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Religious coalition takes on the gun lobby

By LAUREN MARKOE

© 2013 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON — Dozens of the nation's faith leaders said Tuesday (Jan. 15) that they're ready to take on the gun lobby and demanded that politicians take quick and concrete steps to stem gun violence.

    At a Capitol Hill press conference and in a letter to Congress, more than 45 clergy and heads of religious groups -- representing the spectrum of American religious life -- petitioned lawmakers to reinstitute a ban on assault weapons, require background checks on all gun buyers, and make gun trafficking a federal crime.

    Organized by the two-year-old coalition Faiths United To Prevent Gun Violence, the signers said the slayings at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school last month had pushed them to redouble their efforts, and created an opportunity to beat back the gun lobby.

    The Rev. Jim Wallis, the evangelical who heads the progressive Christian group Sojourners, took on Wayne LaPierre, the outspoken executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, directly.

    LaPierre's statement after Newtown that the "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" is "morally mistaken" and "religiously repugnant," Wallis said.

    "The world is not full of good and bad people. That is not what our scriptures teach us," but that each individual is both good and bad, Wallis said.

    "And when we are bad or isolated or angry or furious or vengeful or politically agitated or confused or lost or deranged or unhinged, and we have the ability to get and use weapons only designed to kill large numbers of people," Wallis continued, "our society is in great danger."

    The coalition is part of a larger movement, led by President Obama and some Democratic members of Congress, to tighten gun laws in the wake of the Newtown massacre and previous mass killings by lone gunmen in Aurora, Colo., Tuscon, Ariz., and elsewhere in the past several years.

    A Washington Post-ABC News poll published on Jan. 14, a month after the Newtown massacre, found that 52 percent of Americans said the horror of Newtown had made them more supportive of gun control.

    New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a gun control bill Tuesday and other state legislatures are also considering stricter gun regulations.

    Others who signed the letter include: Carol Blythe, president of the Alliance of Baptists; Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association; Sayyid M. Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America; Rajwant Singh, chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education; and Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation.

    Polls show that Americans generally favor the restrictions endorsed by the coalition even if their representatives in Congress may not, said Vincent DeMarco, national coordinator of Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence.

    The Rev. J. Herbert Nelson II of the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Washington office said people of faith must reframe the debate on gun control, and support "those of us who would challenge the false choice between guns and freedom."

    The NRA, the most powerful of gun owners' rights groups, argues that any new restrictions on guns threaten the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

    Nelson noted that more Americans have been killed in domestic gun violence than in foreign wars, and that the coalition had decided to speak out on the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., who would have been 84 on Tuesday.

    "I am convinced if he were here today, this issue would be the priority of his leadership," Nelson said.

    Rachel Laser, deputy director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, noted that King had deplored the proliferation of weapons in the United States before he himself was shot to death. She quoted King's words from 1963:

    "By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing . . . we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes," she quoted King.

    "We are done sitting shocked on the sidelines," Laser said of the coalition.

    But despite the pronouncements of religious leaders, gun rights supporters have refused to yield the moral high ground.

    Larry Ward, chairman of Gun Appreciation Day, a national event slated for Jan. 19 to counter the current momentum toward more gun control, said it would also honor King.

    "I think Martin Luther King would agree with me, if he were alive today, that if African-Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country's founding, perhaps slavery would not have been a chapter in our history," Ward told CNN.

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Exhibit highlights blacks' connection to Scripture

By CHRIS HERLINGER

© 2013 Religion News Service

NEW YORK — A new exhibit at New York's Museum of Biblical Art makes one point clear and inescapable: Biblical narratives and imagery have been an underlining constant in the life of African-American Christians.

    From the days of slavery onward, "African-Americans felt the Bible was a powerful tool that established their quest for freedom and identity amidst the madness they were living in," said guest curator Leslie King-Hammond. "The Bible was the constant."

    King-Hammond is the founding director of the Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art and helped organize the exhibit, "Ashe to Amen: African Americans and Biblical Imagery." (The "ashe" in the exhibition's title derives from the African Yoruba language and refers to an artist's power or "inner eye.")

    The exhibit of 59 works reveals a wide breadth of genres, from painting to crochet to sculpture. "There is no such thing as monolithic African-American art," said King-Hammond, adding that the exhibit is a way for African-American artists who have worked in the visual arts to get an overdue recognition for their "profound achievements."

    The timing of the exhibit -- beginning during Black History Month, and later traveling to other locations in Maryland and Tennessee -- is also deliberate. This year marks both the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the Rev. Martin Luther King's landmark "I Have a Dream" speech.

    "The timing is just right," King-Hammond said in an interview.

    Why has the Bible drawn so much attention from African-American artists? In short, history and lived experience.

    Those who have roots in Africa are the products of many belief systems, and religion, "as it moved from geography to geography, never lost its sense of potency," King-Hammond said. "Practice and belief have been so resilient. It's the thing that helped them survive."

    The Bible was first introduced to American slaves through oral tradition. Its narratives and parables of the enslaved finding freedom served as personal and communal inspiration amid the cruelties and absurdities of life in the United States, both during and after the American Civil War.

    "(The Bible) quickly came to function as a language-world, the storehouse of rhetorics, images, and stories that, through a complex history of engagements, helped establish African Americans as a circle of the biblical imaginary," biblical scholar Vincent L. Wimbush noted in his 2003 book, "African Americans and the Bible."

    Or, as King-Hammond put it, "It gave them meaning to survive the most horrendous situations."

    Given such depth of experience, it is not surprising that the exhibit's featured works by Romare Bearden, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Henry Ossawa Tanner and others share thematic links. Yet each is a distinctly personal reflection of artistic vision. "Going into that personal religious space," King-Hammond cautioned, "that's very guarded space and you have to tread carefully."

    Taking pride of place in the exhibit -- literally -- is a 12-foot hand-crocheted artwork of cotton and acrylic yarn by New York artist Xenobia Bailey entitled "Sistah Paradise's Great Walls of Fire Revival Tent; Mystic Seer; Faith Healer; Enchantress Extraordinaire."

    This tribute to the black church's "call and response" tradition has its own back story -- the fate of the piece was in question when Bailey's studio along the East River in Manhattan flooded during Hurricane Sandy. The fact that it survived and is displayed so beautifully at the museum is itself, King-Hammond believes, a "miracle."

    Other works are striking for being ahead of their time -- perhaps most notably the work of William H. Johnson. His bold and vivid "Jesus and the Three Marys," from 1939-40, features a black Jesus on a cross: denoting the era's practice of lynching but also hinting at the emergence of black liberation theology in the 1960s and'70s by putting black religious experience and representation front and center.

    Some works combine a mixture of solemnity and whimsy. Margo Humphrey's lithograph, "The Last Bar-B-Que," from 1989, "translates the biblical narrative of the Last Supper into a background picnic," as a museum description puts it, with watermelon and chicken joining the wine and bread at the table. Patricia C. Pongracz, the museum's acting director, said Humphrey's work suggests a very pointed question, "What does a savior look like?"

    Humphrey herself says of the piece -- where all depicted are African-American and two of the disciples are women -- that it is "a rewriting of history through the eyes of my ancestry, a portrayal of a savior who looks like my people."

    ("Ashe to Amen" is on view at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City through May 26, alongside a smaller exhibit, "Reaching Out: American Bible Society and the African American Community," The exhibit will travel later to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore, and the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, Tenn.)

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Pastor pulls out of inauguration over anti-gay sermon

By DAVID GIBSON

c. 2013 Religion News Service

The evangelical pastor chosen by President Obama to deliver the benediction at his inauguration ceremonies withdrew on Thursday (Jan. 10) following a furor over a sermon from the mid-1990s in which he denounced the gay rights movement and advocated efforts to turn gays straight.

    In a statement, the Rev. Louie Giglio of Atlanta, founder of the Passion Conferences for college-age Christians, did not directly renounce his remarks on gays but indicated that fighting gay rights is not one of his "priorities."

    Still, because of the controversy -- which erupted on Wednesday after the liberal group Think Progress posted audio of the sermon -- Giglio said that "it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration."

    "Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past 15 years," said Giglio, who was chosen to deliver the blessing at the Jan. 21 ceremony because of his longtime work against human trafficking.

    "Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ. Neither I, nor our team, feel it best serves the core message and goals we are seeking to accomplish to be in a fight on an issue not of our choosing, thus I respectfully withdraw my acceptance of the President's invitation."

    Addie Whisenant, a spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, said in a statement that organizers were not aware of Giglio's past comments when he was chosen -- reportedly with Obama's personal input. Giglio's remarks "don't reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this Inaugural," the statement said.

    Giglio's exit was swift, coming just 24 hours after the sermon went public. That illustrated not only a concern that nothing disturb the civic ritual of the presidential inauguration, but also showed how unsettled the nation remains on gay rights despite -- or perhaps because of -- the rapid changes in public opinion.

    Four years ago when Obama chose California megachurch pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural blessing, there was criticism because of his opposition to gay rights -- the best-selling evangelical author had worked to pass Proposition 8, which ended gay marriages in California. But calls for him to step aside were ignored by both Warren and Obama.

    Obama's pick for defense secretary, former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, has faced criticism for his comments in 1998 about an openly gay Clinton nominee for ambassador. Hagel has since apologized and renounced those remarks as "insensitive."

    The Giglio dust-up is providing another opportunity for each side to highlight its message.

    "Are all orthodox clergy now to be banished from civic life if they openly affirm their faith's teachings about marriage and sexual ethics?" said Mark Tooley, president of the conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy.

    "Are only clergy from declining liberal denominations now acceptable according to hyper political correctness? Will the same standard also apply to Muslims and members of other faiths who don't subscribe to the views of Western secular elites?"

    Gay rights groups, on the other hand, welcomed Giglio's departure and pushed the administration to name a gay-friendly replacement.

    The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation posted a list of 10 candidates, including Jay Bakker, son of former televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Rachel Held Evans, a popular evangelical author and blogger.

    Whisenant said the inaugural would now look for a replacement for Giglio and "will ensure their beliefs reflect this administration's vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans."

    The ceremonies will already feature a reading from poet Richard Blanco, a Cuban-American gay man, and the Lesbian and Gay Band Association of St. Louis will be marching in the inaugural parade.

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On Grammy weekend, Christian music bounces back

By KIM LAWTON

© 2013 Religion News Service

ATLANTA — Christian recording artist TobyMac's blend of rap, hip-hop, rock and soul raced up the charts last year and shattered many stereotypes along the way.

    "Toby blows everybody's perception of what Christian or gospel music is because Toby makes Jesus look cool," Billboard Magazine's Deborah Evans Price told the PBS program "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly."

    TobyMac's album "Eye on It," which was released last August, was the first Christian album since 1997 to debut at No. 1 on Billboard's all-genre chart, and only the third Christian album ever to do so.

    "I definitely have my ear to the ground as far as sonically what is happening," TobyMac said. "I've always been a pop artist, you know. I rap, I sing, I scream, whatever gets the point across."

    Many experts say thanks to artists like TobyMac, the contemporary Christian music industry is experiencing a revival, with strong sales, record-breaking tours, and new success in the mainstream charts.

    For three consecutive weeks last fall, the Billboard 200 chart included Christian albums that debuted in the Top Ten. And that success is continuing in 2013. In mid-January, Christian artist Chris Tomlin's new album "Burning Lights" opened at No. 1.

    "It shows the power of the Christian music consumer," said Price, who has covered Christian music for Billboard for almost 20 years.

    "For people who tend to want to relegate Christian gospel music to the basement, when an act like Chris, or TobyMac comes in at No. 1, you have to give that music its due."

    According to the Nielsen Company, in 2012, nearly 23 million albums were sold in the Christian/gospel market, which also saw substantial increases in digital album sales.

    "That niche market is bigger than other smaller genres, like jazz, classical, Latin," said Price. "The (Christian) musicians are just interpreting a timeless message in the music that's relevant today and that keeps younger listeners coming and widening the demographic."

    The Christian rock band Skillet just announced that its "Awake" album hit more than one million sales, making the group one of only three rock bands overall to certify platinum in 2012.

    Another big seller is Christian rapper Lecrae, whose newest album "Gravity," debuted last September at No. 3 on the Billboard chart. In his music and his publicity, Lecrae is outspoken about his Christian faith.

    "I'd be crazy to not talk about the thing that's most passionate to me and that is my faith," Lecrae told "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly."

    "It's all that I am. It defines me."

    Lecrae says he grew up with few positive male influences and looked to hip-hop for guidance. He wanted nothing to do with his grandmother's Christian faith.

    "I really mocked it," he said. "I remember one time ripping out Bible papers and using them to roll drugs up with."

    His life became a downward spiral of drugs and partying, but he says before he reached 20, he realized the emptiness of it all. Then a friend invited him to attend a Christian meeting and study the Bible, and he says to his shock, the classic Christian teaching about salvation struck a chord.

    Now he raps not only about his religious beliefs, but about being a faithful husband and a responsible father, themes he acknowledges are not typical in hip-hop. Lecrae has found an audience in both the Christian and secular markets, something that appears to be happening more and more.

    "The walls have come down considerably over the past few years when it comes to the divide between the Christian audience, the Christian market and mainstream consumers," said Price. "When you have artists like Toby and Lecrae ... that draws a wide audience, not just from the people in the church pews, but from the people hanging out at the mall."

    TobyMac says he's pleased to see some of the barriers coming down.

    "Jesus didn't hang out in the church," the artist said. "He hung out with the people, where they were. And that's to me where Christian music should be."

    TobyMac first entered the music scene in the late 1980s as part of the groundbreaking Christian hip-hop group DC Talk. More than 20 years later, he says he's moved away from direct preaching in his music and now tries to write more from his own life experiences.

    "I do think that I have something really good. So when you have something really good you can't help but want to share it with people," he said. "I'm not trying to cram it down their throat. I'm not trying to proselytize. I'm just a guy that loves God with all my heart."

    TobyMac says for him, it's not about cranking out hits and making money, but rather watching how the music touches people's lives. For example, he's heard from several people who say his recent song "Forgiveness" prompted them to reconcile with an estranged loved one.

    "When things like that are happening, I think that's way beyond me," he said. "That's why I have faith in God, because I know I can't conjure up a lyric that would do that. But if God breathes something through me when I ask Him to, maybe some good could happen."

    Both TobyMac and Lecrae have been criticized by some in the Christian world for pushing the envelope too far. Lecrae in particular came under fire for collaborating with secular rappers who often use offensive lyrics in other venues.

    "Sometimes I'm too churchy for the world, I'm too worldly for the church and so I exist in this weird dichotomy, this weird place, but there's a lot of people like me and there's a lot of people who resonate with that," the rapper said.

    Lecrae too sees a deeper purpose in what he does.

    "My hope is that it will be more than music, that it would be a soundtrack of a movement that mobilizes people to see themselves for who they are, for what God created them to be, and, and to change the world," he said.

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Virtual vices show shift in American morality

By DANIEL BURKE

Religion News Service

   The seven deadly sins have new partners in crime.

    Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride still attract a lot of attention. But as the Internet and other media invade American life, our vices have also gone virtual, according to a new study.

    Nearly half of Americans say they are tempted to idle the hours away on the Internet, video games and television, according to Barna Group, a California-based Christian research organization.

    And more than one in four American men admit to struggling with Internet pornography or other sexually inappropriate material online. Millennials — Americans born between the early 1980s and 2000s — are most likely to seek forbidden fruits online, according to Barna.

    The technological temptations reflect a shift in American morality, said David Kinnaman, Barna's president.

    Vice now "shadows many of the digital domains of contemporary life," he said. "For faith leaders, this shift underscores the importance of including technology and media as part of a broader discussion of spirituality and stewardship."

    But religious leaders might not find eager ears among young believers. Young Americans are more likely to admit to being tempted by transgressions, according to Barna's research.

    That may mean they're more willing to open up about their private lives, Kinnaman said. But it also suggests that young Americans see nothing wrong with breaking a commandment now and then.

    "Millions of Millennials do not see temptation as something to be avoided, but rather a relatively benign feature of modern life," Kinnaman said.

    Still, as sinners go, Americans are pretty nerdy. Work-related vices top the list of temptations, according to Barna.

    The most commonly admitted temptation (by Barna's definition) is worrying or anxiety, which 66 percent admit to. That's followed by procrastination (60 percent), eating too much (55 percent) spending too much time on media (44 percent) and being lazy (41 percent).

    Relatively few Americans admitted to being envious (24 percent), lying or cheating (12 percent), or engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior (9 percent).

    Part of that might be the so-called "halo effect" -- Americans' tendency to present their best selves to pollsters. But it also reflects a distinctly American approach to vice -- and to virtue, said Kinnaman.

    "Productivity is not exactly the most biblical pursuit," he said. "That specific 'temptation' is much more reflective of American values than of core biblical themes."

    The Barna survey included 1,021 online interviews conducted among a sample of adults in all 50 states. The sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points, at the 95 percent confidence level.