by Jelani Greenidge, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Feb 5, 2014 | Feature, Headline News, Jelani Greenidge |
Single by Pete Rock, Lecrae, and Rapsody – Be Inspired
The latest shot from the naysayer crowd (I would call them “haters” but that’s played, and plus, I’m an adult) at Reach Records founder and holy hip-hop superstar Lecrae, came from Meeke Addison of Urban Family Communications. In her recent article, “Is It Time for the Church to Reevaluate Lecrae?” her argument is highlighted in the first paragraph:
If Lecrae were looking at himself objectively, even he would caution church leaders considering “bringing him in.” In his attempt to reach and engage today’s hip hop culture, the popular rapper has made some decisions that are destructive to the souls of men. Lecrae may be able to work with secular artists and not be influenced by their music content – but our youth are not.
Meeke Addison continues on, relating a story of when she was first impressed by Lecrae and his wife at a concert in 2005, and contrasts his prior, sold-out-and-on-fire-for-the-Lord stance with his current stance, which she deems as a slippery slope of compromise with wickedness. Addison infers several conclusions from Lecrae’s recent collaborations, among them are the following:
Lecrae believes that “being a Christian is unfruitful when attempting to reach the lost; you’ll be far more effective as a positive person.”
His collaborations with rappers like Pete Rock, David Banner and Paul Wall are implicit endorsements of all of their music and lifestyles ( “he’s telling our youth Kendrick Lamar is good for their soul”).
These collaborations, combined with public comments she interprets as downplaying his faith, mean that Lecrae is no longer unashamed of the gospel – the crux of his “11Six” identity.
Given the way that the church supported Lecrae during his upward trajectory, this reversal is not simply embarrassing to the church, but is tantamount to outright betrayal.
It sends the message that musical success cannot be found within the Christian market because Christian music is known to be mediocre.
Of these five assertions, the only one that even holds a little bit of water in my book is the last one, but they all stem from a fundamental assumption that I refer to as the “Sentient Song Fallacy,” which I learned about from the seminal work on Christian music ministry At the Crossroads, by legendary guitarist Charlie Peacock. Essentially, the fallacy is to believe that a song can be Christian. It’s not that Christians can’t make music that reflects our belief – obviously we can and often do. But a song itself cannot be “Christian” in the way that a person can, because a song is an inanimate object. It is incapable of coming to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. It’s incapable of any sentient behavior at all, it’s just a song.
I believe this fallacy persists because of two important, symbiotic reasons.
First, it persists because of market forces. There are plenty of record labels who were started by Christians but have long since been bought out by multinational media conglomerates. These music companies have sustained a profitable business by selling music by Christians, to Christians.
But the market forces wouldn’t exist without evangelical gatekeepers, parents, church and community leaders, sometimes even political figures, who make it their business to decide which artists they will support and why. Sometimes, it’s just as simple as parents wanting to have music that they can play for their children that will not have profanity. But whatever the reasoning, evangelical gatekeepers depend on the machinery of the Christian music industry to help identify which songs and artists are worthy of their support. Which is understandable, especially if you’re talking about hip-hop.
There are obviously many contemporary hip-hop artists on urban radio stations and cable TV shows that no self-respecting parent would ever want influencing their child. And there are so many artists and groups, it can be difficult to keep track. It’s much easier to say, “well, if they’re on this record label, they’re probably safe.” Or, “if they record with this person, they’re probably safe.” Or, “if they performed at this event, sponsored by this radio station, they’re probably safe.” After all, there’s a reason why all those The Fish stations use the slogan “safe for the whole family.”
But this approach is flawed, for a bunch of reasons. Yolanda Adams, Marvin Winans and Fred Hammond are three of the biggest names in gospel music, with careers spanning over 20 years of music performance. Also, all three have gone through very public divorces. That may not disqualify them from ministry altogether, but I’m not sure I’d ask any of them to present their teachings on marriage.
My point is that artists are people, and people are more complicated than just what we can ascertain by putting them in boxes labeled “Christian” or “non-Christian.” Furthermore, there are songs by artists who profess to be Christians that might still contain elements of errant, heretical doctrine. On the flipside, there are songs by “secular” artists that may communicate certain Biblical truths very clearly, even though those artists may not publicly profess to be Christians.
So sometimes deciding who should be “in” and who should be “out” can be somewhat arbitrary, and it drives me crazy. This artist spent years on a Christian label and had a substance abuse problems. But this artist never recorded on a Christian label, yet released an album with a really compelling depiction of the processes of salvation and sanctification. Who should be in, and who should be out?
If your answer is, “it’s complicated,” then that’s my point. The Sentient Song Fallacy is bad because it enables lazy analysis and rewards shallow theology. If you’re a parent, you wouldn’t let some middle manager dictate what your kids eat for breakfast, right? So why let them decide what music they listen to?
As for Addison’s inferences, let me address them one by one:
Why is being a Christian mutually exclusive from being “positive”? Last time I checked, the fruit of the Spirit included love, joy, peace, patience … those all sound positive to me.
If we’re disqualifying Christian artists on the basis of their collaborations with people who do sinful things, I hope you stopped listening to The Winans after they collaborated with R. Kelly.
If you actually listen to the verse Lecrae does on the Pete Rock and Rapsody track, it seems pretty clear that he’s not ashamed to rep Christ in the general market.
Are we to assume that the Great Commission doesn’t apply to rappers? Or is it only acceptable for unsaved people to hear the gospel in a church?
First, I don’t think Lecrae thinks this. But even if he did, it would only be true to the extent that church people continue to insist their artists operate in a smaller, parallel music market marked “Christians only.” When Christ-followers who are talented, focused musicians tend to put their music in the general market, they often do just fine. Christian music isn’t the problem, it’s the marketing of Christian music.
To Meeke Addison, or anyone else who has a problem with Lecrae – please don’t think I’m just saying this because I’m a fan. On a basic level, I appreciate that you want to keep someone like Lecrae accountable. I just wish you didn’t operate with these assumptions, because we can’t have a real discussion about the music unless we address them.
Without that, we’ll just talk in circles, and that drives me crazy.
by Jelani Greenidge, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Nov 2, 2013 | Entertainment, Feature, Headline News, Jelani Greenidge |
Grand Theft Auto V, Pictured (L-R): Trevor Phillips, Franklin Clinton & Michael De Santa (Photo Credit: Rockstar Games)
Since September 17th, the day that Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive unleashed “Grand Theft Auto V” (GTA V) for video game consoles, gamers around the world have been immersed in the sordid tale of criminal enterprise set against the beautiful vistas of Los Santos, the fictional version of Los Angeles. GTA V grossed over $800 million in 24 hours and broke the $1 billion mark in only three days, surpassing revenue totals for every feature film released in 2013 except “Iron Man 3.”
Those numbers are certainly impressive, but they also speak to the encroachment of video games into the same segment of the social literary sphere that used to be occupied only by feature films. From a pragmatic standpoint, it’s no wonder the average 20-something adult male would jump at the chance to participate in an entertainment experience like GTA V, because $60 for about 100 hours of immersive entertainment is a bargain compared to $12-15 for a two-hour feature film. Especially because games like GTA take the fantasy of wish-fulfillment, which has been embedded in the film industry for decades, and takes it to – pardon the pun – the next level.
GTA V follows the gripping tales of Franklin Clinton, Michael De Santa, and Trevor Phillips, the three criminal protagonists whose lives are interwoven in dramatic, funny and occasionally heartrending ways. But the gameplay mechanic, which involves traveling to various locales in the city and then carrying out the various missions that help to advance the story, requires copious amounts of driving and shooting. In order to make it easier to get around, the game makes it simple to acquire a car. You either steal one that’s unoccupied, or with a brief threat and an unceremonious shove, you jack one from an unsuspecting motorist – hence the name.
Just relax, don’t fight it, and no one’s getting shot. (Photo Credit: Rockstar Games)
To be fair, over the years the GTA franchise has become more complex and interesting than just a bunch of guys who steal cars. In GTA, car theft is just a means to more lucrative ends — bank robberies and drug battles mostly, with legitimate business objective sprinkled throughout. With family connections, bitter betrayals, and a sense of burning resentment, GTA V has just as many thematic similarities with “The Sopranos” as it does “The Fast and the Furious.” I almost wonder if it needs a new title – after all, Aaron Sorkin’s drama about presidential politics wasn’t called “Walk and Talk,” even though that’s all that happened on that show.
But I digress.
My point is that at almost any given moment in GTA V, you’re engaged in either an epic shootout, or you’re driving around beautiful vistas with a brand new, shiny vehicle. And since cars and guns are two of the top three ingredients for the standard wish-fulfillment fantasy of the classic American male, the only thing left is sex.
Which brings me to one of the biggest problems of the game.
Why am I arresting you? For failing to be anything more than a stock character. (Photo Credit: Rockstar Games)
To say that GTA V is misogynist is to criminally understate the obvious. Yes, there are strip clubs and prostitutes, the inclusion of which tends to dominate most of the self-righteous, what-about-the-children haranguing that tends to follow any GTA release. It should go without saying that all of the GTA titles are rated “M-for-mature,” and probably would’ve been rated “AO (Adults Only),” except for the political nightmare that would be for big-box retailers. It’s usually the most careless, ill-informed, lazy parents of entitled children that purchase games like GTA for their grade-school-age kids – especially when the sales clerk tries to talk them out of it.
But strippers and prostitutes are only a tiny part of this very, very large game, just as vice crime is only part of the larger criminal underworlds that tend to inhabit cities like Los Angeles. What makes GTA V so misogynist is the lack of inclusion of any meaningful female characters at all. In GTA V, the women of Los Santos, when they’re not sex workers, are marginalized to the point of near invisibility. The three love interests opposite Franklin, Michael and Trevor are one-dimensional caricatures that come off pretty jarringly, especially in contrast to the way each of the men are treated as complex people, with a variety of needs, motives and personalities. And the rest are one-note bystanders or bit players.
One of the things I really liked about GTA V was the way that it gradually introduced the player to the various colorful characters, main and supporting, that appear in both the cover art and the slide show during game installation. Each of the men is rendered in vivid detail, an introductory snapshot that foreshadows their part of the story. But there were also three ladies, including one female cop arresting an escort. Where were they? Who were they? I played through the main storyline, and never found out. Apparently to Dan Houser and the rest of the creative staff at Rockstar, they were little more than window dressing.
And that really gets to the heart of what’s wrong with GTA as a whole.
by Jelani Greenidge, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Oct 18, 2013 | Entertainment, Headline News, Jelani Greenidge |
I guess there’s a pretty good market for this Christian stuff, then?”
That was a throwaway line in the middle of a scene between the two romantic leads of “I’m In Love with a Church Girl,” played by Ja Rule and Adrienne Bailon, but it might as well have been the Freudian rationale for this film’s existence. Writer and producer Galley Molina may have had the purest motives for this release, but its script and direction seem to be communicating an auxiliary message from its stated intent – See? Christians can be cool! We even got a real rapper!
It pains me to say that because the central message of the film – that God uses all of our circumstances for His glory and for our transformation into who He’s called us to be – is a great message. And it’s not that its central premise of a high-rolling drug dealer falling for a church girl and his life turning upside down is a bad one. That’s Molina’s story, and I give him credit for being willing to adapt it into a feature film and invest his own resources into telling it. But pulling off a movie like this means striking the right balance between being safe enough for the church audiences who will support the film financially, but “street” enough to attract a mainstream audience. This film does the first well, but laughably flails in its attempts to do the second. And it’s not the production values that are the problem.
In terms of the look and feel of the film, “Church Girl” looks legit. The aerial shots are there, the soaring musical cues are right on the money, the slow-motion gangsta postures in the club, the getting-the-crew-together montages…it’s all there. It all feels like a “real movie…” which is, I guess, so much of the problem. This movie tries so hard. So hard! Just to feel like it’s doing everything right. If anything, it could’ve used a little indie film, rough-around-the-edges type vibe, just to help viewers relax and get into it.
Molina clearly has a lot of experience in the entertainment industry, and his pastoral heart is evident enough (he has a cameo as a pastor), but his writing, combined with director Steve Race’s visuals, makes the whole thing seem so heavy handed. I wonder if some overbearing church lady hovered over Molina and Race on set and in the edit bay, scowling and complaining that the movie isn’t holy enough (which might explain the final introductory credit listing God as executive producer). Ease up, church lady!
The film has real moments of authenticity, such as the climactic scene where Rule’s character Miles Montego cries out in anguish to God, but it starts off so stilted that it almost becomes a parody of itself. There’s a moment after Miles’ opening verbal salvo, where it cuts to the stained glass face of Jesus, looking regal, stately and distant. It probably wasn’t supposed to be funny, but it was, to me.
Ja Rule and Adrienne Bailon have decent chemistry in the film, and the supporting work from holy hip-hop veteran Rene Sotomayor (a.k.a T-Bone) as Montego’s right hand, plus brief appearances by Vincent Pastore, (“The Sopranos”), Daniel P. Conte (“Goodfellas”), and Michael Madsen (“Reservoir Dogs”) all help to elevate the proceedings, but their acting can only do so much with such clunky writing.
Israel Houghton’s involvement will be a big draw to gospel music fans, and in that respect, the film does not disappoint. The soundtrack has plenty of funk, gospel, R&B, and hip-hop to fill the movie’s pivotal moments, including a new recording of a Houghton classic, “I Surrender.” As a fan of Christian music in general, I enjoyed appearances by T-Bone and TobyMac, not only onscreen but through their musical cues. (Though I did roll my eyes pretty hard at a scene in a fictional Christian bookstore, plugging T-Bone’s “Bone-A-Fide” album. Christian bookstores with CDs, in tech-savvy northern Cali? What is this, 2003?)
Artistic sensibilities aside, I also wonder if some of the details in “Church Girl” might be sending unintentionally misleading messages about the realities of dating and courtship. I know that part of the tension in stories like this is in watching the bad boy test the good girl’s boundaries[i], but it was somewhat frustrating watching Vanessa’s character be so knowledgeable about the Bible and full of upstanding Christian conduct, and yet react so naively to Miles’ advances. Any adolescent or teenage girls in attendance should be lovingly engaged in a post-movie debrief, otherwise they may walk out of the film thinking that the moral is that missionary dating is perfectly fine as long as the dude makes enough money to regularly buy lavish gifts.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of good messages and performances in “Church Girl,” which is probably enough for many of the churchgoing faithful in the target audience. And I must admit, it’s refreshing to watch a film so doggone earnest in its presentation of its worldview–considering how much snark and sarcasm tends to rule the day. Here’s to hoping earnest makes a comeback.
[i][i][i] A riskier version of this film would’ve included Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” somewhere in the initial meet-cute scenario. As much as I detest the message of that song, it could’ve been used here to good effect.
by Jelani Greenidge, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Sep 27, 2013 | Entertainment, Headline News, Jelani Greenidge |
According to author James Baldwin, “the most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.”
This might explain the popularity of Louie C.K., whose rise to stardom has transitioned him from accomplished comedian to household name, not only because of his time writing for luminaries like Chris Rock and Conan O’Brien, or because of Louie, his critically-acclaimed bio-dramedy on FX, but also from an insightful comic bit that went viral in 2008, entitled “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy.”
Well now he’s back, with another insightful, melancholy quasi-comedic rant about why he won’t let his daughter have a cell phone. It starts off being about how kids today don’t know how to communicate with proper eye contact, but then before you know it, he’s waxing philosophical about perpetual distraction, existential sadness, texting and driving, and doing a crazy Springsteen impersonation. It’s a five minute tour de force that is brutally funny and shockingly poignant.
I love almost all of Louie CK’s humor, even the crass, over-the-line jokes. They’re just all so painfully honest. With a sentence or two, CK can masterfully project an aura of disregard for what you think about him, which is part of the appeal. And it’s not in an iconoclast, look-at-me-I’m-a-rebel way, but more of a matter-of-fact, this-is-just-who-I-am-*sigh*-whaddya-gonna-do sort of way. Most of his material comes from a side-eyed glance at society at large, and his way of glibly revealing the fraudulent nature of contemporary American pride and excess.
Essentially, Louis CK talks a lot about privilege. Racial privilege, yes [like this R-rated clip], but also the privilege of wealth and prosperity in general, which demands nothing more than the pursuit of and allegiance to itself. But unlike Chris Rock, CK speaks not as a critical outsider, but as one trapped in the machine, all too familiar with the soul-crushing effects of fame, fortune and power.
In that, he has a lot in common with the Biblical figure Solomon.
Solomon was a man of incredibly vast privilege. His reign was part of a decidedly prosperous era for the kingdom of Israel, and he took full advantage of that wealth. With untold riches, multitudes of both wives and concubines, and a reputation for wisdom, he was like Steve Jobs, Tony Stark, and Hugh Hefner all rolled into one. He was the most interesting man in the world long before The Most Interesting Man in the World.
And yet, for Solomon, staying thirsty was not a catchphrase, but a lament. All throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, assumed to have been written by Solomon, is a tone of resigned futility. Verse after verse describes the author’s attempt to find fulfillment through the pursuit of worldly pleasures. And it all adds up to nothing, vanity, meaninglessness. Like chasing after the wind or trying to grasp smoke.
This is what Louie CK was referring to when he talked about that “forever empty” feeling. The fallen nature of sin in the world has created an inescapable sense of foreboding that we adults have to contend with on a daily basis, even if only subconsciously. All of the unfairness of life, all of the frustration, all of the pent-up, unfulfilled longing… it weighs on us. Like graffiti on a random wall, we’re conditioned to believe that there is no gravity, the world just sucks.
As a Christian, I know that there is an antidote for this existential gloom, and it’s not just listening to cathartic music. I believe that the emptiness we feel is evidence that we are in need of a Savior, and that this fallen world is not meant to be our home.
But in too many Christian circles, we’re conditioned to project the exact opposite message. The popularity of the prosperity gospel, combined with the advent of social media, mandates that we project Christian positivity at all times. This is one of the reasons why there aren’t enough worship songs that give voice to lament. We’re not allowed to publicly demonstrate feelings of emptiness, because somehow we think it’s bad PR. We think we’re supposed to look like we have it together at all times, so as to somehow show the world that the Christian life is the best choice because it guarantees the most successful outcomes (kids in the best schools, job with the most money, biggest house, et cetera).
But being confident in our hope doesn’t require us to never show any sadness. On the contrary, the popularity of Louie CK’s latest viral clip is proof that honesty and vulnerability is something that resonates, that causes people to stand up and take notice, and sometimes even stop you in a sporting goods store.
As someone just venturing into stand-up, I admire CK’s bold, unfiltered style, even though I know that as a worship leader, I can’t afford to take all those kinds of risks in pursuit of a laugh. But I hope that every time we see a bit like that go viral, it will be a reminder that perhaps we could do more to be a bit more honest and vulnerable. It’s true that people won’t hear the gospel if no one tells them, but it’s also true that they won’t have a concept for their sinfulness if they’re not allowed to acknowledge that something about life is wrong.
Even if that something is, y’know… little kids with cell phones.
by Jelani Greenidge, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Apr 19, 2013 | Entertainment, Headline News, Jelani Greenidge |
Shai Linne has created waves in the Christian music scene with his recently released single, Fal$e Teacher$. The song names prominent pastors and televangelists that Linne suggests are wolves in sheep’s clothing. (Photo credit: Covenant.edu)
When it dropped, the reaction that I saw across my social media feed consisted of a lot of raised eyebrows, tilted heads, and furrowed brows.
Wow… he really went there.
Shai Linne, the standard-bearer for reformed theology in hip-hop, released a song called “Fal$e Teacher$,” in which he castigates the erroneous, prosperity-based, word-of-faith teachings of many high-profile ministers, and then in the chorus, calls them out by name. Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes are just a few of the names that Linne identifies as false teachers.
In this video, he explains his reasoning for the single (part of his recent album Lyrical Theology, Vol. 1), specifically citing widespread deception regarding prosperity doctrine on the continent of Africa. According to Linne, the export of these ideas to unreached communities in Africa is even more dangerous, because many of these African listeners and viewers are mired in even deeper and more extreme levels of poverty. This prosperity thing must work, Linne says they’re probably thinking, since so many Americans have bought in.
I share an extreme distaste for most of these big-name ministries, for most of the same reasons. Because I care greatly about the destruction that such false teaching can unleash in the lives of naïve Christians who lack discernment, I am glad that Shai Linne has renewed his effort to address these heretical doctrines.
(*cue my Stephen A. Smith voice*)
HOWEVAH… I wish he wouldn’t have done it this way. Not the naming-names, thing. In principle, I don’t have a problem with that. I agree with Shai that there is significant Biblical precedent for naming names, most prominently with Paul publicly opposing Peter’s favoritism in Galatians 2.
No, for me, the most problematic part is in the title and the chorus. The single doesn’t just refer to false teaching, but it calls out false teachers. It crosses the line from holding public ministers accountable for the words and actions into publicly name-calling and denouncing their whole ministry. Depending on how you interpret 2 Peter 2:1-3 (which was quoted in the song), it’s possible to conclude that Linne is even questioning their salvation.
I am reminded of the words of hip-hop intellectual Jay Smooth, whose video blog “ill doctrine” blew up in 2008 when he offered people tips on how to tell someone that what they said sounded racist. Even though the issues are different, the concept is similar. When trying to hold someone accountable for something bad, it’s always better to focus on what they did rather than who they are. The former has a much narrow focus, whereas the latter gets into much bigger issues that are easier to derail.
So even if, for example, there is plenty of evidence to convict Paula White of having espoused and transmitted false doctrine, simply labeling her as a false teacher makes it too easy for her allies (in this case, her son who manages the ministry) to defend the totality of her ministry without addressing specific allegations.
In the headline, I used the term “false positive” – this is not an accusation that Shai is being deceptively nice. It’s a medical term, which describes “a test result that wrongly indicates the presence of a disease or other condition the test is designed to reveal.”
False positives are a major problem in medical diagnosis, but not because patients are often diagnosed as sick when they’re perfectly healthy. What happens more often is that patients who truly are sick get misdiagnosed, and then are given treatment that relates to the overall problem, but lacks certain nuances that could more precisely aid their recovery.
Whether intentionally or not, by releasing “Fal$e Teacher$,” Shai Linne gave the impression that all of the ministers named are cancerous toxins in the worldwide church, who should be, if not removed from ministry outright, at least avoided at all costs. These are sweeping accusations that, in my opinion, should not be done without providing or referencing specific evidence and proof – and in the song, he declares them over twelve people (in order: Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Fred “KC” Price, Kenneth Copeland, Robert Tilton, Eddie Long, Juanita Bynum, and Paul Crouch).
Now I’m not a fan of any of these names, but how fair is it to compare the ministries of Joyce Meyer and Robert Tilton? I don’t know, and that’s the point – Shai Linne provides very little contextual differentiation between them to justify his declaration of their heresy, only that they’re all in the same hellbound boat (“if you’re living your best life now, you’re headed for hell”). What then of any potential truth intermingled within the heresy? Or does one errant sermon, video or sentence corrupt the whole thing?
In his YouTube’d explanation (yes, I really just used the word “YouTube” as a verb), Shai mused that it had been ten years since he had really taken on this subject, which caused me to reflect on his original take on the matter, “Issues,” from 2003’s Urban Compositions.
This, to me, is a more well-rounded and more interesting song.
In it, he definitely attacks pastors who propagate the prosperity gospel (check this lyric: “I know this iced-out pastor, the brotha’s large / my man wanted to go to his church, but couldn’t afford the cover charge”). But its chorus also includes the phrase, “only Christ can separate the wheat from the tares,” a reference to Jesus’ parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:36-43.
Shai would be wise to revisit both the song and the parable. In it, Jesus describes a farmer who allow both wheat and the weeds to grow side by side, because trying to pull out the weeds could damage the still-growing wheat. It’s good to hold public ministers accountable to things they do and say that contradict Scripture, but labeling them as “Fal$e Teacher$” has the potential to undercut any of the gospel truth they might have preached alongside the heresy. And the people who get hurt – again –are those who follow those ministers, who haven’t yet developed the ability to eat the meat and spit out the bones, so to speak. After living under these faulty teachings, a believer who is suddenly exposed to the truth in such a harsh manner runs the risk of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
My advice to Shai Linne: keep doing your best to promote Godly truth, but trust God to pull the weeds in His timing.
——–
Editor’s Note: Bradley Knight, Paula White’s son, released a statement in response to Shai Linne’s song. Linne subsequently released a statement responding to Knight with specific examples of what he considers to be false teaching by Paula White.
by Jelani Greenidge, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Apr 8, 2013 | Headline News, Jelani Greenidge |
In 1963, Malcolm X famously referred to the assassination of President Kennedy as America’s chickens coming home to roost – a bold statement to a nation still mourning the loss of its president. When pressed to elaborate in an interview, he explained his comments by saying that Kennedy’s murder was the culmination of a long line of similarly violent acts perpetrated by the U.S. government.
Today, the political pundits continue to focus on the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to render a series of judgments with direct relevance to the legal institution of marriage. And most of the political left is united under the banner of what they refer to as “marriage equality,” the idea that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry and enjoy the same legal benefits conferred on heterosexual marriages.
And while most speculation is focused on either what should or will happen, I’m more concerned with what has already happened, specifically in the intersections of church life and civic duty. The Black church, though generally conservative socially and pro-traditional-marriage, has been unknowingly complicit in the hijacking of civil rights rhetoric by progressive liberal activists advocating for same sex marriage. Black clergy need to own up to the fact that the demand for civil rights from gays and lesbians is another case of chickens coming home to roost.
Diversity in religious Black thought
Rev. Irene Monroe, author, public theologian, and syndicated religion columnist, is a prominent supporter of same-sex marriage. (Photo Credit: IreneMonroe.com)
Now, I realize that referring to “Black clergy” and “the Black church” may give some the impression that Blacks are monolithic and uniform, always on the same page. This has never been true. At the dawn of the 20th century, the two most prominent Black leaders were Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, whose approaches differed greatly in tone and substance. In the 1960’s, Dr. King and Malcolm X were polar opposites. Even now, there are worlds of difference between the Christianity of President Obama and that of Ben Carson or Herman Cain. There are a variety of political and ideological flavors in the expression of Black organized religion and its connection to politics.
So it’s logical for certain, more left-leaning factions within the black church to promote open-and-affirming policies with officially sanctioned LGBT ministries. For these folks, civil rights for the LGBT community is the next logical step in their evolution of faith-based activism.
However, most African-Americans who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ also believe that homosexuality is a sin. We may have a measure of empathy for gays and lesbians because of the ways in which they’ve been ostracized and persecuted over the years, but we still resent the comparison between gays and blacks as people with morally equivalent struggles. Instead, we resonate with articles like Voddie Baucham’s “Gay Is Not the New
Rev. Voddie Baucham, author of Gay is Not The New Black and pastor of preaching at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas. (Photo Credit: Gospelcoalition.org)
Black,” primarily because, except for a few of the most light-skinned among us, Black folks have never had the privilege of choosing whether to come out of the closet.
This latent resentment probably burns the hottest from those believers in the Black community who have labored the longest, who are entrenched most directly in the ongoing battle, and who confront racialized economic disparities through the pursuit of better enforcement of civil rights. Their offense over the mostly-White gay activists borrowing the language and legacy of the Black civil rights struggle was crystallized by Dr. King’s youngest Bernice King in a 2005 march, when she said that her father “did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage.”
Unfortunately, these are the folks who helped same sex marriage become a foregone conclusion. Why? It’s all the focus on rights. In the Black church, we’ve elevated the pursuit of rights into an art form. We march, sing, and preach for our rights. “I got a right to praise Him,” said Karen Clark-Sheard. He’s a “Right Now God,” said Dorinda Clark Cole. “Receive it RIGHT NOW,” said Andrae Crouch.
Discipleship breeds activism, not vice versa
In our attempts to necessarily address local injustices, we’ve inadvertently modeled church life as consisting primarily of activism for social change, rather than as a place for spiritual discipleship. Not to say that we shouldn’t do both; outward social change should be a natural flow of spiritual discipleship. But the issue is of primacy – which do we do first, best, most naturally, and more completely? If we’re about a social cause more than we’re about being disciples, we might do all of the same programs, but for different reasons and in different ways.
Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church and the founder of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, is a prominent supporter of marriage being defined as a one man, one woman covenantal relationship. (Photo Credit: TheHopeConnection.org)
So take mass incarceration, for example. It’s one thing if, in the process of learning how to consistently receive God’s grace and love, we recognize our value as being made in God’s image, then transfer that recognition to others (in this case, Black men) who are being disproportionately victimized by drug laws, police harassment and unfair sentencing biases that feed them into the prison industrial complex.
It’s another thing, though, if you show up at church and everyone’s always talking about this problem with Black men in prison and it’s really bad and c’mon people we’ve gotta DO SOMETHING about it because somehow Jesus doesn’t like it (maybe he was Black? not sure).
I’m exaggerating to make a point, but there’s so much Biblical illiteracy nowadays because as ministers we assume that people understand that it’s our faith that provides the emotional, moral and philosophical foundation for our civic engagement. But in a post-Christian society, that assumption is dangerous. After all, the Pharisees were very skilled at doing the right things for the wrong reasons.
Liberated theology
Liberation theology has been wonderful in helping people to contextualize contemporary suffering into the narrative of Biblical suffering, but we need other theological constructs and frameworks to fully engage people with the gospel in a multicultural context. Without balance, our liberation theology ends up becoming what I call “liberated theology” – where we tend to view the gospel only through the lens of the freedom to self-actualize.
And this is a problem, because it blurs the boundaries between our rights as citizens and our rights as believers. As a citizen, I support the idea that gay and lesbian couples should be able to enjoy all of the municipal benefits of marriage as sanctioned by the local state. But that’s different from my belief that as a believer in Christ, I really don’t have any rights, other than to be grateful for God pouring His love on us instead of His wrath.
Thus, my sexuality, like any other facet of my life, is subject to His wisdom and guidance, which is tied to my understanding of His Word. There are a lot of things I could do with my body that I choose not to, and some of them I avoid because I’m constrained by the laws of the land. But others of them I choose to avoid because God’s grace and mercy causes me to trust His principles, even when I don’t personally enjoy them, even when rationalizing my way around those principles is perfectly within my legal rights as a citizen.
If liberated theology is my only guidepost, I’m tempted to have a distorted view of the Scripture, where Exodus 9:1 is reduced to “let my people go,” rather than the full text of the verse, “let my people go, so that they may worship me.” The first part is connected to citizen rights, but the latter half is all about being humble worshipers in God’s kingdom.
So I don’t have a problem with people demonstrating with marriage equality. But I have a feeling that there would be less appropriation of civil rights language if our Black churches weren’t as focused on securing rights for the African-American community. And I know that part of our calling as Christians is to battle the injustice that we encounter. But I hope we can do it with the humility and freedom that comes from knowing we are fully loved and forgiven.
Mostly, I’d just rather our preachers would spend a little less time engaging 1 Cor. 6:9-10 (which denounces sin) and more time engaging 1 Cor. 8:9 (NIV), which says the following (emphasis mine): “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”
