final days forum

Get your read on for summer!

 If you want to meet some great Christian authors and get your summer reading list started, follow the Anointed Authors on Tour, starting on Monday and ending on June 12.

Final Days Forum will feature Dr. Vivi Monroe Congress on June 10. She is the author of several books, including Manna for Mamma: Wisdom for Women in the Wilderness. Dr. Congress lives in Dallas, Texas. You can visit her website:  www.DrViviMonroeCongress.com. 

 The Anointed Authors on Tour consists of seven award-winning, bestselling authors of Christian fiction and non-fiction publications with a commitment to write and/or publish integrity-based literature, touring as a testament to the power of using gifts and talents for God's glory.

Over the next two weeks, plan to meet Kendra Norman Bellamy, Tia McCollors, Vanessa Miller, Michelle Stimpson, Shewanda Riley, along with Dr. Congress. Each of these authors have current and upcoming book releases that are must-reads for your summer reading list!

A post-racial America? Not yet.

Jefferson Memorial, originally uploaded by nathanborror.

I remember a visit several years ago to the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. I spent time contemplating as I read the panels in the monument's interior. Words like this kept me there for awhile:

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish a law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state and on a general plan."  From monticello.org

My musings always led me to believe that Jefferson knew the right thing to do about enslaved Africans, but could not bring himself to do it. Incredibly, however, his writing enabled the efforts toward enfranchisement that came later. But I mourn the freedom his words could have brought his generation.

This white southerner and founding father comes to mind at the end of a historic week. On the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the eve before the presidential inauguration, I attended  The Dallas Leadership Institute's symposium for the holiday.

Journalist Diane McWhorter, who grew up in Alabama, discussed the cultural and political racism fellow white southerners accepted in 1963, the year Dr. Martin Luther King wrote  "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  She won a 2004 Pulitzer Prize for her chronicling of the era in "Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climatic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution."

Author Diane McWhorter at The Dallas Leadership Institute event on  Jan. 19. Photo courtesy of Tysha Randle.

Joining McWhorter at the symposium was theologian and cultural historian the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker. He was a strategist in the Civil Rights Movement and typed the famous Birmingham letter for King. This man who once served as the executive of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference talked about the tactics the civil rights workers used, like allowing children to demonstrate in Birmingham.

He talked about the sacrifice his family endured as blacks, and recounted how he was restrained by a journalist when he learned his wife had been struck by an Alabama law enforcement official. If he had not been restrained, Walker could have lost his life.

The Rev. Wyatt T. Walker with symposium guest at The Dallas Leadership Institute event. Photo courtesy of Tysha Randle.

The code of dual citizenship our country accommodated, despite the freedoms Jefferson's words invoked, stood out for all to see in 1963. A bomb placed in a church killed four girls. Police employed dogs and water hoses to deter demonstrators. Rumors swirled that an outsider bombed the church and that demonstrators placed steaks in their clothing to lure dogs toward them, McWhorter told symposium guests.

The symposium brought back the troubles of that year, and how it was not so long ago that America openly sanctioned a red-white-and-blue version of apartheid. Because that history is not so far from us, to call this time in the nation "post-racial" is premature, unless we understand how deeply the nation embraced an infrastructure of difference between people.

The white southerners in Birmingham who sanctioned this system were church-going and family-oriented, McWhorter said. She even suspected that her father, a member of the privileged class, somehow played a role.

And, as McWhorter said, the nation's "national obsession" with closure should not hasten a false, incomplete healing.

May I add that when unattended, true healing is a complicated task because the breadth of the offense dims, and the resistance to forgiveness builds. This fresh page in history need not be as fitful as Jefferson's apparent struggle to do the right thing at the dawn of our nation's birth. America can flow further on this current of good will.

For a fully redeemed church -- shorn of its own clenched fists throughout all congregations and ministries, repentant of linking a pure Gospel with racial intolerance toward anyone -- can lead the way.

Judy Howard Ellis

A time to celebrate, a time to shift

Sunrise over Sea of Galilee_0811, originally uploaded by hoyasmeg.

Today and tomorrow are two special days for our country. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s holiday is today and Barack Obama becomes the 44th president of the United States tomorrow. But these two days will go down in history as an ordinary Monday and Tuesday if we fail to start living differently by Wednesday morning.

From our natural eye, these two days appear as cultural and political events where we wave flags and sermonize. The news outlets fill the hours with incremental stories, along with the major ones. If we are not careful, we will miss the spiritual point as we savor the festivities of this historic week. We will not "represent" from our part of the world because we are dazzled by the grandeur, but ignorant of the moment.

This is not really about the memory of an noble man or the presidential debut of  a man many admire. Ultimately, the convergence of these two events back to back show how American life is being arranged, reordered, re-purposed. The implication of this change is that I must change. You must change.

God is introducing new ways of thinking and interacting with the world, and the King holiday and the Obama inauguration are tangible symbols of that. As a friend of mine, Colorado expert Dr. Taffy Wagner, told me today, we must obey God in this season. We must shift because God is shifting. His pillar of cloud is on the move. 

For me, this means a fiction project he has prodded me to finish must take priority if I want to stay aligned with his purposes for my life. It means that if I want to serve the world, I must serve as God instructs. It means I will have to trust God to take care of all that concerns me while I tend to what concerns him. It means that my work, when it follows God's destiny for me, fulfills a need or a hope for someone else. My obedient labor, my reasonable service, keeps me plugged into God's glorious plan to meet the needs of people everywhere.

King understood this. He personally sacrificed because he pursued dreams far greater than just him or his family. Remember his words in a Letter from a Birmingham Jail on April 16, 1963:

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

What is God saying to you?

Judy Howard Ellis

Letter from a Birmingham Jail courtesy of  The African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania

The benefits of hardship

I remember being a kid and looking through Miss Pinkie's basic white refrigerator. Not much seemed to be there. Maybe some meat, milk, and eggs. Probably some fruit, turnip greens, and other vegetables. As a kid, I wasn't always keen to explore the freezer. That didn't interest me. It was always the stuff that was ready to eat that called my name. Maybe I hoped a McDonald's Filet-O-Fish would appear. Of course, one never did!

Miss Pinkie, as her neighbors and friends called her, was my grandmother. Although she has been gone for more than two decades, I still remember that sitting at her table meant savoring a feast. She whipped up meals like liver and onions and spaghetti and fish and I wondered how when it seemed like she had so little. She also often had a tin of my favorite candy, Kathryn Beich's Katydids.

My grandmother tutored me to be gratified by simplicity. An intrepid entrepreneur and a woman with a sense of style, my grandmother is an enormously powerful example for my family and others. Our nation grapples with many problems simultaneously, but the way to cope is not to mimic the Joneses or to bind ourselves to stress, the unforgiving slave master. We must return to the best we've learned from elders like my grandmother: 

• Love of family is not just spoken, it's demonstrated.
• Diligence in work yields benefits for your life and the generations after you.
• Your life imprint should be stamped on your family and your community.
• Teaching children to be responsible for household chores and helping out with the family business helps them grow.
• Vision -- like encouraging children to attend college, start a business, or try something new --  is a gift of a lifetime.
• Generosity is a characteristic you nurture, whether times are good or bad.

My grandmother did not live to experience the conveniences and opportunities we now enjoy. But she taught her grandchildren to dream and push forward -- even in hardship. That's God's word for us right now, I believe. Hardship burns off excess. Hardship clears a clouded eye, exposes greed and bares pride. It's a weird principle to humans because we prefer comfortable places, but it is an eternally true one, nonetheless -- in difficulty there is magnificent blessing.

Judy Howard Ellis

"In Every Dream Home..." photo courtesy of  Fast Eddie42 on Flickr,com

From politics to 'blackface'

No justification exists for the poorly executed satire by The New Yorker, despite its stated attempt to take a major dig at the lies and rumors of lies that have swelled around Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama and his wife are lampooned on the magazine’s July 21 cover, with the premise that the magazine wants to point out the ridiculous rumors that Obama is Muslim, that he is unpatriotic, that he is aligned with terrorists, and that his wife, Michelle, is the militant black woman America  shudders to hear.

The New Yorker's satire is just for laughs, and pundits say Obama should take it on the chin and giggle about it too.

I wouldn't...

...Not in this day of misinformation when stories are insufficiently sourced. (Remember the flap Sen. John McCain had with The New York Times about McCain's alleged affair. McCain was absolutely right to take the newspaper to task. The story did not back up the claims it made.) Tragically, many of the nation's newsroms have fewer warm bodies available to comprehensively report stories because the industry is struggling, and the disarray of newspapers has influenced campaign coverage. And after decades of efforts to bring more people of color into newsrooms, fewer of them are actually there now. Believe it not, a diverse presence makes a huge difference in media coverage. When a multitude of voices -- all ethnic and racial groups, all backgrounds -- are missing in a newsroom, the selection of stories, the breadth of sources, the methods of storytelling all suffer. A newsroom loses some of the creativity energy I love because the loss of staff means fewer leaders to challenge the merits of stories, how they are displayed, and whether they are an accurate reflection of what's going on. Those who remain are often overworked and unable to pursue some of the very hard-hitting stories readers miss.

...Not in this day of misinformation when the struggles of print media are amplified as stories fly across the Internet, even though the stories may be blatantly unsubstantiated. A recent Newsweek poll quoted on CNN.com says that 26 percent of Americans still believe Obama was reared a Muslim, though this is false. The allegation also puts Obama at political odds with Muslim voters as he seeks to define his religious faith, and yet deny any Islamic roots.

...Not in this day when the current events topic of the day are the tumble Miss Texas took at a pageant, and the Brangelina twins. With that news diet, we can overlook how the New Yorker cartoon reeks of Jim Crow-inspired art, a deplorable expression where African-Americans are given absurd, racist attributes. (Check out this essay about Jim Crow by Ronald L.F. Davis, Ph.D.) It wasn't right when Al Jolson sang in “black face”  and  the 1915 film, "Birth of A Nation," stirred fear

 .

A clip from "Birth of A Nation," courtesy of Hollywood Classics on YouTube.com.

in whites about blacks because of this controversial retelling of the Civil War and Reconstruction. And it’s not right to depict Michelle Obama with an Afro and shouldering a weapon. She does not wear an Afro, so why change her appearance? For all of us sisters who sported Afros and continue to do so, for all of us sisters who choose permed, weaved, naturally curly, braided or bald, the killer image is offensive because it takes the politics of black hair to an entirely new level. A hairstyle does not make you a terrorist. Self-awareness and community empowerment should not translate into blowing up the White House.

...And not in this day when the republic starves for journalism that “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.” We need stories that ask both Senators Obama and McCain the hard, relentless questions about what they think, what they believe, and what they plan to do as President of the United States. Our country faces problems that require a smart, compassionate leader and a responsible and capable press.

And that ain’t funny.

Judy Howard Ellis

Jolie/Pitt link, courtesy of The Associated Press; Al Jolson and Birth of A Nation link courtesy of Wikipedia; Miss Texas link, courtesy of CNN.com

Five reasons to remake the original 'Star Wars'

OK. Just so everyone knows. My husband, Oscar, often listens to me as I work out ideas, and constantly makes great observations. Typically, I always respond with: "That would make a great post!"

This time, Honey, I give you all the credit for this one.

We were watching "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" last night and Oscar observed once again that George Lucas should remake the first "Star Wars" offerings. Technology, Oscar said, has caught up with Lucas' storytelling and those stories ache for a redo. Check out this 1977 trailer of "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" :

Video courtesy of antisubliminal on YouTube.com

Oscar is so right. Mr. Lucas, if you happen to read this post (I wish!) I thank you for a robust Web site, StarWars.com, and, of course, the upcoming animated series, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." (View a sneak peek video.) Your recent Q&A about the film was very cool. August, the month of the film's release, looks wonderfully bright!

But fans of the movies thirst for more. Please consider five reasons you should reinvest in the "Star Wars" dream:

• Just because. It's not often we get to "play it again," but gathering an outstanding cast (with the consultation of any living stars from the older films) and employing today's technology to enhance the story -- not tell the tale -- would be an extraordinary experience for sci-fi and fantasy fans. Take time to figure out who has the soul of Luke Skywalker, the daring of Princess Leia Organa, and the menace of Darth Vader. Please don't follow the Hollywood game of choosing a known talent or popular music celebrity who lacks the chops for the role. Although usually considered a commercial move, offering audiences a well-told and well-acted tale will bring in tons of money.
• Fans miss the epics.  Just last night my sister, Stephanie, was surfing channels and longed for some epic action on TV. "The Lord of the Rings" triology kept lovers of epics satiated for awhile, but after The Hobbit hopefully keeps up the tradition in 2010, we will need another larger-than-life story to compel us to line up at midnight showings of great movies. An inspired, updated, and well-made "Star Wars" would blaze new territories at the box office as the film attracts fresh audiences.
• "Star Wars" is great for political world peace. This might seem a stretch, but the galatic lifestyle of the "Star Wars" characters, how they worked (and warred) with various life forms -- is a teaching moment for this generation. What "Star Wars" hinted at with its galatic point of view, we're now experiencing through our global economy, culture and conflicts.
• "Star Wars" is  a powerful example of the battle between good and evil. Mr. Lucas, good and evil themes may merely be storytelling devices for you, but I believed God used you. Really. The crafty Emperor's manipulation of Darth Vader, and his attempt to control Luke, reinforced the idea that there is a reason to cling to the straight-and-narrow. You may not have intended for a Christian interpretation of the films, and others say they are New Age-oriented, but as a young believer, I knew who the Emperor was to me. The Emperor's creepy temptations were just like Slew Foot's.
• "Star Wars" featured a major character who was black. Some sci-fi yarns have made me wonder if people of color had been exterminated from the universe. Billy Dee Williams's role helped change that. Bring back Williams's character through a solid actor and create roles for other actors of color.

Thanks so much for reading, Mr. Lucas. If you need more ideas, Oscar and I would be delighted to take your call. Just delighted.

P.S. Please don't resurrect Jar Jar Binks.

Links courtesy of StarWars.com, imdb.com, lordoftherings.net, and wikipedia.com.

Jesus, the perfect supplement?

Jesus Christ is the must-have supplement for today's made-to-order religious practices. He is used like a healing herb or a trace mineral. Mix a tablespoon of Jesus into your daily religious smoothie and you're good to go. Jesus flavors any religion, belief system, principle or spiritual practice on earth. He is the binding agent, the innocuous role model for perfectly executed belief.

He's a very cool additive only when you peel away the messy crucifixion, that blood-as-sacrifice-for-sin stuff, His statements about being the only way to God, and that wild notion about resurrecting bodily. But for those who prefer their Jesus tame, the Jesus who taught about blood and sin is passive aggressive and His Daddy is a cosmic control freak.

For example, the crucified and risen Jesus doesn't flow with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle, author of the "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose," and other self-made faith practices today. Faith is self-actualization, consciousness and an untethered spirituality that says: We have seen god and god is us.

(Courtesy of : lsim13 from YouTube.com.)

I'm a huge fan of Oprah and the way she embraces mass media to supply forums for a variety of people, interests, and ideas. Hosting a global webcast featuring Tolle is a brilliant use of today's technology and further proof that she is a master storyteller and entrepreneur. She has her fingertips on what matters so much to so many.

But "A New Earth" and other books that turn away from the crucified and risen Christ reveal not the greatest story ever told, but the greatest lie ever believed.

Long before Oprah became a beloved media personality, she was a person with a question. Oprah herself has said that when she heard a minister talk about a "jealous" God, she was disturbed by that description. The God she knew was loving, so how could God be jealous? Her question was real. Her curiousity was normal. Did anyone in her former Baptist church share with her about what a "jealous God" meant? Did one of the "mothers of the church" put her arms around her and explain the full story about the God of All Love?

Whether they did or not, Oprah's question was left to take unruly root.

More tomorrow about this.

What lies beneath: race-based theology and color sickness

UPDATE: 1/10/07 -- YouTube Links that were on this story are now missing. I have deleted the references to this site.

Clutch Magazine's Sylvia Arthur writes a moving account in Dying to be White about skin bleaching in Ghana. These African women are exchanging their black-wonderful tones for lighter skin shades through dangerous treatments. Arthur writes:

"The reason for this potentially life-endangering practice is purely vanity. Women who bleach do so because they believe that men prefer their lighter-skinned counterparts. Also, in some African societies light-skinned people are perceived to be more intelligent than those with a darker hue."

The color sickness that still haunts some of us African-Americans -- she's light-skinned with good hair, she's dark-skinned with nappy hair -- manifests in Africa with the fixation on skin bleaching. It's disheartening. How must the Father of Heaven ache to watch His children wallow in self-hate: blacks who want to alter their blackness, whites who want to bronze themselves to the point of harmful illness, Asians who bleach their skin white. 

And how grieved He must be that Western culture attributes glory to white images of beauty alone. The fashion industry primarily focuses on the white aesthetic, although people of color are scattered throughout the glossy magazines, celebrity images and runway shows. Arthur writes in her piece:

"The consensus is that the only way to counter the disturbing trend is to wage a multi-agency campaign warning people of the dangers of bleaching. But as long as images of Western beauty continue to flood African markets and berate the natural black aesthetic, the problem will persist and claim even more lives than ever before."

The thoughtful church of Jesus Christ has a role to play in correcting this economy of self-hatred. It must reinforce the Christians' duty to honor people as God-made individuals. Unfortunately, Christianity often was used by the twisted as the club to bury the aspirations and healthy self-image of people of color.

A richer theology detangles race and faith and informs us on how to interact with each other.  We should discourage the use of these products and hold accountable those who use color as a measure of character or employment-worthiness. Perhaps well-meaning, but unnecessary sentences such as I don't see color; I treat everyone the same, should be replaced by reality-based language.

We actually do see the God-hues of a person and that's OK. How someone appears need not determine how that person is treated. So, instead of the platitude, why not simply say: I respect all people and celebrate their uniqueness?

God made each generation and placed them among the regions He designated. Consider Acts 17: 24-28, when Paul was in Athens. This passage is from the New American Standard version, courtesy of StudyLight.org:

"The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as ^Rthough He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, `For we also are His children.' "

And because He made the world and all things in it, He created skin colors and declared them very good.

The gnawing presence of hate

The n-word is pernicious and it hangs about like gnats in a humid room. Whether it's the Duane "Dog" Chapman saying the word, or Nas releasing a new album bearing the title, the n-word is part of the strange fruit  ripening in our culture.
We should shudder at the use of the word. Men and women have died because they were dehumanized -- and killed -- by society's use of it.

When I viewed the Without Santuary photography exhibit a number of years ago in Atlanta, I felt horror.  The presentation hit home because a young man in my mother's family was lynched in the 1930s. When she and I found his name in U.S. Census records, it was an eerie, breathless moment. We knew the outcome of this man's life: He would never grow old.