Brad R. Braxton2013-05-19T00:36:43-04:00Brad R. Braxtonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=brad-r-braxtonCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Brad R. BraxtonGood old fashioned elbow grease.Worship And Prayer In African American Christianitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10284572011-10-25T08:03:42-04:002011-10-25T19:08:41-04:00Brad R. Braxtonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-r-braxton/Cultural Connections: The African Roots of the African American Church
The impact of Africans on world civilizations is well documented. Africans have created and contributed to many aspects of culture, from commerce to cuisine. Religion has been at the center of these African contributions.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Africans have played an important role in the development of both ancient and contemporary Christianity. In the early centuries of Christianity, Africans, in countries such as Egypt and Ethiopia, shaped and spread the proclamation of the fledgling church. So the story of Africa's involvement with Christianity is as old as the church itself.
Yet the interaction of Africans and Christianity more relevant to this essay is rooted in the 15th, not the first, century. Beginning in the mid-15th century, various European nations expanded their economic wealth and extended their political influence through the trading of African slaves and the conquest of African lands. The colonial conquest spanned the entire African continent -- from the Sahara to South Africa. Christianity -- or a distorted version of it -- provided the religious justification for nations such as Portugal, France, Holland, England and the United States to exploit, brutalize and murder millions of Africans in the slave trade.
Amid this horrible violence, a new moral community arose in the United States -- the African American church. Over centuries, enslaved and free Africans in the United States transformed the religion they received from white Christians. These Africans removed the racist elements of white Christianity and replaced them with African practices and cultural wisdom, thereby moving Christianity in this country closer to Jesus' message of justice.
In the creative mixture of Christianity and African Traditional Religion, of biblical stories and African folklore, of Christian message and African music, the African American church was forged. The African American church sustained the liberation longings of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, of Henry McNeal Turner and Frederick Douglass. Later the African American church became the incubator for civil rights protests that persuaded the United States to embody its noble creeds through just deeds.
Furthermore, had it not been for the rhetorical, liturgical and moral imagination of the African American church, a black person would not currently be in The White House. The lyricism of President Barack Obama's language is the mother tongue of African American Christianity. If President Obama's oratory is soaring, it is because Trinity United Church of Christ, the African American congregation where he worshipped for many years, placed wings on his back. In spite of the politically-motivated vilification of President Obama's former congregation and pastor, fair-minded people cannot ignore that the United States' first African American President was shaped in and nurtured by the worship and prayers of an African American Christian congregation.
The Liturgical Calendar: The African American Quest for Freedom
Having explored the cultural roots of African American Christian worship, I now present some of that tradition's recent liturgical fruit. Under the visionary leadership of Martha Simmons, a trailblazing African American minister and scholar, The African American Lectionary debuted in December 2007. This historic resource will enrich American liturgical practice for decades to come. The Revised Common Lectionary used by many white, Christian denominations does not incorporate the theological presuppositions or liturgical particularities of African American Christianity. Consequently, Martha Simmons assembled an expansive network of African American ministers, scholars, musicians, liturgists and activists to create the first online, ecumenical preaching and worship lectionary for African American Christians (www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org). It was my privilege to serve on the lectionary creation team, a small group of scholars who supervised the project.
The African American Lectionary provides a yearly cycle of biblical readings and commentaries, cultural materials and worship resources to enhance the preaching and liturgical life of African American churches. In less than four years, more than four million people have visited the lectionary website, a compelling testimony to the importance of culturally-sensitive resources in the creative attempt to grasp, or be grasped by, the sacred in worship and prayer. The website uses the multimedia tools of the internet. Yet the roots of the lectionary are embedded in the soil of the protracted African American quest for freedom.
The lectionary's special liturgical moments present the distinctive, sweet fruit of African American worship that has fed the spirits of millions of people amid the bitterness of oppression and genocide. I highlight two distinctive liturgical moments on the African American lectionary calendar as a demonstration of how the quest for freedom impacts many aspects of African American Christian worship and prayer. The two liturgical moments are: 1) the Watch Night service and 2) the Maafa service.
1) Description of the Watch Night Service
Many Christian lectionaries begin with Advent, the month-long penitent and expectant waiting and watching for the birth of the Messiah beginning in late Nov./early Dec. While African Americans Christians have a robust, Jesus-centered piety, the African American church year does not begin with Advent, but rather with a special annual service in late December called the Watch Night service. Like ancient and contemporary Jewish communities anticipating and commemorating Passover liberation, contemporary African Americans communities recall the night of our waiting and watching for emancipation. In many African American communities, the only worship service during the year that surpasses the Watch Night service in attendance and liturgical intensity is the Easter service.
Watch Night is a jubilant African American worship service on New Year's Eve. While New Year's Day is a secular holiday, historic events have forever instilled sacred significance into the African American celebration of the New Year. On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation, declaring that one hundred days later, Jan. 1, 1863, slaves would be free in those states rebelling against the Union in the Civil War. On December 31, 1862, also known as "Freedom's Eve," large groups of African Americans, along with white abolitionists, gathered in meeting halls and churches across the county to watch for news that the President had formally enacted the Emancipation Proclamation. The ink with which Lincoln penned the proclamation must have been dark. Mixed in it was the blood of countless slaves sacrificed in the United States' ironic quest for democracy. More than 140 years later, African American Christians continue to gather in churches on New Year's Eve to thank God for the blessings of the Old Year and to seek God's favor for the New Year.
2) Description of the Maafa Service
Maafa is a Kiswahili term meaning the "Great Disaster" (of 15th-19th century European, North American, South American, and Caribbean slavery). Some African American Christian congregations conduct Maafa services to honor the heroic struggle of black Africans who were violently seized from their ancestral lands and pressed into inhumane chattel slavery. These services also memorialize the millions of black Africans who died in the "Middle Passage" -- the brutal, trans-Atlantic voyage in the hulls of slave ships.
While Maafa services acknowledge this grim period in world history, they primarily accentuate the determination and resistance of those victimized by slavery. Furthermore, these services invite participants to relinquish to God the bitterness, hatred and guilt concerning these atrocities, in order to be more spiritually ready for protest against the present manifestations of "slavery" around the globe. Finally, by remembering the "Great Disaster," African American congregations challenge the tendency of countries and cultural groups to ignore or de-emphasize the tragedy and lingering effects of chattel slavery.
Both the Jewish and African American communities are connected in that each community has lived through a "Great Disaster." For Jewish people, it is the Shoah. (Shoah is a Hebrew word meaning "destruction" or "catastrophe." The word "holocaust," which is derived from the Greek word used in the Septuagint for "burnt offering," carries religious overtones. The massacre of millions of Jews and other marginalized groups such as the Romani, persons with disabilities and gay and lesbian persons during Hitler's tyranny was diabolical and irreligious. Thus, Shoah is the preferred term for many Jews.) For people of West African descent, the "Great Disaster" is the Maafa.
Each of these tragedies has its own cultural and historical particularities that should not be ignored. Furthermore, we should not encourage the futile "cultural contest" sometimes played between the Jewish and African American communities -- the game of whose suffering and losses were greater. In that game, we quickly forget that one life taken in a concentration camp in Germany or on a colonial plantation in Georgia was one life too many before God. Nevertheless, by bringing the tragedies of the Shoah and the Maafa into our liturgical life and placing them on the altar of our souls in prayer, we can channel creative, purifying spiritual energy that can ignite new commitments for justice and peace in the Jewish and African American communities, and around the globe.
Theological Commitments of African American Worship and Prayer
While the theological commitments of African American worship and prayer are numerous, two noteworthy aspects deserve comment:
1) Soul-Stirring Worship: "I Feel the Fire Burning"
African American Christian worship seeks to stir the soul. I use the term "soul" in the sense of the Hebrew word for "soul," nephesh. In the Hebrew Bible, "soul" does not mean the invisible part of a person. Soul connotes the whole person. Soul is every part of me; it's every part of you. Consequently, African American Christian worship speaks to every part of a person. It illumines the head and warms the heart.
As it brings the totality of people's humanity into a redemptive rendezvous with a righteous God, African American worship unapologetically plumbs the depths of people's emotions. It rejects the philosophical dualism between "body" and "mind" and insists that the presence of emotion does not equal the absence of intelligence. Thus, African American worship is a thoroughly-embodied, deeply-musical, highly-choreographed sacred drama -- with hands clapping, feet taping, elders humming, choirs swaying, ushers marching, preachers sweating, and congregants shouting, all for the glorification of God, the edification of the human spirit and the transformation of a troubled world. When the cognitive and emotive intensity of worship burns white-hot, some black Christians will joyfully declare, "I feel the fire burning." From a people who created the spirituals, the blues, jazz, gospel and soul music, the world would expect nothing less than soulful, or should I say soul-full, worship.
2) Soul-Cleansing Prayer: "Fix Me, Jesus, Fix Me"
African American prayer seeks to cleanse the soul from the toxins of racism, low self-esteem and unrelenting suffering. In a country supposedly offering "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," many African Americans have been killed, enslaved and chased by hostility. From the hulls of slave ships, to the branches of lynching trees, to the walls of prisons that house a disproportionate number of African Americans, the United States has insisted repeatedly, in policy and practice, that "colored" bodies are not as valuable as white bodies.
Rather than succumbing to the lie that black lives don't matter, African American Christians bow our heads and lift our hearts to a God who affirms that we are somebody. God has imprinted the divine image on every life, irrespective of color and creed. Since God cares for us, we can cast our cares upon God (1 Peter 5:7). Offering praise for blessings and lifting petitions for burdens, African American prayer is a passionate plea for Jesus to fix what it broken, to heal what is hurt and to cleanse what is tainted. The words of the spiritual convey this deep desire: "Oh, Lord, fix me; Oh, Lord, fix me, Jesus; Oh, Lord, fix me; fix me, Jesus, fix me." When I served as the Senior Pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore, there was a wise deacon who often prayed, "Lord, fix the situation, but even if you don't fix the situation, fix me." In the midst of our "weary years" and "silent tears," African Americans continue to pray fervently, absolutely persuaded that our prayers touch the heart and move the hands of a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.
Author's Note: This article also will appear in "Reclaiming the Center Volume II: Worship and Prayer in the Christian and Jewish Traditions," a resource published by the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, Md. ]]>The Holy Spirit, Jesus and Social Justice in Black Churches: Making Noise or Making a Difference?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8296652011-03-05T23:47:20-05:002011-05-25T18:35:25-04:00Brad R. Braxtonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-r-braxton/
"In urban and suburban America, the up-and-coming trend is the 'mega' black church with state-of-the-art classrooms, administrative offices, banquet facilities, and gymnasiums. Many of these 'mega' churches have enough members to populate a small city. ... Many factors contribute to this groundswell of membership ... but, most of all, it is the resurgence of a more charismatic style of worship in the black church that has motivated much of this interest. It is the vibrant, exciting worship of the African-American tradition that is drawing people. ... Yet I am concerned that congregations cultivate spiritual lives, and not simply provide energizing worship. People are coming to church, but what are we doing in church?
...Has our style of worship become more important than the substance of worship? Has having a 'good time' in church become more important than living a good, disciplined, and empowered life before God? Has the phenomenon of stirring up feelings in church become more important than encouraging faithfulness once we are outside of the church? In the midst of all of our excitement, are we really making a difference in the world? Or just making a lot of noise?" (Spiritual Manifestos: Visions for Renewed Religious Life in America from Young Spiritual Leaders of Many Faiths, pp. 139-140).
More than a decade after raising those questions, it troubles me that many churches still are simply making noise but not making a difference. Over the clamor of our Sunday morning merry-making, God continues speaking through the prophet Amos: "I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. ... Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5:21, 23-24). This Amos text reveals a divine impatience, even intolerance, for exuberant worship unconcerned with social empowerment and communal wellbeing.
By contrast, small communities of early Christians, motivated by the power of Pentecost, exerted enormous influence on their society. They were accused by their opponents of "turning the world upside down" (Act 17:6). As contemporary followers of Jesus, we must do more than simply "make noise" in church. We, like our ancestors in the faith, are called to shake the foundations of demonic injustice and in so doing turn the world right side up.
The paltry social justice engagement of many churches, and especially some charismatic churches that adamantly claim the Holy Spirit's power, is cause for alarm. Among other factors, a distorted understanding of Jesus' mission and ministry has severed the connection between Spirit-filled worship and Spirit-led activism. Having suffered through several decades of "prosperity gospel" preaching, we must now insist on more theologically sound understandings of Christian social witness.
"Fleshing Out" a Justice Agenda: Luke 4:14-30
When Jesus inaugurates his public ministry in Luke 4, it comes as no surprise that the text for his first sermon refers to the Holy Spirit. The first four chapters of Luke emphasize the Spirit's profound role in Jesus' life. When prophesying the immaculate conception, the angel Gabriel says to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, Simeon, a devout man longing to see the Messiah, attends the Temple at the right moment to meet, and even hold, the infant Jesus (Luke 2:25-35).
Furthermore, at Jesus' baptism, his tangible receipt of the Holy Spirit is underscored when Luke says the Spirit descended "in bodily form like a dove" (Luke 3:22). Finally, the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness and sustains him throughout his temptations (Luke 4:1-13). Jesus' wilderness encounter with the demonic does not lessen the anointing in his life. As he begins his Galilean ministry, Jesus remains "filled with the power of the Spirit" (Luke 4:14).
Aware of the Spirit's intense presence in his life, Jesus finds some "Spirit" passages in Isaiah as he reads scripture in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:17). Jesus' text is a modified version of Isaiah 61:1, 58:6, and 61:2. We should pay particular attention to the first portion of Isaiah 61:1: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor."
Jesus quotes from the Greek translation of Isaiah in the Septuagint. An interesting nuance arises if we return to the original Hebrew of Isaiah 61:1, where the verb "to bring good news" (basher) is related to the Hebrew noun meaning "flesh" (bashar). Consequently, the Hebrew of Isaiah 61:1 could be rendered more poetically: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to enflesh good news to the oppressed" (Jaco Hamman, Becoming a Pastor: Forming Self and Soul for Ministry, p. 179).
At its best, Spirit-filled preaching embodies the good news that is proclaimed. Thus, genuinely good news must involve tangible liberation for oppressed bodies as much as intangible elevation of weary souls. We must put flesh on our words in order for our words to heal and transform sisters and brothers beset with real, fleshly afflictions.
Jesus understands the fleshly implications of Spirit-led justice work. As the scripture lesson in the synagogue concludes, Jesus' sermon begins with a bold opening line: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21). The sermon continues with a provocative interpretation of God's inclusive salvation that transcends cultural boundaries (Luke 4:25-27).
It might appear that Jesus' sermon ends in Luke 4:28-30 as enraged synagogue attendants attempt to throw him from a cliff. However, Jesus escapes their murderous machinations in order to continue the sermon. He travels to a synagogue in Capernaum where he preaches or "enfleshes" good news to an oppressed man by exorcising a demon from him. The spoken sermon in the Nazareth synagogue interprets the enacted sermon in the Capernaum synagogue, and vice versa. Sermons preached in words and sermons preached through deeds are both necessary for a holistic ministry of social justice and healing.
In contrast to Jesus' attempt to "flesh out" a justice agenda in Luke 4, James 2:14-16 provides an example of abstract, irrelevant religion. In a stinging critique of socially unengaged piety, James writes:
"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."
According to James 2, Christians should "flesh out" a social justice agenda by fighting poverty. In the example, instead of filling a hungry stomach, the believer sends the poor person away after spouting an empty cliché. Death is the consequence of socially irrelevant faith. Physically, death will overtake the poor, naked, hungry person in the text. Spiritually, death has already overtaken the unengaged faith of believers.
James 2 concludes with a clear analogy. Faith that fails to address serious social dilemmas is like a dead body with no spirit. Indeed, apart from the Spirit, congregations will suffocate, and the body of Christ will become a handsomely embalmed corpse. The Spirit's agenda is life -- abundant life. The Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, and that same Spirit can enliven the body of Christ to "flesh out" a revolutionary social justice agenda in Jesus' name.
Jesus and Economic Justice
The alleviation of poverty should be a significant part of a Spirit-led, social justice agenda. Throughout his ministry, Jesus was greatly concerned about economic justice. However, some Christian communities preach so much about the blood and death of Jesus that they neglect the justice principles Jesus taught during his life. Bestselling journalist Barbara Ehrenreich rightly criticizes Christianity's amnesia about the living Jesus. She says that in many churches "Jesus makes his appearance ... only as a corpse; the living man ... is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify [Jesus] again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth" (Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On [Not] Getting By in America, pp. 68-69).
Jesus blessed the poor and cursed the conditions that made people poor. At its core, economic injustice is "an assault upon the dignity of God" (Allan Boesak, Running with Horses: Reflections of an Accidental Politician, p. 343). From Atlanta to Accra and from Harlem to Haiti, the diseases and despair caused by poverty are an attack against God, since God has placed the divine image in every person, regardless of income.
In the name of Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians should have a holy urgency to alleviate, if not eradicate, poverty. We can do more than run revivals, put on prayer breakfasts and sponsor fashion shows. Hopeless, homeless, hungry people need us to "enflesh" our faith.
Here are some things that any congregation can do at some level. For starters, every minister and lay leader should read Marian Wright Edelman's recent book The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small. Her book provides concrete steps for congregations that want to combat poverty. Suggestions from her book and from other justice activists include the following:
1. Provide evening childcare so that parents and grandparents can attend job training classes.
2. Create a support network for seniors in handling their financial and medical affairs.
3. Encourage at least one family in each congregation to adopt a child from foster care.
4. Sponsor after-school homework centers, thereby decreasing the likelihood of after-school youth violence and vandalism.
5. Establish SAT or ACT prep-courses for high school youth.
6. In addition to sending food and clothes to our sisters and brothers in impoverished parts of the world, send money for them to buy tractors and food so they can grow their own food and make their own clothes.
7. Hold politicians accountable for the effective education of all our children, and especially at-risk children. Mayors, city council members, governors, congressional representatives, senators and even the President of the United States should know that the full prophetic witness of faith communities will be mobilized either with them or against them depending on how serious they are about educational reform. If at-risk children fail, let our politicians know that they fail.
These suggestions represent a variety of entry points for congregations to become more socially engaged. As congregations gain proficiency with these tasks, they will grow more confident and competent for increasingly sophisticated forms of social justice activism including 1) creative partnerships with public and private institutions to foster economic development in neglected urban areas and 2) public policy advocacy to ensure greater political protection for socially marginalized persons and more equitable resource distribution for economically vulnerable persons.
When the final history is written, and the roll is called up yonder, let it be said that Spirit-led people did more than make noise on Sunday. May it be said of us that we made a difference -- a serious difference -- every day of the week!
]]>Getting in Front of Jesus: The Politics of Progressive Christianity (Part II)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6805532010-08-16T06:45:45-04:002011-05-25T17:20:22-04:00Brad R. Braxtonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-r-braxton/ The Birth of Jesus: A Progressive Remix
According to the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born in a social context where a cruel king worked on behalf of Rome to ensure Caesar's sovereignty. After learning of Jesus' birth, King Herod plots to kill Jesus. An angel warns Joseph of Herod's wicked intentions. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus become immigrants, fleeing the harsh conditions of their homeland to secure safety and a better future in Egypt. Unable to locate Jesus, Herod sends a decree to murder all children in and around Bethlehem who are two years old and under.
Every Christmas, Christians look back to the birth of Jesus. We even replicate the sentimental parts of the story with pageants and live nativity scenes. My progressive remix focuses on the more tragic elements of the story. Instead of looking back and adoring the "sweet little Jesus boy" in the manger, the story can be a launching pad for prophetic discipleship and twenty-first-century social justice activism.
Here is the remix: let progressive Christian communities insist that President Obama and Congress enact just and humane immigration reform. The story of Jesus might have been different if Joseph and Mary had been sent back to Israel from Egypt because they were considered "undocumented workers," or worse, "illegal aliens." There are many Latino, African, and Asian "Marys" and "Josephs" who are returned to deathly contexts because of U.S. immigration laws. U.S. immigration laws should protect and preserve families, especially those already victimized by economic and social oppression resulting from policies benefiting the United States.
Furthermore, progressive Christian communities should insist that our nation become serious about reducing youth violence. How can we read about the innocent children slaughtered in Bethlehem and not immediately think about the innocent children being slaughtered in our cities? In the ancient world, Jesus escaped death as a child because he had resourceful parents with a "holy hookup." But what about those parents in Bethlehem who lacked resources to escape? And what about the countless contemporary parents who lack the means and influence to live in well-policed neighborhoods with safe schools?
In Chicago, hundreds of young people are constant victims of gun violence. How can the United States posture as a leader of peace when we can't even ensure the safety of children in our schools and neighborhoods? If we can raise money and public interest in a failed attempt to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago, we can raise money and public interest to fund serious violence prevention measures in Chicago and across the country.
Additionally, in order to prevent the further massacre of young people, progressive Christians must persuade President Obama and Congress to stop the deluge of automatic weapons that floods the streets of our country. We send brave men and women to fight Al Qaeda thousands of miles away but are scared to take on the National Rifle Association right across the Potomac River. By going beyond the story of Jesus' birth, we faithfully follow Jesus into areas of social engagement concerning immigration, violence prevention, and gun reform.
The Death of Jesus: A Progressive Remix
Jesus, a young, innocent African-Asiatic Jew, was sent to the Roman death chamber on trumped-up charges. A brown brother in his thirties wrongly executed by the state -- which century are we talking about, the first or the twenty-first? Indeed, twenty centuries after Jesus' execution, injustices abound and continue to sentence other young, innocent people to death, whether by lethal injection or suffocating poverty. In the name of a just God, this must stop.
Here is the remix: let progressive Christian communities work tirelessly to abolish the death penalty in the United States. The faulty evidence used to send so many persons to death row should be clear proof of the serious problems with our penal system and the death penalty. A society that supports violent retribution and misnames it "justice" launches an assault against civility and nonviolent restoration. Even as our society maintains its outrage at homicide, social activists Laura Magnani and Harmon Wray remind us of the dangers of revenge:
Our vengeance-soaked culture is in desperate need of being called to higher moral and spiritual ground ... By giving in to the appetite for revenge, our death-penalty system encourages media, politicians, prosecutors, and others to appeal to what is arguably the most primitive strain in humanity. (Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System, p. 72)
The remix also can transform Christian liturgical practice. For instance, Holy Communion, a sacrament commemorating Jesus' death, can promote progressive social justice ministry. Holy Communion is a "two-faced" ritual. One face is turned to Jesus' suffering in the past and the other to Jesus' return in the future. Many churches remain fixated on the past face. Holy Communion should engender hope that the Lord will return to a world no longer tyrannized by inequality, injustice, and death. The words spoken over the Communion bread -- "take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you" -- must take us beyond Jesus in the Upper Room with his disciples to the rooms and shelters where people struggle with hunger every day.
Next to our Communion tables, let there be other tables full of donated food items that congregants can deliver to needy persons immediately after worship services. Additionally, as an extension of Holy Communion, congregations should collaborate to send not just food but also farming equipment to communities in developing countries to enable them to produce their own food more effectively. Holy Communion liturgies also should include practical ways for congregants to lobby local, state, and federal officials for public policies, enabling more equitable food distribution. Holy Communion is a call to holy action. The theologians Andrea Bieler and Luise Schottroff write:
Ending hunger in our lifetime is perhaps the largest political conundrum we face ... The denial of access to food for everyone ... is the biggest challenge for a [Holy Communion] practice that fosters the eschatological imagination that all can be fed. (The Eucharist: Bodies, Bread, and Resurrection, p. 74)
Similarly, the words spoken over the Communion cup -- "drink from it, for this is the blood of the covenant" -- must move us beyond the chalice in the sanctuary to the challenge in the streets of the "blood issue" decimating the world: HIV/AIDS. When I preside now at Holy Communion as an ordained minister, I tell congregants that the "body of Christ" -- from Harlem to Hong Kong -- has AIDS. Therefore, persons drinking from the Communion cup symbolizing Christ's blood will also now have AIDS. Until the disease is eradicated, we are all affected and infected by this global pandemic. If Jesus' blood is really a lifesaver, we who "drink" it must extend compassion and solidarity to persons facing physical and social death as a result of their blood. By going beyond the story of Jesus' death, we faithfully follow Jesus into areas of social engagement concerning hunger and HIV/AIDS.
Jesus' Advance Team
Jesus' stories are recorded in ancient scripture. Yet progressive Christians refuse to lock Jesus in the prison of the past. The meaning and mission of Jesus continue to be revealed and require us to seek new understandings and partnerships.
The theologian Jürgen Moltman paints an inviting picture of the newness and hope of progressive Christianity:
We want to experience the new creations of God's Spirit in other cultures ... Wherever we proclaim God's kingdom, God's people gather together ... and develop their own forms of belief and worship. The new creation is as rainbow-hued and diversified as creation at the beginning. (Jesus Christ for Today's World, p. 147)
Calling us to get in front of him, Jesus says to contemporary followers, "You are my advance team. Just like John the Baptist prepared the way for me in the first century, you must now prepare the way for me in the twenty-first century. If you go ahead of me embodying restorative justice and inclusive love, people might just be ready when the commonwealth of God fully and finally arrives."
]]>Getting in Front of Jesus: The Politics of Progressive Christianity (Part I)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6491522010-07-16T12:28:18-04:002011-05-25T17:05:23-04:00Brad R. Braxtonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-r-braxton/
To follow a person usually means walking behind that person. Could it be, however, that we follow Jesus most faithfully when we walk ahead of Jesus? I argue for a progressive Christianity that extends the meaning and mission of Jesus into the present and future, rather than promoting an obsession with the past. Defining "progressive Christian" and "prophetic evangelical" (interchangeable terms for me) will facilitate a discussion of the politics of progressive Christianity.
Progressive Christian
According to some accounts, the term "progressive Christian" surfaced in the 1990s and began replacing the more traditional term "liberal Christian." During this period, some Christian leaders wanted to increasingly identify an approach to Christianity that was socially inclusive, conversant with science and culture, and not dogmatically adherent to theological litmus tests such as a belief in the Bible's inerrancy. The emergence of contemporary Christian progressivism was a refusal to make the false choice of "redeeming souls or redeeming the social order."
In the 1990s, many mainline Christian denominations were (and some still are) experiencing a significant decline in membership and cultural influence. The malaise in mainline Christianity occurred as some fundamentalist and conservative Christian communities experienced growth in the United States and across the globe. There are nuances between fundamentalist and conservative Christian denominations. Yet fundamentalist and conservative Christian communities united in the public square to form the "Christian right" -- a network that also included affiliated political, educational, and cultural organizations.
Even the casual observer of culture and politics can identity the considerable influence of the Christian right on public life in the United States during the last 40 years. This influence has extended all the way to the White House. For example, the historian Randall Balmer explores the impact of the Christian right upon the perspectives and decisions of President George W. Bush (God in the White House: A History: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush).
During the last four decades, it often seemed, at least from the media's standpoint, that all Christians were either fundamentalist or conservative. Yet there are countless persons like me whose understandings of and approaches to Christianity are vastly different from those in the Christian right. We, too, profess to be followers of Jesus. Consequently, we are striving to define and live a type of Christianity that is theologically flexible and hospitable to social diversity. With that broad history in place, let me give further shape to the definition of "progressive Christian."
Progressive Christians believe that sacred truth is not frozen in the ancient past. While respecting the wisdom of the past, progressive Christians are open to the ways truth is moving forward in the present and future for the betterment of the world. Progressive Christianity recognizes that our sacred texts and authoritative traditions must be critically engaged and continually reinterpreted in light of contemporary circumstances to prevent religion from becoming a relic.
As a progressive Christian, I believe that Jesus came to transform social relationships as well as improve people's individual spiritual conditions. I also believe that some of God's noblest aspirations for our world are still being revealed and that our understanding of those divine intentions is being refined. The pastor and theologian James Forbes rightly insists that "Jesus was progressive" and "was open to having his understanding of truth and love broadened" (Whose Gospel? A Concise Guide to Progressive Protestantism, p. 2).
Consequently, those of us who bear Jesus' name should creatively replicate Jesus' progressive stance. Following Jesus requires us to turn our faces as much to the present and future as to the past. The good news of the gospel is progressively unfolding itself and inviting us to proceed with faith and flexibility, instead of an unyielding set of narrowly defined, rigid doctrines.
Prophetic Evangelical
The discussion of the term "progressive Christian" prompts an exploration of another important term, "prophetic evangelical." In the contemporary media, the term "evangelical" has become a synonym for "fundamentalist" or "conservative" Christians. This should not be the case, but often is, since media leaders are tempted by convenient binaries and caricatures of religion.
The term "evangelical" is derived from the Greek word euangelion. The word means "good news" or simply "gospel." Broadly speaking, all Christians should be evangelical in the sense that they are bearing witness to the good news that God's love, justice, and peace are revealed in Jesus Christ. Yet in light of the media's assumption that all evangelicals are fundamentalist or conservative, many progressive Christian leaders are now modifying the word "evangelical" with the adjective "prophetic," thereby creating the term "prophetic evangelical." Prophetic religion involves a willingness to interrupt an unjust status quo so that more people might experience peace and prosperity.
The theologian Peter Heltzel suggests that prophetic evangelicals seek to blend a "vibrant personal piety" with a "political radicalism" that leads to social justice (Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race, and American Politics, p. 17). Prophetic evangelicalism insists that Jesus came to save us not only from our personal sins but also from the systematic sins that oppress neighborhoods and nations. Jesus presented his central theme in social and political terms. He preached and taught consistently about the "kingdom of God" -- God's beloved community where social differences no longer divide and access to God's abundance is equal.
Prophetic evangelicals are deeply devoted to Jesus and, based on that devotion, deeply committed to transforming the social order so that marginalized and mistreated people might enjoy God's abundance. Consequently, as a prophetic evangelical, I believe in Jesus, and I also believe in what Jesus believes in -- justice! The theologian Carol Lakey Hess offers a sweeping definition of justice: "Justice, which includes the defeat of oppressive forces, involves recognizing, engaging, and dispersing power among those who differ from one another" (Liberating Faith Practices: Feminist Practical Theologies in Context, p. 57).
As a son of the African American Church, prophetic evangelicalism is part of my religious DNA. African American evangelical Christians -- who understood that Jesus and justice go hand in hand -- led some of the greatest social reform movements in United States history. For example, the abolition of slavery and the Civil Rights movement were largely the result of the prophetic evangelicalism of African American Christians. These Christians provided a compelling model of how piety and politics can merge to make a nation, and even a world, better. This is why progressive Christians everywhere need to do a better job of recognizing and respecting allies in African American churches, many of whom have never accepted the false choice of "souls or the social order."
Conservative Christianity: A Contradiction in Terms
We have witnessed recently some versions of conservative Christianity that seemingly raise the American flag equal to or higher than the cross of Christ. These versions define patriotism as an unquestioning allegiance to the dominance of American practices and policies. The biblical scholar Obery Hendricks insists that some conservative Christian groups have allowed uncritical patriotism to blunt the prophetic edge of the gospel:
In our time, when many seem to think that Christianity goes hand in hand with right-wing visions of the world, it is important to remember that there has never been a conservative prophet. Prophets have never been called to conserve social orders that have stratified inequities of power and privilege and wealth; prophets have always been called to change them so all can have access to the fullest fruits of life. (The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of the Teachings of Jesus and How They Have Been Corrupted, p. 28)
While prophetic evangelicalism respects the rights and privileges of citizenship, it also recognizes that our citizenship in God's commonwealth necessitates that we pledge allegiance more to the cross than to the flag. When we are more committed to the cross than to the flag, we find the moral courage to be true patriots. Martin Luther King, Jr., that towering prophetic evangelical of the last century, demonstrated how prophetic commitments lead to genuine patriotism.
On April 4, 1967, King delivered his famous address "A Time to Break Silence." He called for an end to the Vietnam War and directly opposed the policies of President Lyndon Johnson, with whom he had collaborated on Civil Rights issues. In that address, King defined for us the true meaning of a "patriot act." A patriot act is not questionable legislation enabling a government to eavesdrop on innocent citizens. A patriot act is clarion proclamation calling a government to do right by its citizens and the citizens of the world. King showed us that patriots love their county enough to tell the truth, even if the price for truth-telling is laying down one's life.
With all due respect to my conservative Christian friends, it seems to me that the terms "conservative" and "Christian" are contradictory. Jesus was not a conservative. He laid down his life in a struggle against the conservative forces of Roman imperialism.
Jesus was a revolutionary. He died not of old age but met a death similar to that of his revolutionary mentor John the Baptist. When Jesus stepped into the Jordan River to be baptized, he declared allegiance to God's revolution, which meant he could not pledge allegiance to Rome's inhumane agenda. Jesus was so committed to his mission of creating communities of love and inclusion that he willingly died for it. For justice, Jesus lived and died. For justice, God raised Jesus from the dead. The resurrection serves notice that injustice -- and the oppression and death it brings -- will never have the last word.
Consequently, following Jesus does not simply mean repeating what Jesus said. It involves taking the stories and principles of Jesus and of the movement founded in his name and going ahead of him into new and challenging contexts. It also means speaking words of truth to brokers of power advancing unholy agendas.
Reconsidering Biblical Authority: Helping the Bible Behave
By providing greater nuance to discussions of the Bible's authority, progressive Christians can enhance public discussions about religion and justice. I have traveled in recent years to Ghana, England, and South Africa to investigate how biblical interpretation aided colonialism or fueled social liberation. Additionally, I am active in interfaith dialogue. These international and interfaith experiences have reinforced the need to articulate a progressive understanding of the Bible for the sake of cultural harmony.
As an evangelical, I am conversant with the Bible. As a prophetic evangelical, I realize that the Bible's record concerning justice and compassion is ambiguous. A brief discussion of the Bible's role in social oppression is instructive.
The relationship between "colonial" Christianity and unjust biblical interpretation was evident as I visited the slave castles in Ghana where thousands of Africans were enslaved prior to being shipped to the Caribbean and the Americas in the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries. At the Cape Coast slave castle, the male slave dungeon was underneath the chapel where Europeans were reading and preaching from the Bible. Quite literally, colonial Christianity and its ungodly readings of scripture were propped up by the backs and bones of enslaved Africans.
Furthermore, my interfaith conversations have revealed how exclusive approaches to Christian scripture frustrate interfaith dialogue and cooperation. Colleagues in other religious traditions have indicated to me the problematic nature of certain biblically-sponsored conceptions of Christian evangelism. For example, Christian evangelism that presents Jesus Christ as the only way, the only truth, and the only life perpetuates, even if unintentionally, a genocidal impulse. This exclusive claim can represent the desire to eliminate all "religious others" such as Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews by converting them into Christians.
Interpretations of the Gospel of John 14:6 restricting salvation to Christians come from conceptions of biblical authority that ultimately reject the validity of all other religious traditions and sacred texts. These approaches present an exclusive Jesus who banishes billions of people to hell simply because they encounter the sacred somewhere other than Christianity. On the other hand, the biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine offers a religiously inclusive reading of John 14:6. She creates a humorous, imaginative scene where a narrow Christian protests that Levine, who is Jewish, is saved and admitted into heaven. In order to resolve the issue, Jesus intervenes and responds to the narrow Christian:
If you flip back to the Gospel of Matthew ... you'll notice in chapter 25, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, that I am not interested in those who say 'Lord, Lord,' but in those who do their best to live a righteous life: feeding the hungry, visiting people in prison ...
[Jesus continues] I am saying that I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of John's Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation. I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Do you want to argue? (The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, pp. 92-93)
The Bible also has played a significant role in the oppression of women. The theologian Martha Simmons comments on this sad truth:
Women have been written out of history, and their bodies have been made irrelevant and therefore acceptable as sacrifices for slaughter in the Bible and in contemporary churches which do not consider women living images of God with all rights and privileges attendant there to. (Personal Correspondence)
In light of this genocidal impulse against women, the theologian Mercy Oduyoye raises a pertinent question: "What does the gospel, when preached, really do to effect betterment in women's lives" (Mission in the Third Millennium, p. 47)? Furthermore, many Christians use the Bible as a weapon to dehumanize gay and lesbian people and exclude them from full and free participation in the church.
In a pluralistic world, Christians must bear in mind that the Bible has both mediated grace and motivated genocide. Even as Christian ministers stand on sacred ground in pulpits preaching from the Bible, we must confess that the Bible is contested ground. As contested ground, the Bible is saturated by the tragic trail of tears from untold victims of scripture-sponsored violence.
Consequently, Christian leaders must construct notions of biblical authority that acknowledge the Bible's ambiguous history. I offer such an approach in my book Preaching Paul (p. 23):
Many Christians assume that the Bible is supposed to hold us accountable to live the gospel. Is it not possible that God also expects us to hold the Bible accountable -- accountable to being, through our interpretations of it, an ever more genuine witness to the gospel?
Slave castles, concentration camps, and hateful biblical interpretation marginalizing other religions, women, and gay and lesbian people place a question over the Bible: After religiously-motivated violence whose effects continue, what good news does the so-called "Good Book" contain?
Exclusive approaches to scripture that fail to address the oppressive impulses sponsored by, and contained in, scripture will be whitewashed tombs -- antiseptic exteriors masking death and corruption below. On the other hand, nuanced, inclusive understandings of biblical authority openly admit that on certain matters of justice and compassion the Bible misbehaves and is not at its moral best. By forthrightly addressing the Bible's moral miscues and its oppressive statements, progressive Christians can more honestly proclaim the tomb-breaking power of holy hope and inclusive love.]]>Marriage Equality Is a Theological Necessitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2131272009-06-09T11:34:15-04:002011-05-25T13:25:21-04:00Brad R. Braxtonhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-r-braxton/
Our support for marriage equality is motivated by our religious commitments, not in spite of them. Our Christian faith teaches us the uncompromising, unconditional love of God for all people. Bound together by that love we are all deserving of dignity, equality, and justice. But, because of our belief in the universal capacity to sin, we are suspicious of merely private efforts to enshrine equality, recognizing that all people and all groups are susceptible to prejudice, error, and mistreatment of and by others. Children of the Protestant Reformations, we believe that the state exists to uphold absolute and unequivocal equality under the law for all persons. As religious communities continue to wrestle with interpretation of sacred texts about the meaning and ordinance of marriage, our gay brothers and sisters deserve the same dignity, respect, and protections under the law as different sex couples receive in our state and our country.
Marriage equality and religious freedom are not in conflict. When states grant the civil rights of marriage to gay couples, religious communities still maintain their right to recognize whichever relationships they see fit as a religious community. We believe that debates about the meaning of Christian marriage can only take place honestly when the state provides equality and fairness for all. This is all the more true because there is no one Christian position about marriage: many different interpretations exist within our traditions, and it is a challenging task within Christian communities to discern our way forward despite theological differences. While we welcome theological discussion about the religious understanding of marriage, we insist on full, equal civil rights for all couples who wish to share their lives in committed and loving relationships with one another.
Imagine, on any given day, couples from myriad faith traditions entering churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, even beaches and backyards to wed with the blessing and rituals of their religious communities -- but the legal contracts that bind them by the power of the state all look the same. In a land of true equality, civil marriage contracts must be open to all loving couples who seek to undertake the promises and responsibilities of life-long partnership.
The dedication to upholding religious freedom through civil equality was reaffirmed in the Iowa Supreme Court's decision which ended marriage discrimination against gay couples in Iowa. The ruling stated, "[W]e give respect to the views of all Iowans on the issue of same-sex marriage -- religious or otherwise -- by giving respect to our constitutional principles....The sanctity of all religious marriages celebrated in the future will have the same meaning as those celebrated in the past. The only difference is civil marriage will now take on a new meaning that reflects a more complete understanding of equal protection of the law. This result is what our constitution requires."
We've also learned from nearly five years of marriage equality in Massachusetts that religious freedoms are not endangered because civil equality has been upheld. In Massachusetts the institution of marriage is being strengthened by loving and committed gay couples receiving marriage licenses from the state. At the time of this writing, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine have joined Massachusetts in ending marriage discrimination against gay couples. It is time for New York to take action and support marriage equality.
As ministers and people of faith, we call on the legislative leaders of New York to decisively end marriage discrimination in our state. We call too on our fellow Christians to engage in robust theological discussion within our communities about the meaning, value, and role of Christian marriage without resorting to tactics of fear-mongering and civil disputes.
We stand with our legislators as people of faith in support of fairness for all families. Attacks will come, cloaked in the language of religion, from those who oppose equality. But speaking as committed Christian leaders in New York, we support the promise of civil freedom and equality. We cannot abandon civil rights protected by the state without endangering the very ground for religious freedom. Ending the exclusion of gay couples from marriage will strengthen families and provide loving, committed couples with the full equality under the law that our faith teaches us is requisite for any just society. As people of faith we call for full marriage equality and give thanks to God for the civil government that will allow it. ]]>