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I don’t know, man. I’m just very leery of a cozy relationship between the church and corporations. Not to say that it shouldn’t happen in all cases, but once corporate dollars enter the church’s purse at a significant level, the door is open for them to wield their influence.
For example, here in Maryland near the historic African American community of Turners Station, I know that Honeywell International, Inc., a diversified technology and manufacturing company, is responsible for cleaning up 3 million tons of toxic waste.
Its successor company, Allied Chemical dumped 3 million tons of Chromium near neighborhoods. Certain types of chromium is known to cause respiratory problems, kidney and liver damage, lung cancer, and a host of other physical diseases. This type of environmental racism is nothing new for Honeywell. Consider this excerpt about their environmental practices:
Honeywell ranks 44th in a list of U.S. corporations most responsible for air pollution, releasing more than 4.25 million kg (9.4 million pounds) of toxins per year into the air. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, no corporation has been linked to a greater number of Superfund toxic waste sites than has Honeywell. In 2001, Honeywell agreed to pay $150,000 in civil penalties and to perform $772,000 worth of reparations for environmental violations involving:
failure to prevent or repair leaks of hazardous organic pollutants into the air failure to repair or report refrigeration equipment containing chlorofluorocarbons inadequate reporting of benzene, ammonia, nitrogen oxide, dichlorodifluoromethane, sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide, and caprolactam emissions
(Daaang! Anybody got the number for Captain Planet?)
Poor folks and People of Color don’t have to go to Beijing to experience crippling pollution. We can find it right in our backyards!
Back in 2006, the State Department of the Environment agreed to give Honeywell 17 years or more to clean up the toxic waste. Since then, Honeywell has been cozying up to the locals down in Turners Station and the surrounding community sponsoring home renovations for residents, school renovation/construction projects, etc. through their Hometown Solutions program. I even hear that one church down in Turners Station allowed Honeywell to hang their corporate banner over their front door!
This type of “positive PR behavior” is not new for corporations. They will often throw out a few trinkets to the community in an effort to silence dissident voices and shade gross illegal or unethical practices. They figure if they throw you a bone, you’ll shut up. Not everyone will shut up, but enough will to essentially isolate the “troublemakers.”
How can the church utilize its prophetic voice on social issues if that voice is underwritten by corporate funding or sustained by government contracts? Is there a way to balance the church’s fiscal relationships with outside entities in a way that won’t compromise our divine mandate?
August 13th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Truly, the Kings and Priests are in bed together. Even Bishop Jakes declared a few years ago that the church is a business. And all of us have witnessed the manner in which churches are governered today by incorporating the practices and policies of the worldly systems.
The American Capitalist Church is in danger of being fully engulfed by the spirit of the world, for as we discussed it the other day we are not only accepting the world’s macroeconomics, we have accepted the world’s art forms, having incorporated them into our church services. Dating back to to Jim Baker and the late Reverend J. Falwell, the practice of hostile church takeovers has become an all to uncommon practice.
I can remember a commercial advertisement on TV about 5 years ago that featured Douglass Miller and other gospels singers. This musical event was to be held in the Bahamas, and in the television commercial you could see all of God’s modest Christian females running across the beach in their bikinis.
More and more, when the world requires a standard to model and one that is different from the world, it cannot look to the church. Instead, the church has elected to follow after the model that has been set by the world! I can hear the lyrics to Michael’s son in the background, ‘WE ARE THE WORLD…’!
The Bill Moyers show issued a warning last week to black Americans who plan to acquire affinity cards from from the National Association of Black Mayors, SCLC and CORE. The financial sponsors, that our civic rights organizations are colluding with are known predator organizations that are known to be exploiters of the impoverished!