Call it a rapid defense mechanism, I immediately flipped to the next channel--the USA cable network. Although its transmissions were lost on me, that network wasn't assaulting my consciousness, at least, as I sat, quite literally, dumbfounded by the implications of the good minister's words.
Last Sunday--again flipping channels in search of hard news--I encountered a similar message being relayed over "a new cable/satellite network, programming primarily to African American adults" (www.tv-one.tv/inside_tvone/inside_tvone.asp). This time the message was being broadcast from Victory Christian in Baltimore, MD. Although the message was framed in more sophisticated terms, the message was essentially the same.
Again stunned by the profound implications of shepards, in effect, leading their sheep to slaughter--holding out the salve of a future life everlasting as a substitute for truth, justice, and 'the American way,' here and now, in the present.
One thing became increasingly clear, however. As Ntozake Shange put it, "colored chirren believing in magic is becoming politically dangerous for the race" ("Spell #7: for technologically-stressed third world people").
At its base, Black ministeries--"from sea to shining sea"--are, once again, preaching the doctrine of docility. After all (and sadly), this is not the first time that preachers, ministering to Black America. have 'carried water' for the master narrative. What's truly remarkable is how quickly we forget.
It should be remembered, however: there was a time in this 'land of the free' when allowing Africans in America to hear, let alone preach, the Gospel was at least as controversial as slavery itself. We do remember that slavery once rent the nation asunder for a time; but we remember it, when we remember it, through 'rose-colored glasses.'
- More precisely, we remember the internicine war that ensued as if the War between the States was fought in order to emancipate the slaves; when that war was, in fact, instigated primarily by economic drivers (e.g., free labor having to compete with runaways and slave labor; and slaveholders--once resplendent and overrun with profit--confronting downturns in international markets and real political competition, for the first time, from northern industrialists).
- Truth be told, emancipating the slaves was an afterthought of war; a limited scheme Lincoln cooked up in a (failed) attempt to entice the Confederate states to rejoin the Union. It did not (as our national mythology would have us believe) "free the slaves."
(In essence, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, 22 September 1862, contained both a 'carrot' and a 'stick.' Now the 'stick' it carried threatened to inflict deep and long-lasting pain on the Confederate states: on the one hand, it would free "all persons held as slaves" in states continuing "in a state of rebellion against the United States" after the 1st of January 1863; on the other, it promised to use all resources of the federal government, "including the military and naval authority thereof" to, get this, "recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons,...." History is full of irony; isn't it?)
- So Lincoln issued this decree, not because he wanted to "free the slaves." In fact, to the contrary, he insisted, "if I could restore the Union without freeing one slave, I would." Instead believing the Emancipation Proclamation to be, as he quite frankly put it, "warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity" (italics added), Lincoln issued the twin threats it contained; and when the Confederate states 'called his bluff' he had to 'stand pat,' as they say, or suffer the effective loss of federal authority.
- This explains the Lincoln administration's failure to spread the good news to slave communities throughout the South. Instead, slaves discovered that the late war "emancipated" them, if at all, through eavesdropping, word-of-mouth, rumor or innuendo. Thus Lincoln's passive approach toward recognizing and maintaining "the freedom of such persons" gave the slaveholding South time to 'lick its wounds,' restore its soul (remember "the South will rise again"), organize its thoughts, and begin again.
It should be remembered, that Christian denominations, like the nation, were also torn apart over the question of slavery. Churches then, like many churches today, were "temporizing," as the abolitionists put it, with slavery. Some--north and south--looked to the Old Testament as proof, and argued that the institution was "sanctioned by God." Others pointed to Jesus' silence on the question as an indication that it was "alright with the Lord." Some refused to even address the question on the ground that it pertained only to 'worldly' matters that only served to divide congregations (read: 'the work of the devil'); so better left to courts and legislatures. In the end, those who could not remain, left to raise up churches deemed "free."
It should be remembered, as well, that Christianity--especially as it's been doled out for African consumption in America, anyway--has often contributed to the oppression of Black America. And unfortunately, Black ministrations have always been the most impassioned (and most effective) heralds of its messages of docility--stressing that "the meek shall inherit the earth" (what's the point, if the powerful have so exploited it that there's nothing left to inherit?); that 'it's harder for a rich man to thread the eye of a needle, than to make it into the kingdom of heaven," or words to that effect; that "patience is a virtue;" that true "Christian freedom"--i.e., everlasting life "in the arms of the Lord"--is the only worthy desire for real Christians.
Here again, then, we can hear a recurring theme in Christian broadcast messages, to African America at least. Black ministers, west and east, across the nation are communicating their intense comfort with the status quo (which has grown even more cushy, no doubt, as federal "faith-based initiative" dollars continually wash over them with promise of more), all the while urging their congregations to "abide with me." Ignore your worldly circumstances, they insist, and concentrate on the Lord. The world may be going 'to hell in a hand-basket;' not to worry.
Scenes of unrelenting death and destruction trickle in everyday. Sons and daughters go off to war because oppportunities for advancement are so limited here at home. Mothers and fathers grieve with every increase in the murder rate that haunts our neighborhoods--neighborhoods readily identifiable precisely because they are undercapitalized, underclassed, and under-policed. Parenting is made even more difficult because the public school systems on which we rely to educate our children are burdened by unfunded federal mandates, over-stressed and underpaid teachers, and a generalized hostility to even the concept of public education. Across the board, the costs of living, including the costs of higher education, skyrocket daily; while the minimum wage (still the base pay for far too many of us) continues its free-fall, leaving us further and further behind the economic 'eightball.'
Meanwhile stories of 'benign' (and malignant) neglect paper over the trauma of it all--of emergency preparedness and emergency management gone, gone terribly wrong; of emergency workers--the much-heralded "first-responders"--initially encouraged to breathe in carcinogenic pathogens (recall that the EPA gave every assurance that the air quality was safe in the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster), and then abandoned to suffer respiratory impairment, disease, and despair. A lesson, no doubt, for emergency workers everywhere in America today?
Such are the ways of the world, perhaps. Like sheep to the slaughter, however, Black ministeries across America counsel their congregations, to worry not and concentrate, instead, on the 'kingdom to come.'
In addition to remembering, then, all that has gone on before, perhaps African American congregations should be wondering--out loud, in fact--whether they might have cause to worry that their tax dollars are being recycled to them in the form of homilies urging them endure, in perpetuity it would seem, the shit-end of the booming economy that appears to benefit all in America but "the least of these."
