What Callahan Thinks

Strange Fruit: On the Execution of Troy Anthony Davis

2011-09-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Like so many others, I greeted the news on Tuesday that the Board of Pardons and Paroles for the state of Georgia had refused to grant Troy Anthony Davis clemency with shock and sadness. Wednesday morning I awoke with feelings of even deeper sadness and physical malaise. I knew that just at about the time when our congregation would be concluding our weekly prayer time and beginning our time of study, prison officials would place Troy Davis in the death chamber, strap him to a gurney, and administer a lethal cocktail of drugs that would first anesthetize him and then paralyze all his muscles, including his heart. I hoped against hope that the outcome might be different. I prayed and cried with my wonderful church family and kept vigil, sighing with relief momentarily when the clock struck 7:10 and he was still alive. Later, at home, I learned that following the refusal of a stay by the United States Supreme Court, that lethal cocktail had been administered and at 11:08 p.m. on 21 September 2011, Troy Anthony Davis was pronounced dead.

I have been an opponent of the death penalty for as long as I can remember. In 1995, while I was in seminary, I preached a sermon at Judson Memorial Church based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 7 “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” The sermon was titled "Strange Fruit" from the song about lynching that Billie Holliday made famous. In that sermon, I made the point that resonates even more powerfully for me today: our system of capital punishment is a bad tree and no good fruit can come of it.

Patricia J. Williams made the point poignantly in a review essay called "The Executioner's Automat" published on 10 July 2005 in The Nation magazine: "But it is democracy that dies when we become a nation of heartbroken vengeance-seekers. The seduction of the “string ’emup” mentality is not that it’s “frontier” Justice in some cruel, cartoon-ish way. Its appeal is precisely that it is a response of insatiable sorrow, immediate payback; it is heroically grief-stricken rather than reasoned. Moreover, the rage for retribution risks obscuring the possibility of innocence, the need for due process, the presence of mitigating circumstances and the dubiety of crooked informants. And in its most extreme forms, the bloodlust risks being used to justify thestate practice of sadism upon all those guilty bodies so needing to be beaten, so asking to be broken. We despise murderers, we hate. But there is some point at which the despising takes on a life of its own; when the death-dealing actually becomes satisfying and eventually pleasurable. "

The execution of Troy Davis involved all of the dangers that Williams suggested, from the real possibility of innocence to the lack of due process to the dubiety of informants. The state's act was bad fruit from a bad tree. All state-sponsored murder is bad fruit. Racially biased sentencing is bad fruit. A vengeful public, evinced in the gleeful cheering of Governor Rick Perry’s woeful record of death in Texas by the audience at the Republican debates, is bad fruit. A disinterested public, demonstrated in the lack of attention to two other executions this week, is bad fruit. No ultimate public good can come from such a bad tree. It is making something of us and our democracy that is grotesque and evil. The only solution for us as a nation is to cut down and uproot the tree of capital punishment.

The Help: In Praise of Labor Done with Excellence

2011-09-06T04:02:00.000-07:00

After a couple weeks avoiding it and another couple of weeks resigned to seeing it because I promised someone I would, I finally got to the movies today to see The Help, the blockbuster film based on the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett. Turns out Labor Day was exactly the right day for me to see it, because it helped me to focus on what The Help really was about, that is, work done well.

I avoided the film initially because I am persuaded that these feel-good treatments of black life and racism are actually counterproductive to real discussion of race relations. Sharper minds (and pens) than mine have eloquently articulated exactly what is wrong with the book and the film beginning with its ahistorical assumptions and its light treatment of the civil rights struggle.

For those of you who have been under a rock for the last few months, The Help focuses on a young white woman known as Skeeter (or Miss Skeeter to all the black characters) who after graduating from Ole Miss in the early 1960s is trying to make her living as a writer. Motivated in part by her grief over the unexpected loss of her own nanny, she choses to confront in subversive ways (never overtly) the racism and injustice inherent in the relationship between her junior league friends (perniciously headed by their president Hilly Holbrook) and the women who work in their homes. To prove yet again that the pen is mightier than the sword, and implicitly to suggest that it might even be mightier than the civil rights demonstrations, Skeeter interviews "the help," the community of African American women who make their living taking care of white people like herself. Please note that I said that the book and the movie are about Skeeter, not about the black women. Although Viola Davis renders the most noteworthy (Oscar worthy?) performance as Aibileen, the central black character and one of the narrators in the novel and the movie, this movie is decidedly NOT about black women or their perspective, since everything about her and her life, including the things we hear in her voice, focuses on white people. How we are told she feels about her work, especially about the children for whom she cares, is a obviously a figment of the fantasy life of white people like Stockett who hope that the black people who worked for them loved them.

This brings me to the primary point of this blog posting, that is, the under-appreciated and under-paid but powerful and life-giving professionalism of people who care for other people for a living — a fitting subject for Labor Day. This struck me particularly forcefully at the the end of the film (spoiler alert) when Aibileen loses her job taking care of the Leefolt family. The film focuses on the goodbye between Aibileen and the toddler Mae Mobley with tear-jearking melodrama that implies heartbreak for Aibileen who is losing a(nother) beloved child. What I realized, though, is that however much the child may be heartbroken at having lost the one person in the world who understands that she (and all children) has inherent human worth (too bad her parents didn't figure that out), the caring between Aibileen and the child is born of the WORK of caregiving done so well that it looks and feels like love to the object of the caring, whether it is or not. In another instance, the work of Skeeter's caregiver Constantine looked and felt so much like love that Skeeter actually imagined that her maid Constantine died of heartbreak at having to leave her to live with her own daughter.

That's the beauty of caring work that is done with excellence; it always looks so much like love that it is easy to forget that it's work, sometimes back-breaking, soul-numbing, spirit-exhausting hard work. Ironically, because of this beneficiaries of the labor end up devaluing it. Because it is so well done that it looks easy, they take it for granted and oftentimes resist remunerating it for what it's actually worth or even for what was agreed upon.

The teacher does her/his job with such grace and love that we imagine simply that she/he was born to teach and refuse to acknowledge the painstaking attention and even special study required to deliver lessons that make sense to individual children. The pastor ministers with both fire and gentleness and we acknowledge that the Lord has called and gifted her/him, but we forget that she/he has invested a lifetime of study (with degrees and student loans to prove it), along with hours of prayer and the burden of being on call as well as being called. The list goes on and you can feel free to add to it in the comments section.

By pointing out that work can look like love, I don't mean to suggest that professionalism and genuine human love and affection are necessarily mutually exclusive, only that the latter is nearly totally irrelevant to the point if the working person does her/his job well. I want to know that daycare providers will make a child feel loved whether they like that child or not. I want to know that teachers will teach every student whether their personalities jibe or not. I want to know that hospital and nursing home aides will treat vulnerable patients with kindness and compassion whether or not the patient elicits warm feelings. Finally, I want to insist that those who do this work and all work that makes our lives possible should be treated with dignity and have their professional excellence honored with decent pay and benefits. Happy Labor Day!

Some Thoughts about Education

2011-08-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I have had the mental energy to attend to this blog. This is in part because as a pastor who preaches most every Sunday, a lot of my creative energy goes into the work of reading, listening, and developing preachments for the congregation with whom the Lord has called me to serve. It is also because I have a hard time putting things out that are not fully formed and thought through. Today, however, I just have a few things that I want to get off my chest.

For the last few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about public education in the United States. Less than a month ago, I preached a sermon about brain drain, the experience of knowledge loss in students that is related to the three-month break between June and September that is a part of USA public school policy. A teacher in the congregation confessed that she tensed up when I first began talking about brain drain because she expected me to join the bandwagon of blaming teachers for every problem with students' achievement, even aspects that they do not control. That teacher has good reason to feel that way because of the ongoing discussions in the bordering state of New Jersey as well as nationally about the role of teachers unions in advancing or inhibiting essential good teaching. Last week I had the privilege of hearing a learned group of sociologists and education specialists debate the sources of and solutions for the gap between the achievement of black and brown students and their white and Asian counterparts. Finally, there's the fact that Philadelphia has, once again, parted ways with its school superintendent. After a scant three years in office but a plethora of political and administrative problems, Dr. Arlene Ackerman has taken a negotiated buyout and is leaving the helm of the School District of Philadelphia.

I have some thoughts that I want to put out.

First, we have to stop scapegoating working people, blaming them for structural, political, and economic problems over which they have little or no control. That we have come to a point in our national and local politics when our default position is to resent and penalize people who work for us, as civil servants, teachers, fire fighters, police officers, postal workers, or retirees from those positions and seek to balance budgets by cutting their pay and benefits while we continue to invest in the very corporate structures and moguls who caused the economic downturn in the first place is a scandal.

Second, while reasonable people agree that accountability is appropriate in every position, including teachers, we must acknowledge that we don't have real good ways of measuring teacher success. Criticisms of standardized testing abound and we cannot ignore the increasing numbers of alleged and proven test-cheating scandals. Diane Ravitch, a George H.W. Bush appointee and former advocate of testing makes a compelling case for the problems with using test scores punitively in this NPR interview. Meanwhile, Ravitch also points out that an enormous amount of money is going into the test project.

Third, Waiting for Superman's reviews notwithstanding, the jury is really out about charter schools as a solution. Although there are some very good charter schools, there are also some very bad ones, just as is the case in general for public schools.

Here's my concern: we're pouring money and false hope into a few faddish solutions that haven't been proven and in some senses have been disproven. We need our public policy people, our educational policy people, and our communities to get together and make sure we support things that have already been proved to be beneficial, e.g. early childhood education. We need to attend to the relationship between the structure of our school year and the loss of learning, especially for poor children who don't have interesting and enlightening summer experiences. And we need to insist that our representatives stop balancing budgets on the backs of public workers and the poorest people whom they serve. We also need to figure out a comprehensive from the cradle system of education and support for children and their parents. I know that this will cost money, but it's money that we cannot afford not to spend; we just have to spend it wisely.

My two cents as a citizen.

I. Am. Still. Waiting.

2010-11-28T21:46:00.000-08:00

I. Am. Still. Waiting. Here again another Advent season begun, its commencement marking not only a prelude to the celebration of Christmas but also to the anniversary of my birth. And I am still waiting.

Here's the thing: When I first thought about the fact that I am still waiting for so many things, not least of which is the coming of Jesus Christ, I thought that I would really be posting an extended lament or at least a complaint, possibly a rant. I thought I would be more in the frame of mind to be saying "I can't believe that another year has come and gone and all these things still haven't happened." But at this moment, that's not how I feel at all. I feel like celebrating.

I AM STILL WAITING. I haven't given up on any of it. I am still hopeful. Still faithful. Still optimistic. Still determined. Still alert. Still watchful. My ears still perk up at the sound of approaching footsteps. My heart still skips a beat when someone or something new surprises and delights me. My eyes still tear up with joy at the very thought when we sing "O I Want to See Him." I still love love songs.

God knows that I have had some moments between November 2009 and November 2010 when I have considered quitting. But thinking about quitting and quitting are not the same thing. Despair ultimately has not won the day. I am still waiting.

And the longer I wait the stiller I am.

For Friends

2010-11-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

I tell everybody that I am not a big fan of the holidays and yet I appreciate the opportunity that holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries give me for rethinking and reevaluating where I am, how I am, and who I am. Thanksgiving is a good time to pause and reconnect with all the blessings of my life, to express my gratitude to God and to my people for the immeasurable beauty in my life.

One such moment occurred today, as I sat at lunch with my college roommate and dear friend Debby and her family. My joy in the visit began after her 2 year old informed me that she didn't like me within the first three minutes of our meeting. Well, it wasn't her toddler thumbs down that did it; it was her mother's observation that she only dislikes "young" women, of the age when they might turn out to be babysitters. Nina thought my arrival might just represent temporary maternal abandonment. Delightful.

Later, Deb and her husband and I were reflecting on the fact that we have known one another for more than 20 years. Debby and I explained to everyone that Harvard in its infinite wisdom had merged our two chosen rooming groups together - of course without asking us. I said, "It's one of the best things that has ever happened to me." Misty-eyed, Debby jumped up to hug me - "Me too," she said. We've shared the blessings of friendship for more than half our lives. And I didn't even mention how dearly I love her husband Ian too, or how beautiful their five-year-old son Micah is - even wearing a San Francisco Giants hat. I didn't say that the very first time I had Thanksgiving with a family other than my own, I was in Brooklyn with her family.

I have more friends and better friends than anyone has a right to have. For every one of them I am thankful. You know who you are.

Remembering Dr. Dorothy Height

2010-04-30T08:23:00.000-07:00

One of the things I learned being raised by and among church-going black folks is that often when you don’t know where to start, the best thing to say is “I thank the Lord for being here.” Yes, indeed, I thank the Lord for being here is the very best way to begin my reflections on the experience of the past two days, when I was privileged to attend the celebrations of the life of Dr. Dorothy Irene Height. I thank the Lord for the unshakeable impulse to be in the number, present bodily with those who journeyed to Washington, D.C. to celebrate a woman who spent the overwhelming majority of her 98 years striving for justice, from the anti-lynching campaigns of the 1930s to the civil rights and women’s rights struggles. I thank the Lord for the resources of time and money, strength and energy, to make this pilgrimage. I thank the Lord for grace and favor embodied in friends and strangers who provided lodging, entrance, seats, and tickets.

I arrived in Washington by train at about 11 a.m. on Wednesday, 28 April 2010, with the plan to meet a relatively new friend who would provide both company and transportation for the memorial events. As soon as I got into the car, she decided that our day should begin with a trip to 633 Pennsylvania Avenue, the headquarters for the National Council of Negro Women, the site where Dr. Height had given so much of her labor. Although the building was closed, we arrived just at the time when Dr. Height's remains were to be transported from NCNW, where she had been honored the night before.

From the NCNW building, we journeyed to Howard University’s Burr Gymnasium where the members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. conducted the Omega Omega service, the final rite of passage to which every Delta is entitled, for Dr. Height. Dr. Height had served our sorority as the 10th National President from 1947-1956, and had in that period shepherded the organization into greater public service and institutional stability. Dorothy Height was herself an institution in Delta, dearly beloved and sought after, the very sight of her at a national convention or regional conference an important event.

Her service began promptly at 2 o’clock, under the leadership of the 24th National President, Dr. Cynthia Butler-McIntyre, with the eulogy being offered by the 16th National President, Dr. Thelma Daley. Other Past National Presidents offered reflections. Bishop Vashti Murphy MacKenzie, Delta’s National Chaplain, led the prayers.

There were many highlights of the service and many memorable moments. Particularly moving was the letter of tribute sent by the 11th National President, Dorothy Penman Harrison, who had been the National Treasurer when Dr. Height was President. She told the story of the purchase of Delta’s first headquarters building, including a humorous observation about the amazement of the realtor when three black women showed up to view the property and were able to write the deposit check for $1000 on the spot. Each speaker offered her own tribute to the dignity, determination, commitment, and fortitude of Dr. Height. Several commented on her indomitable spirit and boundless energy. All agreed that it was impossible to tell her no. The 19th National President Dr. Yvonne Kennedy offered one of the many quotable statements: “All Deltas are smart. Dorothy Height was brilliant.” Interspersed in the service was the musical offering of a quartet from the Philadelphia Alumnae Chapter, three of whom I am proud to say are my line sisters. Their harmonies, like the service itself and the woman it honored, were exquisite. Especially moving and fitting was the singing of “Grateful” as the violets were placed next to a portrait of Dr. Height by former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman. Following the singing of the Delta Prayer, the service concluded with the combination of solemnity and buoyancy as the pallbearers removed Dorothy Height’s remains and the rest of us felt the inspiration and joy of knowing the impact that her life had made on Delta and on us all.

The Best of 2009

2010-01-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

Early last year, I wrote on my Facebook page that I believed that "2009 is going to be really special." It was far more than special. It was extraordinary, marvelous, amazing, blessed. Last year was a simultaneously a year of fulfilled promise and growing expectation.

St. Paul's Baptist Church

Without a doubt, the major highlight of the year centered on my call and installation as the Fifth Pastor of the St. Paul's Baptist Church, 1000 Wallace Street, Philadelphia, PA. In reflecting on why this was a "best of" moment, I really have to start with the search process itself and the way that, because of the committee's treatment of me, many wounded places were healed, even before I received the call. To be treated with respect by a search committee, to have one's gifts and worth and dignity honored matters, whether one ultimately becomes their choice or not. By the time it was clear in April that I was one of the final two candidates, I already had much to thank God and St. Paul's for. I walked through the doors of St. Paul's for the first time on April 14th. On April 19th, I preached there for the first time and talked about God's ability to restore our faith even in the midst of our despair. Beyond our imaginations, I testified, God knows how to make believers out of us.

On Sunday, 17 May 2009, the St. Paul's Baptist Church extended to me a call to become their pastor. After I had verbally accepted the call in a conversation with Deacon Jackson, the chair of the deacons, I called Reverend Charisse Tucker, and we went down to St. Paul's so that I could take pictures of my new church. Here's one of my favorites.

I began my pastorate at St. Paul's on Pentecost Sunday, 31 May 2009. Friends from around the region came to share with St. Paul's and me as we began our journey together, and I had the blessed surprise of a visit from the venerable and legendary Rev. Dr. Henry Mitchell who offered the pastoral prayer. Thanks to the wonderful public relations work of Leslie Patterson -Tyler, we had extensive media coverage, including an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I preached a sermon titled "It's Time" about the fulfillment of God's promise in the birth and empowerment of the church. Following the church-sponsored reception after service, my friends and I went to Maggiano's for some serious eating. Below are pictures of me in the sanctuary, the congregation at worship, and my friends after Maggiano's. What a glorious day!

Just when I thought that the celebratory feeling would overwhelm me at St. Paul's, then the funeral season began. I was privileged to preside at several funerals during my first two months at St. Paul's, which allowed me to get a feel for the congregation. It also allowed the congregation to get a real feel for me. I am particularly mindful of the funeral for Mrs. Clara Gilliam Lightfoot, about whom I blogged here.

After a much busier summer than I anticipated, the time for the installation arrived. I need to admit that although I was really hearing a promise from God that the installation festivities would be heavy with the divine presence, I still had some anxiety as the day approached. We began the month of September with a series of pre-installation revival services and were blessed by the preaching of my friends Reverends Ernest Flores, Jacob Chatman, and Alyson Browne Johnson. Each brought his or her own special flavor to the moment, and the worship grew increasingly intense from week to week.

The installation weekend began on Friday, 25 September, with a youth concert designed to benefit Philabundance, Philadelphia's largest hunger relief agency. Although there were many challenges in the planning of it, even up to the last minute, once the event began it was marvelous. We were blessed with the ministry of Minister Antonio and his group. We heard Chad Sisk. Shadia Combs presented spoken word. And our own children's choir sang beautifully. We raised $1000 and a great deal of nonperishable food items. Most of all, God's presence was thick in the room. Within 20 minutes of the service's beginning, I knew that the whole weekend would be unforgettable.

I don't want to go through a blow-by-blow of every event. Let me just offer some observations. My friends who spoke, whether at the banquet or in the installation, gave a rounded picture of who I am. It was fun to hear about the Leslie, the Rev., the Professor. But they did even more than that because they helped me to remember aspects of my own self and story that I hadn't thought about for a long time and that I needed to remember. The support of my family, whose pride beamed like a spotlight, induced gratitude and healed old wounds. The preaching of Reverend Dr. Raphael Warnock who preached the temptation at the luncheon; Reverend Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr., who preached about Phoebe on Sunday morning; and Reverend Felicia Y. Thomas who preached about higher ground at the installation service, inspired, provoked, corrected, and encouraged. And the generosity the congregation, from the cards to the offering to the Phillies playoff tickets (from the installation committee) showed me how blessed I am to have become St. Paul's pastor. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

I do have to say a word about the actual service of installation: AMAZING. The turnout of clergy who came to support me, including women in ministry - some of whom I didn't even know - blessed me tremendously. I was especially encouraged by the elders: St. Paul's Pastor Emeritus Rev. Dr. Arthur Lee Johnson, who offered greetings and his blessing, and the Rev. Dr. Henry Mitchell, who prayed the prayer of installation. The support of my family reinforced the sense of blessedness and favor. The joyful worship encouraged my heart and exalted the Lord. (Perhaps those of you who were there and who read this would like to elaborate more on the specifics, but amazing is about all I can say.)

The installation really was a kickoff to the ministry. Since then, we have grown numerically. Our worship is intensifying, even though we were without a permanent minister of music for the last 3 months of the year. The work of pastoring is showing me more and more about my own strengths and weaknesses. Mostly, I am learning that this really is Jesus' show. We are going somewhere, but I am not driving. I too am a passenger, and I am enjoying the ride.

Best Sports Experience - My Beloved Phillies

My love for the Phillies only grew this past year. And because I was not the only one who was loving on them, it was very difficult to get tickets at Citizens Bank Park to see them play.
Seeing the Phillies in Pittsburgh and then in the playoffs at Citizens Bank Park (thanks to the generosity of the installation committee) was so much fun. I am only sorry that they did not beat my American League team the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Best Meals

During restaurant week in Philadelphia on September 18, I went to Amada a Spanish tapas restaurant. The food was magnificent. From the lavender-infused honey to the cafe con leche with dessert, this is just marvelous eating. I also want to give an honorable mention to Honey's Sit and Eat, which is near the church.

I have to say, though, that on a consistent basis the food, fun, laughter, and fellowship at the home of Deborah and Ernie Flores during the weekly Monday night taco nights represents the best eating I do from week to week.

Best Medical Procedure

I know that sounds crazy, but I needed to be able to say something about finally having my wisdom teeth extracted.F

Best Sermons/Lectures I Heard

I have to give a major shout out to the the Hampton Ministers Conference, where the President Rev. Dr. William Curtis, along with morning preacher Rev. Dr. Claudette Copeland and conference presenter/prophet Rev. Dr. Renita J Weems brought it with prophetic power, passion, clarity, brilliance, and anointing.

Just as I did last year, I need to note the consistent preaching of Rev. Dr. Albert F. Campbell and District Elder Brenda (Birdie) Cuthbertson. District Elder Cuthbertson brought an extraordinary word at Easter "Same Story, Different Ending." That was some preaching!

Turning Forty

My last comment about 2009 is that I turned 40 in the midst of a record-setting snowstorm that ruined my plans to spend my 40th birthday with my new church family. Despite my disappointment, I had a marvelous day, as some dear friends braved the snow to bring my gifts and take me to dinner. See me on my 40th birthday at Maggiano's below.

In Praise of Oral Roberts

2009-12-20T18:53:00.001-08:00

Anybody who knows anything about my theology or my politics will be a bit surprised to see me offering my own words of praise for Oral Roberts who died this past week at age 91. On the other hand, anyone who knows about my heritage and scholarship as a pentecostal will think it perfectly appropriate for me to write in celebration of one of the most remarkable and accomplished religious leaders of the previous century.

I remember Oral Roberts's television show from my early childhood and such guests on the show as Mahalia Jackson. I remember the theme music "Something Good is Going to Happen to You" as the soundtrack to my getting dressed for church on Sundays when I was still in patent leather shoes. And yes I remember when Oral Roberts's fundraising tactics drew the scorn of the media and caused the disappointment of many others when he said that God has threatened to "call me home" if his supporters did not show up with the money.

None of those memories, though, prompts my writing about Roberts. In 2001, I traveled to Tulsa for the first time, to attend a meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, which was being hosted at Oral Roberts University. I knew, of course, that Roberts had founded an accredited institution of higher learning and that at one time that institution even housed a medical school. My college roommate's father was a professor at ORU. And I had seen their sports teams play on ESPN. But when I actually saw the buildings (corny and reminiscent of the 1970s as they were) and actually entered the prayer tower, I gained new respect for a man who was both a visionary and a person who accomplished what he set out to do.

Having begun his ministry as person with a gift for healing and having decided that the spiritual arts and medical science were not incompatible, Roberts did something that few religious or secular people have done - created an institution. His legacy as the founder and chancellor of ORU outdistances almost any of his critics'. I know that ORU has had its issues, particularly when Richard Roberts was at the helm, but none of that diminishes the accomplishments of Oral Roberts. He was a preacher, evangelist, pentecostal, and visionary. May he rest in peace from his labors and his works follow him.

39 was a mighty good year

2009-12-20T11:04:00.000-08:00

Just as the clock struck midnight last night, in the midst of a record-breaking, historic snowstorm that threatened and eventually did cancel my plans to celebrate my birthday with my church family, I had to pause and give thanks. I need to say again that I was feeling a little disappointed that I was not going to be having my first day at 40 exactly as I wanted it. But even so, I had to admit that I had a blast at 39.

Last year, I turned 39 with a whimper. I spent the first week of my 40th year lamenting all that I had not yet accomplished. I remembered so well when I turned 30 and rejoiced that my adulthood was really secure. I couldn't believe how quickly the decade had passed. Yes, there were accomplishments, including the completion of my Ph.D. and the securing of gainful employment, but none of the milestones of my 30s up to that time included the things I had most hoped for, a husband and children. When I turned 39, I didn't even have a church. I was feeling a little blessed but a little cursed too.

I don't have the time or the energy for all of the details, but let me say this: Even though I still don't have a husband or a child, 39 was the year when I could no longer sustain the fiction that I am cursed. It no longer is logically sustainable. I have felt more loved, supported, and chosen in this past year than ever before in my life. The process that brought me to St. Paul's, including the respect that the search committee accorded me, blessed me more than I can say. The commitment and investment of friends who rejoiced on my first Sunday and at my installation as if it were their own new life, so many events this year have pointed to the love of God and the love of many friends. I have been celebrated and feted. I have been taken care of and comforted. Friends, old and new, have shown me how loved I am. Family have shown up and beamed with pride.

Women over 40 tell me that I am going to love this new season I am in. I hope so. I also hope to have a family of my own. But if none of that is true, if that doesn't happen, then I have had at least one marvelous year. Thank God for 39.

Michael Vick

2009-08-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I am an increasingly avid sports fan. I have changed my cable provider so that I can watch the Phillies almost daily. I frequently wear team gear for the Phillies and Yankees. And although I am more of a baseball fan than football these days, in the winter you can observe me in my Eagles gear. But even if I weren't following sports so closely, I would have been hard-pressed to miss all of the hullabaloo engendered by the recent signing of Michael Vick to the Philadelphia Eagles football team.

For those of you who have been in a cave, Michael Vick, formerly a ProBowl caliber quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, just completed an 18-month sentence for charges related to a dog-fighting operation he ran out of his home in Virginia. A couple weeks ago he was reinstated to the NFL, although he remains suspended for an as yet undetermined number of games. He was available. The Eagles signed him. Animal rights activists and dog-loving fans, especially in Philadelphia, had a fit.

This brings me to the question that prompts this blog: What do they want? Michael Vick served time for heinous cruelty and has seen his life and fortune dismantled. Is he never supposed to work again? Is he forever to be shunned from all polite company? Was he simply supposed to die in prison? Or is it okay from him to be released and to work, but just not to make a lot of money or to be truly successful and potentially celebrated as a great quarterback? I want to say to the detractors, I know you don't want him to do this, but what's the alternative? I know, I know: Throw him to the dogs.

Now hear me, I'm not one of those sanctimonious types who judgmentally declares that we should not judge others. Clearly, Michael Vick has some restitution to make, but he can never make such restitution if we don't acknowledge that redemption and righting wrongs are possible.

To make a larger and perhaps more important point, as individuals and as a society we have to figure out how to reintegrate people who have messed up in a way that both acknowledges their wrongs and their potential. We can neither fail to punish wrongs, nor continue to punish forever.

The Family Table

2009-08-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

The Family Table
John 6

  In the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, many of us hurry through everything, including our meals. We “grab” something and “wolf” it down in the midst of or while in transit to something else. More and more, this unhealthy behavior characterizes the eating habits of children as well as those of busy adults. Yet within the past several years, research has emerged that links positive outcomes socially, emotionally, and physically with the experience of regularly dining at the family table. Not only do children eat a more balanced diet, with more fruit and vegetables, but there is evidence that they are also less likely to engage in delinquent social behaviors when they sit down with their parents for bonding time at meals.  The article continues, "Just the act of eating together is on some level beneficial." (Click here for complete NY Times Article.)

The scenes of this entire chapter take place was by the Sea of Galilee, the site where Jesus had originally called some of his disciples and where he had attracted great crowds because of the miraculous signs that he performed on behalf of the sick.
The time was near the Passover feast, itself the family meal that commemorated God’s rescue of the Israelites from slavery. Spending time with his disciples, Jesus notices the crowds coming from the distance. The ever observant Jesus perceived the condition of the approaching masses and in it a teachable moment for his disciples. “Where shall we buy bread for the crowd that's on its way?” he asked his crew.

What followed was yet another demonstration of human limitation overcome by divine providence. Philip the questioning disciple focused on their limitations. Andrew looked at the situation with a different eye. He had taken account of the boy with a lunch. "I don't know what we can do with it, but there is a boy who has a lunch," Andrew said. By the end of the story, there was enough  and more than enough to feed all who took a portion until they had all that they wanted and were satisfied.  

What is striking about Jesus’ distribution of the resources is that he gave away nothing before the people sat down. Before he gave thanks, broke the bread, or distributed the fish, Jesus commanded that the great crowds come to rest. The lesson, of course, is one of obedience. The disciples cannot be used if they will not obey. In fact, they are not even disciples at all if they won’t FOLLOW. The crowds cannot be fed unless they accede to the command to sit down. We have but little distance to walk to discover that the satisfaction of the Christian life is elusive if we do not take heed to Christ’s voice.

But there is significance in the content of the command to be seated. In bringing order and quiet to those who would dine through his miraculous provision, Jesus instituted and presided over the family table, prefiguring the table he prepared at the Passover with his own broken body and shed blood.

Not long ago, President Obama invited two men who were having a very public, acrimonious dispute,Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sergeant James Crowley, over to the White House for a beer. Let’s come together on common ground the president said. Let’s sit down at the table. Let’s look at one another and have conversation. Coming from different backgrounds and experiences, encountering on another first in the contentious context of mistaken identity - now let’s come together in table fellowship. The beer? Just a little something for attitude adjustment, a drink in common to bring us to a compatible level. Now you have to know that Gates and Crowley would likely never have come together for a beer or anything else on their own. But because the President called and invited them to the White House, they responded to the specialness of the President's invitation.

I hear the Savior say “I am the bread of life.” And while I wouldn’t mind an invitation to the White House to sit down to the table either inside the house or on the White House lawn. While I wouldn’t mind having a tomato plucked from the white house vegetable garden. While I would mind dining off the fine china from which presidents and heads of state have eaten, I recognize the greater privilege and the more nourishing meal is the one I share with my brothers and sisters every 2nd Sunday morning at St. Paul’s Baptist Church.

I hear the Savior say, Anyone who comes to me will never be hungry. Anyone who believes in me will never be thirsty. I am the living bread who comes down from heaven. My flesh is real food. My blood is real drink.
Jesus knows even better than we do how different we are: ages, status, gender, nature, tastes, desires : This is my body which is for YOU (pl.) Do this and think about me. This is my blood shed for YOU for the forgiveness of sins. Do this and think about me. Just as the passover was celebrated with a family meal, so also our deliverance is celebrated with a meal. And if a beer between enemies can lead to common ground, how much more can the bread of life shared among sisters and brothers?

Young Enough to Do Something Different

2009-06-12T20:32:00.001-07:00

Today marked another first for me in my new ministry as pastor of the St. Paul's Baptist Church. Although I was the officiating minister for a funeral last Saturday, today I gave my first eulogy as pastor. Mrs. Clara Gilliam Lightfoot was born in 1912 and had been a member of St. Paul's for 70 years. She had not been able to come to church for some time, but she did have the opportunity to vote in the pastoral election a few weeks ago. The deacon who provided her with the absentee ballot remarked that although she knew that her vote was by secret ballot and therefore confidential, after seh placed her marked ballot in the envelope she volunteered, "Clara Lightfoot has done something different. I just voted for the woman."

Of course I smiled to know that Mrs. Lightfoot would have been pleased with the pastor at her funeral, but more than that I was struck by what extraordinary liveliness she had even in her last weeks. If anyone has an excuse for holding on to the familiar and maintaining the status quo it is the person who has lived for 97 years. But I am thinking that the willingness to embrace new things, a delight in doing "something different" (especially when that something is a good and right thing) may very well be the reason why Mrs. Lightfoot lived as long as she did.

This week I heard several moving and challenging sermons and lectures at the Hampton Ministers' Conference. I felt convicted and encouraged by the sermons of Dr. Claudette Copeland. I reflected and repented because of the word placed in Dr. Renita Weems's mouth. And I recommitted to preaching with boldness because of what Dr. William Curtis preached. But as Dr. Copeland herself made clear in her sermon on Wednesday, sometimes the prophetic is mediated through a life. In Mrs. Lightfoot's final act as a member of St. Paul's Baptist Church, God spoke to me: No matter how old we get, we're always young enough to do something different. Message taken.

It's Time

2009-06-01T01:56:00.000-07:00

Pentecost Sunday at 10th and Wallace was a special occasion because it marked my first Sunday there as pastor. Here's the basic sermon I preached.

It’s Time
Acts 2:1-21

In one of the most famous passages in all of Holy Scripture, the Preacher says, To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. Text from Ecclesiastes so much lives up to the wisdom tradition that its sentiment is borrowed, its phrases cribbed and cited in everything from wedding and funeral rites to Pete Seeger lyrics. You don’t have to be spiritually astute to observe its truth. We all know that life is seasonal.

Generally, when all our seasons seem to flow predictably, the seasonal nature of life feels easy, commonplace. Peaks and troughs, ups and downs – after winter comes the spring, after spring comes summer, after summer comes fall, after fall comes winter, and then we do it all again.
But at are other times where there is breakdown, disruption, death, and destruction, then the words of the Preacher, either the biblical one or even the local ones in our pulpits seem empty.

Easy to rejoice in the cycle of seasons when the season you’re in is fruitful. But when you’re in a drought, in a desert, in the midst of the famine –
When the grass is withered and the flowers have fallen
When the leaves are brown and the trees are bare
When the ground is hard and the springs are dry
When the harvest is past and the summer has ended and we are not saved
Sometimes the winter lasts longer than three months
In those times, to hear that life is seasonal is cold comfort indeed.

Remember last year at the first signs of financial trouble? Analysts and pundits observed the declining market and described it as “correcting”. Don’t worry, they said, the economy has natural peaks and troughs. John McCain, the Republican nominee, could without shame declare himself basically ignorant about the economy and still hope to be elected president by reason of his expertise in the truly important matters, such as national security. But by the fall, when the downturn and potential recession threatened to devolve into an out and out depression, suddenly the cycle of economic seasons didn’t seem so natural, and John McCain the presidential candidate had to “suspend” his campaign to attend to economic matters. When blue-chip stock sells for a penny we realize that there are seasons and then there are CATASTROPHES.

In catastrophic times, when someone declares “Your season is coming” – nothing drowns out the demand of the question “But when?”

Nothing prompts ask the question “when” as much as our acknowledgment of a promise from God. In fact, one way to know that we really believe that God has made us a promise is that we become anxious and impatient for the promise to be fulfilled. More than the question of what, where, who, or even why or how, whenever the promise of God comes to us, it the question of when that dominates

When will I (fill in the blank)
When will we (fill in the blank)
When will the church ever (fill in the blank)

This question of when in the minds of Jesus’ disciples forms the backdrop to this morning’s text. Having seen God do the extraordinary in Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples actually grasp that God had been making them a promise that God intended to fulfill, and so they ask, “When will the restoration be?” Jesus’ instruction to them is embodied in the command for them to stay in Jerusalem and WAIT. But I can hear them traveling back to Jerusalem and spending all their time between the ascension and Pentecost asking the question, “Is it time yet?”

Time is by definition: A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
In God’s timing there is a the story of previous deliverance and salvation interwoven into the promise. There’s always a past. After all, God has been working in us for so long. And even the present glory is linked to past deliverance.
Pentecost was an ancient feast celebrating harvest, the feast of weeks measured from the barley harvest (at Passover) to the harvest of wheat (at Pentecost) also commemorating the giving of Torah (divine law)

After the disciples had gathered in obedience and handled the business of replacing Judas in their number, then the Spirit declared, “It’s time.” And I came to announce to St. Paul’s on this Pentecost Sunday that “It’s time!”

I want to make clear that there are some signs that the announcement of God’s working in our time is true. For the announcement that God is at work to be the truth then there are three things that must accompany the announcement.

First, there is divine visitation – I am so grateful that all of us have gathered this morning in the house of worship. I’m thankful for the deacons in their place, the ushers in theirs, the choir in theirs, the musicians in theirs. I’m thankful for my friends who have traveled and for this congregation who have come together in this one place and with one accord, but if GOD doesn’t show up in the building, our gathering is in vain. What we have come to do is to prepare the altar and to bring the living sacrifices of our whole selves. But we need is for God to send the fire.

When I was growing up, we sang a chorus that declared, “O Lord I come, withholding nothing. And I have but one desire. All I have is on the altar. And I pray, Lord, send the fire.”

People manufacture fire but it’s not God’s fire. People blow hot air but it’s not God wind. God’s wind blows where it wills and we hear its sound, but we cannot control it and we cannot even predict it. In fact, no matter how long we have been waiting for it, whenever it comes it still feels “sudden.”

Second, there is supernatural communication. The tongues divide and the disciples are given supernatural utterance, both the ability to speak and the words to say. Then the multicultural crowds of those who hear them are able to hear in their own languages God’s marvelous deeds of power. Some people say that the miracle was a miracle of speech, in that the disciples were ecstatically enabled to communicate in a language they had not studied. Others say the miracle was in the hearing of the listeners, that the Spirit translated for them. I am clear that real communication requires both speech and hearing, both articulation and understanding. And when God’s Spirit decides that “It’s time” God fills the spaces and makes communication across cultures and other divides possible.

This does not mean that the scene was without confusion and disbelief. God’s timing, vision, and presence activated among us will sometimes cause people to think we’ve lost our minds. But there will be others – sometimes a few, sometimes the many – who will hear for themselves and take hold of God’s promise.

Finally, the third sign of God’s timing is Christ-centered proclamation. God pours God’s Spirit out on all flesh to enable us to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a divine vision for humanity, embodied and enfleshed in the life of Jesus Christ. We tell that story about his birth in Bethlehem, his openness to the outcast, his care for those who were left out. We tell the story of how much he loved us. We tell that he gave his life on Calvary, but that his story does not end on Golgatha nor in Joseph’s new tomb, but on that first Easter he arose with power. And his story still has not ended.

It’s time.
It’s God’s time.
It’s our time.
When is the time of restoration? Now is the acceptable time. When is the day of salvation? Today, is the day of salvation. And everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

PENTECOST WAS A COMMENCEMENT – the first Sunday in a great new era.
Not only is there a past (history), a present (opportunity), in God alone it can be said that there is always a future (hope). Spirit that brooded over creation now dwelling in the disciples prompts us to ask “What plan is God hatching?”

The reality is that there is a cry louder and more significant even than our own cries for a change of seasons. There is a community that has looked upon the buildings called churches and community centers and perceived in them a promise from God.

Hungry ask when will be fed
Naked ask when will we be clothed
Homeless ask when will we have homes
Broken ask when will we be mended
The poor ask when will we have provisions
The oppressed ask when will we be freed
The imprisoned ask when will we be visited
The children ask when will we be educated
And our answer in the name of the Lord is “It’s time”

Yes, St. Paul’s it’s time
It’s praying time
It’s preaching time
Praising time
Planting time
Healing time
Building time
Laughing time
Gathering time
Searching time
Keeping time
Mending time
Singing time
Dancing time
Working time
Serving time
It’s time for justice, mercy, walking humbly
It’s my time, it’s your time, it’s our time, and it’s the time.
It’s time for the wind and for the fire
It’s God’s time
It’s just time.

How Crazy is This...?

2009-05-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.

I finally get what I've been praying for and I am almost too busy to enjoy it. What's up with this? In a word, on yesterday May 17th, I received a call to become the 5th pastor of the 119-year-old St. Paul's Baptist Church in Philadelphia. The church may be found at 1000 Wallace St., just 3 short blocks from the Spaghetti Warehouse (everyone needs landmarks). In fact, I understand that there are quite a few great restaurants in the neighborhood.

I have to give a shout out to the Pastoral Search Committee, who conducted a fair and clean process. Even before the vote was conducted, I already found the process to be a healing one. Since having been elected? Well, let me say "This is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes."

It is my plan to begin my service to the congregation on May 31st. Anyone in Philly please come and see what the Lord is doing at St. Paul's Baptist Church.

Inarticulate?

2009-03-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

I never got on the bandwagon of praise for the Republican National Committee's choice of Michael Steele as its new chair. In a time when the Republican party is itself increasingly out of touch, I read his choice as a cynical attempt to portray themselves as forward-thinking. It was as pathetic as the choice of Sarah Palin as VP nominee. But even though I was never a big fan of Steele, now I am through entirely with him.

The cause of my complete dismissal of Steele has to do with an exchange between Steele and the real Republican power, Rush Limbaugh. According to an article on HuffingtonPost.com Steele has apologized for calling Limbaugh an entertainer, after Limbaugh put Steele in his place by telling him that the RNC is not synonymous the GOP and in fact it fails to represent a significant consituency of Republicans. All of that internecine Republican bickering would bring a smile to my face, if it weren't for one particular excuse Steele used for his apology: "I was maybe a bit inarticulate."

Everyone knew that Limbaugh was calling the Republican shots. After all, nature abhors a vacuum. And in the absence of any real leadership, what with Palin's problems and Jindal's less than stellar performance last week, Limbaugh is all that the GOP has left, that is, unless you count Steele. And apparently Limbaugh doesn't. Nevertheless, Michael Steele should really try not to sound so pathetic and whimpering. And more than that, despite being the RNC chairman, Steele should try to remember he's a BLACK MAN!

How in the world can black people continue to be mad at white people for acting surprised when we're "articulate" if other black people go out in public claiming to to be "inarticulate" whenever they say something they wish they hadn't said? Now I'm not trying to revoke Steele's black card, because I don't want him to join the millions of unemployed people, but he needs to watch it. Goodness!

Mr. President

2009-01-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

How we rejoice to see this day!

For my thoughts on the relationship between Rev.Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Barack Obama see "History in Motion."

Can We Talk about Gaza?

2009-01-12T17:41:00.000-08:00

There is an energy percolating, nearly coming to a pleasant boil as the nation anticipates the changing of presidential administrations that will occur in 7 days. To be honest, a lot of America is experiencing nervous energy related to anxiety about our prospects, especially economically. That concern can only be exacerbated by President-elect Barack Obama's acknowledgement Thursday, in his comments promoting his proposed $800 billion stimulus package, that without intervention the current recession could last for years. Meanwhile, the news that December jobless rates topped 7% for the first time in 16 years only exacerbated the concern.

Now you notice that I defined the simmering tension and energy in our nation as a "pleasant" boil. I did so because our anxiety is mixed with a healthy helping of hopefulness, thanks to the feel good aura of the Obama election and the beauty and winsomeness of our in-coming first family. Change is coming to Washington and his name is Obama.

Less notable in the news, given our national and local anxieties and hopes, was the senate's passage of a resolution supporting our special ally Israel in the midst of its offensive in Gaza. And this is the issue I feel I need to say a word about today.

Those of you who read the blog known that I visited Israel last August. Although our group of African American clergy spent a fair amount of time touring holy sites, the purpose of our visit was not just tourism. We were also there to learn more about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians from insiders on various sides of the conflict. I haven't written much about this aspect of the trip because frankly I came home with more questions than answers. There are so many sides to the story, so many stakeholders in the disputed territories. There are so many painful stories of personal and national tragedy, so many testimonies of hopes for peace dashed by encroaching violence.

One of the most memorable stops during our tour was in Sderot, a town in southern Israel that borders on the Gaza territory. Sderot has appeared in many of the media stories concerning this month's offensive in Gaza because it is a town that is constantly threatened by Qassam rockets fired randomly from Gaza. That was also what made Sderot so memorable for our group. We saw the bomb shelters that looked like reinforced concrete bus stops all along the streets of the town. We visited the police station and saw the remnants of the rockets, each tagged with the date it dropped. We observed the ongoing construction of a new school with more extensive structural reinforcement to withstand potential rocket fire. And when we came home, we learned that a Qassam rocket had landed just 15 minutes after we left the town to head back to Jerusalem.

I could not then nor do I pretend now to imagine what it is like to live in Sderot. I cannot imagine what public officials sworn to protect Sderot's citizens and all the others endangered by random rocket fire feel when they look into the anxious faces of their fellow Israelis. And because I do not live with their constant anxiety, I will not attempt to talk about Gaza either from the perspective of a Gazan or an Israeli. I will talk as an American.

In an earlier post, I expressed my hopes that the US, especially the African American Christian community, would seek a position of fairness that acknowledges the humanity of the Palestinians as well as Israelis. What is disturbing to me is that both Houses of Congress, the President, and our chief diplomats seemsunwilling to take seriously the human toll the Israeli offensive is taking on Palestinian civilians. Last week, the International Red Cross described the Israeli bombing and response to casualities as outside of international humanitarian law and the rules of war. In the midst of this carnage, which includes the wildly disproportionate injury to and death of Palestinian soldiers and civilians, what has the U.S. to say? We support Israel and it's all Hamas's fault.

Frankly, this response does damage to our credibility and potentially to our own national security. It will be impossible to play any significant role in the unfolding of a narrative of peace and the two-state solution if we are perpetually unable to differentiate between support for the continued existence and safety of Israel and lockstep approval for every decision Israel's political and military leaders make. Moreover, potential allies and friends in the Arab world will have difficulty explaining their continued friendship with the US so long as our government discounts the importance of Arab and Muslim lives by giving tacit and sometimes explicit approval to their virtual slaughter. (This is especially true if Prime Minister Olmert continues to suggest that the US President takes orders from him.)

Our internal struggles and hopes are understandably on our minds. But our world is too small for those of us who value justice to remain oblivious to the violence boiling over outside our borders, especially when our leaders lack balance when they speak on our behalf. I, for one, can't wait to hear what 44 will have to say about this when he finally breaks silence.

Change Comes to Washington

2009-01-09T23:31:00.001-08:00

And, no, I don't mean the Obama family's move into a hotel so that Malia and Sacha could start school on time.

Apparently, the House has adopted gender-neutral language in the Rules for the 111th Congress. Although Speaker Pelosi ascended two years ago, it apparently has dawned on her colleagues that "his" and "the Speaker" are not synonymous. "Chairman" has been replaced by "Chair" throughout, demonstrating that we now recognize that some of our Representatives are actually women.

I am working on a longer post about our response to the Israeli military action in Gaza in which I plan to be critical of some of the 111th Congress's initial actions. But on the House Rules found in H. Res. 5, I say, "Hurray!"

Thanks to Dahlia Lithwick's article on slate.com about the nominee for Solicitor General for alerting me to the change.

My Soul Looks Back - The Best of 2008

2008-12-31T06:56:00.001-08:00

There are several highlights of 2008 for me that I want to acknowledge at the beginning of 2009.So, for the first year here's my BEST OF List.

Best Preaching 2008

Anyone who knows me knows that I love good preaching, and sometimes I am even accused of contributing to that project my own self. I am pleased to say that I heard a lot of great sermons during the year, but the two most memorable were preached by
1. Rev. Dr. Gina Stewart's "Crowd Control", preached Wednesday morning at the Hampton Minister's Conference.
2. Rev. Tim Poston, "Woman Behold Thy Son," preached during a marvelous set of "Seven Last Words" on Good Friday 2008.

I can't leave this category without offering shout outs to Pastor Brenda Cuthbertson and Rev. Albert F. Campbell who bring a word every Sunday to their Philadelphia congregations. I also want to thank Rev. Dr. Alison Gise-Johnson for a word in October that simply made me want to follow Jesus more closely.

As for my own preaching last year, I'll let the hearers say which they found memorable or, better yet, transformative. If you have nominees, please post in the comments section. Without commenting on the content of the sermons, however, I have to speak about the honor of preaching for Martin Luther King Sunday at Marble Collegiate Church in New York in January, as well as preaching for a conference at Allen Temple Baptist in Oakland in October.

Best Trip

In August 2008, I made my first pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine. Along with some of my closest friends, I walked by the Sea of Galilee. I floated in the Dead Sea. Raphael Warnock and Tony Lee baptized me in the Jordan River. I reciprocated. Our group met with Israelis and Palestinians, worshipped at a Baptist church in Jerusalem, dipped our toes in the Mediterranean, and toured holy sites. Bethelehem, Jerusalem, Nain, and Emmaus are no longer abstract concepts. I've seen the 2008 version of them. It was marvelous to see the holy sites, but I have to say again that my old and new friends made the trip truly special. I hope we will be able to travel again together. Hear that, State Mother?

For other reasons altogether, I have to include another August trip as an Honorable Mention in this category. Early in the month, I drove to WV for the Mount View High School Class of 1988 20th Reunion.

I wasn't sure exactly why I was going; I just felt like I need to do so. I had a great time and reconnected with old friends. Sometimes it's just good to go.

Best Sports

For me, 2008 was basically a baseball year. On June 19th, I joined a crowd of Yankees fans in the soon-to-be-demolished Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees beat the Padres 1-0. Although there were no obvious offensive or defensive highlights, the low, close score provided an opportunity for me to see Chamberlain start and Mariano Rivera close the game. The weather was perfect. The company sublime. And I had my moment in Yankee Stadium.

But of course the big baseball news for me this year was the Phillies who won the World Series. I became an earnest Phillies fan in the 2007 season when I literally lost sleep worrying about them in August. This year, I just pulled for them, yelled for them, and celebrated their rise to the top of the heap. For me the best moment in the whole baseball year was when our pitcher Joe Blanton hit a homerun in in game 4, the second home game. In fact, the pitchers made the postseason in so many ways. I love it that Jamie Moyer is still pitching well into his 40s. His diving throw to first base showed his athleticism and his heart. Brett Myers' extended at bat flustered ace CC Sabathia in the Division series. Cole Hamels pitched like a champ and got MVP awards to prove it. And Brad Lidge was ... well PERFECT in save opportunities. I love the Phillies!

Now the Eagles, on the other hand, gave me little to cheer about until their last game in 2008, when they pounded the Dallas Cowboys 44-6. We're in the playoffs. Who woulda thunk it?

Honorable mention to Tiger Woods who won the US Open on a broken leg.

The Election

Those of you who followed my comments on this blog and others know that the presidential election of 2008 dominated my thinking for months, beginning in 2007. Everyone knows that this election was filled with firsts and lasts. It was high drama that ended with the landslide election of Barack Hussein Obama as the nation's 44th President.

I have to offer my thanks to the bloggers who gave my mind an outlet in the midst of all of the nonsense in the mainstream media. Special thanks to the Best Blog, Renita Weems's Something Within, without which I would have gone insane during the election cycle. Dr. Weems is always on point. I am also thankful to AverageBro, What About our Daughters, Jack and Jill Politics, and the Huffington Post.

Summary

A lot of great things happened for me in 2008, but I am especially thrilled to have become a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. I have a new job at New York Theological Seminary. I have made new friends. I have re-connected with long-time friends. It's a great life. Bring on 2009.

Christmas Programs

2008-12-28T17:45:00.000-08:00

Thank God for Christmas programs, those yearly celebrations of creativity and public performance. No, I didn't say Christmas "pageants," which I think of as featuring only The Story of Christmas, Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, the innkeeper, the angels, the Magi and the Shepherds. I like that too, but more than that I revel in the unique offerings of everyone from the cradle class to the adults, who memorize, sing, read, and dazzle, if not necessarily with their brilliance, then most certainly with their zeal and good will.

I don't know how I forget it from year to year, only to be reminded again that I love to see the tiny ones stare petrified into the faces of the expectant crowd. I love it when they get their "recitation" out and perhaps even more when they remain speechless and we applaud anyway. We're just glad to see them. Like Almighty God's declaration at Jesus' baptism, we proclaim them beloved and say that we are pleased with our children before they do a single remarkable or miraculous thing.

I love the Christmas skits, the dramatic renderings of The Original Story and the not-so-subtle reminders of the meaning of for our contemporary times. I love the poems and the plays, the readings famous and not so much. i love the apples and the oranges, the Christmas candy and the red-and-white striped candy canes.

I love Christmas carols and sing them with exuberance, always bobbing my head and tempted to clap my hands even during the slow songs. I love them even when they're hard to sing and difficult for the musicians to play because we sing them so infrequently. And then there are the crowd favorites, "O Come all Ye Faithful", "Joy to the World," and "Silent Night." We're all moved both to dance and to cry.

Every year I struggle with the temptation to boycott Christmas and all its kitschy commercialism. But if I did, I'd miss the beauty of the Christmas Eve candlelight service and the church school-sponsored Christmas program. That would be in inestimable loss. Thanks, God and PFAC, for the reminder.

Happy 39th Birthday to Me!

2008-12-20T21:48:00.001-08:00

I have to take this moment to admit that the day began on a bit of a shaky note, as I pondered where the time had gone and made a list of all I want for my life but do not yet have. But as I lay my head down on my pillow tonight, I do so with a profound awareness of how blessed I am. Blessed to be alive. Blessed to love. Blessed to be loved. All in all, 39 is a good age so far.

Pictures from my party will follow.

About that Invocation

2008-12-18T15:52:00.000-08:00

The blogosphere and the mainstream media (MSM) are ablaze with discussions about the specifics regarding President-elect Obama's inauguration. To be sure, Black people have been talking about it and making plans to attend at least since 11 p.m. EST on November 4th. Churches are chartering buses, individuals are buying airline tickets and begging their Congressional representatives for tickets to the staging area. Some witty soul has even created an email to poke fun at all of the busriders who likely will find themselves much closer to Delaware than to DC what with all of the traffic heading to Chocolate City.

All of the above is old news. The hot topic today involves the disclosure that Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church (Southern Baptist, in case you didn't know) will deliver the invocation. Print, internet, and television media are all descibing the choice of Warren as testimony to his ascension to the rank of presidential pastor that Billy Graham has recently vacated after a half-century. A lot of people are steamed, especially among the California gay rights advocates who are particularly miffed at Obama for honoring a man who used considerable influence to sway voters to back Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage in CA. Obama, for his part, reminds detractors that reaching across divides is part and parcel of his philosophy, not to mention a good explanation for why he was even elected. In addition, Warren reached out to Obama two years ago, inviting him to a forum on AIDS at Saddleback, an invitation that drew heat from conservatives because of Obama's positions on abortion and gay rights.

Let me say that I basically understand Obama's reasoning, but Warren remains a poor choice from my perspective, largely because his participation does mark an anointing of a new national pastor and this time I'd like to see someone other than a middle-aged conservative white man in the role. How about a woman to do either the invocation or the benediction? How about a progressive evangelical? How about someone from the religious left? How about somebody Black? How about.... And even if it had to be an evangelical white man, how about Tony Campolo, Brian McLaren, or Jim Wallis?

Some, notably Frank Schaeffer on the Huffington Post, have suggested that this is all about Obama's greasing the road for progressive policies by making nice with evangelical right-wingers at the beginning of the presidency. The problem with this logic is that right-wingers are far more likely to cut Warren's throat for doing the inauguration than they are to call a truce with Obama for having invited him. In the meantime, Obama allies himself with an anti-evolution, brazenly anti-choice, virulently anti-gay, and unconscionably anti-equality-for-women religious conservative. This is not the change that those of us who voted for Obama can believe in.

Now I have to say that Aretha Franklin, Elizabeth Alexander (poet), and Joseph Lowery doing the benediction are more along the lines I had in mind. But they are not getting a lot of play in the media because everyone knows that the person who speaks first (i.e., the invocation) sets the tone.

I'll be praying for Pres. Obama's administration.

P.S. Check out Renita Weem's blog entry about the subject for the best thing I've seen yet.

Case Closed

2008-12-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

I have always watched too much television for my age. Because we only had basic cable when I was growing up, I didn't get into too much trouble in terms of watching portrayals of sex and violence, but that doesn't mean that I didn't have disturbing images indelibly imprinted on my brain because of the fright I experienced watching movies, especially when I was up watching late at night. One of those images is of Adam Walsh.

Twenty-five years ago, when I was 13, NBC aired a movie called "Adam" depicting the story of Adam Walsh's disappearance and his parents'(played by Daniel J. Travanti and JoBeth Williams) desperate attempts to find him. The movie ends with the tragic truth that Adam will not be coming home because he has been murdered. The closing shot just before credits is a picture of the real Adam Walsh, looking like any kid his age, holding a baseball bat, and missing his front teeth. That image has haunted me for a quarter of a century.

Although his murderer, a convicted pedophile died in prison in 1996, police only closed the case today, having concluded that the accumulated evidence indicated that the man long believed to have been Adam's killer was in fact the perpetrator of this unspeakable crime. Adam's parents and siblings were present for the ruling and called it justice.

Sadly, although Adam's image remains in my memory, he is not the only child who has died at the hands of a depraved person in the past quarter-century. Too many young people have been abducted, assaulted, murdered; too many even now live in harm's way. This is why the work of Adam's parents, especially his father John who hosts America's Most Wanted, is so important. So, tonight as I sit up way too late with the television off I will lift a prayer for John and Reve Walsh, along with all of the other loving parents whose children have been stolen. Oh Lord, please have mercy.

The Most Powerful Person in the World

2008-12-06T19:10:00.000-08:00

I am feeling something this week for The Decider (aka George W. Bush) that I have never felt before, an emotion that I never even expected to feel. In the midst of an economic downturn verging on depression, with two fronts in an ill-begotten war, and with his approval ratings lower for longer than any president since the statistics have been kept, The (Soon to be Retired) Decider sat down for his first "exit interview" with Charles Gibson. As I watched, I imagined what how it must feel to know that you are at the end of the road as the most powerful person in the world, and I felt compassion for him.

Now, as usual with The Decider, there were gaffes, the most hilarious of which being this one:

"When the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over, y'know, a decade or so -- before I arrived as president, during I arrived as president."

Who says "during I" anything? And who doesn't fix such a verbal misstep when one hears it? How do you just let that go? Oh yeah. I forgot that when you're the most powerful person in the world, you don't have to be self-censoring. But oddly it seems that Soon-to-be-former Pres. Bush is becoming more self-critical in the waning days of his final term.

For years now, as his contemporaries have judged him and found him wanting, Bush has depended on the judgment of history to redeem him. He has relied on the idea that while his policies may anger or even outrage the generation he serves, generations-to-come will look back on his presidency with respect and admiration, especially with regard to his foreign policy. Now, however, he has had to come to terms with the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And nothing about the backward glance from ages to come will change that fact. He actually seemed humbled, especially when Gibson asked him would he have gone to war had he known that there were no WMDs.

I'm convinced that what The Decider is finally coming to terms with is the fact that his deciding days end on 20 January 2009. (Actually, they've already ended; Rachel Maddow does call him the "lamest duck" after all.) He won't control the White House. And he won't control how his legacy is judged. To hear him tell it, he's not even going to control where he and Laura live next. It's all up to her. Listening to him, I felt compassion.

Nothing about the world as I have experienced it makes it likely that Bush will take my advice, but I am going to offer it nonetheless:

Mr. President, take a page out of the book(s) written by the best human being ever to occupy the White House. Don't tell me you don't know who that is, and no, I don't mean George H.W. Bush. I mean James Earl Carter, known by all as Jimmy. To say the least, Carter's presidency was not one for the history books. But his life and witness post-presidency is what he will be remembered for; it's also what he won the Nobel Peace Prize for. Although your days as the most powerful person in the world are nearly over, with God's grace, you have a lot of living left to do. Use it for good. Your history is still being written.

World AIDS Day 2008

2008-12-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

I have a commitment every year to acknowledge the continuing struggle of people around the world who are living with HIV/AIDS. This commitment stems from a recognition of the absence of attention that the issue receives in the Black religious community at large and the deadly impact that continued ignorance regarding the disease, how it is transmitted, and how it is treated, though not cured, has on our community especially.

I got a late start this year, as the date of the blog (as opposed to the ribbon) attests, but I refuse to miss completely the opportunity in this venue to reflect on AIDS, twenty years after the first World AIDS Day commemoration. Again this year, "Leadership" is the chosen theme for World AIDS day.

According to the CDC, around the world 33 million people and in the USA 1.1 million people live with HIV/AIDS. In the USA, 1 in 5 infected persons is unaware of the infection and thus is prone to spread the virus unwittingly. But most startling are the following statistics regarding the virus and women:

In 2004 (the most recent year for which data are available), HIV infection was

the leading cause of death for black women (including African American women) aged 25–34 years.
the 3rd leading cause of death for black women aged 35–44 years.
the 4th leading cause of death for black women aged 45–54 years.
the 4th leading cause of death for Hispanic women aged 35–44 years.

In the same year, HIV infection was the 5th leading cause of death among all women aged 35–44 years and the 6th leading cause of death among all women aged 25–34 years. The only diseases causing more deaths of women were cancer and heart disease. (from the CDC Factsheet on Women and HIV/AIDS)

Although we celebrate the advances in medical science which have greatly increased the life expectancy and quality of life for those who are infected with the HIV virus, this is no time for complacency. Too many, especially black women, people still die from the disease; too many people still have not been tested.

It is unconscionable that leaders of Black institutions, including houses of worship, politics, and the media devote so little attention to the continuing threat that HIV/AIDS presents for the health of Black people, especially women. Silence is deadly.

So much to be thankful for

2008-11-27T16:08:00.000-08:00

I have been away from blogging for the last couple of very eventful months, so I am using this Thanksgiving holiday to say thanks for a few of the things that have happened since the last time I blogged.

First, I want to thank God for the stay of execution granted Troy Davis. Actually, I should say the two (2) stays, the first from the Supreme Court while they decided whether to hear his appeal (unfortunately, they declined) and the second from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who reportedly will hear arguments concerning his case in December. Keep praying!

Second, I am thankful for the vindication of my faith in the Philadelphia Phillies. By winning the World Series on Oct. 29th, the Phillies revitalized my confidence that anything is possible. I have always been something of a sports fan, but moving to Philadelphia has resulted an intensifying commitment to the city's teams. I was euphoric after I got over my disbelief when the Phillies won - so euphoric that I stood in line for two hours and spent entirely too much money on Phillies celebration gear. In fact, I am still smiling! And it's a good thing too, because the Eagles aren't giving us a single thing to be glad about.

And then there is the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of these United States. This reason for giving thanks is really multifaceted: 1. delight that an intellectual, wise, cool, good-looking Black man has finally ascended to the highest office in our land and 2. gratitude that Sarah Palin has returned to Alaska. Since the future portends unenviable challenges for our nation, I am much more confident having the reins of power in the hands of a thoughtful person of ideas. I chose a photo on election night with his wife Michelle Obama, because of my delight to see a loving Black couple ascend to such heights and because he always seems more relaxed and interesting when she is with him. (Did I mention how glad I am not to have to look at Sarah Palin and her "first dude"? Yes, I know that John McCain was the one running for president. The question is "Did she?")

I would be remiss if I failed to give thanks, as always, for family and friends, life and health, employment and a home. Most of all, I thank God for a sense of purpose and identity, and for the privilege of being a thinker and a believer.

What are you thankful for?

UPDATE: The Eagles won, beating the Arizona Cardinals 48 to 20 to top off my thankful Thanksgiving! I take back what I said earlier.

Certain Danger

2008-09-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

This post is about the danger of certainty. It's about George Bush's little talk with the Lord that made him certain that our nation should preemptively strike Iraq. It's about Sarah Palin's inexplicable certainty that she is prepared to be the understudy to the most powerful person in the world. It's about religious zealots of all brands and their certainty that their interpretation of their God and his Word is infallible. Certainty is dangerous.

But there is a more immediate danger to certainty in a story that is unfolding in the state of Georgia and that has at its center a man named Troy Davis who is scheduled for execution on Tuesday, despite growing evidence of prosecutorial manipulation and witness tampering and without any physical evidence to link him with the crime for which he is being executed. Davis and his lawyers have done all that can be done to ask the legal system to consider that, given these new findings, perhaps they should reconsider the case before sending Davis to certain death. (See Bob Herbert's column in yesterday's NY Times.)

There is a danger in certainty, and it is the unwillingness to review critically our own actions and systems. Of course, we are all human and make mistakes. There is not necessarily any crime in that. To go to the death or worse to send someone else to his death in order to preserve the fallacy of our infallibility, on the other hand, is criminal. Ultimately, it endangers the best of human community and government.

Will there be a stay of execution for Troy Davis? I certainly pray so.

Read also this article on salon.com. I read it after I had written this piece. It certainly is appropriate.

2nd Choice

2008-08-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about posting on this subject for a week, since Barack Obama's announcement that Joe Biden will be his VP running mate in this election. I was a clear but not necessarily loud Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter during the primary season, and I admit to a great deal of disappointment that my dream team did not come to fruit. At the same time, I was relatively content with Biden as with Obama as a "second choice" who generally represents the same values of my "first choice," in both instances HRC. I understood that after all that had happened in the last 7 months, Obama was unlikely to choose to spend the next 2 months and with luck next 8 years with HRC and her famous husband at his side (or in his face.)

I am pleased that in the week since Obama's announcement, we have been treated to a week's worth of Democratic making up at the DNC. By the end of the convention, most Dems were content with our ticket and were feeling warm and fuzzy at the history Obama's nomination most assuredly represents. Although I myself was not teary during his speech, I understand the generations of Black people who were. Obama/Biden were second choices, for me, yes? But still very much good choices.

Then comes John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, for his number 2 spot. All I could think is that he must be crazy. For most HRC supporters, Palin is not an appropriate 2nd choice, especially not when she comes attached to the person (McCain) and constituency (Christian conservatives) who hate every progressive thing that Hillary stands for. I don't care that she calls herself a feminist or that she has a uterus, Palin represents no good option and would be a poor substitute for the leadership of a decent man much less that of an extraordinary woman, like HRC.

Now I am really not under the illusion that McCain picked Palin to appeal to women like me. I am firmly within the Democratic base and my views actually are probably to the left of everyone except Dennis Kucinich. And in truth, he's not after people who really liked what Hillary's positions represent. He smartly has consolidated the Republican base, as Christian conservatives describe themselves as elated at his choice. And he's after the folks who want to feel good about bringing change but only on the most superficial level, that keeps the powerful powerful and the disempowered weak. Shake up Washington? Yeah, right.

I am hoping that the next 2 months and Election Day, in particular, demonstrate our unwillingness to fall for such a ruse.

Imagining Calvary

2008-08-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

I may regret having said this later, after my return and after I have given it more thought, but for now I have to say that I found the Galilee much more moving than Jerusalem on a spiritual level. It is Monday morning in Jerusalem, and yesterday I spent the day at church (Jerusalem Baptist) and touring holy sites in the Old City. I say "touring" rather than just "visiting" because it is nearly impossible not to feel like a tourist in a space that is so developed, by both the Church and the City.
For example, all of the sites related directly to the Crucifixion culminate in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, an extraordinary edifice that houses worship spaces for Eastern and Western Christianity. The only problem is that to build the church, they had to level parts of Golgotha or Calvary. There is no way to get a sense of what the hill of Calvary might have looked like, even though there are designated spots within the church where events are supposed to have taken place.

Don't get me wrong, the ancientness of parts of the city is striking. But the Sea of Galilee and the mountains around it evoke more for me of my Lord's life and ministry. The sea of Galilee I have seen. Calvary I still have to imagine.

In Israel

2008-08-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, I landed in Israel, the land of the Bible - a space that for Jews, Christians, and Muslims is THE HOLY LAND. The tragic thing about this precious space is that the common holiness that all three of the major monotheistic religions celebrate is what makes the land so valuable to each group. The holiness is what they are fighting over.

As a Christian, standing by the Sea of Galilee (called Lake Kinneret by the Israelis), I was so moved at the idea that God chose this particular place to become human. When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, he lived in Nazareth of Galilee, he read in the synagogue of Capernaum in Galilee, he taught on the mountains in Galilee, he fed the multitude in Galilee, and he called his disciples in Galilee. I cannot help but be moved by the holiness of this space.

I am also struck by how different things are than I imagined. For example, the village of Capernaum was much smaller than I imagined, but the mountains are much higher.

Stay tuned. I will try to upload pictures of some of the scenes, especially pictures from my baptism in the Jordan.

Fewer Lectures, Please

2008-07-15T21:28:00.000-07:00

Let's get this straight at the outset, I am a fan of personal responsibility. I believe that parents, fathers and mothers, have a duty to raise their children, which includes providing proper nutrition, respect for the law, and the nurture of a desire to learn. I am the beneficiary of the high expectations of my parents, accompanied by their equally high investment of energy and resources to enable my high achievement. (Forever I will be grateful, Mom and Dad.)

That being said, just what are we to make of Sen. Barack Obama's assertion of these values whenever he talks to Black folks? And how do we register the reality that we would almost certainly reject the exact same words in the exact same tone if a White politician had the temerity to utter them? I will avoid being guilty of the same kind of unnuanced criticism that I hate from the right wing, and so I'll not ascribe cynical motives to the presumptive Democractic nominee. Here's how I see it: Obama recognizes that we Black folks are engaging in cultural suicide with our unwillingness to tackle the problems of academic underachievement and paternal negligence and neglect. At the same time, there's no denying that a public dismissal of Jesse Jackson and his brand of racial analysis (even though 90% of the time Jackson's historical and political analyses are on target) helps Obama with White voters who are afraid of what a Black president might mean. As others more astute than I have suggested, Obama may be taking a page out of Bill Clinton's handbook and is having his Sister Souljah moment. Then again, maybe not. But I can't help wondering whether Obama knows that White underachieving children watch too much tv and play too many video games.

What's missing in all of this, even if one accepts the most benign or even altruistic explanation for Obama's speeches, is a policy position or even strategy for addressing these issues with the people who are the real problem. I have already expressed my appreciation for what my parents gave me because of their persistence and insistence on certain positive behaviors. But I never responded well to lectures. And I don't know anybody who does. Modeling of good behavior, yes. Lectures, no. What I would like to hear more of is a commitment to applying best practices and brain power, as well as funding, to the programs that actually work. Tell me how you keep young people from seeing themselves through the lenses of television, movies, and videos. Tell me how to offer alternative visions. Find me somebody who is making this work.

I believe that there is power in words. I just don't think we've got the right ones. But what I do like about Obama is that he knows how to spot a good idea and embrace it and then package it within soaring rhetoric. That's what I'm looking for from him as a candidate. And as a president, I'm looking for the proposal of legislation to go with the words.

Blessed be the Barbecue

2008-05-26T20:34:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day is, for most Americans, the official beginning of summer. Whereas most of us can never remember whether the summer solstice occurs on the 20th, 21st, or 22nd of June, and many of us forget that any such thing even exists, Memorial Day marks the beginning of the season for us. I know that there is a move afoot to restore the original intent of the holiday, namely remembering those who suffered and died for our country. Good luck and best wishes to those crusaders, but really this holiday, like so many others, has transformed into a time for socializing and sales and that trend is unlikely to be undone.

By the way, with a measure to create the 21st century's G.I. Bill in discussion in Congress, the best way to demonstrate our gratitude to our country's living veterans and their families is by creating opportunities for them when they come home. Oh, yeah, and bringing the ones fighting an ill-conceived, under-planned, and poorly executed unnecessary war in Iraq ought to be brought home posthaste. This would go much further to signify our appreciation for our fallen soldiers than simply laying wreaths at the graves of the Unknown Soldiers while new graves are still being dug at Arlington.

Back to the subject at hand. Today's weather in Philly was as nice as I can ever remember for a Memorial Day. It was sunny, warm, and not too breezy - a perfect day for barbecue. Some friends of mine got out the charcoal, and I am pleased to say that I gorged on chicken, burgers, salmon and grilled vegetables before closing out on a scoop of ice cream and then some fruit. I love summer and welcome it's arrival.

And to top it all off, the Phillies won tonight after scoring 20 - yes, 20 - runs. Go Phillies!

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

2008-04-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been out of the political blogging game for a few weeks. I didn't want to talk Obama and Clinton in Pennsylvania.

But I have been pondering the condition of our educational system for a while now, since I heard a discussion on NPR about special education and the tracking of black students. Recently, I was particularly disturbed by reports about the high school dropout rates of our major cities, including Philadelphia where I live.

I still don't have time to write anything lengthy myself, but I do want to commend to your attention Bob Herbert's Op-Ed in the New York Times today.

Read this.

We need to ask more of our elected officials and policy makers. We are falling dangerously behind.

The Power of Words

2008-03-20T21:52:00.001-07:00

I have slow to say anything about the controversy regarding soundbites from Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright's sermons over the last decade. I really have been thinking a lot and conversing with other people to hear what they're thinking as I formulate my response. But eventually one just has to say something, so here goes.

As so many have pointed out, there is a difference between a prophet/pastor and a president. Jeremiah Wright is one and Barack Obama wants to be the other. The president has to inspire us as a nation to be all that we should be, in its most moderate form. That means telling us enough truth about what we actually are so that she/he is trustworthy, but saying it in a way that makes it clear that we are not so bad and that we are loved. A prophet too tells us what we should be, but in its most radical form. The prophet shines a light on and emphasizes the parts of us that are far from what we should be, to the extent that we wonder whether we are or even should be loved. But the prophet loves us too. Jeremiah Wright is a prophet in a long tradition of prophets whose outrageousness is most apparent in the Old Testament.

Some people have objected that there is no difference then between my justification of Jeremiah Wright and the justifications of hate-filled religious figures both in Christianity and other traditions. I disagree. Whether a moral or political position is righteous or not depends on its explicit and implicit ends. Jeremiah Wright's ideal world includes people of all kinds, colors, and cultures. He has remained a part of the mostly white United Church of Christ and communes with other members of that church as brothers and sisters in Christ. He stands against oppression anywhere and everywhere and does not justify violence or hatred on the basis of nationalism, either American or Black. Wright is not hate-filled. There is a difference between anger and hatred. And by the way, his anger is by no means outdated.

I don't agree with everything Dr. Wright said/says or the way in which he said it. (Since I am an American, I pray that God never damns us despite the ways in which we damn ourselves.) But I do know that because he said what he said and said it the radical way he said it, we are having a conversation as nation that we have not had in a long time, if ever. Wright's work is not perfect, but he is not a kook. And his prophetic role is vindicated by the conversation itself.

I'll close now, but I also commend to you the discussion of these issues on Rev. Dr. Renita Weems's blog www.somethingwithin.com/blog

Open Letter to Sharpton

2008-03-13T22:59:00.001-07:00

Rev. Sharpton,

I have been following the story of the brutal rape that occurred at Dunbar Village. I am aware that organizers on behalf of the victim repeatedly made efforts to engage you in speaking out on her behalf and on behalf of the residents of that under-served, under-policed, under-resourced community. I know that those efforts fell on deaf ears. For you to appear with the perpetrators' families and the NAACP to decry the "injustice" of keeping them in jail until trial is the height and depth of betrayal to the cause of justice.

I too believe in fairness as it relates to the treatment of prisoners. But I am clear, as you should be, that there are some crimes so heinous and some defendants so lacking in conscience that the public interest is best served by their being held without bail until their trial. Every rape case is not the same. Whether the white teens accused in Boca Raton should be out on bail or not is, therefore, immaterial. Advocate for a speedy trial, but don't insult the victims, the women of that community ,and Black women generally by standing up for young people who in all likelihood have committed an unspeakable and brutal act and calling that a call for justice.

Let me say that for me the final insult was your half-hearted, cast off remark about not supporting the brutality of that crime or any crime against women. The issue of the violence, humiliation, perversion, and torture that the victims endured should not be treated as an after thought, incidental to the larger and more important point. Their injury is really the whole point here. Your callousness contributes to that injury.

Sincerely,
Rev. Leslie D. Callahan, PhD

Kwame (and Others) Grow Up

2008-03-13T21:57:00.001-07:00

Let's talk about the need for Black so-called leaders to get real and be responsible. Kwame Kilpatrick's State of the City Address earlier this week demonstrated once again that he doesn't know the meaning of accountability. Painting his political critics and the purported nutcases who are sending his family hate mail with the same broad brush and continuing to deny his own fundamental culpability for the degeneration of the (already terrible) reputation of the city and of his administration, Kilpatrick attributed all his troubles to the difficulty of being a Black man in America. But considering the fact that he persistently demonstrates the character and tendencies of a prepubescent child, always blaming other people for actions that are singularly his, I don't know how he can even claim to know what it's like to be a grown up, an adult of any color.

Today I asked a black boy who is just beginning the difficult transition that is puberty what it means to him that his voice is changing. He said that it means he is maturing and growing up. Unfortunately, for some people the physical changes that happen as a result of glands and hormones never translate into the emotional, mental, and spiritual transformation that equate to true maturity. I find myself as a minister and a friend giving the same advice to other people that I am trying to embody in myself - Grow Up!

Grow up and take responsibility for your choices and their consequences. Grow up and realize that even if the world did owe you something, you don't have the power to enforce the payment. Grow up and deal with your past honestly so that you have the hope of a healthy present and a possible future. Grow up and learn that just because you want it doesn't mean that you should or will have it - whatever it is. Grow up and acknowledge that much of your life and its contours really are in your hands.

Kwame Kilpatrick the errant mayor did not emerge overnight. Recent events are just the culmination of a history of license. Too many people winked at his excesses for too long. He is not alone or exceptional. He just needs to grow up! And all who view his spiraling free fall should know that while our immaturity and self-gratification may not land us in the news, our selfishness and juvenile behavior are just as destructive in our sphere as his is in his.

Dunbar Village and Rev. Al

2008-03-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Those of you who pay attention to the Black blogosphere are probably familiar with the heinous and violent crime perpetrated last summer on a Black woman and her son in Dunbar Village, a low-income, high-crime neighborhood West Palm Beach, FL. (If you're not, click here.) Especially if you read one of my favorite sites What About Our Daughters, you also know that repeated invitations went out to Rev. Al Sharpton and the local NAACP to get involved in righting the wrongs continuously perpetrated on the people of color who live in Dunbar Village without proper lighting or policing and are therefore left prey to the violent, pernicious whims of predators, resident and non-resident, adult and juvenile.

Now that you're up to date, let me tell you the latest. While stumping in FL to prevent the seating of that state's Democratic delegates, whose presence in Denver could potentially determine the Democratic nominee, Rev. Al took a moment to speak out about Dunbar Village. No, he did not finally come to his senses and offer support to the victim and her son. Rather, he joined the local NAACP in protesting the denial of bail to the four "boys" accused of the vicious rape.

What in the world is wrong with our so-called Black leaders? Why are they always falling over themselves to take up the cause of accused criminals? I too am a believer in the presumption of innocence for purposes of mandating a fair trial. The accused have a right to trial and to adequate representation during said trial. But my limited knowledge of the law (from watching Law and Order)and my common sense teach me that certain crimes are so heinous that the public interest is best served by the accused remaining in jail until trial. Leave these four probable perps in lockup and give them a speedy trial so that if they are not the actual perps we find that out quickly. But if they are the actual perps, then I don't want them to ever see the light of day on the outside again. They are without a conscience.

People, it serves no JUST cause to have all of the advocacy on the side of the ACCUSED and no advocacy for the VICTIMS. If Dunbar Village wasn't Rev. Al's thing in the fall when the whole community was placed in danger because those conscienceless criminals were on the loose, then Dunbar Village should not be Rev. Al's thing now. The fact that accused white rapist are out on bail in Boca is immaterial. When will our community learn that it is dangerous to advocate for wrongdoers uncritically? While it was surely a miscarriage of justice to charge the the Jena 6 with attempted murder, it was also wrong not to hold them accountable for the assault on the white kid, no matter how much that assault was provoked by insurgent racism in the Jena community. Now that one of the kids has been subsequently charged with another assault, the whole marching community has egg on its face.

Now that this post has a "...and the kitchen sink" quality to it, let me get to the real point. Obviously, as Renita Weems and others are pointing out, the time has come for us as Black women to defend our own selves and our own interests. That's what this post is all about. I am standing up in this post to join all the other sisters who are tired of having our lives, interests, and even bodies thrown under the proverbial bus of Black protest and progress. I love Black men because they are a part of our larger community. But the time has come for sisters to love only the brothers who love us back. Those brothers we should love hard and well. The others, like Rev. Al, can go back to the hell from which their sexist, demeaning, woman-hating ideologies and actions came.

1 in 4?

2008-03-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

Here's what you need to know, according to the New York Times Article detailing Centers for Disease Control findings: Overall, one in four girls aged 14 to 19 has an sexually transmitted disease, most commonly human pampiloma virus (HPV). And 15 percent of those infected have more than one of the diseases. For African American girls, the rate of infection is 1 in 2.

What are we going to do? How are we going to give our young people the information that gives them a hope of remaining safe? How are we as a community going to confront the crisis of dangerous sexual behavior among our young people?

Does the church have anything useful to say about any of this? Does our government? \

When will they ever learn?

2008-03-10T22:39:00.001-07:00

I actually thought it was some kind of crazy joke. Surely, Eliot Spitzer the Governor of New York would not be stupid enough to solicit a prostitute, high-priced or otherwise. After all of these years of media scrutiny on elected officials and after making his own name as the defender of all that is ethical, surely Spitzer was not paying for sex. But then I went to the NY Times webpage. Apparently, Spitzer's name will be added to the long list of stupid politicians who did not know that what is done in the dark will come to light. Kwame Kilpatrick, mayor of Detroit, should have sent Spitzer a text message.

I am not naive. I know that people have shadow sides to their personalities. I know that many people are unfaithful to their spouses and that prostitution is known as the oldest profession for a reason. What I don't understand is how people like Spitzer even have time to hire out for sex. He was supposed to be running one of the largest, most populous and complex states in the Union. He's got illegal immigrants to register, a budget to balance, corruption to expose and excise. Not to mention a wife and kids to take care of. He shouldn't even have time to be ordering up sex in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

I don't think Spitzer should be let off the hook. I think he should resign in disgrace, not for adultery or even for hypocrisy. I think he should resign because he wasted precious time. One of my friends said it better than I ever could, when she asked why our public servants,"especially the ones whose leadership is so critically needed on issues and policies affecting children, women and the vulnerable ALL NEED CROTCH SUPERVISORS and WILD and ERRANT PENIS RESTRAINT BELTS?"

By the way, I think Kilpatrick should resign too.

Hillaried

2008-02-29T08:31:00.000-08:00

I have not been posting on this blog very much because I have been spending most of my writing time on a paper and on my daily Lenten devotions. That doesn't mean, however, that I have been failing to watch or think about the news.

Take the issue of Michelle Obama's statement about feeling proud of her country, a comment that has inspired the verbal wrath of such notables as Cindy McCain. Bill O'Reilly even deliberated about convening a lynch mob. I want to suggest that the best person for Michelle Obama to talk to at this moment is actually her husband's (former) principal rival Hillary Rodham Clinton. No one knows better than Hillary what it's like to be the spouse of an intensely popular, powerful, charismatic man. Hillary knows quite a lot about what it is like to have your every word parsed and dissected so that as many people as possible are inclined to take offense. Hillary could share copious notes with Michelle about how those same words are then used to impugn the credibility or patriotism of said charismatic spouse. The truth is that we like our First Ladies and First Lady wannabes vapid and seemingly without opinion. Everybody loves Laura Bush because almost nobody ever has to listen to her. If you start talking, prepare to be considered the shadow side of your luminous man.

If Michelle is understandably uncomfortable with Hillary as a mentor, she could also talk to many pastors' spouses. They could tell tales about how people target the spouse (or the children) when the pastor seems untouchable or unassailable. The thing that we must never forget is that while the spouse is the casualty, she or he is not the actual target. It's a game of is you can't beat them one way, then you go after them another. I think maybe the only thing worse than being a political candidate is being a political candidate's spouse. Shoot, for that you could even interview Bill "The Hitman" Clinton.

Out of Focus

2008-02-25T06:13:00.000-08:00

I have to thank Renita Weems for her blog last week challenging the LowerMyBills ad and its pornographic focus on a Black woman's ample, gyrating butt. It put me in mind of an incident a few weeks ago that I had left largely unexamined until I considered the ubiquity of images of Black women that focus on our behinds.

During the Australian open, Roger Rasheed former coach of Australian Lleyton Hewitt came under fire for comments he made as the camera lingered on Venus Williams' behind. Rasheed said, "Take a look at this now. Make or think as you will, ladies, but for me, that's a pretty good sight." While I agree with those who objected to Rasheed's comments, a more appropriate question comes to mind about why the camera was on Venus's butt in the first place. The person running the camera made the first and most egregious decision to turn Williams, who is a world-class athlete, into one big body part as her behind filled the screen long enough for Rasheed to take notice.

In her blog post, Dr. Weems calls our historical attention to Sara Baartman whose body parts were the focus of discussion in the 19th century and remained on display in a museum well into the 20th century. Black people in particular must remember our history. Sisters have to demand that we not be carved up in people's minds, including brothers'. And it least if they carve us up, mentally reducing us to our hips, breasts, lips, noses, etc., then they ought to be ashamed to announce it.

When Will the Injury End

2008-02-18T06:17:00.000-08:00

Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath exposed several unpleasant truths to the American people. Through it we became aware of a flawed and disintegrating infrastructure, as the levies for which the Army Corp of Engineers were responsible broke under the strain of a storm that had itself dissipated significantly before it arrived in New Orleans. We witnessed the incompetence and negligence of the FEMA head, whose credentials could not bear the subsequent scrutiny and demonstrated once again that The Decider is far more concerned with loyalty than with competence. We discovered anew how out of touch George W. Bush and his Cabinet members, including Condi "Shoe Shopping" Rice," could be in the face of human tragedy and misery. We learned a few lessons about the city and state governments of New Orleans, Louisiana as well. And I can't forget that we learned that for the media, when white people leave a closed supermarket with food in their hand, they are scavenging for necessary food, but when black people do it, they are looting. Of course, there was an up side, too. We witnessed extraordinary generosity and caring from persons and communities all over the country and the world. Individuals, worship communities, and even municipalities stepped up to alleviate the suffering and provide shelter for persons whom Katrina rendered homeless.

This week, however, what we have all been fearing is now confirmed. On Valentine's Day, 14 February, the Centers for Disease Control released a report that said the trailers FEMA issued for temporary housing to displaced persons have dangerously high levels of formaldehyde in them. This must be especially startling news for the thousands of families who are still living in these supposedly temporary dwellings.
Worse than adding insult to injury, FEMA's incompetence is adding injury to injury. The American people need to care enough to say "enough."

Hillary Baseball Card

2008-02-15T19:14:00.001-08:00

This was Upper Deck's original idea for a Hillary Clinton Baseball Card

Comments anyone?

Another Soap Opera

2008-02-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

For the first time in weeks, the big story today is not the Dems race for the White House. Today we got showdown in a congressional hearing between Roger Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee who offered diametrically opposed sworn statements concerning Clemens's use of steroid and human growth hormone. McNamee swears he injected Clemens. Clemens swears he was never injected. Since the publication of the Mitchell report implicated Clemens in the wide-spread drugging of baseball, The Rocket repeatedly has disputed that his longevity is drug induced or sustained. Here's my question: Where is all the indignation that plagues Barry Bonds and sullies his record-breaking career and why is it not unleashed on Clemens? What's with the double standard?

Meanwhile, the sports new in Philadelphia is about Senator Arlen Spector and his questioning of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about the Patriots and Bill Bellichek's pattern of taping opposing teams' defensive signals and the decision on the part of the NFL to destroy the tapes. All in all, it seems suspiciously like the NFL is involved in a cover up on behalf of their darling non-Super Bowl champion Patriots. Thank heavens again for the Giants. But go Specter!

One more thing: The Phillies should just pay Ryan Howard the $10 million and stop looking like idiots. Howard's performance over the last 3 seasons makes him a good bet and Phillies fans need to feel good about the team's priorities, not just in pitching (although some consistent pitching would be a blessing).

Addicted

2008-02-09T22:05:00.001-08:00

If you check this blog regularly, you might have noticed that I am posting infrequently these days. The reason is that I am desperately trying not to blog about politics. But finding anything else to blog about is proving exceedingly difficult.

It's not that nothing else is going on in the world. The writer's strike in Hollywood has come and (almost) gone. There are lots of movies out, but of course I haven't seen any of them. The Lenten season has begun and I am having a good deal of time to think about my spiritual life. The only problem is that I am addicted to the primary election coverage.

The race between the Dems has been described as an embarrassment of riches. And it has made for great television, radio, and newspaper media. It's like the Super Bowl, World Series, and the NBA finals every day for weeks and weeks. And I have to say that not only am I addicted but I am also exhausted. Enough already. Cut to the chase. I definitely can't take the suspense until the summer. I don't even think I'll last until the April primary in Pennsylvania.

I know I'll just have to wait, but in the meantime I might not be blogging much. I think I should go to the movies.

Super Bowl 42

2008-02-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

I have never enjoyed a football game more. I was absolutely rooting for the Giants and hating the Patriots. I loved watching the Giants defense achieve the impossible and make Tom Brady look like a football player rather than a demigod. I hooted for Eli Manning who played MVP ball after a season of being written off and dissed by sportswriters in NY and elsewhere. And when Eli Manning ducked multiple tackles and threw the ball down field into the hands of David Tyree who simply would not let the football go, I howled and hollered so much that I knew I wouldn't be able to talk for a couple of days.

As a Philadelphia resident and Eagles fan, I could not have imagined myself loving on the Giants. But they were playing the Patriots. I have objected to all the Massachusetts teams since I went to college in MA. The Patriots, however, are my least favorite. While their talent is unquestionable, the team and the coach have an objectionable air about them. This nastiness reached its apex early in the season when they were caught taping the other team's signals. It just made you wonder what they could have been thinking. I guess it's not enough to put together the number 1 offense and the number 4 defense in the league. You need to cheat too?

My sense of justice is now gratified. The gifted cheaters were beaten. God don't like ugly. Their perfect season went up in smoke. And in the process we witnessed the most interesting Super Bowl in recent memory and the most watched ever.

Go Giants! Thanks for a rousing good time.

Constructive Debate

2008-02-01T12:16:00.000-08:00

While this certainly could be a congratulatory post regarding last night's Democratic presidential debate, I actually have other items and issues on my mind.

Over the last several weeks, I have witnessed public altercations within the Black community that made me feel that a renewed commitment to civil debate is in order not only for the candidates in the presidential race but for opposing sides in various arenas. While I am not talking about politics exclusively, it is certainly true that the internal bickering and escalation of insults among Black people who are supporting Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton exemplify the exact problem I am discussing. Differences in candidate preference, especially when the policies of the candidates in question are so close, are no cause for insults and name calling (calling Maya Angelou a "ho" is unconscionable). But I am not just talking about politics.

There has been a recent debate on What about our Daughters regarding certain prominent Black preachers' signing a letter congratulating BET on its awards show and other things. While debate and questions about why such a letter appeared, especially with a heading citing "freedom of expression, are absolutely in order, the escalation of hostility between WAOD and Dr. Iva Carruthers does not speak well for either side, in large part because it leads to greater misunderstanding and confusion.

Everyone who aspires to public influence is naturally and rightly submitted to public scrutiny. This applies to Obama and Clinton as candidates as well as to Black intellectuals and preachers as persons who purport to shape our common life. I am not by any means suggesting that we exchange the rigorous quest and question of the truth for some easy civility that harbors and nurtures duplicity. I am saying that bluster for its own sake is not good. And when it is directed at our own people, it is generally more harmful than helpful. While we are arguing with one another, BET and Viacom and their ilk (along with, my forbears would have said, the Devil and his imps) are standing on the sidelines laughing at us.

It seems that at least for one evening the Democratic presidential contenders got that message. How useful it would be for the Black church, the Black community, and the Black family to practice the wisdom of constructive rather than destructive debate.

Creating a Pipeline

2008-01-28T06:55:00.000-08:00

Without question there is a movement afoot and Barack Obama is inspiring and engaging the minds and hearts of Americans across generations and races and religions. In that there is something to celebrate for us all.

But I have to admit that my celebration of Obama's movement is not wholehearted. I searched myself and discovered that what's clouding the celebrating for me is the fact that while Obama and a few others are making headway and creating a pipeline for Black male political leadership, I don't see a woman of any color similarly situated. Mind you, this is NOT an argument akin to Gloria Steinem's stumbling and inaccurate portrayal of gender bias as more significant than racial bias. I am saying that women are going to have to be more intentional about finding and backing candidates up through the ranks so that there will be a similar female pipeline.

While I agree with those who lament Hillary's inextricable connection to the problematic Bill, I am also aware of the history of US politics in which the first woman governor took over for her husband and the first woman elected to the senate did so after completing her husband's unexpired term. Marriage has been the pipeline of political success (and sometimes ecclesiastical success, too)for women in the United States. As gifted and smart as Hillary is, we would not know about her were it not for her husband. That's a fact of sexist life.

I know I am feeling this concern particularly poignantly as a woman seeking a pastoral call. If you think about it, while Black men are at least as unlikely as white women to be called to the senior pastorate of a majority-white church, it is not likely that the reason they are rejected will be biblical. At this point no one credible is saying that it is God's plan that white men be in charge. Yet Black church women frequently remind one another that men are supposed to be the head.

I read AverageBro's blog this morning in which he talked about being able to say to his young son that he could grow up to be anything he wants to be. AverageBro views in Obama's candidacy the possibility that in America anyone can be president. I am not so sure that that's what an Obama presidency would mean for our daughters.

Note: For other reflections on the meaning of Saturday's South Carolina primary for Black women, check out Renita Weems's blog.

C'mon Bill

2008-01-24T08:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to belabor a point that is being made incessantly by almost everyone who cares about the Democratic party or the Clinton campaign. I am simply going to add my voice to all those others that say it's time for Bill Clinton to retreat. Attack dog mode suits him poorly, and it doesn't help Hillary.

But I have to say that Bill is not the only one I want to retreat. I would also like to see a retreat of all the identity politics playing out as Black folks square off against Bill for supposedly racist attacks against Obama. As frightening as it is to say this in public, for fear of myself being castigated as a race traitor, I think that that particular take on the politics is out of control. I do not say this because I think Bill was the best president for black people. I am not delusional on that level. Indeed I have remarked before that I found him disappointing - the crime bill and the Lani Guinier episodes particularly so.

Oh,and one more thing. People who trot out the "first Black president" thing and say it's "ridiculous" as Bob Herbert did in his column earlier this week, need to read what Morrison said during the impeachment hearings. Morrison was making a complicated argument about the tropes of blackness and the way that they were used against Clinton. Here's an excerpt:

Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us."

We are constantly being reminded that drug-dealing is a trope of blackness by Obama supporters who are accusing the Clintons of raising race through their surrogates. Toni Morrison's comments related to the ways in which Bill too had been slandered on the basis of those racialized tropes. More importantly, she was offering an explanation for why Black people especially rallied to Clinton's defense. There was a kinship with him and a resonance with his up from poverty story.

Here's my happy vision. We will get back to fighting about issues, including various kinds of experience and potential for inspiration. Black folks will stop measuring how black Barack (or Bill) is in order to determine whether to vote for him (or Hillary). We would remember that neither candidate would have the dubious luxury of being President of Black America but would have to do the difficult job of representing all. In my utopian vision, supporters of the candidates will be more thoughtful and less silly in stating their reasons for supporting one versus the other. And we will all get to the business of beating up the Republican nominee - since none of those candidates from a POLICY standpoint have anything substantial to say on behalf of or even to our community.

The Nation's Standard

2008-01-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

I am posting this to join in the chorus of voices calling for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to make a pronouncement regarding his understanding of the role of religion in the public square and in the execution of one's duties as President of the United States. Recently Huckabee commented to evangelical Christians that he would make the U.S. Constitution conform to "God's standards," meaning to the understanding of the scriptures that he and his fundamentalist cohort share.

If you read this blog, you know that I am a Christian minister. I am proud to acknowledge Jesus as Savior and the ultimate authority in my life. But I am troubled by the idea that Huckabee might attempt to legislate Christianity, especially his narrow version that allows him to bolster his tough on crime stance by citing the number of execution warrants he signed and simultaneously to promise a human life amendment. While I believe that one's religiously informed personal convictions will ultimately have a bearing on one's voting record, there is another orthodoxy of freedom of thought, speech, and religion in this nation. The free exercise clause exists to protect religion from government and to protect religious dissenters (including nonbelievers)from the imposed or established faith of the majority. This is the Constitution's standard, the nation's standard.

After several weeks of avoiding discussion about his Mormon faith, public concern and falling popularity forced Mitt Romney to make a "religion speech." It seems time for Huckabee, the former Southern Baptist minister and expert on God's standards, to make his religion speech. Rather than his closed to the press preaching gigs, we need a clear statement demonstrating that he understands the difference between the White House and the Sunday School.

C'mon Hillary

2008-01-13T21:13:00.000-08:00

No, this post is not a passionate endorsement of Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. I have not yet jumped so thoroughly off the fence I have been riding. What this post is is my cry into the blogosphere for Hillary Clinton and her campaign to get some sense. I have been telling my friends that I find that I like the campaign best when neither Clinton nor Obama is the running away with it. I think that ultimately makes the race more interesting and actually may produce dividends for those constituencies that the competitors reach out to.

When I say that I want the Hillary Campaign to get some sense, I am referring to their inability to see that Obama's camp is running away with the war of rhetoric by simply portraying themselves as above the fray of the politics itself. Now anyone with sense knows that you don't get as far as Obama has come in politics without having some sort of machine. The problem for Hillary is that her machine looks like a machine. She's got to work on that. I would advise that she take the advice offered by Frank Rich in the Sunday NY Times. I would also advise that she go back to the focus on what she is rather than spending time finding people who will say what Obama is not. And for God's sake, she needs to stop trotting out silly Black people like Bob Johnson,founder of BET, who is not exactly a paragon of moral authority. Hillary, stick with Maya Angelou.

As for the Martin Luther King, Jr. comment, I think that the reaction to it is overblown. She never said that LBJ (read the white man) was more important than King (read the Black man). What she said is that inspiring rhetoric and outsider activism (Obama's claim to fame) must be accompanied by legislative action and insider political work. "You need a president." We all know that is true. And how many black people have remarked that Adam Clayton Powell's in Congress work deserves more recognition than it has received, some even arguing that his legislative successes ought to be viewed as equally important as civil rights marches in transforming the material reality of Black life in the 1960s. To say that the dramatic changes of the civil right struggle depended on various actors, including but not limited to MLK, SCLC, CORE, SNCC, NAACP, the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the sitting President, is not to diminish the public face of the movement orthe sacrifices of those who lived their lives and even sacrificed them for the cause.

I am disturbed by the way that racial politics is being played in this phase of the race, principally because of the demographics of the South Carolina Democratic party. (Gender too, but that is a point for another post.) This back and forth where every criticism of Obama from the Clinton camp is automatically assumed to be racist is ultimately harmful not only to Clinton but also to Obama. Mind you, I do believe in the pervasiveness of racism in this nation, but I am convinced that Bill's "fairy tale" comment would have been directed at any candidate offering the kind of idealism that characterizes Obama.

The truth is that there is very little that distinguishes the platform of the Dems, somewhat in contrast to the Republicans, and all of the remaining contenders should give attention to making the strongest case for their approaches to their policies. I am saying that for the sake of the eventual nominee, they should play fair. Fight about issues or don't fight at all.

History Repeats Itself?

2008-01-08T21:45:00.001-08:00

As I suggested in my first post this year, the problem with the Democratic field is not that it is too shallow but that it is too deep. Unlike the previous two races during which it was impossible to get excited even about the eventual nominee, the 2008 race has attracted several likeable, clear-minded, and interesting candidates. And three of them, at least, seem viable in the general election as well as the primaries. Although electability still looms large on the minds of Democrats who are tired of losing, the truth is that Bush has made such a mess and the Republican candidates are so messy that the field is open for one of a number of interesting Democratic candidates.

Without a doubt, part of what is energizing the Dems regarding the race is the probability that our nominee will make history as the first Black or first female major-party nominee. The challenge of this history-making choice was initially clear primarily among Black women voters, who as carriers of the double-bind of gender and race were closely scrutinized and asked yet again "Which is more important?" The good news earlier on was that Black women refused to answer the question too neatly. Those who supported Clinton did so for complicated reasons not easily boiled down to racial treason or radical feminism. Obama's supporters too offered reasoning more than skin deep. But now the race is close, with Obama winning Iowa and Clinton New Hampshire. And the gloves are off.

To be sure, Gloria Steinem's analysis of race was not nearly sophisticated enough in her op-ed piece in yesterdays NY Times, but her reminder that women's rights and racial justice movements operate most effectively in tandem, not in competition with one another was appropriate and thought provoking. The chasm that developed over the issue of suffrage following the Civil War when white women who had struggled for abolition resented the enfranchisement of Black men in glaringly racist terms has obviously not healed almost 150 years later. Obama-supporters are charged with sexist motives in advancing the cause of the Black man; Clinton-supporters are charged with racism in their criticisms of Obama. And although at the end of the day, the de facto enfranchisement of Black men took and continues to take a lot longer than the enfranchisement of white women, the history of the struggle is a complicated one in which the rights of women, white and Black, have often taken a backseat to the rights of men, including every now and then a Black man. In a word, Black men do get some of the benefits of male privilege, just as white women get some of the benefits of white privilege.

While recognizing these truths is critical for our strategies in making history, we cannot allow these realities to create a charge in the atmosphere that will ultimately defeat our candidate whoever s/he is. The real tragedy of the 2008 Democratic campaign would not be the election of Clinton v. Obama, or of Obama v. Clinton. The real tragedy would be for the zeal of the primaries to render either unpalatable in the general election and restore the White House to forces that are inimical to African American and women's rights.

Guns Do Kill People Part 3

2008-01-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

Although it was illegal to do so, a New Year's reveler, hereafter known as The Fool, in the East Germantown section of Philadelphia fired bullets into the air just after midnight. Police responded to the shots and an officer, claiming that this same Fool pointed his gun at him, shot repeatedly at the Fool who ran into a row house where a party was in progress. Inside the house, five of the officers' bullets found bystander Abebe Isaac, age 33, who died yesterday as a result of the wounds. Other bystanders in the house and The (suspected) Fool were also injured.

Assigning blame in this circumstance serves no useful purpose, but some observations are in order. First, some traditions, such as firing a weapon at the stroke of midnight, have outlived their usefulness and need to be abandoned in favor of practices that are legal and safe. Revelry and guns do not mix under any circumstances. Anytime you have a loaded gun and a crowded party trouble lurks just under the surface. Second, if you do something illegal, the arrival of the police should be no surprise and you should emerge from the shadows with your hands up not with your gun drawn. Whatever you do, do not flee into a room full of innocent children and adults and put them in danger because you are a FOOL!

Now for the police. I am sure the it is impossible for someone who does not live in harm's way for a living to imagine the tension and stress that Philadelphia's finest feel whenever they answer a call about a shooting, even if they suspect that the gunfire represents overzealous celebrating. But we rely on law enforcement to be professionals. We as a society would never put guns in their hands if we did not have the assurance that they have been adequately trained in the proper use of those weapons. Firing 11 rounds into a crowded house cannot represent proper use. Talk about shooting into the dark. And there has to be some government accountability for accidentally shooting a bystander not once but five times. This is not to demonize the police officer as an individual nor the force at large, but it is to acknowledge that even understandable actions have unintended consequences. To his credit, the new police commissioner has indicated that there will be a thorough investigation.

Bullets can have no conscience. But individuals and communities must.

In Praise of the Underdog

2008-01-04T22:12:00.000-08:00

All around the black blogosphere there are shouts of joy for the surprising turn of events in Iowa that gave Barack Obama an outright victory during the caucuses, even though there are relatively few black residents in Iowa.

But I am not writing about Obama. I am heralding the victory of the West Virginia Mountaineers in the Fiesta Bowl on January 2. West Virginia 48 - Oklahoma 28. I am also celebrating the surprising but reasonable decision to give the head coaching position to the interim head coach Bill Stewart. Stewart kept his wits about him and led the team to a resounding victory over a much favored Oklahoma team.

The win was particularly satisfying for those of us who watched the team's flat play in the last game of the season, when #1-ranked West Virginia squandered their opportunity to play in the BCS championship by losing to Pitt.

Anyone watching the game would have to remark on the passion of the team that was also matched by the skill. On offense and defense West Virginia simply out played their rivals. Go Mountaineers!

It's an Election Year

2008-01-01T20:32:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Of course, I brought the New Year in by going to worship last night. I greatly enjoyed the testimonies and reflections and gave thanks myself for 2007, a year of great joys and challenges.

We have now actually crossed over into the election year. Many are reflecting on an election year 40 years ago 1968 which was a year of enormous transition and struggle. In just a couple of days, Iowans will caucus and give a couple of Democrats and a couple of Republicans reason to celebrate and send a couple others in each party home until the next election year.

I admit that I remain undecided about the field. I still like Clinton, Obama, and Edwards and would be pretty delighted to have either as President. I have generally been rooting for Clinton because I think she is an able politician and leader. For me, it's not a Bill thing, because I found him to be a disappointing President. He was far too pragmatic and not nearly progressive enough for my tastes. Yes, of course, I missed him desperately once The Decider took office.)What I like about Hillary is that at every turn she does better than people expect her to do, in ways that are also unexpected. She has proven to be an able senator who has represented the people of New York and earned the respect of senators on both sides of the aisle - a grudging respect you can be sure. And I have to say that as far as I am concerned it is time for a woman in that office.

Obama is clearly inspiring, but I am concerned about his lack of experience in national politics. There is no question that his record of bipartisan activity while in Illinois was admirable. His early opposition to the Iraq war was right. But while Washington-as-usual is problematic, I am not sure that unfamiliarity with the system provides the strategic advantage needed to reform the system or even to know what you want it to look like once it's reformed. He's just too green.

I love Edwards's message. He sounds like a real Democrat. And if this were not a year when we have a shot at a woman or an African American or Latino President, he would be my favorite. There's just not enough that distinguishes his basic message to make me forgo my hope to break the white male mode that has monopolized our nation's highest office. But I really do wish him and his wife well.

So to recap: Hillary can be too pragmatic (some might say cynical) and centrist; Obama is a little too green; Edwards doesn't represent the fundamental change that this election could promise. By the way, you might notice that I did not mention electability as a drawback to Clinton. I don't think it's true. When people get to know Hillary, they tend to like her. They would get to know her during the campaign. In any case, we can't know how a campaign will turn out.

As for the Republicans, I don't like any of them. Each attempts to be more conservative and hawkish than the other. Perhaps their behavior as President would be less reactionary than their campaigning, but to paraphrase Mike Huckabee, "If you lie to get the job, then what will you do to keep it?"

Pakistan's Dangers

2007-12-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

From his pseudo-election in 2000, I have had grave concerns about the foreign policy agenda of The Decider. Although delighted at the choice of Colin Powell as the first African American Secretary of State, I like the rest of the nation became quickly aware that Powell's moderate positions would have little influence on the neo-con world of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld. Responses following the Sept 11th, 2001 attacks merely confirmed my discomfort, and then the war in Iraq exacerbated my concerns.

Fast-forward to 2007. While Bush and Co. exaggerated the potential nuclear threat of Iran at the same time that their own intelligence suspected that Iran's nuclear program was halted in 2003, Newsweek presciently announced that the most dangerous country was Pakistan. In a cover story in October, Newsweek's writers exposed the volatility of a nation that already has nukes. Since October, the danger has intensified, as President Musharraf has done everything including imposing martial law with the United States standing in the wings offering coddling words of support. No, The Decider did not technically support the suspension of the Pakistan constitution, but he did allow Pakistan's Decider to ... well, decide. Today, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. And with her assassination, the volatility escalates.

I am not a foreign policy maven. I understand the intricacies of these matter on the most superficial level. But as a citizen, I certainly wish I could have more confidence in the people who are supposed to be the experts in Washington. My advice to them is that maybe they should read Newsweek. (Or listen to the State Department, as a friend of mine who is a career diplomat has told me to add.)

A Vulnerable God

2007-12-25T10:32:00.000-08:00

Christmas Greetings from Leslie D. Callahan.

Of the Christmas lessons, the one from John 1:1-14 shows us Jesus Christ at his most transcendent and most vulnerable. The story begins not with Nazareth and the Annunciation or with Bethlehem and the birth of Christ, but in eternity where Word of God existed in the beginning, making the world that we all occupy. The Word was with God and the Word was God. Without the Word nothing was made. But the Word did not remain remote, over creation and apart from it. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In Jesus Christ, God became concrete.

In becoming so much a part of creation, Christ must have known that his identity could be misunderstood and misappropriated. God in Christ must have known that there would be some who could not receive the divine because of the particularities of the human flesh – his gender, his ethnicity, his age, his marital status, his class, his religious affiliation. Still others would deny that Christ was a real human at all because of the divine nature expressed in him. And yet, knowing that his own would not receive him, and others would never see him, still the Word of God became flesh – touchable, viewable, sensitive, and mortal flesh – and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. God became like one of us.

In this holy season, as we celebrate the arrival of the One whom we did not expect, in a form we almost did not recognize, we who have beheld his glory and received the power to become the children of God must likewise prepare ourselves to take risks and become vulnerable. No, everyone will not receive us. Yes, we too will be misunderstood, our words misappropriated, and our identities rejected. Being accessible and touchable opens us up to the possibility of being injured or even killed. But we are comforted in the knowledge that God through Jesus Christ knows exactly what we feel. Wherever we go in his name, he goes with us and goes before us. Christ has been there first

Holiday Politics

2007-12-23T21:46:00.000-08:00

I know I am not the only one who is flabbergasted by the sheer length of the presidential campaign season during this cycle. We have 11 months to go and I am already sick of the debates and the interviews and the policy statements. I was skeptical about the jockeying for primary placement and am weary of the primary season before it even begins.

But one unanticipated consequence of this elongated campaign is the Holiday ads. It wasn't bad enough to have secularization and materialism as challenges to the meaning of Christmas. Now we have to have politicization.

Mike Huckabee's floating cross and invoking of the birth of Christ as a part of his appeal to the craziest aspects of right-wing Christian politics should make any believer sick. Hey, Mike, didn't you know that believers are supposed to be hidden behind the cross, not to have the cross eventually obscured by their big heads? Then, there's the Giuliani ad. Suffice it to say that "fruitcake" is a proper conclusion.

Although I find the Obama ad adorable, the Hillary Rodham Clinton ad amusing, and the John Edwards ad instructive, I still don't want to have to deal with politics on Christmas.

Why can't we just take a break?

Guns Do Kill People 2

2007-12-22T17:15:00.000-08:00

The story of the shooting death of Dyshon Boyd, a 4 year old who accidentally shot himself to death with a gun that belonged to his father, is another example of the reality that bullets kill indiscriminately.

Dyshon was his father Djuan's shadow. Although Djuan had trouble with the law, and was scheduled to face charges for dealing drugs, he apparently was a present and active father to his son. Unfortunately, Dyshon wanted to be just like Dad. He found his father's gun in his coat pocket. And a few hours later the 4-year-old died having shot himself in the throat.

Every person who owns a gun must take seriously the reality that the gun is more likely to shoot someone you love than it is to protect them. A Washington Post article in 2006 noted that more than 500 children die annually from accidental gunshot wounds. If you have a gun, make sure that it is inaccessible to children. Lock it up and don't assume that you have hidden it so well that they simply will not know where it is.

Happy 38th Birthday to Me

2007-12-20T21:26:00.000-08:00

Bad Advertising

2007-12-19T15:30:00.001-08:00

Somebody should tell believers that if they are going to advertise their spiritual connection they should try not to have a bad attitude. I was on the golf course in a Southern state this afternoon. The cart path crossed a street in a subdivision whose house line the golf course. I stopped on the sidewalk and gave the right of way to the driver of a car. In addition to letting her pass, I also smiled. She gave me a nasty look. I watched her car go by. License plate: GOD4ME. I chuckled and thanked the Lord for something to blog about.

When I told the person I was playing golf with, she told me about the time she blew her horn for someone who had a bumper sticker that said, "Honk if you love Jesus." The driver of the car flipped her off. He must have forgotten that he loved Jesus.

These are silly examples of a more serious issue. Whether we have bumper stickers and license plates or not, the way we behave reflects on the organizations and even religions we claim to represent. All of this reminds me to try not to be bad advertising.

Why I Don't Like Mike

2007-12-15T09:28:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it. I almost got snookered. He seemed like the only truly nice guy in the Republican mix. I heard myself comparing him to the best human being who ever has been the President Jimmy Carter. It must have been that Southern charm and pastoral demeanor. He even had some nice things to say about Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton as people and as parents, which made him seem fair. So despite my suspicion of Republicans in general and Southern Baptist, evangelical-courting Republicans in particular, I began to like Mike Huckabee. Now I'm not saying that I would have voted for him. I didn't like him that much. But I almost liked him, especially when I compared him with the mean-spirited arrogance of Rudolph Giuliani.

Here's what changed my mind. I didn't flinch initially when I heard that he had supported the parole of convicted rapist Wayne Dumond, who later raped and murdered at least one woman. I figured that Huckabee had made an isolated bad call with tragic results. That is the danger of being in leadership; sometimes your actions have devastating, but unintended consequences. But after I read an article that described the political pandering that was actually behind the Dumond release, I decided that Mike is just as corrupt as all the rest. Although Huckabee avers that he could not have known that Dumond would rape again, especially since he believed that Dumond might erroneously have been convicted because the victim was Bill Clinton's distant cousin, there was ample credible evidence that Dumond had raped before. Huckabee's public support for Dumond's parole was not the well-meaning error of a person who believed in forgiveness, rehabilitation, and the efficacy of castration (Dumond's testicles had been removed before his arrest). It was crass politics - deadly politics.

Then there was his statement about quarantining persons infected with HIV. The biggest problem with this statement is when he made it. Of course, everyone makes mistakes, especially when it comes to deadly, communicable diseases. But by 1992, a person running for the U.S. Senate should have been sufficiently informed about AIDS and how it is contracted to know that quarantining would be unnecessary and cruel. To me this represents either willful ignorance or pandering to other people who are willfully ignorant, and frankly this country should be tired of that after 7 years of George W. Bush.

In sum, Huckabee is the charming version of all the hate-filled, ignorant politics that has sadly come to dominate the GOP. I know that there are Republicans who are thoughtful, compassionate, intelligent, and just. Mike Huckabee just isn't one of them. Sorry, Mike, I'm taking you off my "friends" list.

Oprah for President (of something)

2007-12-14T15:46:00.000-08:00

I haven't decided who I'm loving in the Democratic field for 2008. I actually have a fair amount of contentment with the platforms of Obama, Clinton, and Edwards. I would be delighted to break the tradition of a white man as President; but I also like John Edwards. And I don't dislike the next few contenders down the list either. But I do need to say a word about Oprah.

We need to pay attention to Oprah, not so much for her endorsement of Obama, but for the way that she has taught us to live purposefully. Although her theology is a bit murky and hard to pin down, her integrity provides a lesson in living. I'm not saying Oprah is perfect, just that there are few people who live in the public eye who so clearly make their decisions on the basis of what they value and believe most fundamentally. She takes risks, exhibits generosity, invests in what matters, and proclaims her version of the truth, even when it's unpopular. (Remember the mad cow fiasco?) Because of Oprah, a lot of people are more aware of significant issues, are reading better books, and are watching better movies, with black characters who are not just stereotypes.

There is something powerful in that.

For a much more detailed and lucid exploration of Oprah and Barack Obama, read Patricia Williams's The Audacity of Oprah , which I read after I had already written this post.

The War on Christmas

2007-12-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

I should confess at the outset that I am not a big fan of the holiday celebrated on December 25th. I won't bore you with the typical complaints about the commercialization or the secularization of the day. Nor will I reproduce the hackneyed "Jesus is the reason for the season." I will say that I think that a person or family would really have to work hard to celebrate the holiness of Jesus' birth,given all of the ads,television movies, parties, shopping days countdown, and other activities that have become inextricably connected with December 25 in the U.S. Those who know me know that I joyously participate in Advent, a season of reflection, preparation, and expectation of the coming of Christ. I am not boycotting Christmas, mind you; I will give gifts to family and friends, but I try not to put on others nor feel myself the kind of pressure that getting the "right" gift brings.

That being said, let me move on to the point of this blog post. Yesterday the House of Representatives passed a resolution (H Res. 847), co-sponsored by 60 Representatives, recognizing that Christians and Christmas are important. Click here to read the full text. The resolution cites national and international statistics that show Christianity to be the largest of the world religions in terms of adherents and expresses support to the Christian celebration on Dec. 25. But what, I ask, was the point?

My guess is that this was just another skirmish in the (invented) war against the "war on Christmas." My earlier comments reflect my observation that the war to obscure the meaning Jesus' birth by sacrificing the faith of Jesus on the altar of American capitalism has already been won. But that's not what Christians who say there is a "war on Christmas" object to. They object to saying "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." They want to privilege the nativity scene over other religious and secular displays in the public square. They don't just want to celebrate Christmas themselves as their own religious holiday; they want everyone else to be forced to celebrate Christmas whether they want to or not. They want Christmas as a display of Christian hegemony. So this post, by a Christian for a largely Christian audience, is to say: Christian hegemony is itself un-Christian.

Our faith was never supposed to be the religion of the empire, imposed by force on subject peoples. Touting our numerical and political power around the world betrays the Christ who was born in Bethlehem and died at Calvary. Our faith, more than faith of the creche, is the faith of the cross. If we really want to recognize Christianity's importance, then we Christians ought to participate in Christ's humility.

Christians' Image

2007-12-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

Like most of the people who are talking about it, I have neither read The Golden Compass nor seen the movie based on it. Consequently, this post is not about either the trilogy of books, nor the first movie adaptation. This post is inspired by a mass email that was forwarded to me by one of my friends who is a minister and who quoted the Catholic League's criticism of the books and the film because of their not very veiled references to the power of the Roman Church and because successful films will likely advertise the atheistic viewpoint of the books' author Philip Pullman.

Here's my problem. Christians are always asking each other to protest stuff like this movie. But where is the ongoing concern and protesting spirit about the other issues?I would like for Christian groups to send mass emails protesting the Iraq war, the exploitation and abuse of women and children, the apathy of many in the world to hunger and the AIDS pandemic, and the myriad other issues that endanger our children and world far more than movie(s) about witches or even atheists.

It says something not too flattering about the body of Christ that we are preoccupied with our image. In this instance, the Catholic Church is concerned about how it is being portrayed and other Christians are asked to jump on board. We care so much about our image, but our image would be greatly helped if we cared more about the Gospel - about people and their material condition as well as their souls. If nobody sees this movie, will we as the church really advance the knowledge of God in the world? I don't think so.

Speaking of negative publicity, that's what Creflo Dollar and Eddie Long ought to be thinking about as they refuse to disclose the financial details of their so-called ministries. Joyce Meyer got it right when she decided that answering Sen. Grassley's questions bespoke transparency, a concept that projects a much better image than hiding behind high-priced lawyers. Dollar and Long look like the accused who legally may invoke the 5th Amendment right not to self-incriminate but by doing so actually looks guilty because he/she remains silent. The question of whether they can legally avoid answering the already-publicized questions is beside the point. There is a bigger moral and ethical and evangelistic question that needs to be considered.

I cannot speak to the designs and purposes of Philip Pullman. But I can safely say that the antics of preachers like Dollar and Long, the perception of Christian cover-ups, and Christian apathy towards the hurting of this world have done more to promote atheism and blasphemy than any book or trilogy Pullman will ever write.

Incredible, by Definition

2007-12-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

in·cred·i·ble /ɪnˈkrɛdəbəl/
–adjective
1. so extraordinary as to seem impossible: incredible speed.
2. not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable: The plot of the book is incredible.
[Origin: 1375–1425; late ME < L incrédibilis. See in-3, credible]

—Related forms
in·cred·i·bil·i·ty, in·cred·i·ble·ness, noun
in·cred·i·bly, adverb

—Synonyms 2. farfetched, astonishing, preposterous.

incredible. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved December 05, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/incredible

Second Time Around

2007-12-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

This is not the time to fall asleep on The Decider. All who think that because the Bush administration only has one year of power left or that the midterm elections of 2006 significantly curtailed his remaining power should pay attention to the unfolding drama leading up to military action against Iran.

There is a frightening sense of familiarity about the rhetoric The Decider and his neocon cronies use when describing and exaggerating the threat that Iran represents. The exaggeration became apparent to the world with the report of American intelligence experts that Iran's nuclear program has been on hold since 2003. Of course, the President had access to the newest reports before they became public, and admits to having heard about changing information as long ago as August. Yet he does not acknowledge that the experts' conclusions should call his policies and his plans into question. In a newsconference today, President Bush demonstrated that his mind has not changed.

The inability to change one's mind when presented with new information is unconscionable in any adult, but especially in a leader whose decisions have a worldwide impact. As I pondered this issue while listening to NPR in the car today, I experienced a sense of conviction that I ought to be praying differently for the President. Intercessory prayer is, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "bringing one another into the presence of God, seeing each other under the cross of Jesus as poor human beings and sinners in need of grace." (from Bonhoeffer's, Life Together)

But I am reminded too of the words of Jesus who tells us to watch as well as pray. So don't go to sleep on George W. Bush.

World AIDS Day

2007-12-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

On December 1st every year, we commemorate World AIDS Day, taking the time to reflect upon the progress being made in treatment, education, and community awareness about the AIDS pandemic and pausing to remember those whose lives the disease has already claimed. In 2007, there is some good news: the number of people living with AIDS has leveled off. But there there is no cause for resting on our laurels.

Around the world 33.2 million people live with HIV, adjusted downward from the 2006 estimate on the basis of UNAID's more accurate methods of tracking infections. Two-thirds of those who live with HIV, 22.5 million people, are in sub-Saharan Africa. And 1.7 of the 2.5 million HIV infections in 2007, or 68%, occurred in Africa. In Africa, AIDS is the primary cause of death.

Although the pandemic in Africa dwarfs the crisis in the United States, complacency here is dangerous, especially for the African American community. Washington, DC has the nation's highest HIV-infection rate, with numbers that continue to grow. (See Newsweek article.)

"Leadership" is the focus of World AIDS Day this year, and the leadership of African American spiritual communities is still needed for the dissemination of information and care. Are we better at understanding and addressing the issues associated with AIDS than we were 25 years ago? Yes. Have we arrived at the place of knowledge and comfort that will save lives? Not yet.

There are hopeful signs, sometimes in unexpected places. Much coverage has been given to the AIDS summit organized at Saddleback Church in California. Rick Warren, prompted by his wife Kay, has taken on the issue of AIDS in a way that I hope will inspire at least a few of the people who have looked to him for leadership through his mega-sellers The Purpose-Driven Church and the Purpose-Driven Life. And of course there is the ongoing work of Balm in Gilead, which for 18 years has been providing leadership to the African American and other African diaspora faith communities.

For more information about the worldwide AIDS pandemic, see http://www.unaids.org/en/

Peace in the Middle East

2007-11-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

Although I was only 8 years old, I remember well the Camp David Accords, signed when President Jimmy Carter brought together Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel for discussion on mutual recognition and respect. I remember the feeling of physical illness and spiritual trauma I experienced when I thought that there would be an announcement of peace in the Middle East because I remembered the biblical saying that in the day when peace is declared then total destruction is imminent. "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them." I thought I was doomed, that Jesus would return as soon as the treaty was signed and I, unsaved, would be hell bound. Although this all seems a little ridiculous to me now, I think of it because it was my first up close and personal experience of feeling there were geopolitical implications of the literalist scriptural interpretation to which I had been exposed.

Religious and political pundits have discussed the complicated relationship between evangelicals and Israel. Radical secularists mock the simultaneous concern for Israel's future as God's chosen people and the evangelical theological certainty that all attempts to secure Israel apart from Christ's return are futile. And although I do not support the disdainful treatment of my own theological community, I too see the contradiction in the fact that evangelicals pray for the peace of Jerusalem and while espousing a theological perspective that depends on war.

This week in Annapolis the Bush administration, undoubtedly the administration most beholden to evangelical orthodoxy, has initiated its own legacy-saving effort at bringing Israel and the Palestinians to the table. Secretary Rice and President Bush, having flatly ignored the opportunity 7 years ago to build on the outline for peace proposed by the Clinton administration in its waning days, now have concluded that simply backing Israel while ignoring the Palestinians will not ultimately lead to safety for Israel or to peace in the Middle East. It's only too bad that the US waited until the Fattah party's majority had vanished in favor of the more radical Hamas whom Palestinians democratically elected last year.

What I wish for this nation and especially for the African American church is that we would do the intellectual and historical work that would allow us to seek justice for the exiled and displaced Palestinians, not just security and recognition for Israel. I am aware that many Christians see a spiritual and theological mandate for supporting Israel. But just as I hope that I have matured beyond the far too literal biblical interpretation that left me praying against Carter, Sadat, and Begin's efforts, I hope that we will have the theological, spiritual,and political maturity to support a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli question. Let's pray for the peace of Jewish and Arab Jerusalem.

Guns Do Kill People

2007-11-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

When we talk about the tragedy of gun violence in our communities, we often focus on the occasions when bullets maim or kill the shooter's intended targets. But there are many other instances that prove that bullets have no conscience and that maiming and killing arise even when no intention to injure is present. I imagine that most people who read this blog can name multiple incidents when the "wrong" person was shot or the gun went off accidentally. This past week such a tragic circumstance emerged in Duquesne, a suburb or Pittsburgh, and ended the life of Chelsea McAllister.

The story, Police question boy 14, in girl's shooting, as reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is as follows:

Chelsea McAllister's online ID is "jesus i'm yours," a theme on which she performed a liturgical mime dance in the hours before she was fatally shot Tuesday at the home of a youth minister in Duquesne.

The 15-year-old 10th-grader at West Mifflin Area High School was killed instantly by a blast to the head from a 16-gauge sawed off shotgun.

The 14-year-old Penn Hills boy who police said pulled the trigger has not been charged. Police have not identified him.

The 14-year-old and a 15-year-old Penn Hills youth had been with a group of teens that included Chelsea, her sister, Ashley McAllister, 18, and a 15-year-old girl who also attends West Mifflin Area High. They all had been invited to join Chelsea at a youth group service Tuesday night at Grace Community Ministries in the Hill District.

Chelsea had performed with a mime troupe at the church service. Afterward, the five teens were driven by Keith Owens, a youth minister at Petra Ministries in East Hills, to his home in the 200 block of South Sixth Street in Duquesne.

The home of Chelsea and Ashley, a senior at West Mifflin Area High, is around the corner from Mr. Owens' residence.

Mr. Owens, 21, lives about two blocks from the Bethlehem Temple Apostolic Church where Chelsea's grandfather, Bishop Nathan McAllister, is the pastor.

Duquesne Police Chief Richard Adams said Mr. Owens had two guns at the residence, a rifle that was kept upstairs and a sawed-off shotgun that had been given to him by a relative.

Mr. Owens told police that he and the teens were in the living room and at least one of the boys wanted to examine the shotgun. He said he unloaded the weapon before allowing the boys to examine it, Chief Adams said. The shotgun, however, still contained a cartridge.

After their short visit, Chelsea and Ashley left to go home. But Chelsea forgot her purse. She walked back up the porch stairs and into the residence. As she entered the living room, the shotgun was discharged, with the shot striking her in the head, police said.

Immediately after the shooting the boy ran into the street screaming that he had shot someone, Chief Adams said.

Inside the residence police found Chelsea's body and the weapon used to kill her.

"We're just upset, wondering why he [Mr. Owens] would show those kids a gun," said Kimberly Thomas, Chelsea and Ashley's aunt.

Why indeed?

Our prayers go out for the comfort of the McAllister family, as well as for the peace and healing of the 14 year old who shot Chelsea and for the youth minister who owned the sawed-off shotgun.

'Tis the Season

2007-11-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

Between midnight and 6 a.m., stores and malls came to life ushering in the commercial Christmas season. Over the next few days, the analysis of sales over the Thanksgiving weekend will determine financial prognoses for the retail industry. Markets will rise and fall. But I'm not thinking about that now.

I don't even pretend to be an expert in economics, but I am sure that you can only spend your money once. So today, I am not thinking about Christmas shopping; I am thinking about a long winter and exorbitant heating bills. I am thinking about gas prices going through the roof. I am thinking about new windows for my house, and of the possibility that I'll need a new roof. This doesn't mean that I won't buy presents or even shop for bargains, but my focus is on keeping my money in my pocket for as long as possible. 'Tis the season to be prudent.

The wonderful thing about that is that it leaves me a few moments for reflecting on the other meaning of the Christmas season: preparation for, celebration of, and accountability to the coming of Christ. If I can't get up at 4 a.m. or 6 a.m. for prayer, I certainly would not be caught at the mall.

I Just Want to Take a Little Time

2007-11-21T18:48:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the African American Christian tradition is the commitment to giving thanks. Whether in the coalfields of West Virginia or in the center of Philadelphia, nothing gets a Black congregation's attention and amens quicker than expressions of gratitude. Often those who had the fewest material goods or the most infirmities were quickest to declare how much they have to thank the Lord for. In honor of my forebears and the example they have shown, in the words of the classic gospel song, "I just want to take a little time right now to thank the Lord."

For ancestors, especially Leonard and Annabelle, whom I miss especially at holidays.
For family and friends, who love me and whom I love.
For a place of my own, warm in winter and dry during the storms.
For meaningful employment that pays the bills.
For vocational clarity after so many years of ambivalence.
For physical health, emotional stability, and intellectual acuity.
For recognized gifts and undiscovered talents.
For successes and failures.
For spiritual communities and leaders with integrity.
For food to enjoy and for the good sense not to eat too much of it.
For multiple invitations for Thanksgiving dinner.
For homes away from home.
For babies and elders and everyone in between.
For enemies who teach me how to pray and trust.
For laughter that is not mean-spirited.
For golf, even though I do not play well at all.
For a past full of extravagant blessings.
For a present full of contentment.
For a future full of promise.
But most of all, for Jesus who really is a Wonderful Savior.
I just want to say Thank You.

O Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt God's name together.

How much is too much?

2007-11-17T07:53:00.000-08:00

I am neither gloating about nor lamenting the investigation of 6 televangelists' ministries by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). While I frequently criticize the materialistic mentality that so many television ministers both preach and embody, I am in no way counting on a senate probe to unearth details about financial practices that will reform the behavior of clergy or their congregations. At the same time, I am not buying the "governmental persecution" and First Amendment protection line some have offered in defense of their extravagant lifestyles. What I am doing is using the media focus that has centered on these ministries to raise and discuss the question that is at the base of Grassley's queries and that all who minister need self-critically to consider: How much is too much?

This question goes deeper than the salaries and perks offered to the pastor(s) and their families. It is a theological question that speaks to the essence of what and who we believe God is, and what and who God calls us to be and represent. When they brandish their "bling" and flaunt the piece of God's creation they have requisitioned for their use, prosperity preachers demonstrate their allegiance to a God who is defined by what God owns and by the way that God makes them owners. What those of us who dispute this distorted vision of God need to represent is the God who is known by what God gives and by the way God makes givers of us. While I certainly appreciate the material comforts and consider them to be blessings, especially as I remember times of want and moments of concern about how and whether I would be able to make ends meet, I do not want to measure my life by what I have. I want to measure by what I give.

What feels most distorted about the lifestyle of the rich and famous televangelist is that nothing about that lifestyle is actually accessible for the bulk of their membership. What makes their houses, planes, cars, jewels, and $30K toilets most offensive and excessive is that the people whose tithes, offerings, and even purchases make those extravagances possible have not a hope of ever having anything remotely that "fine" for themselves. It's the exclusivity and the elitism that send the wrong theological and social message. No matter how many "kingdom principles" their hearers employ, they will always be separated materially from their pastor.

Some argue that church people want their pastors to represent something that is "above" them, that they delight in knowing that their pastor drives a Bentley and lives in a section of the city that they have never even visited. There is some truth to this perception. But the job of spiritual leaders is to be a part of the mental transformation the reminds people that Fortune 500 CEOs are not our model - Jesus is our model. In one of Paul's finer moments, he tells us what the Jesus model represents:

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." 2 Corinthians 8:9

The beauty of this model, that measures the grace of giving rather than the blessing of owning, is that it creates interdependence and balance in the body of Christ and in the human community.

A Father Who Tried

2007-11-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

Philadelphians are all too aware of the escalation of gun violence in our city and of the particular rise in shooting at police officers. A couple weeks ago a section of the city was on lock down for hours, and some areas for days, following the fatal shooting of officer Chuck Cassidy. A couple days ago, two undercover officers were treated and released from the hospital after being shot during a drug raid. The alleged shooter is a sixteen-year-old who will be tried as an adult.

Unfortunately, the involvement of young brothers is an all too familiar element in the drug and gun saga of our major cities. With inadequate education (this young man failed to show up for 10th grade this year) and no sense of purpose for their futures, a segment of our young people turn to and almost revel in a life of criminality.

What separates this case from so many others about which we hear is the heartfelt concern and candor of this young man's father. Both on television and in the press, Willie "James" Taylor has tearfully described his unsuccessful attempts to provide stability and loving discipline for his son, including his efforts to seek intervention from social service agencies before his son's behavior escalated to the felony level for which he is now charged.

The efforts of Mr. Taylor, who is scheduled to preach his initial sermon this Sunday, remind us all of the complexity of issues that contribute to the problem of crime, especially drug-related crimes, in our community. Although it is clear that our communities would benefit from the more active presence of fathers and positive role models, quality time with Dad is no panacea.

The question that Mr. Taylor's son and John Lewis, who confessed to killing Officer Cassidy, both raise for our families and our community is this: How do we combat the aimlessness and wandering that underlie drug activity? Part of the answer is lies in the home. Part of the answer is found at school. Part of the answer is with the government. And part belongs to the church which has an important role in helping people to find their ultimate purpose in life.

Strong and Ambitious? Too Bad for Us

2007-11-14T17:29:00.001-08:00

Just when I was recovering from the Baisden show, I read the NY Times OpEd article by Maureen Dowd (article)that cited a Ray Fisman study on speed dating that suggested what many of us suspected, that men (of all races) like smart and ambitious women only if the man does not perceive her to be smarter and/or more ambitious than he. I was so intrigued that I read the Fisman article in Slate. I won't go into all of the gory details. I'll just quote the salient paragraph:

When women were the ones choosing, the more intelligence and ambition the men had, the better. So, yes, the stereotypes appear to be true: We males are a gender of fragile egos in search of a pretty face and are threatened by brains or success that exceeds our own. Women, on the other hand, care more about how men think and perform, and they don't mind being outdone on those scores. from An Economist Goes to a Bar

As a strong, intelligent, ambitious Black woman with a religious vocation, I am intimately aware that dating is difficult. Fisman's experiments involved speed dating, which is not likely to be the way that I find my Black Man anyway. But there are deeper issues that Baisden, Fisman, and Dowd point to that affect not only the love lives of Black (and other women) but also speak to the possibilities of fulfilling all of those other ambitions, e.g. being a pastor (me) or President (Hillary). Strong women walk the fine line of achieving our goals with strength and ambition and in spite of strength and ambition. We can't win for losing, as my momma would have said.

It's a Shame

2007-11-14T16:06:00.000-08:00

This post was catalyzed by my viewing Michael Baisden's show on Monday night. I knew ahead of time that Baisden was problematic, thanks to the incisive blogging analysis of Gina from What about our Daughters.

Still, I tuned in anyway figuring that I would see some Black folks and enjoy some political conversation about something other than church. I expected to hear about Black life, white racism, culture wars or something like that. Instead, I encountered yet another representation of the gender wars that plague all people but that seem to have a peculiar hold on Black folks. Baisden's subject: Are women too strong or are men too weak? Who's the boss? Who wears the pants? The panelists, whose names I did not investigate, can generally be recognized as Brother Dark Ages, Brother Progressive, and Sister Relationship Expert.

I won't go into all of the details about the conversation I heard before I turned off the TV to keep from hitting it with a hammer. I won't talk at length about the informal poll asking brothers whether strong women were "turn offs" or "turn ons," or Baisden's incredulity when brothers answered "turn on." Suffice it to say that even Brother Progressive felt compelled to announce emphatically that he "is and always will be the head of [his] house."

I was, in a word, demoralized. Apparently it really is impossible to shake the problematic, fallacious, and certainly sexist notion that the only time a sister should be in charge is when a brother cannot be found. Strong Black Woman comes to the rescue until a brother shows up to be The Head. Guess it was church politics, after all.

The scariest aspect of the Baisden show was the absence of a brother who would publicly defend his belief in gender equality and shared leadership in the Black family. When Brother Progressive seemed to be going in that direction, he immediately was forced by the scorn of the other men, especially Baisden, to affirm his manhood by positioning himself above his wife. A male friend, who is married, explained to me a few weeks ago that sometimes brothers are almost embarrassed when they are with a woman who is "too" accomplished. That's what I saw in Brother Progressive. Shame.

Here's my question: How will we ever have happy, constructive, mutually uplifting Black love relationships that lead to successful marriages and families if we spend all of our time competing with one another to be the boss? Alternatively, will we really be better off if one of us simply decides always to defer to the good but certainly fallible judgment of the other? Must leadership be so much a game of "Who's on top?" And if really successful relationships are based on sharing power, but Black men are too ashamed to say so, how will younger brothers ever know that it's okay?

Damon Wayans

2007-11-10T01:54:00.000-08:00

I am perplexed by the question of how much outrageous talk we should endure in the name of entertainment.

When I began the blog, I asked friends to forward ideas or situations they thought I should address. My friend took me up on this, after watching Damon Wayans peddling his outrageous and insulting ideas on The View. I watched the clip on ABC.com and heard Wayans declare, in the name of not being hypocritical, that Don Imus was right in dubbing the Rutgers basketball team nappy-headed hos. When the hosts of The View objected, Wayans without originality implied that Black people would find his defense of Imus humorous, although white people would sit at home with a confused look on their faces.

It seems to me that the problem of blatantly offensive and misleading speech in the name of entertainment is inherent in the comedic genre. Of course, there have been comics who resist the urge simply to shock or go for cheap laughs, but usually the edginess that makes comedians funny skirts the boundaries of propriety, offense, and frequently meanness.

The Imus comment and the Wayans reprise are not simply matters of free speech or of (the lack of)taste. We who listen judge them to decide when attempts to be funny are just too mean or too false or too stupid to laugh at. And even when we laugh, out of nervousness or amusement, we have the right to consider whether our own laughter represents some baser emotion that we prefer not to indulge. And, yes, we even have the right to be so weary of seeing and hearing ourselves demeaned that we protest and refuse to take it anymore.

Fugitive Safe Surrender 2

2007-11-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

According to the United States Marshal's office, the most recent Fugitive Safe Surrender, held at Bible Way Church in Washington, D.C., was a success as more than 500 persons turned themselves in, including 240 on the last day of the operation.

Conceived of by Peter J. Elliott, United States Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio,after the death of Cleveland Police Officer Wayne Leon at the hands of a wanted fugitive, Fugitive Safe Surrender is a powerful new initiative that encourages persons wanted for felony or misdemeanor crimes to voluntarily surrender to the law in a faith-based location. The program now has been adopted as a national USMS-sponsored initiative.

The Marshal's report continues:

Preliminary results showed that 530 individuals surrendered over the program’s three days, and that 53 of those were wanted for felony crimes. However, fewer than three percent of all those who participated in the program were arrested. For those few, charges included domestic violence, escape from jail, and felony assault. Sixty-four of the people who appeared at the church found that they had no active warrants against them, further illustrating the benefit of the program.

Last week the City of Philadelphia was on edge as a fugitive, now identified as John Lewis was at large, following the fatal shooting of police officer Chuck Cassidy. Lewis was apprehended in a homeless shelter in Miami after days of intense police activity in the the Oak Lane section of Philadelphia and because of tips encouraged by the $150K reward.

In addition to my concern about an armed, frightened killer at large, before Lewis was caught, I sympathized with his family and friends who worried that he would not live to face trial. While most of those who surrendered in D.C. were not wanted for felonies, that program gave me hope for more humane and frankly less dangerous means of bringing even those wanted for felonies to justice.

There is so little good news when it comes to law enforcement, especially as it relates to African Americans. Let's hear it again for the US Marshal's office and enlightened experiment in fugitive surrender.

A Revival for Our Time

2007-11-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

I spent the last two days in Atlanta where I was privileged to be a part of a revival at Ebenezer Baptist Church. This revival had all of the usual elements: singing (Helen Baylor, Dottie Peoples, and choirs), preaching (yours truly), prayer and praise (at least half of those assembled). But this revival had more: voter registration, feeding the homeless, scholarly discussion (Dr. Obery Hendricks discussing The Politics of Jesus). It was themed "Victory in the Village" and had at its core a concern for the holistic needs of a community in crisis.

While I was in Atlanta, breaking news announced that six prominent "mega ministries" are under Senate investigation. Yet again, the images of ministerial opulence that include half-million dollar cars, multi-million dollar estates, jet planes, and prosperity preaching dominated the media coverage of Christian life. I was embarrassed, though no longer surprised, since we have come to take these distortions of the gospel for granted. And I might say especially in Atlanta.

But I am thankful that conspicuous consumption is not the only story. Ebenezer is not the only church bearing witness. God still has prophets who have not bowed the knee the god of this world. Jesus still has some followers. I hope that my efforts contributed to the transformation of a few more.

Fugitive Safe Surrender

2007-11-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just when I had given up hope for any good news to emerge either from the District of Columbia or the Black church, I happened to be listening the NPR's All Things Considered and heard the story of Bible Way Church and its role in a program called Fugitive Safe Surrender.

Safe Surrender permits fugitives accused of nonviolent offenses to turn themselves in to federal marshals in the safety of the Bible Way Church facilities. It is a win-win situation which conserves law enforcement money and personnel as well as giving people who made a mistake in fleeing the opportunity to turn themselves in without making their legal predicament worse. Although it does not offer amnesty, it does portend leniency in sentencing, and some of those who have surrendered actually leave on the same day with a clean slate.

There is a lot of bad news in the church world today, thousands of reasons to suspect that many church leaders have completely lost touch with reality. I am delighted to see Bible Way continuing its historical commitment to holistic transformation and social justice. I hope some other people are listening and watching too.

Trick or Trauma

2007-10-31T20:30:00.000-07:00

Because I have been reading Renita Weems's blog, I knew that today was a day for wearing red in solidarity with those who are drawing attention to the violence against women. For me, that means that it is also a day to stand against anyone who seems to condone such violence simply because the victim of the violence does not fit the mold of propriety or morality or whatever else.

Here in Philadelphia, a (female) judge last week reduced a rape charge to armed robbery and "theft of services" when a woman who had agreed to have protected sex with two men for a fee was forced to have unprotected sex with four men at gunpoint. Judge Teresa Carr Deni's problem with the case clearly relates to her disapproval of the original agreement, but it is frightening that a judge could miss the basic point when it comes to legal definitions of rape- namely, that when someone forces a sex act upon you, it is rape. The victim in the case was trying to turn a trick and got a trauma. The gunpoint part should have been a clue to Judge Deni.

This points to why we need days like today to draw attention to the wrong of violence. We need to remind the world and even judges that no on deserves the beating and that no one asks for being raped. We need to raise awareness so that the community and the courts do not traumatize abused women simply because we do not approve of them.

McClurkin's Testimony

2007-10-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

I thought the story was going to blow over, but apparently not. It seems that gay rights advocates are disappointed with Barack Obama for not "disinviting" Donnie McClurkin who was a headliner at Obama's South Carolina gospel concert. The problem? Donnie McClurkin's testimony that God "delivered" him from homosexuality.

Now let me say at the outset that I am not writing this blog to take on the question of the authenticity of McClurkin's testimony. Rather, I want to weigh in and simply remind people that testimony is what it was. It represented McClurkin's right to frame and define his own identity. And McClurkin has generally been apolitical about this particular aspect of his testimony.

It's not that I am missing the point that gay rights advocates make, namely, that the kind of testimony McClurkin gives may be used to undermine their claims in framing and defining their identity. They reason that if people take McClurkin's word for being delivered, then those same people will refuse to accept the word of gay people who say that their sexual orientation is not a choice.

I said in a blog a few weeks ago that testimony is judged by the performance of the one giving the testimony and by other facts that are known to the hearer. Do you believe McClurkin? Do you believe his opponents? Either? Neither? At the moment, that's not even really the question. The question at hand has to do with whether you believe Obama.

However all of this turns out, putting Obama in the middle is not sensible. If he's going to win the Democratic nomination or the Presidency (and this goes for whoever wins), he is going to have to be attractive to people who are not attractive to each other. The "values" question cannot be "Do I agree with Obama about everything?" but "Can I support the candidate given the reasoning behind the positions with which I disagree?"

Wilson Freed

2007-10-27T18:34:00.001-07:00

As most of you who have followed the story probably already know, Genarlow Wilson, the student-athlete who was sentenced to 10 years in prison after his conviction for having oral sex with a 15 year old when he was 17, has been freed. The protests and legal arguments have finally succeeded in undoing a gross miscarriage of justice that followed from the mandatory sentencing. But even though Wilson is freed, the problems that led to his tragic case remain, namely, under-aged drinking and random sexual activity.

When asked on Friday where his welcome home party was being held, Wilson wisely responded that he was staying away from parties for a while. This is because the initial scene of the crime for which he was convicted was a hotel party where alcohol and drugs were consumed by Wilson and his friends. We have to face the facts that across the nation, adults are providing alcohol to teenagers who are far too young and inexperienced to drink legally or responsibly. Studies show that alcohol consumption at early ages predisposes one to alcoholism in adulthood. And high school students across social, economic, racial, and regional lines are being injured physically and emotionally by drinking and by the irresponsible adults who are providing the drinks.

That brings me to the next point. After months of hearing about the Genarlow Wilson case, it was the website What about Our Daughters that brought the full story to my attention. The full story is not a case of a boy and his girlfriend having oral sex and the boy being arrested. The full story involves several boys, at least two girls, and an orgy of sexual activity caught on video. The sexually graphic video captured images of the guys taking turns having intercourse with a 17-year-old girl who was drunk. Although Wilson was acquitted of raping the 17-year-old, his buddies pleaded guilty to sexual battery in connection with their non-consensual contact with her. There is a lesson that we must teach our sons and daughters. We have to protect our children by warning them about the dangers of drug and alcohol impairment. We have to tell them that you can get so drunk that you wake up the next morning not knowing whether you had sex or with whom. And we have to tell our children that they are too valuable to be having sex with someone who doesn't know who they are or what they are doing. Moreover, we have a responsibility to teach them what "consent" means, legally and morally.

Black people especially cannot leave it to the courts or the criminal justice system to sort out our children. We are going to have to get off the dime and begin to have the hard, honest, even graphic conversations that may prevent the kind of hard fall that Genarlow Wilson, his friends, and the two young women all took.

Common Sense?

2007-10-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

I had really decided that I wasn't going to write anymore about Juanita Bynum after my earlier posts. Then my cousin sent me a link to Bynum's website and her new "mentorship" classes. My cousin wanted me to hear Prophetess Bynum's poor taste in humor in the form of a disparaging reference to "short bus people."

I left the site playing long enough to be stunned by Bynum's first advice to her mentees. Buy a name-brand pen, but not a Bic. A Bic, she reasoned, is common and you are too important, your name is too important to be written with a common pen. She continued by bragging that she has paid as much as $5000 for a pen that she uses only for special occasions, such as signing multi-million dollar deals.

This, I thought, is what really endangers Black Christianity. Too many of us actually believe that investing in a pen, or in the offering plate of a prophet(ess), or in playing the lottery number drawn from the pastor's sermon text is the key to unlocking our destiny and purpose. We risk our soul(s), sell our soul(s) for so little because our internal accounting systems are out of kilter. We have no idea what real value is.

In this way, there is very little difference between the "prosperity" propounded by media preachers and the bling-mentality of the underbelly of hip-hop. Both exploit the desperation and depression of their constituencies with promises that are addictive and elusive at the same time. Buy my CDs and videos and you can surmount the obstacles of your everyday living. And even if you can't move out of public housing, you can live vicariously through me. My bling is your bling.

It is true that we don't know what our lives are worth, but it's not because we are using a "common" Bic pen.We don't know what we're worth because we listen to people who think in dollars but no sense.

Come On People

2007-10-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

Pundits and bloggers have been weighing in on the latest offering from Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint, generally by focusing on their appearances on Oprah and Meet the Press last week. I have held off in voicing my opinion because I wanted to read the actual book before commenting.

Now that I've both read the book and watched MTP on the web, I have to express my commendation and my concern. I want to commend Cosby and Poussaint for their role in restoring the conversation about the relative importance of personal behavior and systemic adversity in determining the future of Black people. I appreciate the passion, candor, and caring for Black people that I saw in the book and heard in the interview. I agree wholeheartedly that self-defeating attitudes and irresponsible behavior are crippling some Black people, especially youth. And God knows that as a single,educated Black woman who wants to be married to a Black man, I am heartbroken because of the lost and wasted talent, energy, intelligence of Black men who populate prison or who wander aimlessly.

The book is easy to read, divided into short sections that offer practical instruction about subjects from crime to childrearing, health care to financial management. All of these subjects are intended to speak holistically to the African American condition and respond to the need for guidance that Cosby and Poussaint perceive. Unfortunately, the most nuanced discussions are found at the end of the book, by which time the faint of heart might have already given up on being inspired and instructed rather than simply patronized and insulted.

The tone of the book gives me pause, especially its disdainful dismissal of every countercultural or subcultural aspect of Black life, especially hip hop music and Black English. Although Cosby's life as an entertainer has given him the notoriety that makes his opinions publishable, the rhetorical conventions and the tendency to exaggerate that characterize comedy may be counterproductive to advancing his message.

It is one thing to acknowledge the need for developing skill in standard English, especially when interacting with the dominant culture. It is another to repeat that "You can't land a plane in Rome saying, 'Whassup?'" (7) At such moments, and there are a few in the book, an ugly air of condescension calls the expressions of compassion and concern into question.

I too dislike the fashion statement of jeans so baggy that the underwear is exposed. But the solution is not to heckle the wearer, but rather to demonstrate that modesty is sensible and that different occasions call for different uniforms. It's not true that you can't get a job or can't work a job dressed in urban fashions. The question has to be what kind of job do you want, and are you really willing to do what it takes to grow into a position that will allow you the freedom of artistic expression in your dress.

Ultimately, as I watched Cosby and Poussaint I realized how much this debate exposes a significant generation gap. Oprah's website dubbed Cosby "America's Favorite Dad." But for what generation? The Cosby Show, though in syndication, was for another generation. Cosby's Fatherhood was published in 1987. I wonder whether Cosby and Poussaint have the relationship with their target group that will allow the best parts of their message to take root. Generations past heeded the voice of the elders because they had reason to trust them, not simply because the norms of the community demanded that elders be respected.

There is no doubt that the time of reckoning has come for our community. If we do not address some of the issues that Come On People raises, we will not survive. Despite some weaknesses, Cosby and Poussaint have written a book that is driving that conversation.

Don't Make Your Business Bad

2007-10-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a family in which my mother prided herself on being able to manage her money, however little or much of it there was. (And my dad had the sense to put the finances in her hands.) She faithfully brought her tithes and offerings to the church. She gave what she could when she knew that someone was in need. She saved for the things she wanted, including our annual "vacation", also known as the church convention, and for a "rainy day." She paid cash for almost everything. And when she used credit, she always paid off the bill ahead of time. In fact, she had been so diligent when she was well that we noticed the onset of her dementia because she was no longer sharp when it came to finances. At her best, she handled her business.

I am not knowledgeable enough to say whether our national economy as a whole is healthy or what its prospects are. I do read about record highs in the price of oil, record lows in the value of the dollar, and immeasurable instability in financial markets because of the subprime lending crisis. We have no idea what the long-term financial implications of the Iraq war will be, nor do we know whether and how Social Security will survive the Baby Boomers' retirement and increased longevity. What we do know is that, to paraphrase an old adage, if America gets a cold then Black people will have pneumonia.

Meanwhile, there are too few communal conversations among Black people about money and wealth. And I have a particular concern about the (lack of) treatment of this issue within the church. We have to have conversations about money beyond "Will a man rob God?" during stewardship month. We need to talk about credit. We need to talk about budgets. We need to talk about money in relationships. We need to talk practically about how to buy a house you can pay for, and not just walk around your "dream house" quoting scripture about the promises of God. We need to talk about how not to buy a new car as soon as you pay the old one off. We need to talk about investments, and not just in the ministries of prominent preachers.

"Why in the church?" you may rightly ask. First, because Christians learn about all kinds values in the church. Second, because in the church there are a lot of problematic, erroneous messages about "seeds" and "financial blessings" that need to be debunked theologically and practically. Third, because financial stewardship of our forbears founded and sustained the Black church in the past, and our investment will determine its future. Fourth, because the church is our institution and we can and should make it a center for the empowerment of our people.

I began this post by talking about my mom because she taught me that money is something that you have to handle and manage. When I am tempted to overspend I still hear her caution "Don't make your business bad." I am heeding her advice (mostly). But I recognize that I and others need the tools and information to make our business good and prosperous.

Turn It Off

2007-10-16T05:53:00.000-07:00

Anyone who spends a lot of time online, as I do, will probably have read about the controversy that has arisen over ongoing protests of BET programming. For anyone who missed it, Enough is Enough, a group convened by Rev. Delman Coates,Ph.D. has been picketing the home of BET Executive Debra Lee for the past several weeks to call attention to the degrading and demeaning representations of black people in the media. Not everyone is cheering. Michael Eric Dyson wrote an Op-Ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution sympathizing with the message but objecting to the methods of the group in targeting Lee's home.

Let me say from the outset, that I am generally in support of Coates's aims. The Black community has consistently suffered because of the negative images portrayed in the dominant culture and because of the propensity of some in our community to live down to those images. While I could never understand the desire to become a caricature, some Black people, young and old, work very hard at it. Thus, the question of which came first, the image or the pathology, is a lot harder to answer than either side admits.

But I want to approach this issue from a different vantage point and declare that we watch too much television in the first place. African Americans generally and African American children particularly are known for being television's largest and most faithful audience. Forty percent of African American children reported watching more than 4 hours of television per day. Although the adage that TV watching burns fewer calories than sleeping has been debunked, it is certainly true that TV watching correlates to childhood obesity. And when we are looking for reasons that our children are underperforming in school, then we have to look at TV as a contributing factor.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am no right-wing "personal responsibility" guru. But the crisis in the Black community in education, poverty, and crime is so significant that we are forced to look in every direction for solutions - inward and outward. If we want our children to be successful (and if we as adults want our brains not to turn to mush), then we are going to have to turn the television off. Read a book, do your homework, go for a walk, talk to your family, clean your house, go to bed. Whatever. Just do it without the television for a change. And that means video games too.

When Your Number Comes Up

2007-10-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

I am among the minority of Americans who are against capital punishment. Along with other opponents of the death penalty, I am convinced of the racial bias in prosecutions, concerned about judicial and police error in convictions, and unconvinced of capital punishment's efficacy as a deterrent to heinous criminality. But my deepest objection to the death penalty has to do with the what happens when our government and, by extension, we as citizens become executioners. While I understand the logic of "an eye for an eye, a life for a life" that rationalizes our impulse to exact revenge, I view government and the rule of law as a balance to our individual and collective emotionality, not as the executor of it. At the same time, because my position is a minority one, I live with an awareness that executions take place regularly in this nation, especially in the state of Texas, and I try not to lose sleep over that fact.

But this week in the New York Times, I read an article by Adam Liptak Going to Court, but Not in Time to Live that jarred me and reconfirmed my suspicion that the state as executioner actually feeds the worst impulses in our society and undermines the justice in the justice system. Liptak describes the case of Luther J. Williams who died by lethal injection after the Supreme Court had agreed to hear his case, but before they actually heard it. Apparently, it takes 4 members of the High Court to agree to review a case, but 5 members to stay an execution. Thus, the living and dying of a human being came down to what Liptak calls the "arithmetic of death." Can you stay alive long enough for your final appeal?

In truth, death penalty cases often come down to numbers. How old is the defendant? What is the defendant's IQ? What is the right proportion of chemicals and anesthetics to make an injection lethal without being cruel and unusual punishment? Not to mention the date on the calendar when the sentence of death will be carried out or the number of innocent people who have already been executed.

All of these considerations only intensify my discomfort with state-sponsored death. I don't trust the government, the police, or the courts with that kind of power. The longer I live, the more I sympathize with many victims' families who long for a closure that comes only with the perpetrator's death. At the same, I am increasingly suspicious of the numbers game that brings that finality. And I am profoundly aware that the condemned have families, too.

Being Grateful

2007-10-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

From time to time, I give consideration to the subject of happiness, my own and others'. This kind of reflection is generally prompted by a biblical text that forces me in sermon form to delve into the meaning and elusiveness of joy. Today I am thinking about a sermon I heard last evening that reminded me how prone I am to making myself unhappy by focusing on the negative and a Newsweek article on Deborah Norville's new book about gratitude that made the same point in a more secular context. Bottom line: A key ingredient to happiness is gratitude.

To be sure, there is much that is wrong in and with the world today. Unending conflict in Iraq, escalation of rhetoric as a prelude to war in Iran, genocide in Darfur, oppression in Myanmar, worldwide violence against women, expansion of the prison industrial complex, poverty, not to mention racism, sexism, classism in the society and in the church. But even with all that is bad, with all that needs to be addressed, there is still much good in the world and in my life.

Every day that God sends, there are many reasons for me to give thanks and to know contentment, though not complacency. While there are perhaps a few people who hate me or dislike me intensely, there are far more who love me, affirm my personhood and my gifts, and wish me well. While I have had my share of disappointments, there have been far more moments when I have been pleasantly surprised by extravagant blessings. My life has not turned out to be exactly what I ordered, but mostly that's a good thing. And the truth is that, as a good friend once declared, "happiness is a choice" for me.

As for the evil and wrong in the world, there is still good news in that there remain some activists, thinkers, clergy, grass roots organizers, and even a few politicians who have not yet become callous to the needs of those who suffer. Some courageous people reject racism, sexism, and classism in themselves, in the church, and the community. There are still some people who believe in the possibility of a better life and better world. A world in which everyone would have the luxury I have overused of being unhappy because of the little things.

Why do we tolerate this?

2007-10-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

Growing up in West Virginia with a dad who was glued to our television from season to season and sport to sport, I developed an early loathing for televised athletics. (We only had one TV at that time, back in the dark ages.) What might now be called my interest, maybe bordering on mania, for professional sports derived from being a resident of two very big sports towns during years when the city teams were in playoff contention. I became a Yankees fan during the early years of Derek Jeter, when the Yankees were not only the best team but the best looking team in MLB. (Remember Bernie Williams?) Although they're not as flashy, the nice guys of the Philadelphia Phillies have slowly won my heart and in their worst days caused me to lose sleep.

But I'm not really blogging today to lament a disappointing NLDS for the Phillies. I am simply posing a question for all reasonable people of good will - Why do we continue to support teams with names like "Indians," "Braves," and "Redskins"? Why especially do black people, many of whom still do not eat watermelon in public because of the caricature of our people, tolerate the Sambo-like logo of the Cleveland Indians?

I am rooting against the Indians tonight since they are on the verge of eliminating the Yankees. But I always root against them because of the racist image that dons their uniforms, even after years of protest from Native Americans and their allies. And by the way, I'm not celebrating Columbus Day either.

Clarence Thomas Testifies

2007-10-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

Watching Clarence Thomas’s interview on 60 Minutes (Thank God for YouTube) reminded me again how powerful and misleading testimony can be. There is nothing like hearing someone tell her or his own story, nothing like observing the construction and performance of a person's version of the truth.

Thomas constructed a mythic African American tale, complete with an absent father, a disempowered mother, an infallible grandmother, and, most important of all, a grandfather who dispensed tough love and the will to succeed. As reporter Kroft lobbed questions, much in the way of a defense attorney with his client, Justice Thomas spun a tapestry of adolescent Catholicism, 60s radicalism (loved the picture with the big Afro), early adult disillusionment (the fault of affirmative action), and mature strict-constructionist constitutionality. Despite some missteps along the way, he became a son his grandfather could be proud of, a success story. Horatio Alger lives.

The Clarence Thomas of the 60 Minutes interview is compelling and tragic, having overcome obstacles and defied racists only to end up misunderstood and mistreated, not just by white people but by his own. He has a 15-cent law degree from one of the finest law schools in the country and a not-sure-it’s-worth-it seat on the highest court of the land. That is powerful stuff.

But it is also misleading. If we are to believe his explanation, liberals and Black people dislike him because he thinks for himself and refuses to walk in lockstep. I can only speak for myself, but that’s not why I don’t like Clarence Thomas. I dislike anyone who espouses the kind of judicial conservatism whose colorblindness refuses remedy to people of color, after centuries of systemic racial oppression. I don’t like anyone whose rulings consistently interpret the law to affirm big corporations against little people. I dislike anyone whose judicial philosophy is to the right of Antonin Scalia. And I especially dislike people who benefited from affirmative action to the nth degree and then offer themselves as poster children for the ridiculous position that affirmative action actually hurts black folks. White or black, male or female, I would not like Clarence Thomas the Supreme Court Justice. I don’t proclaim to know the man.

Testimony, in court and in church, is judged on the basis of the speakers’ performance and on facts known by the audience. While Thomas’s 60 Minutes performance gets an A, the testimony of his rulings tells another story.

Suffer the Children

2007-10-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

In an effort to explain his veto of the bill reauthorizing SCHIP (article), the State Children's Health Insurance Program, The Decider repeated his objection that the $35 billion expansion was both too costly and could potentially add children whose parents can afford private insurance to state rolls or, worse yet, that some adults might even be covered. In a statement so ironic that it would be comic if the stakes were not so high, The Decider intoned, "Poor kids first." But Bush's actual commitment, certainly more fervently held than his concern for the poor ,was expressed in his follow-up comment, "Secondly, I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system."

As a person of strong core beliefs and convictions, I can hardly object to the presence of such staunchness in another person, right? I have to respect and even admire that the President recognizes that the buck stops with him, whatever the polls say, right? Wrong!

I am weary of Bush's upside-down convictions. In his warped imagination, stem cell research using soon-to-be-discarded embryos is indefensible. Torture of suspects who have not yet been convicted of anything is a necessary evil. $190 billion for the war effort in 2008, funded God knows how for God knows how long, is advisable. $35 billion dollars over 5 years for children's health insurance, funded by additional cigarette taxation is too expensive.

When asked during the 2000 election presidential primary season what political philosopher he admired most, Bush cited Jesus Christ because "he changed my heart." I guess this is the same heart that believes in private medicine. It doesn't take much heart for a man who has always had access to health care to believe in the system that provides it for him. Real heart, as in the kind that produces compassion, induces a person to examine systems on the basis of who is left out. Perhaps Bush got confused by the King James Version's antiquated language and thought that when Jesus said "Suffer the little children" he meant "make the children suffer."

Whatever has caused this misguided presidential veto, I pray to the Jesus who loves all of the children that the Congress will override it.

Thomas and Hill Redux

2007-10-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

By eerie coincidence Isiah Thomas and the Knicks were found guilty of sexually harassing Anucha Browne Sanders on the same day that Anita Hill published her response to Clarence Thomas's recently released memoir, titled My Grandfather's Son. In the memoir, Justice Thomas seeks simultaneously to vindicate himself and his image and to implicate the liberal establishment in what he claims were Hill's false accusations during his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

In 1991, I was an undergraduate and already much too familiar with the tensions that can plague the relationships between professional Black women and men. I remember vividly the countless conversations in the dining halls of Harvard College that ensued after Anita Hill accused the nominee to the Supreme Court of sexual harassment. I am proud to say that I believed Hill from the beginning, although I admit that I disliked Thomas even before Hill surfaced. More interesting is the fact that most Black people I talked with, male and female, also believed Hill. What we argued about was whether it was ultimately helpful or damaging to the Race (meaning for African American progress) for Hill to have come forward.

I argued then that the Race is only degraded when we cover up Black men's misdeeds, especially when those crimes damage Black women. Black women are not responsible to imperil their physical, spiritual, or professional lives in order to preserve the fiction of a united Black community. And in fact, it is a form of internalized racism to have such a low opinion of Black manhood that we think Clarence Thomas and his ilk are the best we can do when we look for representatives of, in, and for our community.

In 2007, I am struck by how much has changed and how much remains unchanged. Recent events, including the civil trial of Isiah Thomas, the conviction of Michael Vick, and (another) indictment of O.J. Simpson demonstrate that the Black community still struggles with how to respond when famous Black men are accused of wrongdoing. But the ruling holding Isaiah Thomas liable for sexual harassment demonstrates that some things have changed. As Anita Hill herself put it: "Fortunately, we have made progress since 1991. Today, when employees complain of abuse in the workplace, investigators and judges are more likely to examine all the evidence and less likely to simply accept as true the word of those in power."

The Anita Hill who emerges in the New York Times Op-Ed piece is worthy of celebration. Whereas during the hearings she seemed muted and victimized, today her voice resounds like the clarion call of a trumpet. Unlike Thomas, she seeks no vindication, since as she notes, independent authors have already demonstrated that the claims Thomas seeks to resurrect were false. But she does offer a caution, that this unprecedented and obviously bitter outburst by a sitting Supreme Court Justice may portend legal regression if the nation drops its guard.

I (still) hear you, Professor Hill.

How Many Times Can Giuliani Say 9/11

2007-09-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

Try as I may, I cannot keep from tuning in to what might be called the "Religious Dimensions of Presidential Politics, 2008 Edition." Perhaps it is because I bought the later discredited hype that attributed the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004 to the "values" campaign waged by Karl Rove and his anti-abortion, anti-gay political hacks. More likely, my interest is attributable to the ongoing concern I have as a scholar and minister for the representations of the faith that resonate with the majority of Americans who call themselves Christian.

Whatever the sources of my interest, I found myself biting when I read the headline "Giuliani Cites Bible on Personal Life." I wanted to know the limits of pandering in the Giuliani campaign. Would Hizzoner (Emeritus) actually manufacture a relationship with the Christian scriptures in order to bolster a would-be romance with the Christian conservative Republican base? The answer was both a more and less cynical appeal to the heart of his base than I anticipated.

In the first instance, I had to admit that perhaps Giuliani's resort to scripture was not entirely manufactured. Taking his testimony as a true confession, one discovers an adulterer who finds comfort in the refusal of Jesus to stone one such as himself. Although in some sense it is objectionable, this use of scripture is wholly conventional. Many a person living a ragged moral life has intoned, quoting Jesus, "Judge not." In the Black church tradition, this usually manifests as "The Lord knows my heart."

Given the fact that Giuliani has a difficult mountain to climb if he hopes to be the poster-candidate for the family values niche of the Republican base -- what with his public display of marital infidelity while in Gracie Mansion, his estranged children, and his support of abortion rights -- it may be prudent indeed to summons the Savior himself to silence his most judgmental followers. And if that doesn't work, he can tell the public again that his family and faith, though profoundly important in his life, are none of our business.

What was more disturbing than Giuliani's comments about the Bible was his use of "September 11th" as a mantra. In an unforgivably self-serving way, Giuliani constantly reminds his audiences that for him, and presumably for them, 9/11 changed everything. He's prayed a lot since 9/11, and he has to take his wife's calls in the middle of speeches because of 9/11. In effect, he wants America to know that he needs to be President because of 9/11.

What scares me most about this tactic, is that it may actually work. It may be the case that the value most critical to the Republican base in this election will be the strong arm. Pro-Jesus and pro-family may actually be less important than pro-war.

Take Me Home, Country Roads

2007-09-29T13:43:00.002-07:00

The first item in my biographical sketch, used for church programs and speaking engagements, is that I grew up in Gary, West Virginia. More often than not, someone from within the congregation will approach me after the service with the special twinkle in their eye that comes not from a spiritual breakthrough catalyzed by my preaching, but rather from the shared heritage of being a Mountaineer. "I'm from West Virginia, too," they exclaim. After the exchange of specific information about cities and counties, there usually follows a conversation about the joys of being from West Virginia - almost heaven.

Given my origins in Southern West Virginia, I have been disturbed to the point of speechlessness by the accounts of seven captive days of rape and torture inflicted on 20-year-old Megan Williams. Images of this young Black woman forced to endure unspeakable abuse and indignities at the hands of six white people, among them a man and his mother, both sicken me and boggle my mind. I ask, along with the victim's mother and a nation aghast, how could human beings treat another person so cruelly. I cry out for justice, for the criminal acts to be punished and for the victim's personhood to be honored in the local courts, while all of America watches.

Unlike the rest of the nation, however, for me this case does not resurrect or reinforce preconceived notions about the fundamental backwardness of West Virginians. With all of its problems, most of them related to the collapse of industry and accompanying joblessness and poverty, West Virginia is home to some of the best, most generous people I have ever met.

Don't get me wrong, I am not naively pronouncing West Virginia free from the racism that plagues our nation, nor from the tensions that often attend interracial interactions. But I feel the need to say on behalf of all West Virginians, still resident or transplanted, that the West Virginia hills are home, the place were I learned from a community of people, black and white, what it means to be a good neighbor.

Too Much Enthusiasm? Not Again.

2007-09-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

I might be accused of being hyper-sensitive about the subject, and the accusation might even be well-founded, but I am stunned by the recent article in Time magazine which asks the question "Are Mega-Preachers Scandal-Prone?" Now at first blush, if you judge an article by its title, you might wonder what about that assertion impacts me. I don't even have a church, much less a mega-ministry. And I have been known myself to question the integrity of several mega-preachers, generally in private but sometimes in public too.

What raises my ire about the article is the fact that it implies, with the ready assistance of Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, that it is the Pentecostalism of these preachers that introduces the physical and emotional excess that leads to private misbehavior which eventuates in public exposure. Says Mohler, it is "so driven by emotion and by passion" that theological and moral accountability suffer. Thus, though discussing such figures as Swaggart, Bakker, White, and Bynum, who by virtue of their notoriety are hardly typical, the article manages to indict the whole Pentecostal/Charismatic movement.

Now any American religious historian, especially one who studies Pentecostalism as I do, will recognize immediately an argument as old as revivalism in this country. Whenever spiritual fervor has risen to the point where established denominations and authoritative persons cannot contain or control it, the charge of bodily excess and "enthusiasm" has always followed. The charismatic movement is no exception. Even within the history of Pentecostalism, theological debates and disagreements have often led to mudslinging accusations about the personal morality of the theological opponent. After Charles Parham's ouster from the Azusa Mission in 1907, he forever after accused Azusa-style Pentecostals of practicing "free love" and other acts of immorality, usually meaning illicit sex. His opponents, in turn, accused him of sodomy. None of this is new, but that doesn't make it accurate.

Let me expand on the point that Anthea Butler made in the same article, but that Time failed to emphasize, namely, that Pentecostals are no more scandal prone than other denominations. In fact, even the scandalous behavior noted in the article itself is commonplace, not only among Christian clergy but within society at large. Adultery and fiscal mismanagement, domestic violence, and divorce are not "mega-preacher things." The difference in these cases is that the preachers have a national following both before the allegations and after.

As a minister with Pentecostal heritage, but with a wide variety of experience and affiliation among Christian denominations, I am spending a lot of time lately trying to help non-Pentecostals have some accurate perspective on the Pentecostal movement. Time's reiteration of the worn-out thesis that too much emotional content makes religion dangerous and unaccountable does not help.

At the end of the day, being Pentecostal/Charismatic or anointed or in ministry, does not determine whether you will stay married, be faithful, or steal money. But being famous does mean that if you get caught, you'll have a scandal on top of everything else.

Show me the Money

2007-09-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

When the public relations machinery that controls electoral politics in this nation invoked the phrase "compassionate conservative" and attached it to the vision and intentions of the man who would be President (now known as "The Decider"), I was skeptical. All of my life the Republican party, policy and platform, had represented race-baiting. poverty-ignoring, industry-coddling, war-mongering conservatism, completely without compassion. Conservatism of this sort moralized about personal responsibility, enriched the coffers the few who were already rich, and ignored governmental responsibility for promoting the general welfare. But where once I was skeptical, now I am downright angry.

The news this week is dominated by stories of appropriations. Defense Secretary Gates (on behalf of The Decider) is preparing his request for an estimated $190 billion for the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008, one-third more than the original projections. At the same time, a bipartisan effort in Congress is haggling over a bill to extend health coverage to 10 million uninsured American children. The price tag? $35 billion over 5 years. And the haggling is primarily about making the bill sufficiently bipartisan so that enough Republicans will sign onto it and make it veto proof. Why does it need to be veto proof? Because our compassionate conservative Decider has an ideological opposition to federal government intervention in health care, even for the sake of millions of children.

Here's what I don't get. Our government can write a blank check and incur unprecedented debt to intervene uninvited and reorganize a nation halfway around the world in the name of democracy without offending his ideology, but a (cheaper) action to save the lives and promote the health of children at risk in our own nation goes beyond the pale of appropriate federal interference. Big government for war; small government for children. We can afford to remain in Iraq indefinitely, but we cannot insure the children who will ultimately have to pay the debt we are incurring.

In my posts thus far, I have been speaking to Christian-types, church people who I believe need to think more deeply about the issues of our day. And this blog is no exception. I don't hold out much hope for the current President. He is what he is, and does what he does. The challenge actually belongs to the church, the same people who initially felt that the compassion part of the "compassionate conservative" vision could lead to politics that conforms to a fundamentally (not fundamentalist) moral vision. The question for Christians is Have we finally reached the point where we can resist Bush's veneer of Christianity and condemn his policies?

When do we pay attention to the carpenter from Nazareth who observed 2000 years ago that where your treasure is there will your heart be also?

Gaper's Delay

2007-09-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

“The fact is that gossip, rumors, mythmaking, and news stories are not appropriate vehicles for the communication of nuances of truth, those subtle tonalities that are often the truly crucial elements in a causal chain.” -- Chaim Potok My Name is Asher Lev

How absolutely providential for me to begin reading Potok’s novel on the day when Bishop Thomas Weeks III held a press conference to fire back at his wife Juanita Bynum with his opening salvo in the public relations war that has become the end of their marriage.

Before I wax indignantly poetic about the disingenuousness of both Weeks and Bynum who purport to respect the privacy of their marital covenant even as they continue to make it a public spectacle, I need to remember their history. There’s no earthly reason to be surprised that the end of their marriage would be a PR extravaganza, since from the beginning they have publicized it on cable television, first with the announcement of their engagement and then with The Wedding, a million-dollar production rerun periodically in a TBN schedule that includes innumerable other B-movies.

For those who missed it, in a press conference in Atlanta, Weeks read a statement in which he detailed the series of events, beginning in early June 2007 that led to the altercation on August 21^st. What he wanted the audience to know, especially those in his local congregations (pointedly referred to as the “Global Church”), was that every story has two sides. His side, at least the part that his attorneys have permitted him to speak about, is a story of Juanita Bynum’s heartless and decidedly un-pastoral severing of her ties to her husband and to the ministries/congregations that they founded together. His side is that Bynum is far from a saint.

This latest installment of the Juanita and Tommy Show is fascinating, not so much because of the star players whose statements frankly lack originality, but because of the audience responses. Weeks called the press conference because he knew he had an audience, predominantly female like the church itself, waiting with bated breath for the explanation that would make his actions make sense. He must have known that his marriage has become a car wreck and that a whole nation of (black) church people is hanging its collective head out of their car window trying to get a better look and perhaps to see some blood.

The problem with all of this is that it is a distraction. What kind of wife or pastor or even person Bynum was is tangential at best to the central issue of the violence witnesses say Weeks unleashed in that parking lot. I haven’t met a person yet, male or female, who did not have a difficult or even impossible side to their personality. Who isn’t a real pain to live with sometimes? Who doesn’t have irredeemably selfish, thoughtless, cruel and maybe even heartless moments? I find it disturbing that Weeks would design a defense for the public that amounted to character assassination. Of course, the events he narrated might have a role in his criminal defense as mitigating circumstances, but it is a sign that he thinks very little of his (I repeat, mostly female) church audience if he believes that portraying Bynum as a nasty or insensitive person will redeem him in our sight, especially without his taking responsibility for his own loss of control.

With all of that said, there is an even bigger distraction that is a part of this scene. We have collective, ecclesiastical “gaper's delay.” We the public need to understand is that no press conference, sound bite, television appearance, or even memoir is ever going to give us the insight or knowledge that will make this make sense or reveal the truth that is hidden by the public relations machines. What we really need to do is to allow the judge(s) – both in Atlanta and in heaven – to sort out the Bynum-Weeks affair. We have places to go and things to do for the kingdom of God. So let’s get our eyes back on the road that leads to life everlasting and stop holding up traffic.

From Tragedy to Transformation - My Thoughts on the Assault of of Juanita Bynum

2007-09-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago, the church world watched agape as the news of one of its most popular evangelists and her husband hit the airways. In the hottest news since... well, "The Wedding" we heard,"Televangelist assaulted by her Bishop Husband" or so the headline said. The church was reeling, but I believe that some good can and will come out of this tragic and devastating occurrence. Perhaps the church and community will finally come to terms with the universal possibility and the clerical propensity for physical domestic abuse. We should all know by now that being called, gifted, and even effective in ministry in no way innoculates a person against the tests and trials that make life life. And it follows that if we can be tried in the same flames as everyone else, we must also be just as susceptible to being singed. It's only logical. The problem is that too often we forget this most basic lesson, that indeed we are all human and thus vulnerable. We who should know better forget that a vocation signals a holy purpose but does not in and of itself cultivate a thoroughly holy disposition or character. Thinking that we are standing firm above the fray, we become easier, unwitting targets for hard, embarrassing falls.

Whether or not Bynum and Weeks ever had the kind of marriage that warrants their leading marriage seminars and writing best selling advice books we will never know. But even if they once were all that they claimed, their marriage had no armor or coating that prevented the scratches and chinks to which all relationships are vulnerable. Whether Weeks had a history of anger management problems or not is subject to debate. But what is clear is that an unchecked temper and violent rage can lead to devastating violence - devastating to the partner, the perpetrator, and to the church. Furthermore, our humanness occasions not only possibility of our failure but also the responsibility to endure and even profit from the consequences that follow. The most frustrating responses I have read or heard when any leader messes up are those that try to combine "man of God" and "human" to exonerate the leader both before and after the facts are known or to shield him/her for calls for justice in the wake of those facts. "Everyone is human," I hear ad nauseum. True, but adult humans understand that actions have consequences. "He's a man of God. We shouldn't judge." Perhaps, but the Christian faith teaches us that sinful actions (and domestic violence is sin) sow seeds that the perpetrator must reap. Even if respect for the anointing kept David from killing Saul, Saul's own sin occasioned his being deposed and led ultimately to his destruction and death.

We as leaders must exercise integrity. We have to cultivate in private the kind of character that will support our public giftedness. And when we fail and fall, we must have the good grace to be accountable and submit ourselves to a punishment that fits our crime. Wrong doing must always be followed by repentance and repentance includes demonstrable works that signal our desire, where possible, to make reparations. The people need to ask more of themselves and their leaders. And whenever a failure occurs, we all need to remember with compassion and humility that justice is a means of reconciliation and not the opposite of forgiveness.

What in all likelihood will NOT happen because of the events in the parking lot of the Renaissance hotel in Atlanta is transformation of the lives and material circumstances of the millions of women who have been the victims of domestic violence. When I heard about the attack, my first coherent thought (after I had recovered from the shock) was a certain awareness that Juanita Bynum , who has already survived so much, would survive this too. If Bynum's most recent public appearances and comments portend her future, then my initial assessment was correct. But I, along with many others, am skeptical about whether the incorporation of issues of domestic violence into Bynum's ministerial portfolio will advance anyone's cause other than her own. I am not discounting the importance of individual transformation,nor disregarding the power of the preached word, but the cure for domestic violence will not come through pithy sermonic assertions. We need systematic policy and culture change. I am all too afraid that Bynum's brand of deliverance will, to paraphrase Jeremiah, heal the wounds of the daughters superficially and speak peace where there is no peace.

I cannot close without a word on behalf of all the preachers and pastors who simply do the work of ministry. Those who live and labor among the people, but who have been living in the shadow of the glitzy ministries of televangelists and conference promoters. One other good thing that I think could come of this tragedy is that maybe someone in a congregation somewhere will have a fleeting moment of real appreciation for their own pastor who is not glamorous but who is godly.

Getting Started

2007-09-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

I have been challenging myself to think more systematically about the issues that affect my life and community (defined narrowly and broadly depending on the day) and to write consistently so that I have a potential audience for my best thinking. As I see it, there are more than enough talking heads, especially on talk radio, and quite a few writers, but there's far too little thoughtfulness behind the speaking and writing.

Am I trying to improve myself or the world? I'll start with myself, and we'll see what happens to the world. I find that while I feel free and unimpeded when it comes to talking without thinking or researching the facts, I am much more careful about what I write, especially since I recognize that what we say lives forever in cyberspace This blog provides the necessary occasion for keeping it real, which in this context means keeping it accurate rather than simply being blunt.

And that brings me to the loftier goal of affecting other peoples' thinking and conversation. Over the last three weeks, I have been impressed by the impact that certain blogs have on my life, which was actually the catalyst for my considering blogging myself. As I have been pondering, I have also been writing some potential posts and sending them out to friends and colleagues who have, in turn, encouraged me to find a wider audience.

Here I am. Let's see who shows up.