Jackson Free Press

Dec. 10, 2003

It's not unusual for Robert L. Johnson to draw a crowd. Nor is it unusual for the Hickory, Miss., native to have camera crews, reporters and fans sit rapt with attention. But when the founder of Black Entertainment Television—who recently became the first African American to own an NBA franchise—gave a speech at the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference last May, he spoke the unthinkable: He claimed that God wasn't responsible for his success; it was due to his own hard work and business savvy.

The church holds a place of special significance in the heart of anyone born and raised in the South, whether they believe or not. But the black church that defied slavery, embarrassed its white counterparts, nurtured civil rights activists and emboldened a people has undergone a phenomenal change in the past three decades. Most remarkable, no one has noticed it.

How did the organization composed of many different denominations that stood at the forefront of the progressive change in this country less than a generation ago morph into an organization that sits on the sidelines of change today? And why aren't black people using the church as a vehicle to social change anymore? As conference attendees moved aside to avoid the burn zone of the bolt of lightening that they imagined God would surely deliver to Johnson, a pall fell over the group. In decades past, a black leader of any stripe would never have dared say such a thing. But the unspoken truth hung in the air nonetheless: The black church in America has lost its position of power.

Certainly it's not powerless. Individual churches still provide crucial social services to their communities—operating kindergartens, food pantries and substance abuse hotlines. And in rural America, local politicians hoping to lock up the black vote can be counted on to show up just before election and assure the congregation how much they love black folks. Some of them are black folks. But the fact that Sen. Trent Lott, after issuing racially insensitive remarks, chose BET as the platform from which to deliver his apology to black America—instead of a church—is very telling. The church that decades ago would have been the chosen platform and that served as a grade school classroom, adult continuing education center, food pantry, emergency loan center, and, most importantly, political action network is now largely just a house of worship.

What, in God's name, have we done to our churches? Or not done? For starters, we've become complacent. We've let the government, both local and otherwise, take over the services we once provided for our communities. Yes, the government should be involved, but who says that we can't also be involved? The government's offering of social services does not absolve the church of its responsibility to its members. And if the church isn't going to make sure that the politicians who make pre-election promises in the pulpit keep those promises, who is? No other group has stepped forward to take that mantle. Churches that allow politicians to use their pulpits as podiums should hold those politicians' feet to the fire when necessary. The gatherings that are the outcome of providing community services also created strong personal bonds within our communities. Without those networking sessions, we've allowed spaces to grow between us, and we don't communicate well across those spaces.

The downside of having so many well-educated young black people now compared to decades ago is that in the absence of opportunities in rural America, they flock to urban areas, leaving rural communities bereft of one of their most valuable assets. These young people are also the fresh—and free—thinkers who are more likely to be agents of change within the church. Without them, our churches have become stagnant. We need to figure out how to bring economic opportunities back to our communities so that young people who want to stay can stay.

One of the greatest civil rights challenges in the country today is gay rights. And black churches have either been silent or have joined the chorus of fundamentalists who would deny some members of our communities the very same rights that all of us were denied not so long ago. We know better. But we're blinded by culture, and we use the church as a standard bearer for our own biases, refusing to open our minds to scholarly readings of our religious texts. The normal protestations to accepting gays and lesbians as full members of the church don't stand up to reason. It's against nature. People who say this can't possibly be referring to the ecosystem of Earth, which supports a number of animals who form sexual relationships with members of the same gender. Not to mention those species that don't even have male members, namely a genus of lizards indigenous to many parts of the world. Imagine that. God did.

Then, of course there are the claims that homosexuality is against God's law. Nowhere in the Bible does God claim that homosexuality is a sin. Some of the men who wrote parts of the Bible took it upon themselves to say so, but If God thought enough of envy to list it in the Ten Commandments, surely if He thought homosexuality was a sin He would have given it its own commandment. It is truly sad to see black people turn their backs on so many members of their communities in the name of religion they don't even understand.

So I'll rephrase a question I asked earlier: What are we using God's name to do?
Sheri M. Whitley is a preacher's kid from Chickasaw county.

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Previous Comments

ID

169830

Comment

I rather like this. I know that people will be looking askance at Mr. Johnson over this statement and I know some people will look askance at me, a Christian, just for saying I like his statement. It brings up a thought similar to that of praying to win ball games and such. If God makes sure you win, then God makes sure someone else loses (who may be just as Godly as you, or even more so). There was a pastor I once had who put it all in perspective for me. He said that God is not a retail store. To illustrate his point, he recalled going to a conference on world hunger in children. One couple was very late to the conference, and began telling everyone how God had made it possible for them to be there. They'd had a flat on the way, and found that their spare was also flat. They were so low on money that they couldn't have bought a tire, had there been anywhere open on Sunday to buy one. But they prayed to God to help them, and he did. Someone came along, saw them, and stopped. This person happened to have an extra spare (both a donut tire and a regular tire). The good Samaritan who stopped GAVE them a tire, and they were able to be at the conference. They attributed it all to prayer. Our pastor (I won't say his name, just in case I have gotten some details wrong) said that we might think this was an inspirational story, but it infuriated him. It infuriated him because of their arrogance in believing that God would do something to help them get to the conference, while not performing a similar miracle for all the hungry children in the world. He said it was as though they thought their problem had priority. I think he had it right - God doesn't just give us what we ask for, we must work for it. The good Reverend said that instead of waiting for God to solve the problems of the world, we must work to solve them, that it's part of what he requires of us as Christians. I don't have time now, but I want to come back and discuss the issue of separation of church and state, and how differently that may be viewed between black and white churches. Also, I wondered if you had read the piece in the Mississippi Link about black teenagers going to church in greater numbers than white teenagers? http://www.mississippilink.com/pv/pageview.pl?section=hotstories&newsfile=n200312111.txt

Author

C.W.

Date

2003-12-11T19:24:33-06:00

ID

169831

Comment

Nice comments, C.W. I look forward to reading your others on this topic. I love the line: "God is not a retail store" and, of course, the following words are profound: "The good Reverend said that instead of waiting for God to solve the problems of the world, we must work to solve them, that it's part of what he requires of us as Christians." Thanks for sharing.

Author

ladd

Date

2003-12-11T20:46:59-06:00

ID

169832

Comment

I don't know if black and white churches view separaton of church and state differently, but it does occur to me that Southern and Midwestern church-going folks view it very differently from people on the coasts. The former group seems to support policies that enforce separation of church and state only when the church practice in question is not conservative Christian. Otherwise, they're lax about it. Folks on the coasts favor an equally assinine approach, namely omitting every trace of religion from schools, as if it doesn't exist and has had no impact on our histories and cultures.

Author

Nia

Date

2003-12-16T16:09:55-06:00