EUR Book Look: ‘Unfinished Business: Black Women, the Black Church …

“This book explores the Black Church as a black religious site that can offer not only hope and cultural flourishing for poor black women but can also participate in a project of economic justice toward their well-being… Their spirituality is both a catalyst for social interactions and an interpretive lens used in formulating responses to their harsh political and economic conditions…
While capitalist institutions and systems perpetuate impoverishment for so many black women and their children, poverty deeply affects their human personality… Hopelessness within poor black communities is often left unaddressed as poor blacks are blamed for their own poverty…
Poverty is produced and reproduced when the poor are locked out of America’s wealth-producing structures… My overall goal is to evaluate the social implications of black women’s poverty in this country and offer an understanding of thriving that can address their suffering and alienation.” — Excerpted from the Introduction (pgs. 3, 4, 8 & 10)
*In this age of mega-churches and prosperity theology, it is natural to wonder how many members of the black clergy even bother to minister to the needs of the least of the their brethren anymore. That question came to intrigue Professor Keri Day, Director of Black Church Studies at Brite Divinity School, after noting that Christianity is now a very different experience for sisters, depending on their social class.
While many black females have been fortunate enough to make the leap to the middle and upper-classes, the bulk remain poor with less and less hope for deliverance from their plight. In her book, Unfinished Business, Dr. Day outlines a plan to return to the times when poverty was a primary concern of the Black Church.
Annotated and academic in tone, this informative opus struck this critic as written more for a college-educated crowd than a mass audience. That being said, the feminist author does approach her subject-matter with an admirable zeal, making a case on behalf of not only black females but of women of any ethnicity who find themselves on the outside looking-in when it comes to capitalism.
For instance, she refers to the Welfare System as the “New Jane Crow” because it fails to address structural inequities in the American economy. That’s why she calls upon the Church to address a culture that “stigmatizes poor black women as deviant.”
Dr. Day’s fervent hope is that “By promoting socially-conscious capitalism among black businesses and capitalists, black churches can develop a theology of holistic prosperity that considers the thriving of all members within society.” Sadly, that’s apt to prove easier said than done in the face of an economic system all too comfortable with exploiting the human condition.
To order a copy of Unfinished Business, visit: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570759812/ref%3dnosim/thslfofire-20

Unfinished Business: ‘Black Women, the Black Church
and the Struggle to Thrive in America’
by Keri Day
Orbis Books
Paperback, $28.00
190 pages
ISBN: 978-1-57075-981-9

Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2012/11/eur-book-look-unfinished-business-black-women-the-black-church/#RzgAmvMgcoq3JqH9.99

Man Shot and Killed at Creflo Dollar's World Changers Church International During Prayer Service

Authorities have made an arrest after a man was fatally shot inside a famed megachurch in College Park.

The shooting broke out around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at World Changers Church International, where Creflo Dollar is the Senior Pastor. The well known televangelist recently made headlines when he was arrested at his home for assaulting his daughter. The victim was sent to the hospital in critical condition but later died, police said.

The victim from the shooting at World Changers Church has been identified as Greg McDowell.

Hours later, U.S. Marshals said a suspect was taken into custody at Lenox Square’s Macy’s store.

Police said Dollar was not there but about 20 to 25 people were gathered inside the church for a bible study during the shooting. Church members said a bible study is held every Wednesday in the chapel.

“He went in, walked in calmly, opened fire inside of the church and left as calmly as he came,” Fulton County police Cpl. Kay Lester said during a news conference

She identified 52-year-old Floyd Palmer as the suspect. He is believed to have left in a black Subuaru. Lester said Palmer is a former church employee who resigned in August for personal reasons after working there for about one year. Police worked with the county SWAT team and Marshals in the manhunt for Palmer. He was captured sometime before 4:15 p.m.

The victim has been identified as Greg McDowell, a 39-year-old volunteer prayer leader at the church. Lester said he was leading a prayer when he was shot. Multiple shots were fired, but he was the only person hit.

Wednesday night services have been canceled.

“It breaks my heart, because I know that Creflo has put so much into building up his church and wanting people to be loved, and that’s all he puts out is love,” church member Kaniesha Clark told reporters.

Nearby, Bethune Elementary and McNair Middle schools were locked down for about an hour during the shooting investigation. Fulton County Schools spokeswoman Susan Hale said there were no disruptions to the schools.

The daycare at the church was evacuated and all parents were instructed to pick up their children.

Details on what caused this man to commit such a horrible act is yet to be determined. However, this is the second time a man was killed in World Changers Church International. The first was a former member and employee that was rumored to have written a tell-all book on Creflo Dollar. The former security was called to a meeting when an altercation occurred and he was shot and killed. No one was charged.

 

Is Obama the 'wrong' kind of Christian? By John Blake, CNN

 
President Barack Obama was sharing a pulpit one day with a conservative Christian leader when a revealing exchange took place.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a conservative Christian who has taken public stands against abortion and same-sex marriage, had joined Obama for an AIDS summit. They were speaking before a conservative megachurch filled with white evangelicals.
When Brownback rose to speak, he joked that he had joined Obama earlier at an NAACP meeting where Obama was treated like Elvis and he was virtually ignored. Turning to Obama, a smiling Brownback said, “Welcome to my house!”
The audience exploded with laughter and applause. Obama rose, walked before the congregation and then declared:
“There is one thing I have to say, Sam. This is my house, too. This is God’s house.”
Historians may remember Obama as the nation’s first black president, but he’s also a religious pioneer. He’s not only changed people’s perception of who can be president, some scholars and pastors say, but he’s also expanding the definition of who can be a Christian by challenging the religious right’s domination of the national stage.
When Obama invoked Jesus to support same-sex marriage, framed health care as a moral imperative to care for “the least of these,’’ and once urged people to read their Bible but just not literally, he was invoking another Christian tradition that once dominated American public life so much that it gave the nation its first megachurches, historians say.
“Barack Obama has referred to his faith more times than most presidents ever have, but for many it’s the wrong kind of faith,” says Jim Wallis, head of Sojourners, an evangelical activist group based in Washington that focuses on poverty and social justice issues.
“It is not the faith of the religious right. It’s about things that they don’t talk about. It’s about how the Bible is full of God’s clear instruction to care for the poor.”
Some see a 'different' kind of Christian
Obama is a progressive Christian who blends the emotional fire of the African-American church, the ecumenical outlook of contemporary Protestantism, and the activism of the Social Gospel, a late 19th-century movement whose leaders faulted American churches for focusing too much on personal salvation while ignoring the conditions that led to pervasive poverty.
No other president has shared the hybrid faith that Obama displays, says Diana Butler Bass, a historian and author of “Christianity after Religion.”
“The kind of faith that Obama articulates is not the sort of Christianity that’s understood by the media or by a large swath of Christians in the U.S.,” says Bass, a progressive Christian. “He’s a different kind of Christian, and the media and the public awareness needs to reawaken to that fact.”
Some Christians, however, still see Obama as the “other.” He doesn’t act or talk like other Christians, says the Rev. Gary Cass, a conservative Christian president of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission.
“I just don’t see or hear in his accounts the kind of things that I’ve heard as a minister for over 25 years coming from the mouths of people who have genuinely converted to Christianity,” says Cass, pastor of Christ Church in San Diego.
Cass says he’s never heard Obama say he’s “born-again.” There’s no emotional conversion story to hang onto.
Obama talks about his faith and attends church, but Cass says that doesn’t mean he’s a Christian.
“Joining a church doesn’t mean you’re a Christian. “You can put me in the garage, but that doesn’t turn me into a car.”
The origins of Obama’s faith
The suspicion about Obama’s faith may seem odd at first because he’s written and spoken so much about his spiritual evolution in his two autobiographies, “Dreams of my Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.” Other books, like “The Faith of Obama” by Stephen Mansfield, also explore Obama’s beliefs.

The 1925 “Monkey” trial of John Scope, a high school biology teacher who taught evolution, drove fundamentalists underground, some say.

Mansfield says Obama is the first president who wasn’t raised in a Christian home. Obama’s mother was an atheist and his grandparents were religious skeptics (Obama’s family has challenged the description of his mother as an atheist. Obama called her “the most spiritually awakened” person he’d ever known, and his sister called their mother an agnostic).

Mansfield called Obama’s boyhood a “religious swirl.  He was exposed to Catholicism, Islam, and strains of Hinduism and Buddhism while growing up in Indonesia during the 1960s.
“In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology,” Obama said in Mansfield’s book. “On Easter or Christmas Day, my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.”
Obama became a Christian while he was a community organizer in Chicago. He joined a predominately black United Church of Christ. The UCC became the first mainline Protestant denomination to officially support same-sex marriage in 2005.
Obama’s faith showed many of the elements of a liberal Protestant church: an emphasis on the separation of church and state, religious tolerance and the refusal to embrace a literal reading of the Bible.
In a 2006 speech before a Sojourners meeting, Obama talked about his approach to the Bible:
“Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?”
When many people think of Obama’s religious experience in Chicago, though, they cite his exposure to the angry sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and “black liberation theology,” a movement that emerged in the late 1960s and blended the Social Gospel with the black power movement.
Bass, the church historian, says another black pastor shaped Obama’s theology more: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
He attended liberal Protestant seminaries where he learned about the Social Gospel’s concern for the entire person, soul and body.

Obama has reached out to evangelical leaders like Rick Warren, seen here praying at Obama’s inauguration, but many still doubt his faith.

King once wrote that “any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them …is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”
But King and the black church also fused the Social Gospel with an emotional fervor missing from white Protestant churches, Bass says. Other presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were influenced by the Social Gospel, but they weren’t shaped by the black church.
“This is the first time we’re hearing the Social Gospel from the perspective of the black church from the Oval Office. It makes it warmer, more emotive, more communal," Bass says. "There is less fear of linking the Social Gospel with the stories of the Bible, especially the stories of Exodus and Jesus’ healings.”
The emphasis on community uplift - not individual attainment - may strike some Americans as socialist. But the emphasis on community is part of King’s “Beloved Community,” Bass says.
King once wrote that all people are caught up in an “inescapable network of mutuality… I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be you ought to be.”
“When I listen to Obama, I don’t hear communism, I hear the Beloved Community,” Bass says. “But a lot of white Americans don’t hear that because they never sat in those churches and heard it over and over again. It’s the whole theology that motivated MLK and the civil rights movement.”
Obama is not a Christian, some think
For some, Obama’s actions in the Oval Office seem to contradict Christianity.
Jesus was nonviolent. Obama has ramped up drone attacks in Afghanistan that have not only removed terrorists, but killed civilians.
The Bible talks about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. Obama invoked Jesus when he came out in support of same-sex marriage. “The thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule," Obama told ABC News during his announcement.
Jesus talked about helping the poor. But he never said anything about creating a massive health care law that taxed the rich to help the poor, some Christians argue.
But Wallis of Sojourners says Obama’s push for health care was a supreme example of Christian faith.
A situation where 50 million Americans don’t have health insurance is “a fundamental Christian problem,” Wallis says.
“Health is such a Gospel issue. Jesus was involved in healing all the time, and to have some people excluded from health care because they lack wealth is a fundamental Christian contradiction.”
Wallis has been one of the most persistent defenders of Obama’s faith. But no matter how much Scripture he and others cite, doubts about Obama’s faith have followed him throughout his political career.
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson once said that Obama distorted the traditional understanding of the Bible “to fit his own world, his own confused theology.” The Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, publicly questioned Obama’s faith, then later apologized.
Conservative Christian books and websites are filled with stories of Obama allegedly trying to suppress the nation’s Christian heritage.
The Rev. Steven Andrew, author of “Making a Strong Nation,” says Obama is trying to change the national motto from “In God we Trust” to “Out of Many, One,” and he’s ordered the Pentagon to remove biblical verses from its daily report.
“That’s the most serious thing someone can do to a nation, trying to separate a nation from God,” he says. “He seems to be trying to change the Christian laws our Founding Fathers made.”
Andrew says Obama is actually an enemy of Christianity. In his book, Andrew argues that the Founding Fathers were Christians who created a “covenant Christian nation” and calls for a “national repentance.”
“I think he’s an anti-Christ,” Andrew says.  Cass, of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, says Obama’s emphasis on helping the poor through social justice isn’t Christianity.
Christians who talk about “social justice” are often practicing “warmed-over Marxism,” Cass says.
“Do I believe in caring for the poor and oppressed? Yes. But you don’t do it along the lines of communistic redistributing.”
Obama’s support of same-sex marriage and abortion rights also disqualifies him from being a Christian, Cass says.
“It’s the most pro-abortion administration in the history of America.  On every social issue – the sanctity of life and of marriage between men and women – Obama is on the wrong side of every moral issue,” he says.
He says a progressive Christian is a contradiction.
“No Christian says I believe in Jesus Christ and I reject the Bible,” Cass says. “These progressives who say they’re Christians are liars. They’re using Christianity as a guise to advance their own agenda.”
Cass says he doesn’t know what Obama believes.
“He’s conflicted,” Cass says. “He has Muslim sympathies from his upbringing."
How progressive Christianity lost the public square
There was a time when Obama’s brand of Christianity would have been understood by millions of Americans, historians say.

Obama along with first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha leave church after attending a Sunday prayer service.

The Social Gospel and progressive Protestantism dominated the American religious square from the end of the 19^th century up to the 1960s. At times, the traditions blended together so seamlessly that it was hard to tell the difference.
The Social Gospel rose out of the excesses of the Gilded Age in the 1880s, when urban poverty spread across America as immigrants crammed into filthy slums to work long hours in unsafe conditions.
Walter Rauschenbusch, a Baptist pastor in a New York slum, urged the church to take “social sins” as seriously as they took individual vices. Churches began feeding the poor and fighting against other social ills.
“The notion that religious people should be about feeding the poor and helping the homeless is a carryover of the Social Gospel,” says Charles Kammer, a religion professor at Wooster College in Ohio. The Social Gospel was adopted by many Protestant churches in the late 19th and early 20th century, says Bass, the church historian. Some of the Social Gospel churches grew popular because they provided the poor with everything from English classes to sewing instructions and basketball leagues.
“The first American megachurches were liberal, Social Gospel urban churches,” Bass says.
The Social Gospel, though, sparked a backlash from a group of pastors during World War I. They were called fundamentalists. They published a pamphlet listing the “fundamentals of the faith:” Biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth, Adam and Eve.
But the fundamentalists lost the battle for public opinion during the “Scopes Monkey Trial” in 1925. John Scopes, a high school science teacher, was tried for violating a Tennessee law that prohibited the teaching of evolution.
Though Scopes lost, fundamentalist Christians were mocked in the press as “anti-intellectual rubes,” and a number of states suspended pending legislation that would have made teaching evolution illegal, says David Felton, author of “Living the Wisdom: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity.”
The trial drove fundamentalists underground where they created a subculture, their own media networks, seminaries and megachurches, he says.
That subculture thrives today, Felton says, and has infiltrated the political arena. It has created an “alternative intellectual universe” that denies science, rational thought – and any beliefs that violate their definition of being a Christian, Felton says.
“They have millions of adherents who believe in a literal six day creation and a literal Adam and Eve – so it’s not a stretch to believe that President Obama is a Kenyan-born secret Muslim bent on destroying the country,” Felton says.
Progressive Christians eventually lost the messaging wars to this fundamentalist subculture, Bass says. Their nuanced view of faith couldn’t compete with the “spiritual triumphalism” of conservatives.
“If you get up and say we’re right and we have the truth, then you have a powerful public message,” she says. “They have a theological advantage in the public discourse. It’s comforting to have things clear, to have things black and white.”
The result today is that the Protestant tradition that shapes much of Obama’s Christianity is fading from public view.
The share of Protestant Christians in the United States has dropped below 50% of the population, according to a recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
White mainline Protestants make up only 15% of the nation’s population, the survey revealed. The study also found that the fastest growing "religious group" in the country is people who are not affiliated with any religion.
Another generation of Christians, though, may bring a new version of progressive Christianity back.
The lines between younger conservative Christians and progressives are blurring, says Marcia Pally, author of “The New Evangelicals: Expanding the Vision of the Common Good.”
Pally spent six years traveling across America to interview evangelicals. She says her research revealed that more than 60% of young evangelicals support more governmental programs to aid the needy, as well as more emphasis on economic justice and environmental protection issues.
“What’s interesting is that these values, associated with Obama and the black Protestant tradition are now also the values of a growing number of white evangelicals,” she says.
Her perspective suggests that Obama’s faith may be treated by history in two ways:
He could be seen as the last embodiment of a progressive version of Christianity that went obsolete.
Or he could be seen as a leader who helped resurrect a dying brand of Christianity for a new generation.

Mitt Romney On Women At Bain: They Don't Want To Work There

 

As a newly elected, incoming governor in late 2002, Mitt Romney said he was forced to instruct his staff to "find some women that are qualified" for positions in his administration because all the candidates, "seemed to be men."
The result was the now infamous "binders full of women," comment Romney made during Tuesday night's presidential debate, a reference to a report given to Romney by a women's group, which contained the names of women who should be considered for positions in the Massachusetts state government.
But Tuesday night wasn't the first time the Republican presidential candidate has gotten into trouble trying to explain how difficult it is for him to find "qualified" women for senior positions.
In 1994, when Romney challenged the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts, the Boston Globe first raised the question of why there were so few women and minorities employed at Bain Capital Partners, the Boston-based private equity group Romney founded. At the time, all 95 vice presidents of the firm were white, and only nine were women.
Romney's answer at the time was similar to the one he gave Tuesday night, that there simply weren't any female applicants. He blamed the profession, private equity, and said it didn't "attract many women and minorities." He also blamed the elite business schools, from which Bain recruited almost exclusively. Those schools, he told the Globe, "graduate only a handful of minorities and women."
Statistics suggest otherwise. In 1995, a year after Romney made his comment, the Harvard Business School graduating class was almost 30 percent women. And given the enormous potential of private equity to generate wealth, it's difficult to imagine that women and minorities simply wouldn't be "attracted" to the profession.
On the contrary, according to the Globe, "the team [Romney] put together to manage Bain Capital is exclusively white and male, all educated at the best business schools, mostly Harvard."
Romney also said Bain Capital had no affirmative action program, which likely helped ensure that women did not become partners at the firm until after Romney left, in 1999. And today, more than a decade later, there still do not appear to be any African-American or Latino members of the Private Equity team, judging from an online photo album of the 164-person team. A spokesman for Bain Capital declined to comment.
When the Globe story came out in the fall of 1994, Sen. Kennedy's campaign wasted no time turning the salient parts into a damning TV ad that twisted Romney's words by broadcasting the message that ""Romney claims 'only a handful of women' meet his recruiting standard." The paper later said the ad "misrepresented" the story. Nevertheless, the damage was done, and Romney went on to lose among women voters by more than two to one.
It was a lesson that clearly stayed with Romney: In his successful 2002 gubernatorial run eight years later, Romney chose a woman to be his running mate, former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey. Healey on Wednesday defended Romney's 2002 hiring record, saying he "didn't judge the people who were in his administration by their gender," a statement which appeared to be somewhat at odds with the "binders full of women" anecdote.
But as Romney revealed Tuesday night, eight years after Kennedy's brutal attack, Romney still hadn't met or worked with enough women to prepare him to staff the governor's office with capable people.
"It's shocking to me that after 25 years of experience at the very highest levels of corporate America, Mitt Romney needed our help [to find qualified women]," Jesse Mermell, one of the women who helped prepare the "binders full of women" told HuffPost's Jen Bendery on Wednesday.
-- Mark Gongloff and Jason Cherkis contributed reporting to this story.

Warning!!!! Crabs in a Barrel Alert

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) -- A conservative Bishop is strongly urging African-Americans to break ties from Democrats.
Bishop Earl Walker Jackson, Sr., a Republican primary candidate for Senate in Virginia who introduces himself as the chairman of Ministers Taking a Stand, urged “Christians in the black community” to distance themselves from the Democratic Party – a party he describes as “anti-Christian, anti-church, anti-Bible, anti-life, anti-family and anti-God.”
“It is time to end the slavish devotion to the Democrat Party,” he said at the beginning of his impassioned speech. “They have insulted us, used us and manipulated us.”
He added, “They have saturated the black community with ridiculous lies … they think we are stupid”
He additionally accuses Democrats of attempting to use scare tactics on African-American voters, insinuating that some liberals have said blacks would have voting rights revoked, Martin Luther King Day would be abolished and the nation would return to slavery if they did not vote Democrat in the four-minute missive.
According to the official website for Staying True to America’s National Destiny (STAND), the statement was made as part of a movement called “Exodus Now,” which urges members of the black Christian community to leave behind the Democratic Party.
During his speech, Jackson also accused Planned Parenthood of “kill[ing] unborn black babies by the tens of millions” and “[being] far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.” He also referred to the non-profit reproductive health organization, the Democratic Party, and liberal civil rights leaders as “partners in … genocide.”
Jackson additionally criticized those who equate the civil rights movement with the gay rights movement, criticizing in particular those who liken the struggle to legalize gay marriage with the push to legalize interracial marriage.
“[B]lack Christians remain in that party?” he rhetorically asked. “The civil rights establishment has embraced the lies and betrayed the black community and God Almighty for 30 pieces of silver from the Democrat Party.”

Soros urges philanthropists to invest in African American males

Soros Fund Management Chairman George Soros smiles before his speech at the Central European University in Budapest, November 3, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Bernadett Szabo

By Manuela Badawy

(Reuters) - Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros urged charitable foundations on Monday to do more to tackle the crisis facing African American males.
A new report released on Monday by Soros' Open Society Foundations and the New York-based Foundation Center said that black men and boys in the United States do not have access to the structural supports and opportunities needed to thrive.
The report, titled 'Where Do We Go From Here? Philanthropic Support for Black Men and Boys,' shows that annual funding designated for that specific group has been rising steadily, from $10 million in 2003 to $29 million in 2010. Education is a top funding priority, garnering 40 percent of those grant dollars between 2008 and 2010. California, New York and Georgia are the top three states receiving foundation money explicitly designated for black males.
"It is my hope that this report will motivate other philanthropists and foundations to invest in efforts to improve achievement by African American boys and men," Soros, founder of the Open Society Foundations, said in a statement. "This is a generational problem that demands a long-term commitment."
In 2011 Soros and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg each contributed $30 million of their respective personal fortunes to a New York City program designed to improve the life outcomes of black and Latino males.
"To address the plight of black men and boys, it's imperative that philanthropy put forward solutions that address separate and unequal opportunities they face in all facets of life — education, housing, health, structural employment, and disproportion in the criminal justice/foster care systems," Reverend Alfonso Wyatt, Former Chair, Twenty-First Century Foundation was quoted as saying in the report.
(Reporting By Manuela Badawy; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

Author sheds light on sexism in black churches: Lorrie Irby Jackson

Related

It’s a social phenomenon and statistical reality that became a controversial catalyst for blog posts and news outlets across the nation: Why do most single women in the United States happen to be black?
The subsequent scrutiny of the issue did little to dispel the facts: 2010’s U.S. Census found that African-American women represented the least-married ethnic group (30.9 percent). And in comparison to Caucasians, Asians and Hispanics, they also retained the highest percentage of women 40 and older who never married (31 percent).
Many high-profile personalities used the data to plug their books, preach at black women about alleged flaws and demand they lower their standards.
But African-American social researcher and relationship expert Deborrah Cooper utilized a different approach. She used the two most prevalent common denominators she discovered — Christianity and regular church attendance — as the basis of a 2010 blog post titled “The Black Church: How Black Churches Keep African-American Women Single and Lonely.”
After the post went viral and ignited a firestorm of rebuttals, testimonials and national discourse, Cooper was moved to expound further with her book The Black Church: Where Women Pray and Men Prey. According to the author, studying scriptures and being spiritual aren’t the problem … being pimped from the pulpit by selfish and sexist religious leaders is.
“Some pastors entice well-meaning women to get heavily involved in church to donate their money and keep them under their strict influence,” says the California-based writer. “The response I constantly hear is ‘Well, that’s not every church.’ But even if it’s one out of 100 churches, that’s still too many. This practice is affecting large numbers of women and children in the black community and a whole generation of men are misusing their positions of power and influence, so it’s a major problem.”
In addition to describing the origins of black Christianity and how early outdoor meetings and segregated sanctuaries became standalone churches after the slavery era, the book traces the evolution from political influence to “prosperity gospel” and how some black churches have become more preoccupied with wealth-building rather than community-building.
Cooper also demonstrates how the devoted fellowship and financial backing that black women provide from the pews is rarely recognized or rewarded.
“What I’m saying to black women is, ‘You already have the majority of the responsibility toward children, give time and money to the church and the men in your life, but who is helping you?’” she says.
What’s also irritating to Cooper is the ironclad submission stance that many male church leaders expect of female church members without upholding the same standards for male peers.
“The term submission only appears in the Bible twice, yet that’s one of the most focused-on words in church sermons telling women how they’re supposed to be,” she says.
As alarming as some of Prey’s contents can be, the author isn’t against religion as much as she’s against the blind faith placed in theological leaders who use their connection to God as justification to exploit and abuse.
“Some think that they’re immune to criticism just because they hold the title of minister or pastor,” she says. “Any job has standards, and like anyone else, if you don’t perform your job well, you can be written up or fired.”
Lorrie Irby Jackson is a Briefing columnist. Email her at lorrie.irby@gmail.com and follow her at motherofcolor.com.

Black Youth Over Exposed To Alcohol Promotion

 If the abundance of liquor stores in Black communities of every major metropolis wasn’t enough of a hint, the latest study reveals that alcohol sales and advertisements are targeted at young Black youth. According to the latest study, young  Young African Americans ages 12 to 20 see far more alcohol ads on television and in magazines than youths in general, according to the report published Thursday by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alcoholism is a factor in the four leading causes of death among young people ages 10-24 including motor-vehicle crashes, unintentional injuries, homicide and suicide. While underage drinking is illegal in the United States, young people still have little difficulty obtaining alcohol and fall privy to believing the lifestyles promoted in million dollar advertising campaigns.
The study found that Black youth consume less alcohol than other youth, and attributed the reason to factors like  poverty, social norms, or religion in spite of advertising. David Jernigan, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth noted that Blacks who do indulge in alcohol appear to suffer more serious consequences,  perhaps because they tend to have less access to health care and substance abuse treatment, live in poorer neighborhoods (poverty) and are incarcerated more frequently.
Two factors are credited as to why: Black youth seem to consume more media than youth overall, and many alcohol ads specifically target Black youth. The study cited Nielsen data from 2012 noting Black youth watched more than 53 percent more television than youth in general.  Advertisers are doing little to regulate youth exposure to alcohol ads, and young blacks saw 32% more alcohol ads in magazines, and 17% more alcohol ads on television than youth overall in 2009. Black youth were exposed to 26% fewer radio ads for alcohol than youth in general, but they heard 32% more radio ads for hard liquor.  An older study of rap lyrics showed 64% of the most popular songs released from 2002 to 2005 referenced alcohol, a steady increase since 1997.
Of course heads of major alcohol marketing companies like the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States will counter that the data is flawed, listing opposing statistics that show an overall  decrease in youth alcohol consumption in the United States. However, the spike in print magazine promotions, radio and television ads that feature young Black models and celebrities are clearly aimed at a particular audience.
A third factor rarely discussed amongst researchers and marketing heads nor mentioned in the study is that target marketing and little regulation of its consumption may be a contrived tactic to regulate the Black population, increase incarceration numbers, and prevent widespread excellence. A conspiracy theory, but consider the unspoken motivation the next time an alcohol ad is played over the radio, or rap lyric is repeated that promotes overindulgence to young people

God has a plan for our Life by Eld.M Bates

Samuel 1-10

¹⁰ In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. ¹¹ And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

 

God has a plan for all of our young men especially the ones who we consider not worthy.  Samuel was birthed through his mother’s misery but God still had a plan for his life.  The word of the Lord was so precious in those days because no one could understand it.  Samuel’s mother gave him to God as a young child because she was so grateful and God repaid her.  Samuel could hear God’s voice calling out to him but he was confused because he thought it was his spiritual father Eli.  When Eli instructed Samuel to answer to God, the plan for Samuel’s life was revealed.  God promised Samuel that he would do something so great in Israel that everyone would be able to hear.  The Lord will call or talk to every man or woman if we listen and he will tell you what to do.
 

^3:19-21

¹⁹ The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground. ²⁰ And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. ²¹ The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. 

African-American Youth: Still Standing Beside President Obama? - ABC News

Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Young-African Americans are divided on the answer.

"I honestly think that is a stupid question," said Antwaun Sargent.

The 23-year-old Chicago native, who once knocked on frosted doors campaigning for a little-known state senator named Barack Obama, still supports him.

However, he added, "The question young African-Americans are asking themselves isn't, 'Are we better off than we were four years ago?' it's, 'What kind of America do we want going forward?'"

The president isn't just facing an economic deficit. He's facing an enthusiasm deficit, and it's among his most trusted supporters -- young people. The problem for Obama is not whether he'll lose loyal young, African-American supporters to Romney, it's whether or not they'll vote for him, again.

The Ambivalence Factor

With overall African-American unemployment at 14.1 percent, and African-American unemployment among those 16 to 19 years old at 39.3 percent, nearly twice that of whites in the same age bracket, Sargent recognized that "some feel like Obama hasn't done enough for the African-American community."

Citing the creation of the African-American Education Office as one of the initiatives Obama has taken while in the White House, he gave the president a different kind of credit. In Sargent's eyes, "He's done things that speak directly to my generation and directly to my minority group."

Chris Carlson/AP Photo

In this May 23, 2008 photo, supporters cheer... View Full Size

Chris Carlson/AP Photo

In this May 23, 2008 photo, supporters cheer for then Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., at a rally in Sunrise, Fla.

But some Obama supporters sound less enthusiastic now.

Among "people like me," said Kareem Campbell, a registered Democrat who grew up in the New York's Bronx borough, "there's a sense of disillusionment with the whole 'change' platform."

That is exactly what Republicans are banking on.

"I think we are better off," said Campbell, almost as if it was a question.

He paused.

"Well, actually, I don't know."

Having already been hired by a leading Wall Street bank, Campbell recognized that he doesn't face the same challenge and frustration as many other college seniors around the country. But he believed the president deserves credit, adding, "We are certainly better off with social issues."

Youth Enthusiasm: Has It Come and Gone?

Historically, young people have leaned Democratic. But 2008 marked a new age of American politics. Obama won 66 percent of voters under the age of 30, and 95 percent of the African-American vote.

Now, the president appears to be much more focused on keeping this significant part of his coalition. It should come as no surprise that he kicked off his re-election campaign with a college campus tour.

There's no doubt that when he first stepped onto the national stage in 2004, it was a different America. Back then, the national voter turnout rate of African-Americans was 60 percent. That year, in Jay-Z's hit song, "99 Problems," he rapped, "If you don't like my lyrics you can press fast forward."

So fast forward to 2012, there are more than 99 problems for this president, and a weakened enthusiasm is just one.

According to a recent Urban League study, "The Hidden Swing Voters: Impact of African-Americans in 2012," high African-American voter turnout in certain swing states -- specifically North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Florida -- was key to Obama's 2008 victory. If they don't turn out again in several key states and slip back down to the levels of eight years ago, it could cost Obama a second term.

For now, the battle really comes down to two of the four 2008 swing states with high African-American turnout -- Virginia and Florida. With Election Day less than 50 days away, both camps are working to garner young people's attention and support.

Enter Hollywood

The Obama re-election campaign is calling on Hollywood, perhaps more than ever. Raising money may be one thing Hollywood does well, but the clock is ticking down, and it's not all about the big bucks.

"Celebrities are the new force in American politics," said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League. "They have a platform and they have a voice. I see more and more celebrities wanting to use that voice for civic and political purposes."

Including Eva Longoria, Kerry Washington and Scarlett Johansson, the president had a host of celebrities speaking out on his behalf at the Democratic National Convention.

In recent months, he has attended fundraisers hosted by the likes of George Clooney, Anna Wintour and, this past week, Beyonce and Jay-Z.

But what is won from one night with the 1 percent? Having the first-couple of hip-hop spending time with the president "sends a message to young people," said Morial.

Kareem Campbell doesn't believe that celebrity hip-hop endorsements have any bearing on his voting. As he sees it, "some music celebrities can definitely have a positive impact on the young African-American community." They are "making it cool again to vote."

But is "cool" going to make the cut?

The Alternative

In 2012, the economy is a focus for many voters, something the Romney campaign and Republicans welcome with open arms.

"We're not buying what you're selling in 2012," declared Saratoga Springs, Utah, Mayor Mia Love, when she took to the podium at last month's Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. The rising star, who may well become the first African-American Republican woman to serve in the House if she wins her race November, spoke for only a few minutes but caught the attention of millions.

While the Romney campaign may not be actively seeking the African-American youth vote, they're not just sitting back and hoping that the demographic will stay away on Election Day. In June, the Romney campaign launched Young Americans for Romney in an attempt to reach out to the millennial generation. Led by Craig Romney, the youngest of Romney's sons, the effort has been largely centered on economic challenges.

'This Is Not 2008'

Victoria Wanjiku, a Kenyan immigrant who grew up in Atlanta, sees this election from a different perspective. Although unable to vote herself, the Georgetown University senior calls America home.

"People are still excited about an Obama presidency," she said. "From what I'm reading and experiencing and seeing from my friends on Facebook, I think they'll vote."

As she saw it, enthusiasm among African-American youth is still there, but it's the media narrative that has changed.

Put simply, "This is a not the same election as it was in 2008. At that time, the story was about the first African-American president of the United States."

Nonetheless, there is mounting evidence that the Obama campaign is beginning to pull ahead in some key swing states. A recent Washington Post poll showed Obama up by 8 points in Virginia.

Marc Morial sees a "growing interest" in the election and a "growing sense of how important it is," but he was quick to admit, "This is not 2008."

Although moments of the Democratic National Convention may have shown flashes of the excitement surrounding the last campaign, even Democrats admit the same enthusiasm has yet to be re-created.

"In 2008, you heard people on the streets, people on trains talking about how excited they were by Obama. That is physically absent today," Sargent said.

Growing Enthusiasm, Growing Confusion: Voter ID Laws

Finding ways to pull young Americans to the voting booths will be key for the incumbent.

But while major celebrities and social media chatter may be pulling them in, something else is pushing them away -- voter ID laws.

Although brought forth in the name of combating voter fraud, Morial said he believes, "These laws are going to trick people." He saw the effort to pass the laws as "deliberate and intentional," brought about by those who "wanted to try to tamp down the votes of young people and African-Americans and senior citizens."

As a result, much of the Urban League's "Occupy the Vote" campaign to increase voter registration is aimed at ensuring people know what the laws are and that they understand what paperwork they need to provide to be able to vote.

Perhaps they may be a little less enchanted, perhaps a little less enthused, but most young African-Americans continue to support their president. There's just one question that remains: Will they vote?

Advertisers aren’t tapping into strong African American market, report says

Even after absorbing a devastating economic hit from the Great Recession, black consumers remain a potent force but are often overlooked by advertisers, according to a new research report.

African Americans are projected to have a combined spending power of $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to the report released on Friday by the market-research firm Nielsen and the National Newspaper Publishers Association, which represents 200 black-oriented newspapers.

African Americans are a major spending power, but firms aren’t wooing them in black media.

Report shows companies use loopholes to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes on overseas profits.

As a group, African Americans have a set of spending habits and brand loyalty that should be attractive to advertisers. More than other demographic groups, blacks tend to buy “brand-name” products, watch television and spend time shopping or frequenting fast-food restaurants, the report said.
Still, media outlets directed at black audiences earned just a tiny slice — less than 2 percent — of the more than $120 billion that firms spent on advertising in 2011, according to the report.
“Companies that don’t advertise using black media risk having African Americans perceive them as being dismissive of issues that matter to black consumers,” said Cloves Campbell, chairman of NNPA. “This report demonstrates what a sustainable and influential economic force we are.”
Black-oriented media have been caught in the throes of the dramatic changes wrought by the explosion of digital media, which has crimped revenue and audiences for both mainstream and niche news outlets. Nonetheless, they continue to follow stories overlooked by the mainstream press, a fact that black consumers recognize, according to the report.
Black media have lifted major news events and issues to national prominence in the past, such as the plight of black GIs during World War II, Jackie Robinson’s rise to baseball’s major leagues and the gruesome murder of Emmett Till.
Recently news such as the disproportionate impact of the down economy on the black community and the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s recent trip to the Gambia, where he managed to get President Yayha Jammeh to reconsider the executions of 46 death-row inmates, has tended to get much more attention in the black press.
On his trip, Jackson also secured to the freedom of two Gambian Americans who were facing long prison sentences for their political activity in that country. One was a former University of Tennessee professor, Amadou Scattred Janneh, who also served as Gambia’s minister of communications. He was arrested last year for printing T-shirts that read “Coalition for Change” and “End Dictatorship Now” on the front and “Freedom” on the back.
The other, Tamsir Jassey, is an Operation Desert Storm veteran who also served as Gambia’s director general of immigration. He was serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted of aiding the escape of a man suspected of trying to overthrow Jammeh.
“Why hasn't this been in the mainstream media?” Jackson asked during a news conference held to publicize the report at the Congressional Black Caucus’s 42nd Annual Legislative Conference.
That kind of coverage matters to viewers and readers, and ultimately advertisers, the report said. More than 90 percent of black consumers believe that black media is more relevant to them than are mainstream outlets, the report said. Consequently, it said, 81 percent of black consumers believe that products advertised in black media are more relevant to them

Van Impe ministry claims that President Obama denies Christ and is 'biblically hostile

According to end of times preacher Jack Van Impe, President Obama is among the people who "deny Christ and the cross" and are "enemies of the cross of Christ." Accompanied with commentary by his wife Rexella, Van Impe declared in the September 22 broadcast of Jack Van Impe Presents that the president is anti-Christian and anti-Bible and has allowed "radical Muslim lobbyists" to "infiltrate and penetrate the White House" while at the same time, radical Islamists are scheming to bring about Armageddon and a nuclear war that will wipe out one third of the world's population. (See video embedded below.)The Christian ministry is selling a DVD called "The President of Change Shortchanges America" and along with a "gift of just $24.95" the Van Impes will include their list of 50 things (scratch that, 56 things) that the president allegedly said or did that prove that he's "America's Most Biblically Hostile President." In the theme of their "Obama is anti-Christian" presentation, Rexella Van Impe cited a World Net Daily article in her list of global headlines topics. "This first one shocked me!," she said with excitement. "Backlash brewing over Obama's anti-faith actions! Whoa!" The article is a rant by religious right activists Bishop E. W. Jackson and Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel who declared that the Democrats are bent on transforming the nation into a hotbed of "sexual perversion" and "doing away with all symbols of our Judeo-Christian culture."

I was happy that my father agreed to do another segment…but after reading it, I sort of felt like Shug Avery (God’s trying to tell me something lol!!!).  Anyway, I’m grateful that my dad agreed to submit another master piece to Spiritual Spa. 

Children Obey Your Parents

Even in the times that we live in, God wants us to learn his word and keep it so that we can practice it and pass it to the next generation.  Deuteronomy 5:11-21 are the Ten Commandments.  The Ten Commandments were considered the beginnings of wisdom.  These Commandments were written by God so that man could have laws that showed the difference between right and wrong.  The word was given to us so that we could hide it in our hearts, and pass it on to the next generation. 

 

Deuteronomy 6:6-8 these commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

 

Deuteronomy 6:25 and it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God it will be a better world.

 A father and a mother cannot teach the law if they don’t have the law in there hearts and minds first.  Parents must first have the word in them so that they can direct the children on what to do.  

 Elder M. Bates        

Get your change of Strength from God

 

There are many times in life where we find ourselves in need of inspiration and strength. Life has many ups and downs mixed with the occasional surprises.  I’m not a religious fanatic but I do enjoy getting inspiration and encouragement from other positive forces, regardless of religious beliefs.  Here’s a little encouragement from my dad.  We may not agree on everything but I’ve always been encouraged by a lot of things he says.  

 We can see that the youth of today are giving up, and the young men are tired from failing. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. This is what the Lord can do for young men that want to
be with the Lord and allow him to come into their lives.

28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint..”

ISAIAH 40:28-31

Handkerchief Heads Say Don’t Vote

What frustrates me when it comes to black religious folks is they start popping off at the mouth, while the Mitt Romneys and George Bushes of the world sit back tickled pink.  You clowns are the reason that politicians think it’s ok to show up at your church on election week for votes, instead of stomping the yard all year long. These house Negroes are not talking about job creation or using our political leverage to affect change.  These Negroes are crying about same sex marriage.  I’m shocked that clergy in the black community are even considering such a drastic step.  If you have a personal problem with Obama’s position on gay marriages then voice that. Don’t try to drag everyone else into your madness.  Most black people do not care one way or the other about same sex marriage.  We’re more concerned about the economy and how to feed our families.  I’m so tired of these superstar clergy stepping forward claiming to represent me.  If a person chooses to marry another person of the same sex, so what!!!!  Just get the damn economy together!!!! Rev. Nelson, Obama’s statement about gay marriage did not cause a “storm” in the black community, the storm started when you clowns huddled up back in May, and decided to push your personal beliefs during the height of the election season.  Why now?  Why come out the closet crying about same sex marriage now? I didn’t hear anything from you handkerchief heads when Eddie Long was playing Little House on the Prairie with Adam, Hoss and Little Joe.  On November 6^th you can stay home and pray if you want, but when Mitt and the good ol boys have you swinging from the back of a mule cart, please don’t scream “Give…. Me… Freedom”.       

Steve

The God in you is Deaf, Dumb, and Blind

Can anybody tell me what has happened to those strong minded Saints of God, who could spot a Jackleg preacher stealing money a mile away? The Saints of God no longer pay attention to that God given gift of spiritual discern. They stopped paying attention to that spiritual tingling a long time ago. When your glitzy pastor pulls up in a $90,000 dollar car, you clowns grin with pride. “That’s my pastor!!! He’s truly blessed” And you giggle at corny jokes while faithfully dropping 10, 30, and 50% of your earnings in the chitlin bucket on Sunday. Evander Holyfield is believed to have given Creflo Dollar close to $7 Million in tithes. And what blessings did he get in return? Eleven loud mouth ass kids and $375,000 in child support, damn! God is good all the time and all the time God is good!!!!
What’s wrong, Saints? These jackleg preachers got you confused about who you should be serving.

1. Eddie Long was on TV huffing and puffing about throwing sticks and stones, until Centino Kemp and company backed his ass down.
2. Noel Jones was on YouTube preaching about taking control of ourselves,
   and what did his trick ass do? Loose control and get a married woman pregnant.
3. And let’s not forget Prophet Jordan and his son conjuring up a prophecy for you every half hour, after you’ve thrown your car note in the chitlin bucket.

The God inside of you sits quietly as these clowns rain down this bullshit every Sunday, and your God is cool with the new world of prosperity teaching. What makes these situations worse is that your little jackleg pastors look at themselves in mirrors and “Wanna be like Mike”. You’re out there hustling fish plates and Kool-Aid, so his monkey ass can be on a billboard.
I’m not claiming to be saved or even a Christian, but I would put my off brand faith in God against you and these jacklegs any day. These clowns spew out nonsense about “God says” and you freeze up with fear. God has never instructed you to give money to the church or these jacklegs. You’re doing yourself an injustice if you make $80,000 dollars a year, and give $800 to the jackleg.
People, there is no such thing as a “man of God” who controls your connection with God. If you show me a man that claims to have a stronger connection with God then yourself, I will show you a lying sack of shit!!!! These jacklegs go to school and learn the best way to prey on your emotions. They teach themselves how to play to the crowd, and how to maximize peer pressure. At church, you see one dummy jump up, run to the pulpit, drop money, and your dumb ass follows. I said it and I will say it again, You’ve been had! You’ve been took! You’ve been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok! So the next time pastor jackleg slithers over to you talking about the more you give, the more God gives, nicely explain to him that the God in you has a no tricks allowed clause…Let’s see if the God in him agrees with it.