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 Delman Coates at Mt. Ennon Baptist Church is among a minority of black ministers in Maryland who have endorsed gay rights.
May 12th, 2012
08:00 AM ET
Is the black church guilty of spiritual hypocrisy in same-sex marriage debate?By John Blake, CNN (CNN) - Some people wonder if the black church will punish President Barack Obama for announcing support for same-sex marriage. Here’s another question: Why would the black church cite scripture to exclude gays when a similar approach to the Bible was used to enslave their ancestors? “It’s so unfortunate,” says James Cone, one the nation’s most influential black theologians and author of “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” “The literal approach to scripture was used to enslave black people,” he says. “I’ve said many times in black churches that the black church is on the wrong side of history on this. It’s so sad because they were on the right side of history in their own struggle.” Call it historical irony: Black church leaders arguing against same-sex marriage are making some of the same arguments that supporters of slavery made in the 18th and 19th centuries, some historians say. Both groups adopted a literal reading of the Bible to justify withholding basic rights from a particular group. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories Opposition to gay rights is not the standard position of all black churches. Still, while several predominately white mainline denominations have officially accepted gays and lesbians in various forms, the vast majority of black churches still consider homosexuality a sin. Black church leaders recently helped lead a successful drive to amend North Carolina’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The Rev. Fred Robinson, a black pastor in Charlotte, says most black churchgoers aren’t hypocrites. They take scripture, and sin, seriously. “Black people are not confused,” Robinson says. “If you look at the scriptures that oppose homosexuality, Old and New Testament, they are clearer cut than the ones people used to justify slavery.” Yet there are other factors beyond the Bible that shape the black church’s resistance to same-sex marriage. “It’s more than scripture – it’s history, culture, how we were raised,” says the Rev. Tim McDonald, founder of the African American Ministers Leadership Council. Some black church leaders are still fighting hard just to persuade straight black couples to marry. Accepting same-sex marriage when so many black households lack a husband and wife makes McDonald uneasy. “I am not comfortable performing a wedding ceremony of the same sex,” says McDonald, an Obama supporter. “That’s just where I am.” Some black pastors, however, embrace a literal approach to the Bible not just to exclude gays but to get rid of competition, says Edward Blum, a San Diego State University historian. Some black pastors cite New Testament passages such as Paul’s demand that women keep silent in churches to argue against black women in the pulpit. That argument is harder to make when black women’s energy and donations form the backbone of the black church, Blum says, but some still get away with it. “The biblical literalist reading has kept male leadership in power in a church that is hugely female,” Blum says. “It keeps power in men’s hands.” The one book that mattered Black churches also embrace a literal reading of the scripture because of its unique history, says Blum, author of “W.E.B. DuBois, American Prophet.” During slavery and segregation, many blacks saw the Bible as the one document they could trust. The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, state and local laws – all found some way to ignore their humanity, Blum says. The Bible, though, was one book that told them that they weren’t slaves or three-fifths of a person, Blum says. It said they were children of God. “Throughout the 18th and 19th century, what document could they trust?” Blum says. “When the Bible says it’s so, it’s something that black people believed they could trust.” Their enemies, though, used that same veneration of the Bible against them. Slaveholders had a simple but powerful argument when critics challenged them: Trust the Bible. They cited scriptures such as Ephesians 6:5. (“Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling. ...”) And they said Jesus preached against many sins, but never against slavery. Since the Bible is infallible, and scripture sanctions slavery, it must be part of God’s order, slaveholders concluded. “Slavery is everywhere in the Bible,” Blum says. “When Americans who were in favor of slavery defended it with the Bible, they had a treasure trove of clear biblical passages that accepted enslavement.” Blum says abolitionists found it difficult to mount an effective counterargument. They couldn’t just say trust the Bible. They preached another approach to scriptures. They said you couldn’t enslave people based on the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do to you. (Obama cited the Golden Rule and his Christian faith in supporting same-sex marriage). “The abolitionist turned to the ethics and spirit of the Bible,” Blum says. “They were theological modernists before modernism.” And what are black clergy and churchgoers today when they cite the Bible to oppose same-sex marriage? Robinson, the North Carolina pastor, says they’re not homophobes. “It says in the Bible that homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God,” he says. “How do you explain that one away? A lot of honest Christians are not trying to hate homosexuals. They’re saying that if I take the Bible seriously, I’m not sure I can say it’s right.” Robinson says that some opposition to homosexuality is actually based in compassion: “If I’m concerned about your soul, I have to tell you the truth in love.” Cone, who teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, says black churchgoers opposed to same-sex marriage are instead mimicking their ancestors’ oppressors. “I tell some people, ‘These people were against you.’ They would have lynched you. How are you going to now join them and help them lynch somebody else?’” |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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The bible was never meant to be literal.
Exactly....one of the oldest heresies in Christianity was fundamentalism.
Please explain then what it was meant to be?
a lot of it was definitely meant to be taken literally.
the word according to MJSouth, funny how Jesus quoted it literlally
If the Bible is not interpreted in a scholarly manner through redaction criticism, literary criticism, and cultural criticism then like any other ancient text, it will be full of misinterpretations. The support of slavery and the condemnation of women voting, interracial marriage and now the condemnation of gay marriage are just a few examples of this.
be, that's the old 'secret decoder ring' argument. It's a poor excuse, and it fails any test of reasonableness. It is reliant on arbitrary 'experts' over open criticism, but there is more wrong with it than that. Ask yourself how it is that your "god" couldn't come up with a better way to communicate than a book that is so readily subject to so many interpretations and to being taken "out of context". Pretty pathetic god that you've made for yourself.
Many of the statements in the bible are very explicit and easily understood, and they are horrid, if you are prepared to take an honest look at them. Fine stuff like this:
Numbers 31:17-18
17 Now kiII all the boys. And kiII every woman who has slept with a man,
18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
Deuteronomy 13:6 – “If your brother, your mother’s son or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul entice you secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods … you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death”
Note that the bible is also very clear that you should sacrifice and burn an animal today because the smell makes sicko Christian sky fairy happy. No, you don't get to use the parts for food. You burn them, a complete waste of the poor animal.
Yes, the bible really says that, everyone. Yes, it's in Leviticus, look it up. Yes, Jesus purportedly said that the OT commands still apply. No exceptions. But even if you think the OT was god's mistaken first go around, you have to ask why a perfect, loving enti-ty would ever put such horrid instructions in there. If you think rationally at all, that is.
So get out your sacrificial knife or your nasty sky creature will torture you eternally. Or just take a closer look at your foolish supersti-tions, understand that they are just silly, and toss them into the dustbin with all the rest of the gods that man has created.
Ask the questions. Break the chains. Join the movement. Be free of Christianity and other superstitions.
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/
Actually, Bob, the notion of a non-literal interpretation of the Bible, but rather one based in a scholarly review predates the Protestant Reformation. It is why the Church prior to the reformation did not allow uneducated people to read the Bible.....realizing that such stupid literal interpretations would lead them down a very dangerous and wrong path.
It's not surprising that the persecuted now becomes the persecutor. You see it all the time. Once the bullied kid gets accepted by the "cool kids" they start bullying others the same way they were bullied. Anybody who approaches the Bible in a scholarly manner will realize that it does not condemn any of these bigoted positions (including gay marriage). Bigots use the bible to justify their preconceived prejudices.
Did God place anything other than male and female pairs on the ark to be saved? The answer is no. That is the answer I go by.
What IS sad is that people are not advocating the healing of these people. People are not advocating ending the vicious cycle of WHY most people end up gay. Instead, evil just wants to destroy everything to do with God and that includes gay people! Why? Because evil WANTS them to keep sinning and are using them to further their own agenda. Do the evil CARE about the actual person? NO.
"Did God place anything other than male and female pairs on the ark to be saved?"
LOLOL!!! you actually believe there was an ark? you actually believe that childish fairy tale? LOL!
Gays certainly are not evil. The one true evil in the world is hate, bigotry and prejudice. That, I am sure the bible condemns
Yet another irony is that most if not all black women who form the backbone of so many black churches are the victims of their own racism. That is to say, they won't be reading this article because it's in a "white" publication.
MY OH MY, HOW I HATE YOU AND YOUR INSIPID CULT!!!!!!!!!!!!
So – in your faith hate is OK? I think I'll stick with Christianity then.
I DONT HAVE A FAITH, YOU PINHEAD CULTIST!!!
Are you sure about that? Matthew 19:4, but true Christians must maintain neutrality by avoiding political debates, John 17:16
If you have no faith, then your life must be bleak, which is very obvious right now.
Hitchens said God is dead, God says Hitchens is dead!
When exactly did God say this?
that was said by Nietzsche first. and i heard that comeback joke in philosophy 101 first year college.
thing is, all of them are right, they're all dead.
But Dawkins lives!
And to who? In what language? Where there other witnesses to this statement to corroborate? Oh, so you just want us to take the hearsay report you give us on YOUR supernatural supreme creator of the entire universe? Is this the same one that spends all of it's time worrying about Earth? That would make complete sense since it's such a large part and force in the universe... I guess if the universe was my garden I would spend all of my efforts watering the less-than-blade-of-grass that is Earth.
One has to wonder if Hitchens was praying as he lay on his death bed. You know, sort of like 'there are no atheists in a fox hole'.
Don't quite your day job to become a comedian, Henry.
*quit*
Gays Abort or Abort Gays ?
Truth be told you will never know if a child is gay in the womb. Gays are made and not born!!!
How do you know this? Your pastor told you?
As a "gay" I can 100% in certainty confirm I was born this way. We are all born ignorant it is a choice to educate ourselves or stay dummies forever and believe it is a choice.
How can you live in a world of make believe?
wrong. you're ignorant. get an education.
God is neither a male nor female ... were Gods parents gay? Where they married, in a civil union or just living in sin? If they were married, who officiated the ceremony?
why would god need a p.ecker anyway? no female god to stick his e.rection in. does he p.ee? does he have an a.nus? does he p.oop? does he have nip.ples? why would god have nip.ples....?
Just like all of God's people having gone into slavery, black people are no different. Evil men do evil deeds – it doesn't matter the color of our skin. Their descendants were meant to be here; that is why God brought them here. The same for the rest of us in this country. We are brothers in the tribes of Israel (Jacob). Uphold each other and let God weed out the wicked of all races. Do NOT fail in Jesus' and God's commands. Strengthen your relationship with God and get rid of the false prophets like this author and one of the men quoted.
The Bible is full of snares for men with evil hearts to twist into what they "want" it to say.
Truth7, you are one of the BIGGEST hypocrites I have ever seen in my whole life. Jesus never knew ye. Go to hell and burn.
the bible is a work of fiction. it is outdated and a terrible code for ethical living. it should be used as a doorstop.
Rman, the nastiness and hatred in your words reveal the darkness in your heart. You can't stand to hear the Truth, that's why you lash out.
@bootyfoot
Have you told all the archaeologists that are discovering the Bible to be accurate yet?
not really sure what you're referring to.
Prayer changes things .
What was before the "big bang?"
Well ... it must have been God(s)!! LOL.
God, the anthropomorphized sum total of all human ignorance.
no one knows. not even sure if there was a "before".
what was before god?
A prior cycle of time. Easy.
God is always and exists outside of time. Scientists cannot prove that time just started with some cosmic fart.
Where was God before the big bang?
What was God doing before the big bang?
What time was it before the big bang?
Where did all the "space" come from befoe the big bang?
scientists don't claim to have proven the big bang. with all our knowledge, it is the most plausible explanation put forward. scientists are okay with saying "we don't know." the religious say they know everything. and then get proven wrong over and over.
if god always existed, why couldn't the universe have always existed? use your own flawed logic and think before you answer.
If horses you make the argument for GOD perfectly with your statement. Time, big bang, etc must be set in motion by a greater power.
Bootyfunk, because the universe exists in time and decays, it must be created by something.
Fufu ... Must? Why?
There's plenty of hypocrisy in the black voter aside from being anti-gay. They are overwhelmingly Christian, yet overwhelmingly support pro-abortion politicians. Blacks voted for bo in 2008 in the 95th percentile based on 1 criteria, and will do so again in November – skin color. That is the very definition of racism. Now that's hypocrisy.
"Bootyfunk, because the universe exists in time and decays, it must be created by something."
bold statement. too bad your premise is flawed. where is your proof that if something decays, it must have been created? your logic is flawed. show evidence of this claim. where is your evidence that the "universe exists in time"? time is a human construct.
Bootyfunk have you taken the time to ponder why your responses are insulting and demeaning? Does this mean you are not secure in a rational calm debate? Who exactly are you angry at?
no, fufu, it does not. it means we get tired of watching our fellow man bang his head against a rock. next step is demanding everyone bang their head against a rock. leave the cult of christianity and think for yourself. you won't regret it. religion is unhealthy.
Fufu .. again, simple question WHY?
If horses, because time itself must have a beginning. It cannot start itself.
If horses, why does your name have to be insulting and your argument have to be sarcastic if it is so rooted in truth? Think about it.
how do you know time cannot start itself? proof. evidence please. you're making a bold statement. let's see some evidence of your claim.
FuFu you are not making any sense, don't you see that? You can't believe what you are saying because you know it doesn't make sense do you plug your god into everything for the things you do not understand.
BF we all know the properties of time and physics. It would take some time to start from the beginning a walk you through this.
"BF we all know the properties of time and physics"
that's a fallacy. appeal to common belief. show some evidence. there is no proof for your claim. saying "we all know it's true" doesn't make it true. there are many philosophical views of time. what physics are you referring to? a straight simple answer pls.
No VOR I don't plug God into everything I don't understand. I don't understand every last think about a combustion engine, but I do know it was created by an intelligent source, made in the Image of GOD. This may offend you and you can respond with something sarcastic, but in my "feeble ignorant" mind it is TRUTH.
The question, whether you like it or not, fufu, is valid and not in the least insulting. How do you know that 'something' must have started time? And how do you know that something was an invisible being?
Recent post by 'FuFu' is an instance of a Suppressed Evidence fallacy and a case of Willed Ignorance.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/glossary.html
Tom Tom you can see plenty of responses in this string that are insulting. Read through them all and see the insulting, sarcastic and smug writing. As far as GOD being invisible, there are many things the human eye cannot see. Sound waves?
fallacy why waste so much time posting and writing about something you don't believe in? Have you ever truly pondered this? I don't go to Easter Bunny articles and constantly attempt to prove the non-existence of the Easter Bunny.
The truth about religion that I've hidden for so long
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo
Dead used to be funny guy, watched some of his stuff awhile back, not all that entertaining.
Thank God for George Carlin.. he was a funny guy... one of the best of all time
i would hate to be a black h0m0!
i agree. it must be terrible to grow up around so much prejudice/bigotry. sadly, poor communities are usually more religious - more religious means more h.omophobic. even more sad that after being freed, blacks are still willingly kneeling before a white man.
The bible is not a scientific how-to book. It's simple collection of metaphorical stories of folks a long time ago. Does it have some good insight? Sure. But it also has some drivel that is completely useless for today's man after thousands of years of more education and understanding. Get a grip folks.
I disagree. It's 100% drivel and has nothing to do with us in the Information Age.
It tells you what's coming. You'd think a person focused on knowledge would be smart enough to want to find out and know their Creator. Well, guess not.
Cheryl .. you can't even prove God is a HE!
I can prove I made millions of dollars from god.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA7bsK5_Z08&feature=player_detailpage&list=PL156BCD99879AB0BE
Why would the black church cite scripture to exclude gays when a similar approach to the Bible was used to enslave their ancestors?
I will tell you why! For the same reason Blake, the author of this article, is using his progressive bias to interpret history and the Bible. The abolitionist movement also used the Bible and eventually ended slavery. America will never get over slavery as long as people like Blake keep profiling whites as responsible for slavery for all time. You will never here them refer to the fact the white abolitionists and white blood ended slavery.
Or that their own people sold them INTO slavery.
or that blacks enslave blacks in africa today
CNN has been waging a war on anyone who doesn't agree with them on gay marriage. They made an article implying to have a coach fired for his views on gays.
Also why is it if you go anywhere and talk about a book and you talk about it showing saying things about it showing that you didn't read it. You look like an idiot. However, you talks about the Bible saying things that show you didn't read it you look smart.
THERE IS NO VERSE IN THE BIBLE SAYING SLAVERY IS OK CITE IT IF YOU DO. It does exactly as it did with meat and divorce. It accepts it as an evil of humanity and gives rules to it. rules that free slaves by the way.
in fact The Bible goes against slavery, "for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers–and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine" Slavery goes against doctrine.
thatguy thanks for your refreshing interpretation of the truth. Not the hateful atheist spew that has been infesting this commentary.
I admit, the bible is a load of cr@p when you look too closely at it.
Leviticus 25:44
Ephesians 6:5
Colossians 3:22
1 Peter 2:18
Idiot.
Put this story out where we can comment on it.
The gay agenda is dangerous!
Encouraging young people to explore gay behavioral options is an invitation to an early grave.
How so?
encouraging religion is dangerous. you turn your brain off and let writing from the bronze/iron age dictate your ethics. dumb da dumb dumb...
Rubi, you are clearly ignorant. Scientific research has proven that gay folks didn't explore their way to being gay. It simply hardcoded in the genetics for various reasons. It's people like you that perpetuate hate with your lack of understanding.
yeah....that darn gay agenda: (1) they are fighting for marriage so that they can live in legally recognized, monogamous, committed relationships....how terrible. (2) they want to be able to raise children as a couple so that they can provide a stable, nurturing home....how selfish. (3) They want to serve their country in the military....how outrageous! Hmmm....Actually it sounds like traditional values to me.
Those of you of no faith say to me, "Prove that God exists." I say to you, "Prove that HE does NOT exist."
You are the one with the claim of existence. It's up to you to offer proof. If you say vampires don't exist, should you have to prove it?
Huh?
Observer how did time start?
Cheryl, you can't even prove God is a HE!
it is on the claimant to prove their claim, not for the observer to disprove the claim.
using your logic, prove i'm not god. prove my left nut isn't god. prove my favorite coffee mug isn't god. can't prove it must mean it's true! derp!!!
@fufu
time started with the big bang. there was no space and time before that.
how did god start?
They can't and that's the entire hypocrisy in their argument. They have already chosen their side and it isn't God. A person who doesn't know just says "I don't know".
Fufu .. how did God start time?
"prove he doesn't exist"? that's your argument? get back on your knees.