Easter Prayer

 

Christus resurrexit! (Christ is risen!)

Vere resurrexit. (He is risen indeed.)

God of mercy and justice.  May this day be a day we remember that a Grace-ed New World has come upon us.

Amen.

Good Friday Meditation

IC XC: Jesus Christ, Ghetto’s Rose

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature’s law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet. Funny it seems, but by keeping it’s dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared. - The Rose that grew from concrete, a poem by Tupac Shakur …we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength. - Paul, a 1st-century revolutionary Christian preacher Today we stand at the foot of the cross.  It is Good Friday.  Christians the world over will be remembering, reflecting on, and creatively imagining the significance of Jesus’ crucifixion.  Many Christians that inhabit different traditions of the faith will be emphasizing one of many of the images and/or symbols used to give meaning to the cross of Jesus Christ.  The cross, for many, means substitution, sacrifice, ransom, moral example, and conqueror (or victor).  Today’s brief meditation will be through the image of Christ as Victor over Sin and Death…or to bring it to the street: Jesus, Ghetto’s Rose. Tupac Shakur’s poem quote above captures the essence of this image: Christus Victor.  Pac’s poem paints for us life in the ghetto.  But it is a hopeful picture.  He paints a picture of a resilient rose that is able to break through the concrete.  The concrete represents ghetto-ization.  The long history of marginalization, joblessness, structural inequities, violence, racial self-hatred, black nihilism and despair.  It is a world not too far from the world of Jesus.  A world of Roman Imperial oppression and its tragic consequences that left many out in the cold where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Jesus hailed from Galilee.  Essentially he comes from the hood or ghetto.  His ministry is done primarily within this context, the margins of Roman Imperial power seated in Jerusalem.  Jesus’ proclamation of the coming kingdom of God would be an alternative to the Roman Imperial order.  It would be this order or false kingdom that would crucify Jesus. Just as life is often smothered and strangled to death in the ghetto. True Life was crucified by Sin and Death by way of the Roman Imperial death grip.  But as Tupac and the Gospel story remind us there is One who was victorious over the concrete of Sin and Death…Ghetto’s Rose, Jesus from Nazareth. Amen.

Thoughts on Obama and Wright

 

The blogosphere is buzzing about the relationship between Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama and pastor Jeremiah Wright.  The questions are numerous.  The main issue among some Christian bloggers has been Obama’s proximity to Wright’s version of Afro-centric Christian theology and it possibly hurting his bid for the White House.

My question: why should Wright’s version of Afro-centric Christian theology hurt Obama? why is this an issue?  

Is it because the label “afro-centric” is a qualifier? and thus far Obama (contra his political opponents) has distanced himself from the race issue.  Given our current political and racial climate in the United States I would to.

But what’s wrong with afro-centric? Especially when much of Christian theology for the past 500 year or so has been ”euro-centric”.  Of course we haven’t called it “euro-centric” Christian theology.  We’ve just called it “Christian”.  Kind of like “person” meant “white person” for many centuries. Or like “rational”, “pure”, “normal”, “clean”, “articulate”, etc. meant “white”.

Of course those who are uncomfortable with the qualifier afro-centric Christian theology or black theology would do well to understand the historical and social reasons why black folks use these qualifiers.  They only reveal their racial privilege by their ignorance of why black folks have had to do theology in this light.  

Here’s a truth about afro-centric theology that often goes missing in these discussions: it is a theology that seeks to re-affirm black humanity and resist the congenital effects of white Supremacist Christian culture.   It is an attempt to cure black folks  (and hopefully other folks) of racial self-hatred and ’apocalypse’ the pervasive genetic defect of white supremacy in North American Christianity.

Note: it is a strange irony that a theology that seeks to affirm black folk’s being made in the image of God and that seeks to resist the long history of white supremacy in North American Christianity would be considered ‘racist’.  Its the strangest of historical ironies. 

What unconscous habits would lead one to make such a charge?

My suggestion to folks uncomfortable with the qualifier “afro-centric”: read indigenous black church history.

Start here:

The Black Church in the African American Experience (Paperback)
by C. Eric Lincoln (Author), Lawrence H. Mamiya (Author)

And for something a little more palatable if you don’t like black Christian radicals:

 

Africentric Christianity: A Theological Appraisal for Ministry
by J. Deotis Roberts (Author)

I’d start here rather than rely on Sean Hannity for theological references.

 Initial thoughts….