Faith in Action

Hat Tip: Washington Post

Gambling Away Our Principles
Sunday, May 18, 2008; B08

It is easy to get caught up in the false promise of slots — of easy money and a quick fix to all that ails Maryland. But the simple truth is that Maryland can’t win and that Marylanders will lose if slots are legalized.

Gambling is becoming an increasingly pervasive element of American society, and legalizing slot machines in the state would be one more example of our society’s eagerness to abandon hard work and ingenuity in favor of a Band-Aid for a gaping wound. Encouraging gambling in our communities would be irresponsible and would result in lasting and irreversible harm.

Proponents of slots contend that their legalization would help finance public education. We ask: What lessons are we teaching our children? That they should throw hard-earned money away in the false hope of a big payday? Those who say slots will create revenue for the state don’t acknowledge the catastrophic ramifications of such a decision. For the state to win, the player must lose. As people of faith, we are called on to speak out to protect Maryland from the insidious vice of gambling.

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Revolutionary Freedom Fighter, George Jackson, said:

“The ruling clique approaches its task with a “what to think” program; the vanguard elements have the much more difficult of promoting “how to think.”

And that conceptual statement guides me as I lead the Bible Study at the church where I am blessed to serve as Pastor - Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Northeast Baltimore.

Bible Study has never been something that I’ve been overwhelming excited about namely because in my many experiences it has been either an opportunity for the Pastor to “preach” a lesson or it has looked like a facilitator standing in front of the audience telling them what they should think with very little meaningful interaction. I always said that if I ever became a Pastor that I would have a Bible Study that folks would want to come to.

So far we’re well on our way to creating that type of study experience. Pleasant Hope Baptist Church is on track to have the most dangerous Bible Study in Baltimore simply because I push the people to THINK. I don’t answer a whole lot of questions. I help folks to re-read the scriptures with “fresh eyes” and question what they read. I dissuade them from taking anything they read in the Bible at face value. EVERYTHING is open to questioning, criticism, challenge.

We read the scripture in its context understanding that it was written at a certain time, in a certain location, by a certain person (or persons) within a certain culture, for a certain reason.

The amazing thing is that as we engage in textual criticism and exegete the text in a way that honors the scripture’s original meaning (or likely meaning), my students then begin to draw parallels between the context and/or meaning of the passage we’re studying and their everyday realities.

Two weeks ago as we were studying the persecution of Jesus a discussion was born about the persecution of so many others who stood up against the status quo power structure and were viewed as a threat capable of organizing the masses thus necessitating their assassination or exile. It was such an invigorating discussion. It eventually led to us analyzing the Roman Empire and the Religious Order of Jesus’ time and looking at Baltimore’s Government and Shadow Government today. (We love dealing with “problem texts” by the way - like when Jesus called the syrophoenician woman a dog.)

In addition, we’ve started our studies off with warm up activities designed to get people’s juices flowing. We started with analyzing a Baltimore Sun article one night, we played a Jill Scott song the following week, and we read a Paul Lawrence Dunbar poem the following week. Who knows I might drop some Kanye West on them next time. They don’t know what to expect from week to week. I keep people on their toes and prayerfully am helping them to realize that critical study of the Holy Writ is just as much an act of worship as singing songs on Sunday morning.

We even have the teens coming out to Bible Study faithfully…and bringing their friends!

As we continue in our time of weekly critical study, it is obvious to me that this group will be a very dangerous sect of Believers. They won’t be walking around talking about “Bless me indeed” and “enlarge my territory” while hiding behind sofas when the Jehovah Witnesses knock on their doors.

They’ll be walking around with a heightened awareness of how the revolutionary message of God’s love toward humanity was understood over the centuries and how it applies to their lives and responsibilities to community today.

This Bible Study is a Bad Mutha - Shut yo’ mouth! What? I’m only talking about the MOST DANGEROUS BIBLE STUDY IN BALTIMORE!

Be there!

Every Tuesday 7:00PM
Pleasant Hope Baptist Church
430 E. Belvedere Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21212
(410) 435-0851

This sermon got Father Mike removed from his church - the Faith Community of St. Sabina. To their credit, the St. Sabina family is standing with their pastor. Mary Mitchell writes an interesting article in the Chicago Sun-Times about this situation pointing out that Cardinal Francis George moved slow to remove a pedophile priest, but with great haste pushed Father Mike to the side!

I’m putting the finishing touches on my presentation which I will share at The Johns Hopkins 58th Institute for Spirituality and Medicine. The conference started Monday, May 12th and will continue until Wednesday, May 14, 2008. National and local presenters have converged on Charm City to talk about “Violence and the Challenge of Healing in Our Communities.”

Notables such as Rev. Eugene Rivers (Boston), Bishop Doug Miles (Baltimore), Dr. David Kennedy, Dr. Harold Carter, Sr., Rev. Karen Brau, Pastor Billy Stanfield, and a whole slew of others are sharing on a variety of topics.

I’m honored to be invited to present on the topic “Faith in Action: Examining Religious Outreach and Activism in Baltimore.” I’ll be profiling some members of the clergy and Faith communities who have welcomed the expression of their Faith beyond the boundaries of their sanctuaries. Contrary to the opinion of some, Baltimore has a very rich history of religious civic engagement and only as of late have we as a community drifted from our roots and centered moreso on a gospel that speaks primarily to a middle class who is hungry for personal advancement at the expense of social justice for the marginalized.

Hopefully, my presentation will resurrect and rehash the legacies of those strong clergy women and men who have, in days past, pointed the way to the Beloved Community.

Here is a short video (about 12 min.) that I will be sharing as a part of my presentation.

Hat Tip: Baltimore Sun

Debt cancellation a victory for the world
By Desmond Tutu

Last month, the House of Representatives showed leadership in the fight against global poverty by passing the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation, which would extend lifesaving debt cancellation to more poor nations around the globe.

Too many of the world’s poor children needlessly starve or go without education because too many impoverished nations - even after the laudable debt relief provided to date - are still funneling scarce resources to multilateral banks instead of paying for needs at home.

The world community has found crushing debt to be akin to a modern-day apartheid, and has responded with debt cancellation. Unjust debt leaves developing nations at the behest of the powerful. Shall we let the children of Africa and Asia die of curable disease, prevent them from going to school and limit their opportunities for meaningful work - all to pay off unjust and illegitimate loans made to their forefathers?

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Hat Tip: Baltimore Sun

Black preachers agree to disagree
Area pastors react differently to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. scandal

By Kelly Brewington
Sun reporter
May 1, 2008

The Rev. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr. considers the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. to be a tremendous pastor and a brilliant theologian. But sitting in the audience of the National Press Club in Washington this week, Hathaway found himself wincing at some of the remarks by Sen. Barack Obama’s embattled former pastor.

“When Jeremiah Wright says an attack on him is ‘an attack on the black church,’ that’s kind of stretching things,” said Hathaway, pastor of Baltimore’s Union Baptist Church. “I think it’s potentially dangerous.”

He is not the only one who thought so.

On Tuesday, Obama condemned Wright’s remarks, characterizing them as disrespectful, offensive and not accurately portraying the perspective of black churches.

Wright’s plunge back into the national spotlight - in which he has defended his fiery remarks, praised the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan and accused the media of distorting his words - has sparked an intense reaction in Baltimore’s black faith community. Some pastors assert that Wright is not the spokesman of the black religious tradition - one as diverse as the black community itself.

Others have defended Wright’s remarks as rooted in a rich history of black ministers using the pulpit to challenge injustices. They fear that the Wright backlash has overshadowed the black churches’ history, value and good deeds.

“Many of us pastors are pained,” said the Rev. Johnny Golden, pastor of New Unity Church Ministries in Baltimore and president-elect of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance. “We see a lot of what he is saying and we understand it, but his comments have wounded the opportunity of Mr. Obama to make gains and opportunity for America to embrace its ideals.”

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Tuesday I watched youtube videos of Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s presentation at the National Press Club kicking off the Legislative Days of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Pastor’s Conference. After watching them and Wright’s presentation live on CNN Sunday night at the Detroit NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet, I must say that he did a fantastic job of carefully explaining the particulars of Black Liberation Theology and the prophetic tradition in America. I especially appreciated his NAACP presentation Sunday night where he spoke masterfully about differences being just that - differences, not deficiencies. For the past few days, White America has been exposed to a fabric of Black Religious Life that it rarely, if ever, sees. As Dr. Wright said, the Black Church is much like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man - mainstream culture is trained not to see it and when glimpses of it appear, the conclusion is that it is something backward, loud, and uncouth.

While I’m sure that White America brought its own biases to Wright’s presentation (mainly because of corporate-controlled fascist media’s mission to control and shape the thoughts of the masses), those who came with an open mind saw a different (not deficient) line of thought, life, and belief that all too often flows in the undercurrent of mainstream America.

While I agree with others who have expressed appreciation of Wright’s words, it’s interesting to see how, White America aside, some African Americans are expressing radically different sentiments about the Reverend’s presentation.

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Hat Tip: Baltimore Politics Examiner/Adam Meister

Separation of Church and State does not exist in Baltimore
By Adam Meister

Drive around Baltimore and you will notice that there are a lot of churches. Some are in large magnificent buildings while others are in run down storefronts or rowhouses. Most of them are tax exempt in one way or another. Many are considered 501(c)(3) organizations. 501(c)(3) organizations are not allowed to give political endorsements or aid to specific candidates. This law is ignored in Baltimore. Most of the so-called “serious candidates” for local office attend services every Sunday during campaign season. It is an unofficial rule of Baltimore campaigning to befriend as many local pastors (who usually live outside of Baltimore) as possible. They give you the support of their followers and you eventually reward them once you are in power.

I have no problem with churches collecting money to support prayer services and activities that pertain to goodwill, charity, and worship. I do have problems with churches that become huge tax exempt businesses that suck money away from parishioners. I have a problem with religion taking control of government and the elimination of the separation of church and state inside of Baltimore.

Do you find it troubling that supposedly neutral religious institutions yield so much power in a city so desperate for tax revenue?

Here are some interesting links about the power and powerful members of one particular church:

Church Power

Three new members nominated to the Board by O’Malley

Faith-based Community in Baltimore wants a new role in real estate

I just received word that Dr. Jeremiah Wright will be delivering the 11AM morning message this Sunday, April 13, 2008 at the Historic Bank Street Memorial Baptist Church (Norfolk, VA) where the pastor is Rev. William Dixon.

I’m sure that Wright’s phone is blowing up these days so I wondered how Bank Street confirmed him for this Sunday. According to this article, Bank Street has the hookup. Someone from the church is related to Dr. Wright and the church will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Booster’s Ministry.

Kudos to my seminary brother, William Dixon for bringing Dr. Wright to the Norfolk area.

Unfortunately, however not everyone considers Dr. Wright’s presence in Norfolk a blessing. Of course you expect certain folks to frown upon his coming, but another African American pastor?!? Oh come on.

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