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Last week, Rev. Bernice King, youngest daughter of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King was named the 7th president of the organization her father founded in 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Since Martin King’s assassination in 1968, the organization, largely built around King’s own personal charisma, ingenious imagination and unflappable moral courage, has struggled to find its way.

Sure it has had its high moments. The community violence prevention programs under the ever-affable Joseph Lowery come to mind. Yet the SCLC has engaged in a game of musical chairs at the presidential level over the past decade (including Martin Luther King III’s conflict-laden stint as president), that has made the organization about as relevant as a Lou Rawls 8-track tape.  

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This week, Bring Change 2 Mind.org launched a national campaign of public service announcements to raise awareness concerning mental illness. Though one in six adults and one in ten children suffer from a range of illnesses such as schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and clinical depression, often these treatable conditions are ignored and denied. Reasons vary as to why this is the case. But in too many cases it has to do with the social, cultural and religious stigma that persons associate with mental illness.

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The great theologian and mystic Howard Thurman once described his undergraduate institution, Morehouse College, as holding a crown above the heads of her students that she challenges them to grow tall enough to wear. This comes to mind in regards to President Obama being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

It seems a little oxymoronic that one can be both a wartime president (even attempting to escalate one war in Afghanistan) and be a peace prize winner. Just as this award should not be reduced to an indictment against the egregious practices of President Obama’s predecessor it should be based on one’s own proven record of promoting the cause of peace and justice. And, in my humble opinion, the jury is still out on our current president. Understandably so.

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As the father of young children I consider this family history more these days. Like many parents I desire my offspring to know the story from which their lives extend. Yet, like many people whose foreparents experienced and endured enslavement, genocide and Holocaust, I wrestle with how to tell such a tragic tale. I am a descendant of Africans enslaved in this nation. This is part of my heritage. It is indeed my family history.  

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At their annual denomination meeting this week the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A. elected the Reverend Julius R. Scruggs to be the next president of the largest religious body of African Americans in the nation. Rev. Scruggs’s victory came as little surprise to those who have been following this year’s presidential race. The Alabama pastor and former convention vice president soundly defeated his opponent 4,076 votes to 924 as expected. Yet persons unfamiliar with this particular body of Baptists may just be amazed to discover that Rev. Scruggs’ defeated opponent was Rev. Henry J. Lyons, past president of the NBC who was imprisoned earlier this decade for stealing millions from the denomination.

Some may recall that Lyons’s corrupt dealing as convention president were exposed in 1997 after his then wife discovered and set ablaze a $700,000 Florida home that he owned with his mistress. The arson set off a full-scale financial investigation revealing that Lyons had used his position to bilk major corporations and charities out of over $5 million. Lyons subsequently pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison for fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft and tax evasion.

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The Power of Bad Faith! Prophesying a "Death Panel" for Health Care Reform

Faith is a positive factor in the world of most!

Faith creates and contributes to a certain buoyancy of life. And the kind of faith of which I am referring is hardly limited to or in the sole possession of those who subscribe to an organized religion. Rather it is the human capacity to eke out a vision of positive change despite negative evidence to the contrary. Positive faith allows us to summon our better angels while resisting our base temptations.

Faith can be a beautiful thing!

It doesn’t have to be, however. Faith is a neutral category. Just as one’s faith can foster attitudes of sincere hope and sober optimism, it can also cultivate defeatist dispositions and pessimistic postures. It’s like the proverbial half full or empty glass. Some may believe in what’s possible while others commit themselves to cynicism and the status quo. It’s this latter type of negative faith that has led too many down the path of self-inflicted demise. This is how I interpret the otherwise illogical responses to America’s current health care debate.

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Christian preachers have long served as ideological conduits channeling political and philosophical currents from the powers that be to the masses. This is true for both the political right and left. Hence when I hear persons assert that preachers should “keep politics out of the pulpit,” I interpret this as a vacuous request. Asking a preacher to refrain from politics is like asking water not to be wet. Despite claims of “private spirituality” that have become commonplace, religion is, and will always be, a public matter. How folk interpret sacred texts, the role of God in the world, and/or the form and function of the sacred informs political choices and helps to determine their support or opposition for a particular cause.

I will admit, however, that at times religious beliefs and political conclusions can be as out of sync as Mike Huckabee doing the electric slide. This is what I noticed last week while attending the Southwest Believers Convention hosted by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland.

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Former Atlanta Falcon pro-bowl quarterback Michael Vick did not make a mistake. He made terrible choices! He organized and operated a heinous interstate dog-fighting ring. He brought public shame upon his family’s name, and disappointed his teammates and millions of fans. And for his sins he has paid a price. He served a two-year federal prison term and lost over 100 million dollars in income.

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In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as a regional offshoot of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). The aim of the organization was to build upon and move beyond the MIA’s successful bus boycott by promoting nonviolent mass resistance as a means of disrupting systems of segregation throughout the South.

Though evangelical in origin (its motto was “to redeem the soul of America!”) the organization was inclusive in practice. Persons were welcome regardless of race, religion or even sexual orientation; i.e., Stanley Levinson (Jewish), Ella Baker (religiously indifferent) and Bayard Rustin (black, gay, Quaker). The SCLC was based on King’s notion of “Beloved Community” and the morally consistent maxim that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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After weeks of speculation, the New York Times reports today that the Rev. Brad Braxton has resigned his position as pastor of Riverside Church in Manhattan.

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Many progressives have compared and contrasted the contemporary fight for same-sex marriage with the black freedom struggle. The shared quests for equal justice under the law and civil rights protections have been affirmed, even as others of us question the political expediency of direct correlations and uncritical appropriations.  

Calls for historical and contextual specificity, however, should not trump coalition building. While it may be too glib to declare gay the new black, we must acknowledge that to be gay and/or a person of color is to be queer in the American cultural context. Over at Killing the Buddha, informed by the indomitable courage of civil rights icon Bayard Rustin, the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou makes this case with analytic sophistication and intellectual precision.

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Famed televangelist Creflo Dollar and his son Jeremy Dollar were accused in a California court yesterday of fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets and a dozen other charges related to the ministry’s text messaging service.

According to Devone Lawson of Marina del Ray, California, in 2004, long before the explosion of SMS text messaging, he began working with the Dollar family to develop a program that would “generate tremendous income from mass SMS text messaging of ‘devotional’ or ‘inspirational’ messages delivered daily to subscribers’ cell phones.”

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Over 2,000 persons began the week marching through the streets of Southern California’s San Fernando Valley in order to raise money and awareness concerning genocide in the Sudan. “Walk for Darfur” is organized each year by the Jewish World Watch. The crowd was comprised primarily of members from about 60 area synagogues, yet was led by about a dozen Sudanese from Arizona.

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A couple of decades back few could rise higher than Carlton Pearson. The fourth generation Pentecostal mister and former protégé of legendary televangelist Oral Roberts led one of the largest congregations in Tulsa, had the highest rated show on Trinity Broadcasting Network, and was considered a king/queen-maker among aspiring televangelists and gospel artists alike. Pearson was indeed a family boss within the sanctified-Soprano culture of evangelical Christian broadcasting. Everyone who aspired to be anyone desired to get near him. His annual AZUSA conference introduced a larger public to then lesser-known evangelists like Joyce Meyer, Myles Monroe and Bishop T.D. Jakes. And having the opportunity to preach or sing from his pulpit almost guaranteed evangelical acclaim and financial gain.

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On Monday, 9.8 million Americans tuned into the otherwise obscure TLC for the season 5 premiere of Jon & Kate Plus Eight. I suspect most could care less about witnessing a normal day in the life of this reality-television family comprised of twins and sextuplets. The ratings were certainly fueled by the tabloid drama currently following John and Kate Gosselin. Rumors of infidelity, verbal abuse and impending divorce have turned this otherwise family friendly show into a reality-based soap opera.

The very next day, however, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8 outlawing same sex marriage. Rather than following the lead of Massachusetts, Iowa, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine (as well as New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire that are leaning toward honoring gay nuptials), California elected to allow a heterosexual majority dictate and determine the freedoms and protections of a gay and lesbian minority.

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Today we celebrate what would have been Malcolm X’s 84th birthday. Malcolm’s hatred of white supremacy and love for black people cause many to misinterpret his legacy. Conservatives often frame him as a truculent hate monger. Some African American neo-nationalists honor him as a rifle toting peerless example of “strong” black masculinity. And others have flipped him into a mere commodified image on a t-shirt that can turn a quick profit at a street fair.

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Last week the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life released poll data revealing the relationships between religious commitment and support for the use of torture against terror suspects. Those who rarely attend religious services are the least likely to support torture. The more one attends religious service, the greater the level of support. And white evangelical Protestants offered the greatest amount of support for torture with a majority (62%) of respondents believing that torture can at least sometimes be justified.

I am sickened but not terribly shocked.

This glib view of the brutality and inhumanity of torture is bound up in a particular strand of American Christian theology that’s been a growing force for over a century.

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A UC Santa Barbara professor is currently in the midst of a political and academic firestorm. In January, sociology professor William I. Robinson sent what he considered to be a provocative email to 80 students enrolled in his sociology of globalization course comparing photographs of Jewish victims of the Holocaust with similar images of Palestinian victims of Israel’s latest Gaza attacks. Robinson, who is Jewish, offered his own written commentary that included the line, “Gaza is Israel’s Warsaw—a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians.”

In the ensuing months, charges of anti-Semitism have been raised and formal complaints have been filed against the professor by two former students and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. And according to the Los Angeles Times, the Anti-Defamation League has called on the professor to repudiate his anti-Semitic statements.

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This weekend Joel Osteen, pastor of the mammoth Lakewood Church in Houston, will bring his gospel of hope, happiness and spiritual healing to an anticipated 50,000 tri-state residents at the recently unveiled Yankee Stadium.

Author of New York Times bestseller Your Best Life Now, Osteen is more known for his pearly white grin than the prosperity gospel that he inherited from his father, prominent Word of Faith preacher and Lakewood’s founding pastor John Osteen.

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Over the weekend I participated in a fascinating conference/conversation headed by Professors Philip Clayton and Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki of Claremont School of Theology. Under the banner of “Rekindling Theological Reflection: Transformative Thought for Progressive Action” thirty theologians and Christian ethicists were brought together to brainstorm concerning how our chosen vocations might better impact our world.

The guest list was amazing (as well as intimidating for this young scholar). Witnessing such prominent scholars and productive thinkers as Harvey Cox, Emilie Townes, Gary Dorrien and Ellen Armour offer historical antecedents and contemporary insights about the creation of a more just church and society was worth the price of the ticket.

Yet two of the more interesting interventions came from Jack Fitzmier, Executive Director of the American Academy of Religion, and Tony Jones, an independent author, blogger and emerging church entrepreneur. Fitzmier challenged our very raison d’etre as academic theologians. In an era marked by faltering seminaries and divinity schools, limited graduate programs in the field and even fewer career options for doctoral candidates, academic theologians must rethink their role and task. Too many are fussing over Karl Barth and directing inconsequential dissertations on Bonhoeffer while the very system which affords us a role in society is on fire! Then we wonder why it is, Fitzmier opined, that the academic theologian has become an alienated figure from the church at best, and an antiquated relic of a dying institution at worst.

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Prominent televangelist Frederick Price will officially step aside as pastor of the Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles this weekend. The 77 year-old Word of Faith preacher is passing the health and wealth mantle to his son, Frederick Price, Jr., who will be installed as head pastor on this his 30th birthday. The elder Price described this weekend’s installation as, “The formal succession of my son will take place on his 30th birthday, the same day Jesus began his ministry.”

Wow! No pressure here, huh?

But sarcasm aside, the younger Price does have immense challenges before him. His father has bequeathed an aging congregation with dwindling membership and financial contributions. In fact, many have interpreted Price Jr.’s ascension to leadership, along with his recent attempts at a “Hip Hop Sunday,” as a creative (if not cynical) attempt to introduce the ministry to younger generations. Though Fred Price, Sr. is rightly considered a forerunner among both the world of black televangelism in general and the Word of Faith Movement in particular, his status has declined with the rise of younger voices like those of Creflo Dollar in Atlanta or Keith Butler in Detroit. And his public split with prominent white Word of Faith leaders in the mid-90s over racist comments made by Kenneth Hagin, Jr (son of the movement’s founding father) also served to place the elder Price on the margins of power over the previous decade.

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Christian Century offered an eye-catching headline this week, “God big in the South, not so much in New England and Pacific Northwest.”

The article goes on to provide results of a new Gallup Poll that identifies the most and least religious states in the country. And, as one might expect, “Bible Belt” states continue to have the most religious residents—Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. Just as persons residing in the New England area—Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts—are least likely to consider themselves as people of faith.

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In 1977 Rev. Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye founded what became an evangelical Christian media known as PTL (Praise the Lord). The PTL Club broadcast featured leading televangelists such as Oral Roberts, Rex Humbard and Carlton Pearson throughout the 1980s, and provided a social facelift to conservative Pentecostalism. No longer the religion of the economically deprived and socially alienated, PTL sought to present Pentecostals as a financially prosperous and socially influential.

The Bakkers even built a theme park, Heritage USA, in South Carolina that not only became one of the premier vacation spots in the nation, it also provided America with the image of the late Jerry Falwell sliding down a water slide while wearing his Sunday best. Unfortunately for their many devoted viewers, the Bakkers' media reign came to an end in exactly a decade. In 1987 revelations of financial misappropriation and illicit sexual affairs led to the demise of the network, dissolution of the Bakker's marriage, and landed Jim Bakker in jail for embezzlement.

Well, today an Atlanta venture capitalist hopes to sell over 15,000 hours of PTL footage as he prepares to put over four-tractor trailer loads of film on the auction block.

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Last week, 48-year-old Steve Smick, a California man who had been living in his pick-up truck, performed what may be interpreted as either the ultimate profession, or perversion, of faith. A little before 10 a.m. he entered the famed Crystal Cathedral sanctuary in Southern California, handed a church greeter a note containing his driver’s license and knelt down before a gold cross at the alter. Mr. Smick then removed a gun from his backpack, put the semiautomatic weapon to his temple and released a single, fatal shot into his head.  

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On Monday Jim Adkisson pled guilty to last year’s shooting rampage inside the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church that killed two parishioners and wounded half-a-dozen others. The 58-year-old Vietnam veteran and unemployed mechanic stood stoic as he was sentenced to life in prison. But Adkisson was far from taciturn in his handwritten manifesto and intended suicide note which he released to a Tennessee newspaper following sentencing.

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