Category Archives: Religion and Church

America’s White Male Republican Evangelical Magical “Thinking” Racist Problem Is ALL of Our Problem

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From OUR COMMON GROUND Voice, Frank Schaeffer

America’s White Male Republican Evangelical Magical “Thinking” Racist Problem Is ALL of Our Problem

January 3, 2013 By Frank Schaeffer

The American political process is being hijacked by a reckless, whining dangerous gang of psychologically damaged white men who are far right ideologues. I used to be one of them. It’s time to tell the truth about our white male problem.

NO– not everyone who disagrees with the president is a racist! Not even most people who do are! But the continuous attempt by the far white right in Congress to shut down the government rather than work with our black president has a lot to do with racism. And lurching from manufactured “crisis” to crisis isn’t about politics. It’s about pathology. It doesn’t make sense politically to take the blame for risking our American future  – and the Republicans know they will/are taking the blame — so how can we conclude other than something else is going on here?

I’m not talking about the white young male mass murderers we’re afflicted with carrying assault rifles courtesy of the NRA. I’m talking about the white far right males who hijacked the 112th Congress and are set to destroy the 113th. They have metaphorically done to our country what the killer in Newtown literally did to 20 children. And for the same apparent reason: alienation from the mainstream and retreat to a paranoid delusional fantasy land of — literal — mental impairment.

 

via America’s White Male Republican Evangelical Magical “Thinking” Racist Problem Is ALL of Our Problem.

KineticsLive.com | Emilie Townes named dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School

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The pioneering scholar in the field of womanist theology is the author of Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope (Scholars Press, 1993) and In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness (Abingdon Press, 1995). Her most recent book is Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil (Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2006). In addition, she co-editedWomanist Theological Ethics: A Reader (Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

Her other broad areas of teaching and research include Christian ethics, critical social theology, cultural theory and studies, and postmodernism and social postmodernism.

via KineticsLive.com | Emilie Townes named dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Rhetoric Race and Religion

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Rhetoric Race and Religion
This blog explores and examines the intersections of rhetoric, race, and religion.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2012

The Grace and the Mess: Religion, Feminism, and Reproductive Justice
This interview is part of a series profiling leaders of the Faith and Reproductive Justice Leadership Institute, a project of CAP’s Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative. The Institute provides faith-based leaders working on reproductive justice with training and resources in order to strengthen and raise the visibility of their work. You can learn more about this project here.

Caryn D. Riswold is a feminist theologian in the Lutheran tradition. She is associate professor of religion and chair of gender and women’s studies at Illinois College in Jacksonville, where she has worked for over a decade teaching undergraduates to think critically and creatively about religion. She’s a blogger at Patheos where she looks at religion, politics, social justice, and pop culture. Caryn earned her doctorate degree from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, holds a master’s from the Claremont School of Theology, and received her B.A. from Augustana College in her childhood hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

http://rhetoricraceandreligion.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-grace-and-mess-religion-feminism.html

Keri Day: Black Women, the Black Church, and the Struggle to Thrive in America | KineticsLive.com

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Day then calls on the black churches to become potential agents of change and leaders in addressing the unequal social and economic structures that hold captive these poor women. The goal is to empower poor black women to develop assets that will prevent long-term poverty and allow them to flourish.

via Keri Day: Black Women, the Black Church, and the Struggle to Thrive in America | KineticsLive.com.

A (not so) Super Hero: The Rise and Fall of Eddie Long (via The Goldie Taylor Project)

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Goldie Taylor, OCG guest, October 9, 2010.

A (not so) Super Hero: The Rise and Fall of Eddie Long I’ve long been leery of clergymen who give themselves lofty titles.  Rather than settle for something as pedestrian as “pastor” or “reverend” there now seems to be a bumper crop of self anointed “bishops” and “prophets”.  Those men, and women too, seem to enjoy the trappings of velveteen covered pulpits, nicely tailored suits and finely designed luxury cars far more than the trappings of the bibles they thump and community uplift.  But where, how … Read More

via The Goldie Taylor Project

STEALING BLACK CULTURE: The Black Church Robber Barons 09-25-10

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THE ROBBER BARONS of the BLACK CHURCH

Saturday, September 25, 2010 ~ 10 pm – Midnight ET

Sexuality,Homosexuality and Molestation

STEALING BLACK CULTURE: The Black Church Robber Barons

Why the Allegations against Mega-Church Leader Eddie Long Matters

Homophobia, Exploitation and Oppression in the Black church

Bishop Eddie Long, megachurch pastor and prosperity purveyor, has now been named in three separate lawsuits alleging sexual coercion of two young men in Atlanta, Georgia. Bishop Long, in the words of the Southern Poverty Law Center, “is one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement.”

In his book “Taking Over, ” Long described the event in more detail. He wrote that after seven years at New Birth, he was frustrated by its deacon board because it was “gripping the purse strings” of the church and “telling the man of God when to jump and how high.” He said he received a revelation from God, who encouraged him to get rid of the “ungodly governmental structure” at New Birth.

Prosperity vs Liberation Theology
“That was the day I became pastor, ” Long wrote. “Up until that time, I was the hired preacher . . . . ”

“The absolute fealty to leadership and the “man” of god, enforced with scriptures like “don’t touch God’s anointed” have left so many victims in their wake that it’s a wonder people bother to even go to church anymore. When you factor in the money people have put into ministries that pimp them out and put them down, that’s an abusive relationship predicated on loving God and paying to be close to “God’s representative.” If the Catholic church can’t get a pass on its sexual and pedophilia scandals, why should mega-church pastors?

The core issue however is “respectability.” The obsession with mainline and black prosperity churches to show well groomed African Americans as prosperous, good, heterosexual Christians has gutted the social justice message of urban black churches. President Obama has even bought into the message of “talking down to the folks” with messages about delinquent fathers and feeding kids Popeye’s for breakfast. Meanwhile, the activities of black church leaders in sexual scandals, including Jeremiah Wright, websites that track sexual abuse, and blogs concerning “policing” black church sexuality suggest that the don’t ask don’t tell policy about sexuality in any form in the black church is alive and well.”

Time for more honest discussion about sexuality,homosexuality and molestation in the Black Church.

OUR COMMON GROUND with Janice Graham

“Speaking Truth to Power and Ourselves”