by Urban Faith Staff | Aug 6, 2013 | Feature, Headline News |
By TOM EHRICH
c. 2013 Religion News Service
SEWANEE, Tenn. (RNS) After passing through the Gothic campus of Sewanee: The University of the South, we came to an enormous cross looking down on a nearby valley.
The vista reminded me of Gettysburg, so I asked my host, “Did Sewanee play a part in the war?”
He knew exactly which war I meant — the Civil War that is never far from the thoughts of Southerners even 150 years later — and he said, “Oh yes.”
It seems the school was founded in 1857 by Episcopal bishops from states that later would form the Confederacy, specifically to “resist and repel a fanatical domination which seeks to rule over us.”
A leading slave trader named John Armfield bankrolled the venture. One founding bishop became a general in the Confederate Army. When Union troops destroyed campus buildings in 1863, loyalists collected fragments and placed them in the wall of the university’s post-war chapel.
But that was yesterday. Also yesterday was the university’s utter dominance of late 19th-century college football, as well as its attempt to be the “Oxford of the South,” offering a full array of graduate schools.
As times changed, Sewanee adapted. It dropped out of the Southeastern Conference to focus on academics, and later scaled back its operations to a college, a writing program and an Episcopal seminary, all highly regarded.
When the university’s head refused to desegregate the seminary in the 1950s, seminarians and half the faculty walked out. When a 1960s segregationist diehard donated a mace in honor of the man who founded the Ku Klux Klan, the mace eventually disappeared.
These dramas of adaptation on “the Domain,” as they call Sewanee’s 13,000 acres of mountaintop land, mirror dramas far beyond Tennessee.
Adaptation is how a bitter and broken South survived its own worst instincts after the war. Progressive pockets emerged in college towns and later in large cities. Hungry for Northern business, the region became less racially polarized. In time, a black man could become mayor of Atlanta and another could become the Episcopal bishop of North Carolina.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of 50 years ago came to seem possible. Distant, yet possible.
But now the dream has receded. The fact of a black president seems to have reopened a pulsing vein of racism. Operating under cover of fiscal austerity, vengeful state politicians are gutting decades of programs that helped the South move forward by helping blacks and Latinos to have a chance.
No more affirmative action, they say; no more dark-skinned citizens flocking to voting stations; no more voting districts shaped by fairness; no more protections from ground-level aggression against people of color.
Once again, as happened in the 19th century, impoverished whites who should be lining up to resist predatory behavior by the moneyed class are being turned against their own best interests by race politics.
Now we have to ask whether Detroit was allowed to go bankrupt because its population is 80 percent black.
Does the military get parades but low pay and inadequate equipment because front-line troops tend to have deeper pigmentation?
Have public schools been thrown under the bus because urban school districts tend to serve blacks and dark-skinned immigrants?
Are ideological outcries against entitlements targeting all entitlements, or just those that benefit people of color?
Decades of racial tolerance have threatened whites to the point of backlash. Young right-wing politicians who are unschooled in tolerance and adaptation leap to stoke that backlash.
Difficult times are at hand.
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @tomehrich.)
Copyright 2013 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
by Urban Faith Staff | Jul 31, 2013 | Feature, Headline News, MLK |
By Larry Copeland
c. 2013 USA Today
August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have Dream Speech” (Photo Credit: RNS File Photo)
ATLANTA (RNS) The King Center is urging communities around the world to participate in a bell-ringing ceremony next month to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
King Center officials say they have reached out to all 50 governors and to cities across the globe asking them to participate in the bell ringing at 3 p.m. ET on Aug. 28, or at 3 p.m. in their respective time zones.
“My father concluded his great speech with a call to ‘let freedom ring,’ and that is a challenge we will meet with a magnificent display of brotherhood and sisterhood in symbolic bell-ringing at places of worship, schools and other venues where bells are available from coast to coast and from continent to continent,” said Bernice King, King’s daughter and CEO of the King Center.
The King Center and the 50th Anniversary Coalition will host a seven-day celebration in the nation’s capital of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. King’s riveting speech was the keynote event of that march.
The bell ringing is planned as a way to allow those who can’t make the trip to Washington to participate in the celebration, according to the King Center.
On Aug. 28, 1963, King ended his speech with a call to “let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire…from the mighty mountains of New York…from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania…from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado…from the curvaceous slopes of California…from Stone Mountain of Georgia… from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee…and from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.”
Bernice King asked that participating communities come up with diverse commemorative programs that “bring people together across cultural and political lines to celebrate the common humanity in creative and uplifting ways in the spirit of the dream.”
Bell-ringing ceremonies are currently planned in communities such as Concord, N.H.; Allentown, Pa.; Lutry, Switzerland; and Tokyo, the center says.
The King Center is asking that communities wishing to participate submit a brief description of their bell-ringing event to [email protected].
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the civil rights movement, “Parting the Waters,” Taylor Branch wrote that King departed from his prepared text and that much of the speech’s greatness was extemporaneous.
“More than his words, the timbre of his voice projected him across the racial divide and planted him as a new founding father,” Branch wrote. “It was a fitting joke on the races that he achieved such statesmanship by setting aside his lofty text to let loose and jam, as he did regularly from two hundred podiums a year.”
(Larry Copeland writes for USA Today.)
Copyright 2013 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
by Urban Faith Staff | Jul 30, 2013 | Feature, Headline News |
By Fredrick Nzwili
Dola Indidis, a Roman Catholic, is petitioning the International Court of Justice, based at The Hague, to nullify Jesus’ conviction and death sentence. (Photo Credit: Fredrick Nzwili)
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) The conviction of Jesus by Pontius Pilate may be the most famous court verdict ever — and perhaps the most consequential, since it led to Christ’s crucifixion and the founding of a global religion.
Now a Kenyan lawyer wants to overturn Pilate’s decision, though he wants to keep the faith that flowed from it.
“The selective and malicious prosecution (of Jesus) violated his human rights,” said Dola Indidis, a Roman Catholic who is petitioning the International Court of Justice, based at The Hague, to nullify Jesus’ conviction and death sentence.
Indidis, a former spokesman for the Kenyan judiciary, accuses Pilate, who was the Roman governor of Judea, of “judicial misconduct, abuse of office, bias and prejudice.”
That may well be the case, at least in the view of believers and many Bible scholars. But getting a court to rule on a 2,000-year-old case from an outlying province in a long-defunct empire will not be easy.
Indidis first brought his case before the Kenyan High Court in Nairobi in 2007, but the court refused to hear it, saying it lacked jurisdiction.
Now he is turning to the International Court of Justice, often referred to as the World Court, which is best known for ruling on territorial disputes between members of the United Nations.
Officials at The Hague would not confirm or deny that they have received a petition.
But Indidis seems undeterred and points to the example of Joan of Arc, the 15th-century saint who led the French to major victories against the English before she was captured and burned at the stake. A quarter-century after Joan’s death her conviction was overturned by a papal court, and in 1920 she was canonized.
Indidis’ petition has surprised Christian leaders in Kenya. The Rev. Maloba Wesonga, a spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi, said the exercise was futile, at least from a theological point of view.
“As we know it, the trial had to happen,” said Wesonga. “We must understand that Jesus was not vulnerable and nobody can do justice to God.”
Copyright 2013 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
by Nicole Symmonds, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Jul 26, 2013 | Feature, Headline News |
Since the Zimmerman verdict was delivered many have taken up activism in the form of marches, rallies, prayer vigils and petitions. In two weeks the activism hasn’t let up but there is one method of activism we must think critically about, particularly because of whom it stands to impact.
Following the Zimmerman “not guilty” verdict, Florida became the site of many people’s hatred. I confess that I am a part of the faction who have spewed hateful words toward the Sunshine State. I lived in Florida from adolescence to early adulthood and some of my family and friends still live there. I’ve had some good times in Florida but over the years it has disappointed me. Whether it was the election recount or acquitting Casey Anthony, the young mother who seemed guilty of killing her child, Florida earned itself top-billing on my crap list. The Zimmerman “not guilty” verdict was another reminder of why I never want to call Florida home. And so, I openly cursed the state alongside those who call it home and those who call it hell. But people weren’t just cursing Florida; they were calling for a boycott of Florida until the Stand Your Ground law is overturned. The Moveon.org petition to boycott Florida states, “Your state is not a safe place to vacation if your citizens are able to kill anyone they deem suspicious.” Other parts of the boycott have encouraged people to not vacation in Florida, attend special events—such as concerts, support farming—Florida’s main cash crop is oranges, or do anything else that supports the Florida economy. As of the writing of this article the Moveon.org petition has nearly 13,000 signatures of their needed 15,000.
Supporters of the boycott have ranged from black political leaders to musical artists. Stevie Wonder stated that he will not perform in Florida until the Stand Your Ground law is overturned and gospel artists Mary Mary have followed suit in joining the artist contingency of the boycott. A longer list of artists in support of the boycott was circulating and has since been rejected, but the move toward the boycott is still going forward and this is discouraging. Why? Because while a boycott on Florida may hurt the economy, which might force the government to act, it will stand to hurt many innocent people before a change comes.
One of Florida’s largest industries is hospitality which includes all of the theme parks, hotels, restaurants and other attractions that pump money into the economy and create jobs. The people who work in those places look like Trayvon Martin and his family and George Zimmerman and his family. They are black, white, Latino/a, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islanders. They are young people trying to pay their way through college from the University of Miami at the bottom of the state to Florida A&M University and Florida State University at the top, and all of the schools in between. They are college graduates who sometimes depend on jobs in hospitality to pay off their loans from said schools, pay their rent or mortgages, or to ensure their livelihood in general. They are middle-aged people who have fallen on hard times and found that a job at Disney World or a local restaurant is the only job they can get at the moment. They are senior citizens who made the decision to work because their social security and pensions don’t cover all of their living costs. They are foreign born citizens and immigrants who, as of 2011 represented 24.9% of Florida’s civilian working population. They work in one of the top three industries for immigrant workers in Florida, the arts, entertainment and recreation, and accommodation and food services industry. As you can see, a broad swathe of the population could be affected if a boycott goes forward. It would affect everyday people before it even begins to affect the “good old boys” in positions of power. The people who stand to be affected by a boycott on Florida are innocent bystanders given the fact that they had no control over the verdict. They had no say in determining the verdict—unless they were called for jury duty and made up an excuse for why they couldn’t serve. Now, the same people who had no say in the first place stand to be the ones who might be affected if a boycott does take place and this seems unfair and unjust. I agree with a statement on the boycott made by the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board that says,
“It should be obvious that to be just, criminal penalties have to be applied against the actual perpetrators, and they should be imposed, to the extent possible, equally and fairly against everyone caught committing the same crime and not just those who are especially unpopular or have a high profile. And just as a prosecutor or lawmaker has to determine what a sanction is supposed to accomplish, boycotters too should have some idea of what their purpose is.”
The story goes on to encourage boycotters to keep in mind that if this boycott is about the Stand Your Ground law, then they must focus their energies not just on Florida but on every state that has Stand Your Ground laws. The Los Angeles Times editorial board is encouraging critical thinking about the purpose of a boycott as political leaders and citizens in California mull over whether to support it. I’m encouraging the same here, that people on the verge of signing or disseminating the petition or those on the verge of boycotting Florida on their own consider what is at stake. As I said earlier, I believe a boycott will affect everyday people before it effects change on a bigger level. Indeed we want justice but we must consider how we attempt to acquire it and think about whether justice is “just us” or “just for all.” Who will and won’t benefit from a boycott on Florida, and will this bring us closer to or push us further away from getting rid of the Stand Your Ground law? To me, this seems like an integral question to answer before another step is taken or petition is signed.
by Alisha Gordon | Jul 19, 2013 | Entertainment, Feature, Headline News |
Preachers of LA (from left to right) Jay Haizlip, Deitrick Haddon, Noel Jones, Wayne Cheney, Rev. Ron Gibson (Photo Credit: Oxygen Network)
The influx of reality TV spans every genre possible: single folks trying to find their soul mate; pageant kids turned Honey Boo Boo; people vying for the title of the most talented dancer, singer, or chef in the country and taking the prize after a million texts and phone calls to 1-800-vote-for-me.
There’s no part of life that reality TV has not touched and the church is no different. In a matter of a couple of years, we’ve been introduced to BET’s “Sunday Best” and “The Sheards,” TLC’s “The Sisterhood” (which, by the way, was not renewed for a second season), and most recently, the 2013 fall series premiere of “Preachers of L.A.” to be aired on the Oxygen Network.
The show follows the lives of six L.A.-based preachers: Bishop Ron Gibson, Bishop Clarence E. McClendon, Bishop Noel Jones, gospel singer/pastor Deitrick Haddon, Jay Haizlip, and Pastor Wayne Chaney, all of whom have multifaceted stories of faith, failures, and victories inside and outside the church. The series trailer features small vignettes of the clergy interacting with parishioners in church, ministering on the streets of Los Angeles, and even making appearances in nightclubs. The pastors can be seen standing next to brand-new Bentleys, Ferraris, and wearing custom suits while what sounds like an instrumental of Atlanta rapper Ca$h Out’s song “Cashin’ Out” plays in the background. Interesting.
While most of the pastors on the show have a checkered past (Don’t we all?), this piece focuses on a recurring message that has infiltrated the Gospel for the last thirty years: prosperity. The “Prosperity Gospel,” as many call it, focuses on the believer’s ability to gain and accumulate wealth through faith, prayer, and sowing “seed.” These “seeds” can be money, time, or resources, and Luke 6:38 serves as the ideal Scripture to support this idea of seed, time, and harvesting: “Give and it shall be given unto you; a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (NRSV).
In the trailer for the show, one of the pastors quotes a very familiar Scripture to support his flashy lifestyle, 3 John 2: “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul” (NRSV). Another pastor uses 1 Corinthians 9:11 to further the point: “If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits?” (NRSV). For safe measure, and to keep the Scripture in context, I will include verse 12 as well: “If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more?”
These two Scriptures have served as the support for ministries everywhere to validate their need for and, quite frankly, expectation of prosperity to be a part of the norm for the work they do in the body of Christ.
Now, let me get this out the way: I, for one, believe that those who WORK for a living should be paid. Being a pastor/minister/clergy is a full-time job for most. It requires a large number of hours spent away from your family studying, preparing messages, traveling, and handling the day-to-day operations of the church. Working in ministry is emotionally and physically taxing and, like many careers, has the potential for burnout.
Some will argue that it is God’s will for us to prosper in the sense that prosperity means an accumulation of wealth, buying things that depreciate and generally to hoard, hoard, hoard. But is that what God meant in the text from which we build our theological beliefs about wealth and prosperity? We will determine whether the Scriptures quoted in the show trailer actually were used in context.
First, 3 John 2: the letters from John (1, 2 and 3) were a series of letters from an elder of the church to the church at large or a specific leader in the church. In 3 John, Gaius is the recipient of the letter and is someone who was revered as a righteous man who took the idea of inclusivity and hospitality seriously. John notes:
“I was overjoyed when some of the friends arrived and testified to your faithfulness to the truth, namely how you walk in the truth. Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the friends, even though they are strangers to you; they have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ, accepting no support from non-believers. Therefore we ought to support such people, so that we may become co-workers with the truth” (NRSV).
The key verse before John praises Gaius’ work in the ministry is the one that many quote to support prosperity: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (KJV).
Why does John say that he hopes for Gaius to prosper and be in health above all other things? Was this an indication that Gaius should strive to acquire more material things, or find prosperity in the intangible?
In context, John is writing to a church that is working through power struggles within its walls. Later on in the text, we learn about a man named Diotrephes whose disruptive behavior, refusal to show hospitality to missionaries, and active expulsion of people from the church who are hospitable became problematic for them. The author also notes that Diotrephes “likes to put himself first” (v. 9) and acts out of his own selfish motivation, to the exclusion of the needs of others in the community.
When considering the first verse about prosperity in light of the entire Scripture, the author’s hope that Gaius will “prosper as his soul prospers” is much more than a Scripture about external prosperity. If the soul is the foundation of prosperity, then your external prosperity becomes a reflection of your internal character. The measure of one’s prosperity is about the soul (our mind, will, emotions) and not external things.
This, my friends, is the classic case of taking a Scripture out of context.
It happens again in 1 Corinthians 9:11 where a Scripture to support the prosperity gospel is taken out of context. Paul talks about how those who work in the church should be able to take advantage of the rights and privileges that come with preaching the Gospel—and rightfully so—but he then adds in verse 15: “Still, I want it made clear that I’ve never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I’m not writing now to get something. I’d rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives. If I proclaim the Message, it’s not to get something out of it for myself. I’m compelled to do it, and doomed if I don’t!” (The Message Version).
He finalizes his understanding between the balance for rights as a minister of the Gospel and the good of the church by noting, “If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I’d expect some pay. But since it’s not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid? So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don’t even have to pay my expenses!” (The Message Version).
How do these two Scriptures placate the idea that the intention for the text to serve as support to line our pockets? In both Scriptures, the purpose of sowing and reaping was for a reason beyond the pastor/bishop/minister to live well—it was so the church as a whole would prosper! Prosperity, in context, had nothing to do with external accumulation, but internal understanding that community and the concern for community needs were of the most importance.
To bring things full circle, it seems that rapper Ca$h Out’s head-bobbing song “Cashin’ Out” is an appropriate song to shadow the Preachers of L.A. cast; it may have been the producer’s job to focus on the glitz and glam of Christendom, but the song’s lyrics give quite the textual support for the clergy’s prosperity message:
Got a condo on my wrist girl, I’m cashing out!
Got a condo around my neck girl, I’m cashing out!
My diamonds talk for me they say, “Hi, can I meet ya?”
It’s big pimping over here… I got big money visions
And I’m on da money mission, nobody can stop me
Just grab your camcorder, press record, and gone and watch me!
There’s much to be said about a body of believers who use their “diamonds” (read: prosperity) to speak for them in the midst of millions of people who suffer in poverty, even people in their own congregations. The “money mission” that this prosperity gospel puts us on causes us to lose focus of the intent and purpose of why God wants us to prosper in the first place: to better serve those who are without.
What good is it to prosper when those around you suffer? Go ahead and “cash out”; just be sure to spread the wealth to those in need once you do!
by Alisha Gordon | Jul 16, 2013 | Feature |
As the country waited to hear the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, there were a host of emotions present. Many were hopeful that justice would come quickly for 17 year old Trayvon Martin; we ended the night only to have our hopes dashed with a not guilty verdict.
I took some time to look at the response of many people while I waited for the verdict and even afterward. People around the country had a similar request: “let God’s will be done.”
There was a common theme that abounded throughout the night: the need for God’s “will to be done.” As hundreds of people tweeted and posted about wanting God’s will to be done with bated breath, hoping the verdict would offer solace to both the Martin family and supporters across the country, the collective disappointment was met with even more social commentary about how we will continue to wait for God’s will to be done and, as Psalm 94:1 suggests, allow God’s vengeance to do the work that the judicial system could not do.
I am not arguing any facts or failures about this case. The aforementioned introduction shines light on my personal views of the case, series of events, and desired outcome. I am, however, raising theological questions about God, justice, and our use of free will. I mean, how do we find/know God’s will anyway?
We could use algorithms and formulas to figure out God’s will…
Powerful scripture + past experiences / prophetic word from a televangelist = God’s will?
OR
A biblical story + prayer x a seed of faith($) = God’s will?
Here are the hard, theological questions I have about praying for God’s will in the midst of waiting for and reacting to Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict:
Since the verdict was not in Trayvon’s favor, does this mean that God was not listening to the supplication of those who wanted a guilty verdict? Was God’s will to allow the Martin family to not see justice and face the devastating pain of having their son’s killer go free? Does God, in fact, will for George Zimmerman to be a free man? Does this mean that Zimmerman’s life was more valuable than Trayvon’s?
Can we definitively say that our prayers for God’s will to be done come with the presumption that God’s will is like our own? And when these things do not work in our favor, does it now mean that God is in opposition to us? More importantly, whose will is really at work in the earth?
Is it God’s or man’s?
God gave mankind the ability to choose. Many people call this “free will.” We are able to make our own decisions, one way or the other, with or without an understanding of God’s will for any given situation. I imagine that even when we are fully aware of what we think is God’s will for our lives, we still have the ability to choose otherwise.
Zimmerman made a choice on a cold, rainy February night in 2012. Some may argue that his actions were a part of “God’s will”–Zimmerman claims that the events of that night were all in God’s plan. Others would scoff at the idea. Nevertheless, it was his ablity to exercise his free will that took Trayvon’s life.
So what does this mean for God, justice, and our collective will?
I’m reminded of Marvin Gaye’s song, “I Want You” where he croons over a carefully orchestrated melodic tune with electric and bass guitars, bongos, and string instruments:
I want you / the right way / I want you / but I want you to want me, too.
During my time in seminary, I’ve learned that God can be quite narcissistic, conceited, and totally consumed with Himself. We see countless scriptures throughout the Old Testament where God’s desire for a monolithic worship experience with His people was of prime importance and this incessant need to be chosen by His people is how much of the biblical text plays itself out.
God wants us to want Him the way that He wants us. He wants us to choose Him, intentionally.
But I’m convinced that God knew that we would not always choose Him on purpose. This free will gets in the way of seeing how amazingly wonderful it is to love God, to choose to be in relationship with Him. Our sinful nature pushes against the very idea.
Because God knew we wouldn’t choose Him on our own, He sent Jesus to show us how serious He was about us choosing Him. I’m being a bit presumptuous, but I think God knew that we would not choose Him on our own — our fleshly nature wants to reject God and our minds follow suit in a proverbial rebellion against The Creator.
God sending Jesus was the ultimate example of divine leadership: a leader should not expect their followers to do anything they are not willing to do themselves.
So God gives the ultimate sacrifice (His son) to prove that though He was asking us to make a choice to choose him (something that we could not do through our mind/flesh), He first had to show us what it truly meant to not only sacrifice but to choose intentionally. Choosing had to be a HEART matter, it could not be an act of the flesh. God gave his son Jesus as a HEART sacrifice.
So, when we begin talking about God’s will versus our own, though we have the ability to choose any way we would like, when we consider that LOVE fueled God’s decisions to not only create us but sacrifice for us, we have a new lens to look at how we engage in the process of finding justice for those who have been wronged.
We will never be able to answer the question of what God’s will is — especially when it is juxtaposed against human free will. What we do know however, is the core essence of having any type of will at all, is that every choice is a heart matter — when we live and act in LOVE we don’t have to war with who’s will is at work — LOVE is what drives our decision making and communal interactions.
