Quote of the Week

"In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty; it will spring up again from the roots, for they are many and they are deep."

General Toussaint L'Ouverture
Hero of the Haitian Revolution

Julius Scruggs on Prosperity Theology

From Ethics Daily's interview with the Rev. Dr. Julius Scruggs, newly elected president of the National Baptist Convention.

"I think that the prosperity gospel is a threat to Christianity. Period," said Scruggs of the belief system that God shows favor to believers through wealth and material possessions.

Such teaching is "a subtle distortion of biblical truths," he said.

"I'm one who believes that God will take care of all of us … But I'm not one who believes that that means that the pastor ought to drive a Bentley car or live in a million dollar house or fly on a corporate jet," said Scruggs, who has been pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville for 32 years.

"That kind of prosperity is influencing the pulpit and the pew in American life today, and that's unfortunate because it takes us far and away from the Jesus who talked about foxes have holes and birds have nests but the son of man doesn't have anywhere to lay his head," said Scruggs. "There is always a tension between that aspect of Jesus and the Jesus who brought the abundant life to everybody."

Warning of the allure that money had for clergy, he said, "One has to be grounded in what Christianity is all about to not allow that temptation to get them."

Click here to read the rest of the interview.

Quote of the Week

"Justice will bring about peace. . . . If you want peace, work for justice."

Pope Paul VI (1897-1978)

Quote of the Week

"And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?"

Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Quote of the Week

"One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner . . . and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect man and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth."

W.E.B. Du Bois

Quote of the Week

"I am so tempted to give up on a Christianity where preachers from their pulpits preach a personal piety that ignores public responsibility. Like Muslim apologists who keep reminding us that true Islam does not condone terrorist acts, I am placed in the position of having to argue that true Christianity does not condone torture."

Read the full article here.

Miguel De La Torre
Associate Professor of Social Ethics at Iliff School of Theology

Quote of the Week

"Studying about missions is different from doing missions. Hearing a sermon about doing for 'the least of these' is different from doing for the least of these. Talking about evangelism is different from doing evangelism. Many have become keepers of the aquarium instead of fishers of men. Dropping money in the offering plate to send people to Africa or the Middle East is different from interacting with and ministering to someone of another race or culture in your own community."

Michael Helms
Pastor
Trinity Baptist Church
Moultrie, Georgia

Nicolette Bethel on the Cuban Revolution

Bahamian anthropologist Nicolette Bethel makes some astute observations on the significance of the Cuban Revolution:

"In many ways the Cuban revolution parallels Haiti’s, which succeeded 155 years earlier, and the success of each revolution depended as much in many ways on the reactions of the countries beyond as it did on the will of the people within the nation. Haiti’s revolution ended in abject poverty and long-term chaos for that nation — not because of some inherent flaw in the idea of freedom for slaves and descendants of Africa, but because of the intolerable demands placed on the nation by the slave-owning countries around it. Cuba’s is sliding into poverty, but despite the best efforts of the Cuban exiles in Miami, and despite the fondest wishes of those who believe Communism is an unworkable system, chaos has not yet begun."

"I am not a communist. However, I am fundamentally an admirer of Castro’s Cuba because Castro achieved what the rest of this region, with all its variable riches, cannot even imagine achieving: a sense of self in a post-colonial world, a justifiable sense of pride in that self, and an understanding of the place of oneself in history — all of which are rare in the post-slave societies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."

Read the rest of the article here.

Converting the Church

"When we read the Book of Acts, all too often we misinterpret the book's central thesis. Most of us have been taught that Acts is the story about how the church converted the world to Jesus Christ. In reality, the book of Acts is the story as to how the church constantly had to be converted in order to make the message of Jesus Christ relevant to a hurting and spiritually hungry world."


Miguel De La Torre, author of Reading the Bible from the Margins and Associate Professor of Social Ethics at Iliff School of Theology

Read the rest of the article here. If you like this article, you might also be interested in reading this commentary or this study guide on the book of Acts.

Ehrenreich on Prosperity Theology

"In the theology of Christian positive thinking, 'everything happens for a reason' . . . But there's another possible message from on high: that this brand of Christianity fosters a distinctly un-Christian narcissism . . . Plenty of Christians have already made the point that the positive thinking of Christianity Light is demeaning to God, and I leave them to pursue this critique. More importantly, from a secular point of view, it's dismissive of other humans, and not only flight attendants. If a person is speeding, shouldn't he get a ticket to deter him from endangering others? And if (Joel) Osteen gets the premier parking spot, what about all the other people consigned to the remote fringes of the lot? Christianity, at best, is about a sacrificial love for others, not about getting to the head of the line."

Barbara Ehrenreich
Author of Nickled and Dimed

Read the rest of the article here.

Justo González on Revelation

"Why is it that a book that for its first readers was a word of comfort causes terror in us? Could it be that our place in the world and in society is very different from the position of those early Christians? Those churches in Asia looked upon the cataclysms announced in Revelation as a metaphor for their final vindication. It is difficult for us today to see things in the same light. Could it be that we have such an investment in the present order that we do not want it to pass away? Could it be that our perspective comes closer to that of 'the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful'? If we really saw and experienced the wickedness of the present order and were among the many who suffer as a consequence of that order would we not see its end with the same joy with which the first readers of Revelation were invited to see it?" (Italics mine)

Justo L. González (1937- )
Theologian and Church Historian

Quote of the Week

"Make no mistake, there is no end of racism. It lurks insidiously in literally tens of millions of souls. Some scholars estimate that as many as 25 percent of whites--45 million--are still hard-core racists. While far fewer than years ago, consider this alarming result: for every two African Americans, there are three hard-core racist whites . . . Millions of these hard-core white racists are in our nation's Christian churches. What is the church doing wrong that racists are comfortable in our pews, choirs and Sunday school classes--even in our pulpits?"

Chris Rice, author of More Than Equals and Co-Director of the Duke Center for Reconciliation

Quote of the Week

"When people live under oppressive structures, they turn to the Bible for the strength to survive another day, not to figure out how long a day lasted in Genesis 1. The Bible is not read with the intellectual curiosity of solving cosmic mysteries; rather, most people on the margins look to the text to find guidance in dealing with daily life, a life usually marked by struggles and hardships. Debates over the scientific validity of the Scriptures become a luxurious privilege for those who do not endure oppressive and discriminating structures."

Miguel De La Torre, author of Reading the Bible from the Margins and Associate Professor of Social Ethics at Iliff School of Theology

Quote of the Week

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

Audre Lorde (1934-1992)
Author of Sister Outsider

Justo González on Prosperity Theology

"The saddest part of this situation is that such cheap theology turns out to be very expensive. The price we pay for such theology is that we do not dare speak of our sufferings and anxieties, for they are our fault and an indication of our own corruption and lack of faith. The price for such theology is that the poor must internalize their oppression, for they are told that if they are poor it is because of their sin. The price for such theology is a church in which, in contradiction to what is taught in Scripture, the poor, the orphan, and the suffering are shunned, and the rich, the powerful, and the healthy are praised. In short, the price of such theology is abandoning the cross of Christ and its meaning."

Justo L. González (1937- )
Theologian and Church Historian

Quote of the Week

"Even if that event was packed to the rafters with illegals, a lawful, decent, humane immigration and police operation CANNOT BEGIN WITH A MASKED GUNMAN FIRING SHOTS."

Lynn Sweeting
Bahamian author on the police raid at the Millar's Creek fundraiser

For more details on this event, see here and here.

Quote of the Week

"So then, as members of this royal priesthood, we must have a concern; a concern for and an interest in human rights. God has caused us to see that Christians in their acts, who deny the dignity of their fellowmen, also deny Jesus Christ in spite of all that they may profess to believe. Therefore, we Christians want to safeguard human rights in a just Bahamian community. The very nature of our convictions causes us to be concerned about the dignity and freedom of men everywhere. Men created by God in His images and His likeness."

R. E. Cooper, Sr. (1913-1980), Founding Pastor
Mission Baptist Church
Nassau, The Bahamas

Quote of the Week

"The proclaimer who stands diametrically opposed to the furtherance of his education will discover, in the long run, that his impact upon the kingdom will always come short of his fullest potentials. God's disciple must be a man in pursuit of continuous learning, international exposure, discipline and intellectual development. It is most unfortunate that many within current ministerial circles have been able to collect quite a good number of certificates, degrees, and titles without complying to the blessings, through rigours of seminary training within the classroom setting. The internet, correspondence courses, or an occasional honour being bestowed upon a faithful servant of the Word by mere mortals, should never, especially when youth is on their side and countless opportunities for scholarships are available, substitute for not 'sitting at the feet of Gamaliel' in structured programmes to armour one to be fundamentally prepared for the tasks of ministry. While not all will be able to attend Seminary, it is my prayer that God would continue to touch their hearts to take advantage of other opportunities for training within their local settings."

R. E. Cooper, Jr., President
Atlantic College and Theological Seminary
Nassau, The Bahamas

Quote of the Week

"I believe The Bahamas is the only place in the world in which you find preachers bold enough to proclaim that which they have not studied, and, tragically, they get away with it."

Bishop Simeon B. Hall
Pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church

A Propensity for Imitation

William Watty, former president of the United Theological College of the West Indies, has observed that the Caribbean church has a high propensity for imitation:

It is here in the Caribbean, not in Europe, that you are likely to find the classic and pristine expressions of European denominationalism. It is in the Caribbean that you will hear Moravians talking about Jan Hus as though he was burnt at the stake last night. It is in the Caribbean that you will hear Methodists talking about the conversion of John Wesley as though Aldersgate Street is around the corner and they were there that night, that you will see Anglicans celebrating as though Newman, Keble and Pusey had them specially in mind when they inaugurated the Anglo-Catholic Revival, that you will hear Catholics speaking as though Pius IX took care to canvass their opinion specifically before he enunciated the Dogma of Papal Infallibility.

If we were to substitute the United States for Europe, we would find that Watty’s illustration could easily be extended to include the twenty-first century Bahamas. Consider, for example, how the books, movies, television programs, and personalities that are currently fashionable in American Evangelical culture have influenced Bahamian Christianity. Local Christian book shops prominently display stacks of Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life, Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series, and Bruce Wilkinson's Prayer of Jabez. Cable Bahamas regularly pipes in religious programming from the major U.S. television networks, making household names of personalities like Joel Osteen, John Hagee, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and Juanita Bynum and, just a few years ago, Bahamian movie theaters were packed out by church groups attending showings of Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ. Given this influence, we should not be surprised that many Bahamian clergy have chosen to imitate the message, method, and promiscuously wealthy lifestyle of U.S.-based television preachers.