings honestly in troubled times is not a sign of weakness but of humanity and humility. It is also a way to invite into your life friends and relatives who love you. At the beginning of his public ministry, on the banks of the Jordan River, Jesus chose to stand in line, waiting with the rest of humanity to be baptized — though the sinless one did not need any washing away of sins.
In Gethsemane, still in line, Jesus experiences the full range of human emotions, and he shares them with his friends in a fully human way. For us, expressing sadness and fear allows us to set aside our desire to be in control. It is also an invitation to let others love us.
Jesus feels the need to pray three times in Gethsemane before he reaches a sense of peace. Too often we feel obliged to move immediately into “Yet your will, not mine” before we have lingered with our feelings and expressed them to God. Or we feel guilty for asking for what we want, or what we wish to be relieved of, as if such prayers were merely complaints. But the honest expression of painful emotions is a process that even Jesus went through.
But Jesus does not end his prayer by acknowledging his feelings. He ends by trusting in God, by conforming his will to the Father’s, even in a dark time. The answer to the question of “How can I go on?” is by being in relationship with Abba.
The invitation to surrender, to accept our cup, to acknowledge the inevitability of suffering and to step onto the path of sacrifice, comes in the context of a relationship with God. We trust that God will be with us in all that we do and all that we suffer. We do not simply grit our teeth, clench our fists and push on, alone and unaided. Someone is with us, helping us. To use another image from the Gospels, there is someone else in the boat with us, and pulling on the oars — even if we do not feel it.
Suffering is always difficult to understand. It may have been difficult for Jesus to grasp. It was certainly difficult for the disciples to understand.
But they will understand it completely in three days.
Copyright 2014 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Apr 10, 2014 | Feature, Headline News |
“People sold for sex in this country are American children who are disproportionately black and brown. They are between the ages of 12 and 13 — middle school aged.”
That was a statement from Malika Saadar Sar of Rebecca Project for Human Rights at last year’s Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Caucus. She is regarded as an anti-trafficking hero for the work she did to shut down Craigslist ads that led to kids being sold for sex. Just a couple weeks ago, I attended a conference and was embarrassed at how little I knew on this issue: the statistics on sex trafficking were so alarming, the only question I had was “Who the heck is publicly speaking up about this?” The unspoken truth is that there are blocks–even communities–of black children straight up MISSING…and very little national noise is being made.
Look at these stats from a recent FBI report:
83 percent of victims of confirmed sex-trafficking cases were U.S. citizens;
40% of victims were black;
62% of suspected perpetrators were black.
Factors like poverty and abuse, as well as aging out of foster care facilities, increase the chances of young girls (and young boys) being lured by traffickers into sex and labor industries. But believe it or not, those are not the only victims. Many of the women we call “video vixens” have been subjected to some form of sexual abuse or assault prior to entering the “business.” And in a culture where the smooth crooning of Drake and his ilk glorify the girl who has to strip her way through college, the line between voluntary and involuntary participation in the sex industry becomes more blurry. (Check out this article called “Human Trafficking Brings Easy Money, Hard Lives for Teenage Girls”). And then there is the collective silence of the “R. Kelly” syndrome.
Selah.
You done selah-ing? Ok, I’m back.
Can I be real? Our actions, as a community, show that we are failing to adequately protect our children. While we have overcome picking cotton and sitting in the backs of buses, we have not fully ripped off one of the most detrimental badges of slavery: the exploitation, undermining, and minimizing of black sexuality. Even when alarming known acts of sexual indecency occur, we are afraid to call out the Lawrence Taylors of the world. We attend events like the Super Bowl and World Cup–set to be in Brazil this year–where unknown numbers of black girls will be violated and unfortunately unaccounted for once the games are over. Many can still buy an R. Kelly record, and “Step In The Name of Love” at every wedding because frankly–we don’t care or “because his music is still good,” many often say)! Little underdeveloped girls are considered “fast” if caught in the wrong crowds. We ignore the pockets of girls dressed like grown women on 
the corners of Atlanta, Baltimore, Philly, Houston, and New Orleans. Talk of modern-day “sexual liberation” conveniently leaves out how one girl’s curiosity can often lead to unwanted attention and harsher consequences. We assume that in a day where “we should know better,” little girls lured into the cars of local pimps and celebrity pedophiles deserved what they got–’cause they should know better. So quick to call a woman a “video hoe,” we have no idea–or desire to find out–what trauma she is being subjected to on a daily basis…just to make a couple coins. And with the news of children literally being picked up by strangers at day care, learning, and homeless facilities–like the recent abduction of 8-year-old Relisha Rudd–we are constantly reminded how little value our society places on innocence. (Note: we continue to pray for Relisha, and hope that she is not being subjected to torture or abuse).
Relisha Rudd, last seen a month ago.
I really don’t need to bring a scripture into this, but I do have one that comes to mind. While no longer here on the earth, the blood of Abel cried from the ground to God’s ears. God asked Cain the whereabouts of his brother. When Cain replied to God “Am I my brother’s keeper?” after killing his brother Abel, he did so, not out of curiosity, but out of both indifference and guilt. Are we our brother’s keeper and our sister’s shield? No longer can we be church mothers and fathers waving the church fans of sorrow after a loved one is gone…or indifferent congregants waiting for others to fix our problems. We have to talk…to our family members, especially those uncles that we KNOW our children shouldn’t be around (every family has them, so please, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about)…to our children, about love, identity, poverty (yes, believe or not some kids are really just trying to get something to eat for themselves and families)…to our caretakers, schools, and homeless shelters…to our local law enforcement…to our local legislators..heck, maybe even to our local strip clubs. We have to talk…
This is no longer just an international issue, or an “other” issue. While the ads don’t have kids who look like us on the posters, we need to start creating our own billboards. Our children–black children–are modern day slaves.
Let us not wait for the blood of our still enslaved to cry from the ground any longer.
Shoutout to the many organizations and leaders who are raising the awareness on this issue, and trying to pass meaningful legislation to eradicate this injustice. We need more of you…
Ify Ike is a former Capitol Hill advisor and counsel, with experience on a variety of social justice issues. She is an original blogger of the faith-blog “The Bold and Fabulous,” founder of the policy and communications firm, Ike Professionals, LLC, and has assisted numerous ministries in program creation, youth outreach efforts, community service, and natural disaster relief. At least once a day, you can find her in a debate about politics or religion.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Apr 7, 2014 | Entertainment, Feature |
c. 2014 Religion News Service
(RNS) The new “Noah” movie has everything you’d expect in a biblical blockbuster.
Big Hollywood stars. Extravagant special effects. An apocalyptic flood. There’s even a few rock monsters for good measure.
But the Rev. Wil Gafney sees something missing: a hint of ethnic diversity.
“In this version of Noah, black people do not exist,” she said.
While much of the conversation about the “Noah” film has focused on theology and the degree to which it strays from the biblical text, few people seem to notice the all-white cast, said Gafney, an Episcopal priest and associate professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
That’s worrisome, she said, especially at a time when the United States is becoming more and more multiethic.
“I hoped that at least there would be some beige people in the movie,” she said. “But there was no one visibly of color.”
Add to that the so-called “Curse of Ham,” a troubling Bible passage from Genesis. It tells how Noah settled down after the flood and planted a vineyard. One night he got drunk and his son Ham saw him naked, a taboo in the ancient world.
Noah curses his son Ham, and Ham’s descendants, including his son Canaan. That Bible passage, also known as the “Curse of Canaan,” was originally understood to justify the subjection of the Canaanites to the Israelites. In later centuries, the narrative was interpreted as an explanation for black skin, and in the United States, as a biblical justification for slavery. White Christian slaveholders argued that Africans were descendants of Ham, and therefore cursed by God.
The new film strays from the Genesis account of the confrontation between Ham and Noah, said Gafney, so there’s no curse.
Instead, she said, the movie simply erases people of color from the story.
Efrem Smith, president of Los Angeles-based World Impact, a Christian nonprofit, and author of “The Post-Black and Post-White Church,” sees “Noah” as part of a pattern.
In the past, biblical epics such as the 1956 classic “The Ten Commandments” featured white actors playing Moses and Pharaoh. Smith said that he’d hoped for something more authentic in this movie.
“When it come to films on Bible stories and biblical figures, we are going back to the days of Charlton Heston,” he said.
Smith said he respects pastors that encourage people to see the film. But he wished they’d been a bit more critical of it, especially on the issue of race.
The Bible, he said, is the most multicultural piece of literature that most people will ever read. So a film about the Bible should reflect that diversity, he said.
But recent films about Bible characters, such as “Noah,” “Son of God,” and a planned version of the Exodus story starring Christian Bale, star white actors in leading roles.
Smith finds that disappointing.
“We need sensitivity from our evangelical brothers and sisters about how white images of Bible figures have impacted people of color in the past,” he said. “We are too comfortable with a white biblical narrative.”
Nashville, Tenn.-based writer and speaker Trillia Newbell, author of “United: Captured by God’s Vision for Diversity,” also was concerned about the lack of diversity in “Noah.”
Seeing Jesus or Noah or other biblical characters portrayed by white actors has consequences.
“It shapes how you read the Bible,” she said. “Every time you pick up the Bible, those are the images you see.”
The Rev. Enoch Fuzz of Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville, said too many Christians don’t pay attention when it comes to diversity. It’s like a blind spot, he said.
“We want heaven to be a place of diversity — and then we don’t see it when it is missing here on earth,” said Fuzz.
Some of his pastor friends had encouraged him to see “Noah,” in hopes of getting people to talk about the Bible. But he’d decided to skip it, because of the lack of diversity in the cast.
Anthea Butler, a blogger and associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said the filmmakers seemed to treat the story of Noah more like a science fiction story such as “The Lord of the Rings” than a retelling of a biblical tale.
That may explain why the cast doesn’t fit the movie’s setting in the Middle East, she said.
But their casting decisions send a troubling message, she said.
“It’s a world where only white people get saved,” Butler said. “This doesn’t look like the world that God created.”
Butler suspects that filmmakers may have made a major marketing error.
A new report from the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture found that African-Americans are the most likely to read the Bible. So they care about Bible stories and may be turned off by this new “Noah” movie.
“Black women carry their Bibles around and read them all the time,” she said. “And they cannot see themselves in this movie.”
She had some advice for Hollywood producers looking for the next biblical blockbuster.
“If someone wants to make a ton of money right now, they should go out and remake ‘The Queen of Sheba.’”
Copyright 2014 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Apr 4, 2014 | Feature |
Can the church say Amen? Who’s ready to get “turnt up?” These sentiments and seemingly conflicting statements described the mighty movement of the Hymns & Hip Hop (#H3C) conference hosted by the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church and N.E.W. Leadership Academy in Atlanta that was held on March 28-March 30. In a word, this conference was refreshing! As a part of my thesis and graduate work I have attended various conferences that focus on the recent scholarship and issues in/surrounding Hip Hop. There was the #femhiphop conference hosted by Melissa Harris-Perry in New Orleans. The Hip Hop Literacies Conference at The Ohio State University, and various hip hop sessions at the American Academy of Religion. Each of these conferences offered a variety of valuable, enriching experiences, amazing networking opportunities, celebrity sightings, and brilliant scholarship presented by rising scholars and academic starlets alike. However, there has been something missing. As a minister and theologically trained scholar with a focus in ethics, I constantly search for voices that reflect my own, one that is concerned about the intersection of hip hop and church culture. But it becomes tiring to search and provide the church’s response when it comes to Hip Hop. Though the conferences have been covering a wide range of topics, the church’s response, understanding, and position has gone by with deafening silence. I deeply believe that it is important to the future of the church and we must engage this culture because it influences and develops our congregants.
“Secular” Hip Hop continually mediates and affects our culture and Christian Hip Hop and R&B are steadily developing and changing the game, but our youth are more engaged with Rick Ross than the book of Mark. Both the church and the Hip Hop community are needed to navigate faithfully in this unjust world. So when I heard about the Hymns & Hip Hop conference I was ecstatic and cautious! Ecstatic because I would finally have the opportunity to be in the midst of scholars, lay persons, and clergy who were willing to do the work; to problematize and nuance lyrics, music, dance, and hip-hop culture. I imagined a safe space where like-minded people could come to place of understanding to discuss the prevailing issues that surround the rift between the Church and The hip-hop community. But I was cautious because I’ve never seen the church truly engage with Hip Hop, I’ve only seen the promotion of negative stereotypes, condemnation, and judgment from both sides. As a result, I went into this conference with my eyes wide open yet full of optimism.
Hymns & Hip Hop did not disappoint; they truly represented as they set the stage to begin “bridging the gap between the Holy and Hip Hop.” The leaders of the conference Pastor Mike Wortham and Min. Cassandra Henderson began by highlighting the goals of the symposium. #H3C wasn’t trying to address or solve all of the conflicts that surround Hip Hop and the Church, but rather they were opening up a safe space where both communities could begin to dispel myths and find a common ground on the journey to working side by side in love and acceptance.
#H3C promoted a variety of panels and workshops which were in-depth and invigorating while being centered on the broader concerns of humanity. There were scholars such as Dr. Valerie Bridgeman, Dr Jocelyn Wilson, Dr. Teresa Fry Brown, Dr. Maisha Handy, and Rahiel Tesfamarian. Hip Hop industry veterans such as Chuck D, Kool Mo Dee, and Shanti Das stood alongside younger artists such as Killer Mike and Yani and all shared their gifts and wisdom from time spent in the industry. The panels and workshops ranged from topics like “Thugology 101” where participants critically engaged and interpreted the theodicy and thug theology that is inherent in Hip Hop songs such as “Crossroads” by Bone Thugs and Harmony. #H3C participants got a chance to dialogue in a remarkable panel entitled “A Threat To Justice Everywhere” where some incredible women leaders in Hip Hop and the Church broke down the issues of sexism and misogyny in both communities. These women did not simply address the issues but offered some tangible solutions for resisting the injustice that patriarchy places upon both communities. I could go panel by panel and explain the funny, witty, and thought provoking comments, I could describe the sights and feelings that I had but I would be writing for days and who has time to read that. So here is the most important feature of the conference, in my opinion. Get close, you ready? YOUTH!!! Youth!!! YOUTH!!! I can scream it from the rooftops!!!
Part of my pedagogy insists that we define and name the issues, words, and communities so that we can provide a firm foundational framework in order to truly embody the conversation. We have been discussing hip-hop in the context of youth but they haven’t been a part of the conversation. If we were going to discuss the Queering of Hip Hop we would invite someone who identifies as LGBTQ. If we were going to discuss sexism within the community we would invite women right? So where are the youth? Well, Ebenezer Baptist’s youth showed up and Turnt Up. The youth were engaged and fully embodied. They participated in panels by asking intuitive questions, got excited in the town halls and sessions, spit lyrics in the workshops. They had fun and got it in (Nae Nae style) at the Artist lounge. In the workshops they gave such poignant critiques on thug theology that I swore they took my seminary class, Evil and God. In short they were a delight. I had such a visceral reaction to the way they embodied the holy and Hip Hop that I am considering moving to Atlanta just to be a part of the mighty move of God that is happening down there.
The highpoint of the conference happened at the closing worship service. Rahiel Tesfamarian preached a moving sermon, but what got me excited was the unique way that the youth led worship. They exemplified bridging the Holy and Hip Hop through music. They took drama, dance, lyrics, and song and remixed them into a wonderful celebration of worship. They created montages of “Oh Happy Day” and Pharrell’s “Happy.” They presented a homage to the fallen such as Trayvon Martin and Renisha McBride through “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and “Heaven” by Beyonce. They showed us that in the end we are all here for the same purpose, we cry the same tears and ultimately are fighting the same fight.
There was so much packed into this three day extravaganza that I could literally spend days rambling in excitement. However, I will leave you with the task that I received at the #H3C. Karega Bailey, a raptivist and teacher proclaimed, “always remember to be a student because we are being studied!” H3C reminded me that we are on a road of knowledge, understanding, and community bridge building between Hip Hop and the Church. Throughout this arduous but indispensible process we must remember to be students because truly bridging the gap means the freedom to study one another in a judgment free space! In other words we got work to do on both sides of the divide!
If you are really interested in finding out more about how the conference went, I and a few others participated in live tweeting the conference, so just search the hashtag #H3C or #HymnsHipHop to revel in the brilliance (I follow back @deannamonique).
