(Traditional) Fathers Don’t Always Know Best
By Kai Wright

The notion that kids can’t develop properly without a biological father was a lie when Dan Quayle asserted it in 1992, and it’s a lie when Barack Obama says it now.

Who’s your daddy? Barack Obama, that’s who. We haven’t seen black family role modeling like this since the Huxtables. Actually, Cliff and Clair couldn’t touch the Obamas—they didn’t have Bo. Still, the president’s not content with his own nuclear family bliss. He really, really wants you to have a great dad, too.

But the problem with Obama’s effort to turn Father’s Day into an annual conversation about the tragedy of failed fathers is that it’s rooted in one of the greatest—and most consequential—lies the Christian right has sold the country: That “traditional” family structures are best equipped to produce healthy kids. The notion that biological fathers are essential to childhood development wasn’t true when Dan Quayle asserted it in 1992, and it won’t become true no matter how eloquently Barack Obama restates it.

“The hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill,” Obama wrote in a beautifully crafted Parade magazine essay last week. “We can do everything possible to provide good jobs and good schools and safe streets for our kids, but it will never be enough to fully make up the difference.”

This is a terribly moving refrain that echoes through all of the president’s rhetoric on fathers—and it’s entirely beside the point. Nobody sane would argue that government can give a child love. That truism, however, does not mean only a gendered dyad of parents are adequately equipped to do so.

To read the rest of the article, click here

While I was driving yesterday, I was listening to NRP's All Things Considered. I could not get out of the car upon reaching my destination until I finished listening to Eric Lewis on keys. He is indescribably talented. I needed to actually see what I was listening to because it was unreal. If there's a modern pianist that can do what seems to be humanly impossible, it is Lewis. Treat yourself and watch the video on NPR's website and the YouTube video below.

From All Things Considered:

Jazz pianist Eric Lewis has been wowing audiences since he was barely able to walk.

He grew up in a household full of pianos and music teachers — both his mother and grandmother taught the entire neighborhood to play. Tinkling keys were the soundtrack of his childhood.

Lewis later won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition and went on to play with jazz luminaries such as Ornette Coleman and Wynton Marsalis. He was a member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

But in recent years, he decided to step out on his own and pursue his vision of what he calls "rock-jazz."

"The idea is that, you know, I'm taking a piece from the pop culture much the same way that Louis Armstrong played 'Hello, Dolly' with Barbra Streisand," Lewis says. "You know, just interfacing in a certain kind of way that allows me to express my ingenuity, versatility, virtuosity without hijacking the sound of the genre and at the same time, preserving the elements of jazz, which are central and beloved."

During a recent performance in NPR's Studio 4A, Lewis spoke with host Michele Norris. Now 36, he's still the same dynamic performer, channeling the intensity of his music with energetic physicality. But as he's embraced popular music, he's also created a new musical identity: ELEW.

"People are used to seeing kids jump around," Lewis says. "You know, the target audience, the audience that's spending money on music, like rock and hip-hop — they're used to seeing people get really physically involved in their music.

"And so my notion is that in order for me to make a living — in order for me to enjoy myself, for that matter — I've got to get more athletically involved," he says. "I've got to show everyone how I feel."

As ELEW, Lewis may be abandoning the traditional jazz repertoire. But he doesn't say that he's abandoning jazz. For example, he pointed out the ragtime underpinnings of a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, comparing Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" with "Sweet Home Alabama."

"Of course, the way the rock [band] does it, it's less emphasized in that overt kind of way," he says. "But the vocabulary on the surface level is very similar."

Lewis ended the interview with his version of "The Diary of Jane," by the alt-rock band Breaking Benjamin.

Lewis's rendition of Evanescence's "Going Under":

From The African American Lectionary:

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION DAY AND JUNETEENTH

LECTIONARY COMMENTARY

Thursday, January 1, 2009
Or Friday, June 19, 2009: Juneteenth

Editorial Note: Since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and Juneteenth share important historical and cultural connections, we explore them under the same lectionary moment. Some congregations will choose to celebrate each of these moments separately on different days. Others will elect to celebrate only one of these moments. Still other churches will combine the celebrations as we have done and celebrate them on January 1 or June 19th.

Yolanda Pierce, Guest Lectionary Commentator
Elmer G. Homrighausen Associate Professor of African American Religion and Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ

Lection - Exodus 15: 20-21 (New Revised Standard Version)
(v.20) Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing. (v.21) And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”

I. Description of the Liturgical Moment

Emancipation Proclamation Day
What a wonderful way to begin this extraordinary new year—talking about freedom. On January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of the bloody and horrific Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring freedom for “all persons held as slaves.” While this was a bold declaration in sentiment, it did not actually free all enslaved persons from bondage, because it applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, thus leaving slavery legal in the border states and in those parts of the Confederacy already under Northern control.

However, the impact of the spirit of the Emancipation Proclamation cannot be denied; it brought the cause of the emancipation of enslaved people to the very heart of this war. Every battle waged after January 1, 1863 struck a blow to the inhumane institution of slavery and advanced the cause of immediate emancipation. Lincoln’s declaration also legitimized the service of black men into the Union Army and Navy, thus allowing the enslaved to be full participants in the struggle for their own freedom. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 African American soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and for freedom.

It wasn’t until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, on December 18, 1865, that slavery was truly abolished. However, the Emancipation Proclamation stands as a great document of human freedom, reminding us that words are powerful tools in striking a blow to injustice, inequality, and oppression everywhere.

Juneteenth
On June 19, 1865, two thousand federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take possession of the state from the Confederacy and enforce the emancipation of enslaved persons living there. Although the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued two years earlier, actual bodily freedom was slow in coming to the lives of the majority of enslaved men and women living in former Confederate strongholds. For a full two and a half years after Lincoln’s famous address, African American men and women in places such as Texas continued to live under the confines of chattel slavery, some of them completely unaware that they were no longer legally under the oppressor’s yoke.

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is the commemoration of this June 19, 1865 freedom event in Texas. And while the celebration of this day originated in Texas, it is now celebrated throughout the United States and in several countries. Usually commemorated in both public and private celebrations, Juneteenth is a festive remembrance of freedom. Whether at a church picnic or a dance festival in the park, Juneteenth has a celebratory flavor as an entire people look back and wonder “how they got over.” For African Americans, more importantly this day represents the continuing legacy of resistance to oppression and our survival and endurance in the face of genocide due to God’s sustaining power and deliverance.

II. Biblical Interpretation for Preaching and Worship: Exodus 15:20-21

Part One: The Contemporary Context of the Interpreter
In the Akan language of Ghana, “sankofa” is a term that translates to “go back and take.” Sankofa symbolizes the action of taking from the past that which is good, and bringing it into the present in order to make positive changes for the future. As we enter a new year, we must retrieve from our past that which was important to our continued survival and our success – even as we approach the future with a new vision. While the African American past is a painful legacy, there is much joy there, as well. Our foremothers and forefathers were able to pass on a love for community, a love for God, and a love for all people, despite their enslavement. What a good way to begin a year—passing on the things which are most important.

As we celebrate emancipation and deliverance, we must do so with a full recognition of the costs of that freedom. In reverence, we cannot forget the sixty million and more who died during the transatlantic slave voyage and the many centuries of slavery. We must remember those who endured second class citizenship under Jim Crow. We must not forget that the battle for freedom is ever waging. In the spirit of the Emancipation Proclamation and in the spirit of Juneteenth, we must declare words of freedom for all who are in bondage, of every creed, color, nation, and persuasion. Chattel slavery in the United States is over, but slavery continues to exist all over the globe, as in Sudan or in the exploitation of migrant workers. When the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, we are called to proclaim liberty to the captive and release to the prisoners (Isaiah 61:1b). Are we doing all that we can to ensure that all people are free? What a good way to begin the year—fighting for freedom for others.

To read the rest of the article, click here

After recently receiving some very disturbing news regarding Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, I have decided to come forward as a Christian and a citizen because such news demands a public outcry. What has occasioned such coming forward is the fact that there are many, including people of color, desiring change within the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Redeemer’s denomination, who are also aware of these (and similar!) problematic matters, yet remain woefully silent. As a Christian, I speak out because the public truth and power of the gospel via its human mediators is at stake. As a citizen, I speak out because every citizen has a responsibility to freely interrogate public claims. As a Christian and citizen, I am even more compelled to speak out when Christian religious figures are involved in public discursive practices that may be bound up with religious meaning and thereby, implicating the Christian faith. And perhaps, as equally important, I have decided to speak up and speak out because Christian love, particularly for those involved, often requires prophetic witness.

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I'm just taking a minute to have a lil "church!" Join me if the Spirit so move!



Thank you, Jesus!

This is a fascinating story to follow for so many different reasons.

From ABCnews.com:

Growing up in a black, Pentecostal family in Cleveland, Alysa Stanton never imagined the day when she would be preparing to be ordained as a Jewish rabbi.

But that day will come June 6 for the single mother who will be ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, becoming the first African-American female rabbi in the world.

"Ten years ago, if someone said I was going to be a rabbi, I would have laughed," Stanton, 45, told ABCnews.com. "Me, a spiritual leader?"

Soon-to-be rabbi Stanton and her daughter Shana, 14, whom she adopted when she was 14 months old, will move to Greenville, N.C., in August, where Stanton will take her spot behind the pulpit at Congregation Bayt Shalom, which is both conservative and reform.

First Female Black Rabbi

Stanton, a reform Jew, said that her mother encouraged her to explore different religions as a young child and that, at the age of 9, she was already asking her priest to teach her about Kaballah, which focuses on the mystical aspect of Judaism.

Then, at age 10, she received her first Hebrew grammar book from her devout Christian uncle who made it a habit to attend Jewish ceremonies, as well as his own. By her early 20s, Stanton said she'd decided to convert.

"Most people convert because they're marrying or dating someone who is Jewish or for another reason other than just picking that spiritual path," Stanton said.

"I did so because it was the path for me," she said. "Not only from a religious standpoint but from an ethical and social and communal standpoint, it was important to me."

Stanton Garners Mixed Reaction from Jewish Community

Twenty percent of the U.S. Jewish population, or about 1.2 million people, are diverse, meaning black, Asian, Latino or mixed race, according to the Institute for Jewish and Community Outreach in San Francisco.

"What's important here is not that this is the first black woman rabbi but rather that it's a symbol of a great change in the American Jewish community, which is becoming much more diverse because of things like conversions, intermarriage and adoption," said Jonathan Sarna, an expert on U.S. Judaism at Brandeis University in Boston.

"That is a change that is really significant," Sarna said. "That a community that even 50 years ago was rather monolithic, so much so that people thought they could look at someone and see if he 'looked Jewish.'

"This is a reminder that the chosen people, so to speak, is not one race or another race but are in fact a range of races," he said. "While Jews remain united by a bond of peoplehood as well as religion, that bond is not characterized in racial terms."

To read the rest of the article, click here

Beloved, with great lament, I must say that far too many black churches—and a certain enterprising preacher from EX Ministries—are casting stones on yet another gifted prophet and artist. Personal Jesus: A Reflection on Tonex is an ode to Tonex’s classic urban anthem. As Kanye West says, folk need to get the roses while they can still smell them. In this case, I am extending an honorary ring pop to Tonex. I will offer musings—some theological, some not—on every song from Pronounced Toe-nay.

Finally, beloved, I want to say one more thing. There is a certain gospel artist who “denounced” Tonex at his live DVD recording. Understood. You are entitled to your own theological opinion. But, and I am sure you probably know this already, your career would not be possible without Tonex. What you said hurt him (I imagine), and pierced my soul with a Psalms-like lament. I do not know if you have apologized to Tonex, but if you have not my brother, you really should. Jesus would.

So glad I know you, and don't know of you
‘Cause you a friend of mine,
I talk to you all the time
So glad I know you, and don’t know of you
You’ve always been by my side
And you’re my personal, personal, Jesus
- Tonex

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I call upon all people of goodwill to support H.R. 1459, the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009. Senator Jim Webb recently sounded the alarm about the brokenness of our prison systems. His pronouncement, of course, is nothing new, but it lends visible and much-needed support to the cause of prison reform. And, to be sure, altering cocaine sentencing policy lies at heart of prison reform.

But why, inquiring citizens ask, should we use every available means at our disposal to contact our respective members of the House Judiciary and House Committee on Energy and Commerce and express support for H.R. 1459? Briefly phrased, cocaine sentencing disparities disproportionately impact minorities, interrogating our national commitment to equal justice under the law. H.R. 1459 aims to alter the Controlled Substances Act and eliminate two things. First, it aims to “eliminate increased penalties for cocaine offenses where the cocaine involved is cocaine base.” And secondly, it aspires to eradicate “minimum mandatory imprisonment penalties for cocaine offenses.” The title of H.R. 1459, Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act, assumes that a gross inequity exists within current sentencing policy (the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, PL 99-570, to be exact). The inequity, referred to by many as the “100:1 quantity ratio”, means that “it takes 100 times more powder cocaine than crack cocaine to trigger…harsh five and ten-year mandatory minimum sentences”. According to a report by the 2009 Criminal Justice Transition Coalition, the disparity, despite being “facially neutral”, unevenly penalizes minorities.

If we are to achieve our country, as the eloquent James Baldwin once said, then policies championed by the White House must not unfairly punish those who go to the crackhouse. If we are to achieve our country, let us call on Vice President Joe Biden, a repentant architect of this sentencing policy, and the White House Office of Urban Policy to proudly and persistently support this bill. All too often, the penal structure of our criminal justice is a modern-day example of unbalanced scales. Although not always in intent, cocaine sentencing consistently—and adversely—impacts minorities in ways that are so horrifically disproportionate that the words of the black bard Tupac Shakur come to mind: “Lady Liberty needs glasses/ And so does Mrs. Justice by her side”. Let us move from aspiring to equal justice under the law to its actuality, and achieve our country by supporting H.R. 1459.

Shoutout to James Rucker and colorofchange.org for being a drum major for justice on this critical issue.

Andew Wilkes

Rev. Dr. Renita J. Weems on religious fundamentalism:

Twenty-five years ago when I was a young zealous seminarian studying to be a minister I slipped an unsigned piece of paper under a professor’s door that read MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN (roughly translated “You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting”). I slipped the Aramaic portent of doom under my professor’s door because I believed the position he’d taken on a particular issue on campus at the time proved that he was unsaved, racist, and evil. I was wrong.

I was wrong for wrenching those words from Daniel 5:25 and using them to repudiate someone I disagreed with.

I was wrong for thinking I knew God well enough to know what plans God had in store for my professor.

Whether my professor was unsaved, racist, and evil, as I believed, or not, I had no business doing what I did. I was wrong for trying to get back at him in that militant sort of way that Christians have for settling scores, namely by hurling random passages from the bible at someone I perceived an enemy.

Worst of all, I was wrong for fanatically believing somehow that I was doing God’s will in slipping that unsigned note under my professor’s door.

Karen Armstrong, a celebrated historian of religion, is someone I turn to when I want to understand why religious people do the things they do. Especially religious fundamentalists. Armstrong focuses on the rise of religious fundamentalist movements in the 20th century in her book, The Battle for God which is a great way for describing what fuels fundamentalism whether it’s Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, or Islamic fundamentalism.

Writing about all three fundamentalist movements, says Armstrong: “They are embattled forms of spirituality, which have emerged as a response to a perceived crisis. They are engaged in a conflict with enemies whose secularist policies and beliefs seem inimical to religion itself. Fundamentalists do not regard this battle as a conventional political struggle, but experience it as a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil.”

I certainly saw myself as in a battle with my professor for the soul of our campus. I was convinced, along with other students who shared my religious beliefs, that the battle we were in with the administration was larger than the parties involved, that it was a battle between the forces of God verses the forces of, well, the “un-God.” It was “us” vs. “them,” and, believe me, it feels intoxicating to believe it’s you and God against the world.

However imperfect the word “fundamentalism” may be for describing such a complex phenomenon, it’s as good as any when it comes to trying to capture a position that sees modernity as a threat to God and that urges a return to some idealized past and set of doctrines steeped in a world that’s long gone.

Here’s what I know for sure as a former fundamentalist.

It’s a short bus ride from fundamentalism to fanaticism.

What I mean is that fundamentalists love reading tea leaves. Tragedy and misfortune are a specialty. In fundamentalism, all adversity is a test. Every disagreement is a battle. Every difference of an opinion has cosmic implications. Which explains why fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were quick to get on the news and proclaim that the collapse of the World Trade Center was God’s judgment for the sins of the secular humanists in the U.S.

Whether it’s flying planes into buildings, gunning down medical personnel who work in abortion clinics, strapping on bombs and detonating them in synagogues and mosques, assassinating heads-of-state and toppling governments, brandishing guns and bats at church meetings, labeling those whom you disagree with theologically as evil or the devil, slipping notes of condemnation under a seminary professor’s door, or dashing off long, rambling emails filled with bible verses masquerading as prophecies (of doom) – fanatics are not only convinced that they know God’s will. Fanatics convince themselves that they are doing God a favor by the cruel, unloving acts they commit “against the enemies of God.”

Thinking back on it now, when I wrote my third book, Listening For God, I was not, as the jacket cover says, writing simply about the waxing and waning of the faith. I was writing about the death for me of a particular kind of faith. I still believed in God. I just no longer believed in the kind of God I once believed in. I still read my bible, I just stopped asking it for answers it was never meant to yield. I still believed myself to be a Christian. I just no longer believed there was only one way to be a Christian. That is a hard realization to awaken to when you’re a young black girl from the Protestant south. Things were no longer either black or white, so to speak. And that was a kind of death for me. I still loved and longed for God, and still do. There’s just no place in my heart for a particular sort of belief anymore.

Instead of demonizing him, I should have made an appointment with my professor and talked to him about our differences. I should have risked hearing him out. I should have tried to find common ground. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to see the world through his eyes. I didn’t want to understand him. Above all, I didn’t want him to see how scared I was of him. I wanted to be in the right, and in order for that to happen, someone had to be wrong.

I’ve been in lots of other ideological scuffles since I slipped that note under my professor’s door. I’ve even lived long enough now to become the professor who walks in to find anonymous slips of paper under her door and anonymous emails filled with God talk in her box. When I’m feeling charitable, I smile and remember. I remember what it feels like to be zealous for God. I also remember what it feels to use God to mask your fears.

What made you change? someone wants to know right now. If only, there were simple answers. What makes anyone change? Life. And being open to mystery. As well as being open to contradictions and being wrong, I suppose.

A few years after I slipped that note with the words MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN under my professor’s door, his wife got sick and died a slow painful death. A short time after that, so did my mother

I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Peter McLaren speak on a “Critical Pedagogy for the 21st Century”, at the St. Louis University (St. Louis, MO) on Monday, March 30. McLaren is a professor at UCLA. He shared some things that got me thinking.

McLaren is a confessed humanist Marxist/socialist. Socialists vary in their views on justice but here are some commonly shared commitments:

1. Commitment to the public ownership of all means of production (unlike the libertarian who favors economic system based on individual rights; under this laissez-faire capitalism, all means of production are privately owned and there is a totally free market) and;

2. Commitment to the idea of equality; both moral equality (everyone’s life matters) and equality of condition (equality of opportunity, equal satisfaction of needs, and other factors that foster greater social equality). Socialists would argue that limitations on certain economic liberties are justified to promote equality.

[For more on the topic of libertarian (or individualistic), socialist and liberal views of justice, see Social Ethics, Mappes and Zembaty, Chapter 8, Social and Economic Justice, p. 371-73.]

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