Council of Baptist Pastors Push Detroit Loan Deal

This is from the Detroit Free Press:

Automakers’ woes hit black community, Baptist pastors say

By JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Minority auto suppliers are being disproportionately hurt by the auto industry implosion, and that is devastating Detroit’s African-American communities, the city’s influential Council of Baptist Pastors said today.

At a news conference in Hamtramck, Council President Rev. Dr. Oscar King called on Congress to approve a loan package for Detroit automakers, saying minority suppliers and the African-American communities that rely on them need the American auto industry to survive.

“This is not a gift. We are not asking for anything that is not ours,” King said of the federal assistance funds for the automakers. “Taxes go up to the federal government. We’re asking for a reasonable redistribution. Give us our money back so that we may use it to provide for the stability of this faltering economy.”

William Pickard, chairman and chief executive officer of Global Automotive Alliance LLC, a Detroit-based group of minority automotive suppliers, said minority suppliers have been hurt as the automakers and major suppliers have “stretched” their payments to companies lower down the chain.

“I suspect if you had 10 suppliers here, you would have at least 11 different scenarios,” Pickard said. “And indeed the Big 3 have stretched their suppliers, and I’m sure Tier 1 and Tier 2 have done the same thing. We probably were more highly leveraged as an industry than our white counterparts, so it affects us more, but throughout the spectrum, you are having delayed payments.”

Asked about yet more cutbacks to come as the Detroit automakers try to qualify for federal assistance, Pickard issued a dire prediction.
“I think the reduction will take on many different forms, but surely the smaller you are, the more vulnerable you are,” he said. “We all know there’s been a tremendous decrease in the number of suppliers. And I would say this time next year, we’ll probably lose another 20, 30%.”

The Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity was founded nearly fifty years ago with the purpose of "offering sound leadership in every field of community endeavor." Comprised of hundreds of Baptist pastors in the Detroit area, the Council of Baptist Pastors is regarded as a highly influential organization. On Thursday, December 4, the Council of Baptist Pastors along with Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders will convene in Detroit to discuss the economic crisis.

Black Baptist Leaders Release Religious Liberty Statement

From Sam Hodges of the Dallas Morning News:

Leaders of three major black Baptist denominations have released the following statement through the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty:

This is a joint statement of the presidents of three of the predominantly African-American Baptist denominations that relate to the Baptist Joint Committee, which is composed of 15 Baptist bodies. The groups included in the statement are the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., the National Baptist Convention of America, and the National Missionary Baptist Convention. The Baptist Joint Committee is a 71-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based religious liberty organization that works to defend and extend God-given religious liberty for all, furthering the Baptist heritage that champions the principle that religion must be freely exercised, neither advanced nor inhibited by government.

Can politics still benefit from prophetic preaching?

Statement on the attacks on the pulpit and the ban on a religious test for
The Office of President of the United States
Released on April 4, 2008, 40 Years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

During the 2008 race for the nomination for president of the United States, we have seen efforts to malign candidates that cross the line of fair campaigning and understanding a candidate's biography. Attacks on candidates based on their church membership threaten one of our treasured constitutional commitments - religious freedom, which includes the freedom to worship and the prohibition on any religious test for qualification for public office.

In a recent conversation with Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, president emeritus of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., in the wake of attacks based on select sermons by Sen. Barak Obama's pastor, Dr. Taylor emphasized the importance of our commitment as Baptist presidents of four major African-American conventions. We have long supported religious freedom, the freedom of the pulpit and the ban on a religious test for qualifying for the office of president of the Untied States. The following statement reflects the views of our Baptist faith community, in general, and our views as religious leaders of three of the major African-American National Baptist Conventions, in particular.

Statement

As Baptists we believe in the freedom of religion, the right to worship where one chooses and the right listen to whomever we please preach the Gospel. We also believe in liberty of conscience and the right of the individual to interpret Holy Scripture. We cannot now, or ever, allow the influence of negative media coverage, and insensitive critics to misrepresent the fundamental freedom of choosing one's church and worshiping, by trying to make it relevant to one's right to occupy office as an elected official. It is one thing to challenge a particular statement, but quite another to challenge the qualifications of a candidate running for office by continually bombarding the reading, watching and listening public by singling out a house of worship and denouncing the freedom of speech inherent in prophetic preaching. We now share our opposition to how some of the media are reporting on the suitability of a candidate for political office based on an attack on a religious community.

By questioning and challenging a candidate's religious affiliations, religious associations and views on the Scriptures as a test for suitability for elected office, especially the office of president, we run the risk of violating the words and spirit of our Constitution. According to Article II of the U.S. Constitution, Section 1: President and Vice President, Clause 5: Qualifications for Office, that there three things and three things only that qualify any America who wants to become the President and Vice President of the United States: (1) those persons must be a natural born citizen of the United States; (2) they are to be at least 35 years old; (3) inhabitants of the United States at least fourteen years (there is an assumption that the President and Vice Presidents respectively, shall be of sound body and mind). Nothing has been stated, suggested, or hinted at in the Constitution regarding race, religion, choice of a pastor, or local house of worship where one hears instructions from God's Word. Indeed, Article VI of the Constitution bans any religious test for public office.

Freedom-loving Americans should go to the polls in this presidential election cycle and vote for our president and vice president (and all other political offices up for a vote) based on what the Constitution of the United States says are the qualifications, and the evaluation of the candidate's policy positions.

Most recently, we have crossed into the negative campaign territory when Sen. Obama came under attack for being a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Ill., under the spiritual leadership of Trinity's Senior Pastor Dr. Jeremiah Wright. Where Sens. Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barak Obama or any other candidate worships, how they interpret sacred Scripture, who they listen to preach the Good News of the Gospel, and their choice of denominational affiliation should not be at issue. They have the right to be members of any congregation of faith, worship where they choose, and listen to whomever they desire preach, without these things being used against them to take them out of the running for political office.

The Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., the National Baptist Convention of America, the National Missionary Baptist Convention, and other people in the faith community, regardless to religious persuasion and practice, condemn the idea that Senator Sens. Clinton, McCain and Obama, are not eligible for office unless they pass a religious test for office.

Freedom of religion, freedom of worship, freedom to hear whomever a person chooses is a fundamental right of all Americans. Attempts to make a candidate's religious affiliation relevant to the candidate's fitness for office should be viewed with skepticism.

The Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Smith, Jr., President of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.

The Rev. Dr. William J. Thurston, President of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.

The Rev. Dr. C. C. Robertson, President of the National Missionary Baptist Convention, Inc.

Jena 6 - A Threat to Justice Everywhere!!!

What is Jena 6?

If you don't know - you better read up.

A snippet follows:

What white Southerners still fail to realize is their complicity in some of the most vicious and effective terrorism the world has ever seen. Lynchings were only the most visible and brutal embodiments of a system to terrorize the black minority. A noose is a symbol the way a swastika is a symbol. A noose hanging from a tree in that context is an almost unimaginably vicious act. Those white teens, instead of being ashamed of their terrorist ancestry, reveled in the evil. The adults who are charged with the education of all the students deemed it merely a prank.

The scariest part of this ordeal is that you know these boys are the relatively lucky ones for whom publicity might spare them. How many other black lives are still thrown away at the whim of our broken justice system?

It's amazing that in this day and age, a 16 year old black man could be tried as an adult on trumped up charged, convicted, and sentenced to 22 years in prison by an all-white jury. But honestly I'm not too surprised. This kinda thing happens far too often. Kanye definitely wasn't wrong. And John Edwards is dead right - there are Two Americas.My former boss and personal hero, Rep. John Lewis (a Baptist minister) released the following statement today:

"I salute the hundreds and thousands of students who will be coming from all around the country, but especially from the colleges and universities in the Atlanta area, who are moved to action in the Jena 6 case. It is important for the young people of this generation to stand up, to speak up, speak out, and move their feet when they witness a miscarriage of justice.

Black Baptists have stood up and are speaking out. Friendship-West Baptist Church of Dallas took a bus full of its members to Jena, Louisiana today for the protests. Dozens of other congregations Baptist and non-Baptist have followed suit. Baptist professor Mike Broadway has blogged about a Jena 6 rally held at the Baptist affiliated Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Yesterday, EthicsDaily.com told the story of an American Baptist pastor in Arlington, Texas who is credited with bringing international attention to this awful instance of racial injustice. On behalf of American Baptists, General Secretary Roy Medley has taken a stand for the Jena 6.

I do wonder whether we truly believe that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?

If we really do - why hasn't Jena 6 caused more Baptists to stand up, to speak up, and move their feet at the sight of this blatant miscarriage of justice???

Black Baptists and Gay Unions

The Washington Post has an interesting story about a rift over gay unions in an affirming African-American congregation in D.C.

The decision of co-pastors Dennis and Christine Wiley of Covenant Baptist Church to conduct the union ceremony of Robert Renix and Antonio Long has caused quite a ruckus. Some members have expressed their worries that Covenant Baptist was getting a reputation as a "gay church." Some estimate that perhaps 200 longtime members have left the church over the unions. However, the majority have chosen to stand firmly in support of their pastors.

Never in a "million years" did Robert Renix think he would find a Baptist church that would accept someone like him: a black Baptist gay man. Never mind one that would allow what happened one Saturday last month, when a tuxedo-clad Renix stood in front of the pulpit at Covenant Baptist Church in Anacostia, exchanging vows with his partner, Antonio Long.

It didn't turn out to be that simple, though.....

In the pews at the church's 10:45 a.m. service on Sundays, gay and transgender people sit among heterosexual families and elderly retirees.

Although the Wileys face opposition, they say they believe they are being called by God to preach acceptance of gays as part of the social justice agenda long embraced by black churches.

"We, as African Americans, should be the last people in the world, based on our history, to turn around and oppress others," said Dennis Wiley, who took over as Covenant's pastor from his father, the Rev. H. Wesley Wiley, 22 years ago....

The 62-year-old church has gone through changes before. It was largely white until the 1960s, when white families began to move out of Anacostia and black families moved in. Covenant slowly rebuilt itself as a black congregation. Its renovated sanctuary features 13 huge stained-glass windows reflecting the African American experience, with images of civil rights figures Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. A shimmering stained-glass black Jesus clad in purple and white towers over the pulpit.

The church also has a long history of activism and community involvement. It was one of the first churches in the Washington area to launch an AIDS ministry in the early days of the epidemic in the 1980s. It offers HIV testing, and church volunteers teach computer classes Saturday mornings and offer college-prep classes to neighborhood high school students.

From the pulpit, the Wileys have preached impassioned sermons urging tolerance of gay, transgender and bisexual people, and they have led Bible studies making that point. "When we look at Jesus Christ, who he was and how he ministered to what he called 'the least of us,' he would be right here with us on this issue," Dennis Wiley said.

The following portion especially captured my interest:

But those familiar with {gay unions} say it isn't surprising at all: Congregations that appear to be accepting of gays often suddenly rebel when it comes to religious rituals that appear to legitimize same-sex relationships.

"It's sort of the ecclesiastical version of the elephant in the room," said Jay Johnson, acting executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif. "It's one thing to say, 'Okay, we're going to accept gays and lesbian people in our congregation. We'll even accept having gay and lesbian couples in our pews.' But when you take the step to publicly affirm or bless or recognize, in a liturgical or ritual way, their relationship, then you've removed the possibility of ignoring it."

I guess not all "welcoming and affirming" congregations take the "affirming" part to it's logical extension: gay ordination and gay unions. Also, notice that the reporter used the term "homosexuality" instead of "homosexual behavior." Such is a poor word choice as many Christian bodies differentiate between orientation and behavior. Nonetheless, this is a fascinating story since there are relatively few affirming Black Baptist churches in the world.

HT: Religious Left Online