ReligionDispatches.org

The myth of American success is one of the most enduring ideals of this nation. Wrapped in the language of liberty and freedom, this myth promulgates the belief that every person born in America is afforded a clean slate of equal opportunity. Though this myth has adjusted itself to each generation, two themes remain consistent: Neither family lineage nor class can control one’s destiny. And moral virtue and personal character determine one’s success in life. This is why the narratives of self-made men and women are a central part of American culture and religious life. (But so are Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny!)

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Last week about 150 formerly imprisoned persons walked across the stage of the Potter’s House Church in Dallas donning a green cap and gown. They joined the ranks of nearly a thousand ex-inmates who have graduated from the 12-month Texas Offenders Re-entry Initiative program (TORI) since 2005. Begun as a reentry mentoring ministry by famed televangelist Bishop T.D. Jakes, the now public/private partnership program seeks to curb recidivism by offering a wide range of services such as psychological counseling, treatment for addiction, job training and housing assistance.  

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Much ado has been made about Senator Harry Reid’s racially anachronistic yet somewhat accurate description of the American electorate when it comes to racial preference. An African American of a lighter hue who belies all of the cultural markers that are often associated with “blackness” has a better chance of broad success in America. Well, as someone of “Negro dialect” might say, “No S*%t Sherlock!”

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Granville Oral Roberts was first and foremost a showman. Some may take issue with such a claim, especially those who revered him as a minister of the gospel. Yet I am not sure “Brother Oral” himself would.

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The headline of Sunday’s Los Angeles Times business section declared, “Being frugal is back in fashion.” It seems that as a consequence of the Great Recession, an increasing number of Americans are beginning to reject the hyper-consumerist and crapulent tendencies of the past few decades. The national savings rate is up, apparel spending is down, and personal debt remains on a month-to-month decline. As one article respondent put it, “Solvent is sexy!”

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A new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that Americans continue to view the GOP as friendlier toward religion than the Democratic Party. Forty-eight percent of persons polled regard Republicans as friendly versus twenty-nine percent of those who regard the Democrats in such a way.

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So is it ever too early to start teaching our children the truth about history? Particularly when this truth reveals the horrors of our nation’s “discovery”? Hmmm. I don’t know. I am far from an authority on early childhood development. But conventional thinking seems to suggest that telling young children the truth about violent conquest of the early settlers, the genocide of Native Americans, and the blood-stained land on which this nation was built would be too damaging for young minds. Hence, we must dress them up as “benevolent” Pilgrims and happy-go-lucky Indians every year at this time to teach moral lessons about sharing, hospitality and generosity.  

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This month’s feature story in the Atlantic is a classic case of great article, horrible title! It’s a great story insofar as Hanna Rosin carefully makes the appropriate connections between the sort of hyper-consumerist, greed-induced, Mcmansion sensibility that fueled both the housing crisis, and the explicit and implicit messages of the prosperity gospel in America. The latter is indeed an important ideological cog in a larger culture of American optimism, excess and indulgence that dates back to the late 19th century.

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Last week, Rev. Bernice King, youngest daughter of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King was named the 7th president of the organization her father founded in 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Since Martin King’s assassination in 1968, the organization, largely built around King’s own personal charisma, ingenious imagination and unflappable moral courage, has struggled to find its way.

Sure it has had its high moments. The community violence prevention programs under the ever-affable Joseph Lowery come to mind. Yet the SCLC has engaged in a game of musical chairs at the presidential level over the past decade (including Martin Luther King III’s conflict-laden stint as president), that has made the organization about as relevant as a Lou Rawls 8-track tape.  

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This week, Bring Change 2 Mind.org launched a national campaign of public service announcements to raise awareness concerning mental illness. Though one in six adults and one in ten children suffer from a range of illnesses such as schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and clinical depression, often these treatable conditions are ignored and denied. Reasons vary as to why this is the case. But in too many cases it has to do with the social, cultural and religious stigma that persons associate with mental illness.

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The great theologian and mystic Howard Thurman once described his undergraduate institution, Morehouse College, as holding a crown above the heads of her students that she challenges them to grow tall enough to wear. This comes to mind in regards to President Obama being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

It seems a little oxymoronic that one can be both a wartime president (even attempting to escalate one war in Afghanistan) and be a peace prize winner. Just as this award should not be reduced to an indictment against the egregious practices of President Obama’s predecessor it should be based on one’s own proven record of promoting the cause of peace and justice. And, in my humble opinion, the jury is still out on our current president. Understandably so.

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As the father of young children I consider this family history more these days. Like many parents I desire my offspring to know the story from which their lives extend. Yet, like many people whose foreparents experienced and endured enslavement, genocide and Holocaust, I wrestle with how to tell such a tragic tale. I am a descendant of Africans enslaved in this nation. This is part of my heritage. It is indeed my family history.  

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At their annual denomination meeting this week the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A. elected the Reverend Julius R. Scruggs to be the next president of the largest religious body of African Americans in the nation. Rev. Scruggs’s victory came as little surprise to those who have been following this year’s presidential race. The Alabama pastor and former convention vice president soundly defeated his opponent 4,076 votes to 924 as expected. Yet persons unfamiliar with this particular body of Baptists may just be amazed to discover that Rev. Scruggs’ defeated opponent was Rev. Henry J. Lyons, past president of the NBC who was imprisoned earlier this decade for stealing millions from the denomination.

Some may recall that Lyons’s corrupt dealing as convention president were exposed in 1997 after his then wife discovered and set ablaze a $700,000 Florida home that he owned with his mistress. The arson set off a full-scale financial investigation revealing that Lyons had used his position to bilk major corporations and charities out of over $5 million. Lyons subsequently pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft and tax evasion.

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The Power of Bad Faith! Prophesying a "Death Panel" for Health Care Reform

Faith is a positive factor in the world of most!

Faith creates and contributes to a certain buoyancy of life. And the kind of faith of which I am referring is hardly limited to or in the sole possession of those who subscribe to an organized religion. Rather it is the human capacity to eke out a vision of positive change despite negative evidence to the contrary. Positive faith allows us to summon our better angels while resisting our base temptations.

Faith can be a beautiful thing!

It doesn’t have to be, however. Faith is a neutral category. Just as one’s faith can foster attitudes of sincere hope and sober optimism, it can also cultivate defeatist dispositions and pessimistic postures. It’s like the proverbial half full or empty glass. Some may believe in what’s possible while others commit themselves to cynicism and the status quo. It’s this latter type of negative faith that has led too many down the path of self-inflicted demise. This is how I interpret the otherwise illogical responses to America’s current health care debate.

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Christian preachers have long served as ideological conduits channeling political and philosophical currents from the powers that be to the masses. This is true for both the political right and left. Hence when I hear persons assert that preachers should “keep politics out of the pulpit,” I interpret this as a vacuous request. Asking a preacher to refrain from politics is like asking water not to be wet. Despite claims of “private spirituality” that have become commonplace, religion is, and will always be, a public matter. How folk interpret sacred texts, the role of God in the world, and/or the form and function of the sacred informs political choices and helps to determine their support or opposition for a particular cause.

I will admit, however, that at times religious beliefs and political conclusions can be as out of sync as Mike Huckabee doing the electric slide. This is what I noticed last week while attending the Southwest Believers Convention hosted by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland.

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Former Atlanta Falcon pro-bowl quarterback Michael Vick did not make a mistake. He made terrible choices! He organized and operated a heinous interstate dog-fighting ring. He brought public shame upon his family’s name, and disappointed his teammates and millions of fans. And for his sins he has paid a price. He served a two-year federal prison term and lost over 100 million dollars in income.

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In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as a regional offshoot of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). The aim of the organization was to build upon and move beyond the MIA’s successful bus boycott by promoting nonviolent mass resistance as a means of disrupting systems of segregation throughout the South.

Though evangelical in origin (its motto was “to redeem the soul of America!”) the organization was inclusive in practice. Persons were welcome regardless of race, religion or even sexual orientation; i.e., Stanley Levinson (Jewish), Ella Baker (religiously indifferent) and Bayard Rustin (black, gay, Quaker). The SCLC was based on King’s notion of “Beloved Community” and the morally consistent maxim that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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After weeks of speculation, the New York Times reports today that the Rev. Brad Braxton has resigned his position as pastor of Riverside Church in Manhattan.

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Many progressives have compared and contrasted the contemporary fight for same-sex marriage with the black freedom struggle. The shared quests for equal justice under the law and civil rights protections have been affirmed, even as others of us question the political expediency of direct correlations and uncritical appropriations.  

Calls for historical and contextual specificity, however, should not trump coalition building. While it may be too glib to declare gay the new black, we must acknowledge that to be gay and/or a person of color is to be queer in the American cultural context. Over at Killing the Buddha, informed by the indomitable courage of civil rights icon Bayard Rustin, the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou makes this case with analytic sophistication and intellectual precision.

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Famed televangelist Creflo Dollar and his son Jeremy Dollar were accused in a California court yesterday of fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets and a dozen other charges related to the ministry’s text messaging service.

According to Devone Lawson of Marina del Ray, California, in 2004, long before the explosion of SMS text messaging, he began working with the Dollar family to develop a program that would “generate tremendous income from mass SMS text messaging of ‘devotional’ or ‘inspirational’ messages delivered daily to subscribers’ cell phones.”

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Over 2,000 persons began the week marching through the streets of Southern California’s San Fernando Valley in order to raise money and awareness concerning genocide in the Sudan. “Walk for Darfur” is organized each year by the Jewish World Watch. The crowd was comprised primarily of members from about 60 area synagogues, yet was led by about a dozen Sudanese from Arizona.

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A couple of decades back few could rise higher than Carlton Pearson. The fourth generation Pentecostal mister and former protégé of legendary televangelist Oral Roberts led one of the largest congregations in Tulsa, had the highest rated show on Trinity Broadcasting Network, and was considered a king/queen-maker among aspiring televangelists and gospel artists alike. Pearson was indeed a family boss within the sanctified-Soprano culture of evangelical Christian broadcasting. Everyone who aspired to be anyone desired to get near him. His annual AZUSA conference introduced a larger public to then lesser-known evangelists like Joyce Meyer, Myles Monroe and Bishop T.D. Jakes. And having the opportunity to preach or sing from his pulpit almost guaranteed evangelical acclaim and financial gain.

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On Monday, 9.8 million Americans tuned into the otherwise obscure TLC for the season 5 premiere of Jon & Kate Plus Eight. I suspect most could care less about witnessing a normal day in the life of this reality-television family comprised of twins and sextuplets. The ratings were certainly fueled by the tabloid drama currently following John and Kate Gosselin. Rumors of infidelity, verbal abuse and impending divorce have turned this otherwise family friendly show into a reality-based soap opera.

The very next day, however, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8 outlawing same sex marriage. Rather than following the lead of Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine (as well as New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire that are leaning toward honoring gay nuptials), California elected to allow a heterosexual majority dictate and determine the freedoms and protections of a gay and lesbian minority.

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Today we celebrate what would have been Malcolm X’s 84th birthday. Malcolm’s hatred of white supremacy and love for black people cause many to misinterpret his legacy. Conservatives often frame him as a truculent hate monger. Some African American neo-nationalists honor him as a rifle toting peerless example of “strong” black masculinity. And others have flipped him into a mere commodified image on a t-shirt that can turn a quick profit at a street fair.

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Last week the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life released poll data revealing the relationships between religious commitment and support for the use of torture against terror suspects. Those who rarely attend religious services are the least likely to support torture. The more one attends religious service, the greater the level of support. And white evangelical Protestants offered the greatest amount of support for torture with a majority (62%) of respondents believing that torture can at least sometimes be justified.

I am sickened but not terribly shocked.

This glib view of the brutality and inhumanity of torture is bound up in a particular strand of American Christian theology that’s been a growing force for over a century.

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