By Gromer Jeffers Jr. and Jeffrey Weiss

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery commentary about America went beyond the usual political discourse but reflected long-held frustrations that African-Americans often release at churches and other social settings, local black pastors say.

It's those stark observations, created by generations of oppression and racism, that Barack Obama attempted to put into context Tuesday for Americans troubled by sound bites of Mr. Wright's sermons that "damned" the United States and blamed the nation's own actions for the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Many black Dallas pastors view Mr. Wright as a longtime hero and mentor, defending his message and bridling at what they call media misrepresentation of it.

"I have preached at Trinity [Mr. Wright's church in Chicago] and he has preached here," said the Rev. Tyrone Gordon, pastor at St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas. "One thing I said to the church on this past Sunday is that a lot of us are taking it personally because it is an attack on the whole black prophetic experience."

But for whites who have never been in a black church, Mr. Wright's words could have seemed extremist and even bizarre.

Mr. Obama tried to shed light on Tuesday.

"Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear," Mr. Obama said Tuesday. "The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America."

Supporters acknowledge that the Wright controversy could be difficult for Mr. Obama to overcome, but they say he made a good first step by introducing Americans to the black church experience.

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By Niko Koppel

CHICAGO — Having grown up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Capers C. Funnye Jr. was encouraged by his pastor to follow in his footsteps. Instead, he became a rabbi.

His congregation on the Far Southwest Side of Chicago is predominantly black, and while services include prayers and biblical passages in Hebrew, the worshipers sometimes break into song, swaying back and forth like a gospel choir.

As the first African-American member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and of numerous mainstream Jewish organizations, Rabbi Funnye (pronounced fun-AY) is on a mission to bridge racial and religious divisions by encouraging Chicago’s wider Jewish community to embrace his followers — the more than 200 members of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation.

“I am a Jew,” said Rabbi Funnye, “and that breaks through all color and ethnic barriers.”

As a teenager, Rabbi Funnye said he felt disconnected and dissatisfied with his Methodist faith. He embarked on a spiritual journey, investigating other religions, including Islam, before turning to Judaism. He said he found a sense of intellectual and spiritual liberation in Judaism because it encourages constant examination. “The Jew has always questioned,” he said.

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African Americans' role chronicled from church's beginning

By Jennifer Dobner

Elijah Abel, Jane Manning James and Green Flake hold a unique, but rather obscure place in Mormon history: all three joined the church in its infancy and all three were black people.

They also remained faithful after policies were altered and black people were denied full membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Abel was the first black man ordained to the priesthood in 1836. James worked in the home of church founder Joseph Smith and followed the faith's next president, Brigham Young, across the Plains to Utah in 1848. Flake came to Utah as well, but as the slave of white members. He was freed by Young in 1854.

Such stories won't remain unknown if Darius Gray and Margaret Young have anything to do with it - they've chronicled the struggles of black Latter-day Saints in a new documentary "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons."

"To me, it's parallel with the story of African Americans, period," said Gray, who is black and has been a member of the church since 1964. "We talk about the black history and contributions being either lost, stolen or strayed generally, and it's the same within the LDS church."

Nearly six years in the making, the film is an extension of a longtime partnership between Gray, a former broadcaster, and Young, a writing teacher at the church-owned Brigham Young University. Together the pair have written three books on black Mormons.

Wrapped in soulful black spirituals, the 72-minute film takes viewers on a journey from the days of Mormon pioneers to the 1960s civil rights era, when some university athletic teams refused to compete against BYU because the church openly discriminated against black people. It ends with current black church members sharing their own stories - good and bad.

"We're not hiding anything, we're not sugar-coating anything," said Young, who is white. "We're telling a very difficult history, but the people who are telling it have come through it."

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All Things Considered, March 18, 2008

Presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) defended his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on Tuesday, even as he repudiated some of the pastor's inflammatory sermons. But Wright's comments likely come as no surprise to those familiar with black liberation theology, a religious philosophy that emerged during the 1960s.

Black liberation theology originated on July 31, 1966, when 51 black pastors bought a full page ad in the New York Times and demanded a more aggressive approach to eradicating racism. They echoed the demands of the black power movement, but the new crusade found its source of inspiration in the Bible.

"God's presence in the world is best depicted through God's involvement in the struggle for justice," says Anthony Pinn, who teaches philosophy and religion at Rice University in Houston. "God is so intimately connected to the community that suffers, that God becomes a part of that community."

Freedom and Liberation

Dwight Hopkins, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, says black liberation theology often portrays Jesus as a brown-skinned revolutionary. He cites the words of Mary in the Magnificat — also known as the "Song of Mary" — in which she says God intends to bring down the mighty and raise the lowly. Hopkins also notes that in the book of Matthew, Jesus says the path to heaven is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. And the central text for black liberation theology can be found in Chapter 4 of Luke's gospel, where Jesus outlines the purpose of his ministry.

"Jesus says my mission is to eradicate poverty and to bring about freedom and liberation for the oppressed," Hopkins says. "And most Christian pastors in America skip over that part of the book."

Hopkins attends Trinity United Church of Christ, where Rev. Wright just retired as pastor. In the now-famous sermon from 2003, Wright said black people's troubles are a result of racism that still exists in America, crying out, "No, no, no, not God bless America! God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people."

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Listen to NPR radio reports below:

Chicagoans: Reports Misrepresent Obama's Church by Ben Calhoun

A Closer Look at Black Liberation Theology by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

 

Effort part of larger, pre-Easter ad-buy on Sirius Satellite Network

Cleveland, OH- Utilizing its edgy and humorous approach to advertising, the UCC will launch a two-week, pre-Easter advertising blitz on Sirius Satellite Radio, beginning March 10.

During the two weeks before Easter, one of the UCC's newest radio ads - "Telephone Tree - National" - will air more than 165 times on Sirius. The 60-second spot can be heard on at least four channels: Sirius OutQ, CNN, Fox News, and Sirius Left. Sirius radio has 4.7 million subscribers.

The Rev. J. Bennett Guess, the UCC's director of communications, describes the UCC's new radio spots as "laugh-out-loud funny," something that, he hopes, will capture the attention and imagination of Sirius listeners. Like past TV and radio advertisements used by the UCC over the past five years, the message is tailored specifically to reach those who may have experienced alienation from institutional religion for a variety of reasons.

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By Riazat Butt

The Anglican church in Uganda yesterday threatened to leave the worldwide communion unless the US Episcopal church condemned homosexuality.

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Uganda

The ultimatum came from the Rev Aaron Mwesigye, provincial secretary and spokesman for the Ugandan church, who warned that the attitude of some American clergy could trigger the disintegration of the world's third biggest Christian denomination.

He said: "If they don't change and continue to support homosexual practices and same-sex marriage, our relationship with them will be completely broken. Anglicanism is just an identity and if they abuse it, we shall secede. Yes, we shall remain Christians, but not in the same communion."

African provinces have been at loggerheads with American Anglicans following the 2003 ordination of a gay man, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. The tension increased in 2006 with the appointment of Katharine Jefferts Schori, a liberal, as presiding bishop of the Episcopal church.

She defended her ministry in an interview with the BBC last month, claiming her church was paying the price for being honest about sexuality.

"He [Robinson] is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop, he's certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop. He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who's open about that status."

This openness has, however, alarmed conservatives who are unable to accept the liberal attitudes of the small but influential American wing of the communion and the latest twist makes the prospect of a schism increasingly likely as more African provinces reject the authority and leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Last week the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, was one of five primates to sign an open letter explaining their decision to snub the 10-yearly gathering of the world's Anglican bishops that will prove to be a crucial display of unity for Williams. The other signatories on the letter were the archbishops of Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda and South America.

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By Ken Pennings and Heather Rittenhouse

Baptists from around the nation came together across lines of difference to take part in the recent New Baptist Covenant celebration in Atlanta. Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton headlined the event, which stressed the importance of unity and harmony as well as the amelioration of suffering around the world.

When we learned about the encouraging plans for the New Baptist Covenant celebration last year, our gay-affirming organization, the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, applied to be listed as an official participating organization. However, the event's leaders notified us that they could not list AWAB as an official participating organization because they didn't think they could hold together the large coalition of Baptists needed to create a new Baptist voice in North America while addressing the issue of sexual orientation at the same time.

The organizers of the New Baptist Covenant clearly agonized over the decision, but in the end they decided that it was too soon to make inclusion of gay people a part of their vision of unification.

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By Jacqueline L. Salmon

A conservative Christian group yesterday criticized a large Methodist church in Washington DC for planning to offer services that recognize gay and lesbian relationships, saying they violate the United Methodist ban on same-sex unions.

Foundry United Methodist Church, which Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton attended when he was president, decided last month to support its senior pastor's decision to lead services that "recognize and honor" committed gay relationships. Foundry clergy, however, do not perform union ceremonies, the local bishop said.

The Institute on Religion and Democracy, a Christian group opposed to liberal trends in mainline Protestant denominations, demanded that the bishop of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, John R. Schol, prevent the services.

"If they're not violating the letter, they're certainly violating the spirit of United Methodist standards" said Mark Tooley, executive director of UMAction, an Institute on Religion and Democracy project that focuses on the United Methodist Church.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Leaders from five Anglican provinces said Friday they will boycott a once-a-decade world Anglican summit because the U.S. Episcopal Church ordained a gay bishop.

The Most Rev Henry Orombi of Uganda

The five leaders from Africa and South America said they could not share communion with Episcopal bishops who in 2003 consecrated V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the U.S.

Friday's announcement came from Archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Henry Orombi of Uganda and Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, which is in South America.

"There is no serious space for those of an orthodox persuasion ... to be themselves or to be taken seriously," the archbishops said in a statement. They lead some of the largest or fastest-growing Anglican provinces in the world.

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COPENHAGEN (AFP) — Danish police arrested three people Tuesday suspected of plotting to kill one of the cartoonists who sparked angry protests from Muslims worldwide in 2006 by drawing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard

Operatives "conducted a police operation at 4:30 am (0330 GMT) in the Aarhus region, in cooperation with local police, to prevent a murder linked to terrorism", said Jakob Scharf, head of Denmark's intelligence agency PET.

The raid was carried out "after lengthy surveillance," he said, but added that PET did not have enough evidence to hold the suspects.

The agency "didn't want to take any unnecessary risks" and chose to "intervene at a very early phase to put an end to these plans to carry out the murder," he explained in a statement.

PET said the three suspects were a Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisian nationals. The Dane was due to be released after questioning and the Tunisians, deemed a threat to national security, were to be expelled from the country.

The intelligence agency did not disclose their identities.

Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was "deeply concerned by these suspicions of a very serious crime, which unfortunately demonstrates that there are extremist groups in Denmark that do not recognise or respect the basic principles of society."

"In Denmark, we are free not only to think and speak as we please, but also to draw what we want. And the government will protect this freedom of expression," he stressed.

The online edition of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published the cartoons in its print edition in September 2005, identified the cartoonist who was targeted by the plot as Kurt Westergaard.

Westergaard was one of 12 cartoonists who drew caricatures for the newspaper. His was considered the most controversial, featuring the prophet's head with a turban that looked like a bomb with a lit fuse.

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By Jonathan Katz

Elizabeth Martenia used to cry as she walked out of her Joliet church in the early '90s.

The congregation had become her support system, but she feared losing them all if she revealed the secret that consumed her.

So she buried her reality. She stopped going to the doctors, stopped taking care of her body and her mind. She pretended the HIV wasn’t there.

“I was so beat down in this church, not being able to be honest about it,” said Martenia, who now makes the weekly 40-mile trip from Joliet to a small Englewood church. “You don’t get the help, you don’t get the guidance. These were people who were supposed to know how to deal with this. And I thought I shouldn’t say anything.”

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After establishing first website, religious gays appeal in letter written to religious leadership, ‘Accept us as a living, viable part of Orthodox society’

By Kobi Nahshoni

Not 10 days after its inception, the HOD website, catering to the religious gay community, has broadened its operations. In a letter distributed to Orthodox community leaders Saturday night, site operators appealed to the Orthodox community to recognize them as “a living, viable part of its rank and file.”

The letter was sent to a wide array of rabbis, religious Knesset members, mayors, community leaders, and organization heads, including Conversion Authority head Rabbi Haim Druckman and Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, and notes that it is only ignorance and lack of awareness that lead to the senseless hatred against homosexuals within the Orthodox community.

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By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, faced calls to resign on Saturday for suggesting that the introduction in Britain of some aspects of Islamic law was unavoidable.

In a BBC interview on Thursday, the Archbishop of Canterbury talked about the use of sharia to resolve some personal or domestic issues among Britain's Muslims, much like the way Orthodox Jews have their own courts for some matters.

Asked if sharia needed to be applied in some cases for community cohesion, Williams said: "It seems unavoidable."

Williams' comments sparked outrage in some newspapers, led by the mass circulation Sun, which on Saturday launched a campaign to remove him from office, accusing him of giving heart to "Muslim terrorists".

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Rev. Dr. Yvette Flunder serves as Presiding Bishop of The Fellowship and Senior Pastor, City of Refuge United Church of Christ. Bishop Flunder founded the City of Refuge UCC in 1991 in order to unite a gospel ministry with a social ministry. City of Refuge is a thriving inner-city congregation that celebrates the radically inclusive love of Jesus Christ. Preaching a message of action, the church has experienced steady numerical and spiritual growth and is now located in multiple structures in the South of Market area of San Francisco at 1025 Howard Street.

FLUNDER'S RESPONSE

Beloved,

Rev. Dr. Yvette Flunder

A few days ago I was copied on an e-mail from an alleged member of Greater Mt. Calvary Holy Church in Maryland, pastored by Bishop Alfred Owens. The e-mail identified by name those persons thought to be Same Gender Loving, and gave great detail as to their attendance at parties, where they lived and with whom, alleged other sexual proclivities and where they served in the ministry.

The e-mail requested that these individuals be taken down from their ministry jobs. Additional results of the included Pastor Owens convening a meeting of those named in the e-mail and polling them to determine who among them were seeking help to be free from a SGL lifestyle. There have been numerous follow-up emails from folks named in the original e-mail that are defensive, threatening and angry. Several have decided to leave the church after many years of faithful membership.

What a tragedy, but the reality facing Mt. Calvary is not unusual. It is indicative of a psychosis that permeates many churches with regard to the presence and involvement of SGL people, who have great love for God and for their church communities.

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New website for religious gay community launched last week. Founders struggle to juggle both identities, seek to garner legitimacy within the greater religious community

By Kobi Nahshoni

They appealed to rabbis, petitioned the press, and tried to raise awareness through movies and plays. Now the religious gay community is establishing a website in an attempt to yet again try and touch base with the religious world, which has condemned them at best, and shunned them at worst.

Last week the religious organization HOD (an acronym for religious gays in Hebrew) launched what they described as the “first independent website run by and intended for the gay and lesbian religious community.”

This new website is far from being stereotypically ‘gay’: alongside kippa clad figures under a bright sky painted in the colors of the ‘gay pride’ flag, the site also features articles on halachic issues as well as a page on the weekly Torah portion. Like many other sites, the HOD site also allows for some virtual Q&A. “Users can contact Rabbi R. regarding halachic concerns either by telephone or through the following link,” states the website.

Jewish thought thus clearly abounds on the site. As for gay pride, it is still a difficult notion. The site managers, as well as the aforementioned rabbi, still staunchly refuse to disclose their identity.

‘A gay person cannot become straight’

Itay, one of the founders of the site, explained to Ynet that this new website is innovative in its approach to homosexuality and religion.

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In one depressed town, 3 percent of black residents turn to Judaism

By Tim Townsend

CAIRO, ILL. — For a block or two in every direction from Arbell Matthews' home, 50 or so African-Americans could be heard belting out the Shema, an ancient Hebrew prayer, gospel-style.

They had spent a year and a half traveling almost weekly to Rabbi Lynn Goldstein's home in Maryland Heights, Mo., a journey that would bring them back to this cramped white house in this dying city and to their new lives as Jews.

Former drug dealers, infants, factory workers, old ladies, former gang leaders, lawyers, gunshot victims, high school football players, barge workers, crack addicts, nurses and musicians — a reflection of the diverse, decaying place they call home — had packed into two vans and eight cars for each 350-mile trip.

They all were raised as Christians, most of them Baptists. One day last month, each was immersed in a ritual bath, or mikvah, in Memphis, Tenn. When the last of them emerged from the water, almost 3 percent of Cairo's black population had converted to Judaism.

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By Sheri Shefa

Rabbi Steve Greenberg

TORONTO — Rabbi Steve Greenberg, left, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, was in Toronto last week to discuss the conflict between homosexuality and Judaism and to offer a “poetic” way to interpret the biblical texts that are understood to condemn same-sex relationships. His lecture, titled “Gayness and God,” at the Wolfond Centre for Jewish Campus Life, sponsored by groups including Hillel and Kulanu Toronto, was attended by more than 100 people on Jan. 22. He is a senior teaching fellow at a think-tank called the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership,

Before delving into the different ways the verse in Leviticus – which states: “a man shall not lie with another man as with a woman; it is an abomination” – can be interpreted, Rabbi Greenberg shared his story about his introduction to Orthodoxy.

Coming from a Conservative family in Columbus, Ohio, it wasn’t until he went to a Shabbat service at an Orthodox shul and met an elderly rabbi that he realized Judaism was so important to him.

The rabbi offered Rabbi Greenberg, who was 15 at the time, and three of his friends, the opportunity to study Torah with him each Shabbat morning. He later began to go to shul each morning to daven.

“I became Orthodox because this world was so precious to me,” he said.

Two years later, he enrolled in a yeshiva in Gush Etzion, near Jerusalem.

While in school, he found himself attracted to a fellow yeshiva student. Struggling internally with his feelings, he sought the advice of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, a posek in Jerusalem, one of the most respected arbiters of Jewish law in Israel.

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ATLANTA (BP)--Former President Jimmy Carter, during the opening session of the "New Baptist Covenant Celebration" in Atlanta Jan. 30, called for Baptists of all races, political leanings and theological stances to unite around a common belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to set aside the differences that have caused divisions.

"My wife Rosalynn and I have visited more than 125 different nations since we left the White House, and we and our hosts have had many discussions about religion," Carter, co-chair of the event, said. "Among the unsaved people on earth, what is the prevailing image of Christians today?

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We’re at the beginning of a new year and most of us are still exited about the possibilities of making 2008 a better year than 2007. We’ve all taken our personal inventories and had the "keepin’ it real" sessions with ourselves. We’ve examined what we did well in 2007 and also acknowledged what we could have done better. We did what we always do; we promised ourselves that we wouldn’t make the same old mistakes this year that we made last year. All of this is great because these are the essential first steps in doing the necessary work to improve lives. Maybe you’re still working out and sticking to your new diet. Perhaps you’ve shown great will-power and not picked up a drink or a cigarette this year. For that I applaud you and I encourage you to continue to do your best to continue moving forward. After you really can do whatever you put your mind to!

In my life as a minister and spiritual advisor to many, I have come to understand that many times our greatest challenges are not always the flaws that meet the eye. Most of the time, the things that wreak shear havoc in our lives are those hidden dysfunctions that lye just beneath the surface; the things that people will never see unless we allow them to get close to us.

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By Alex Beam

Elbows are being thrown in the presidential campaign: some name-calling, some vague allegations of skulduggery and double-dealing. But this is not the Main Event. The real dirty tricks, a la Swift-boating, will kick in around Labor Day, after the two parties have chosen their candidates for the general election.

Should Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright will become much more famous than he is now, and much more famous than he would ever want to be.

Wright, the pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago, is already a little bit famous. Former Illinois state senator Obama has worshiped at Trinity for many years and borrowed the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope," from one of Wright's sermons. As "Obama's minister," Wright has been profiled by several newspapers, and the forward shock troops of the right-wing hate machine, i.e. Fox News, have already lobbed a few shells in his direction. But in a competitive national election, Wright can expect the fire to double, redouble, and redouble again. Obama will end up wishing he was Mormon.

The first accusation against Wright, and by extension against Obama, is that Trinity is a "separatist" church. In its mission statements, Trinity proclaims its commitment to God and to the African-American community that surrounds the church. "We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian," its website proclaims. "Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent."

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