Gospel According to MD

“I apologize for participating in this conspiracy of silence.”

–Rev. Delman Coates, 2012

As a Black/male/Christian/gay/preacher/pastor, what I find most frustrating is that many Black congregations were places of refuge and safety from the violence and mistreatment done to African American people during Jim Crow and our struggle for civil rights.  Both of which I might add, were opposed by the white majority on the belief that God did not create all men and women equal—and they used the Bible to justify that position.  Of course, now, you cannot find one Black congregation that would accept such tenets.  We condemn slavery, as well as the separation of races and consider them to be great evils. Yet, these historical precedents are no different than the experiences LGBT people face in our society today.

The Bible, as I teach and preach from it, is not meant to be God, but to lead people into relationship with God. Unfortunately, in the traditional African-American church, it has morphed into the single largest weapon used to keep LGBT men and women from living before God whole and fully human.

In a recent article published in the Washington Post, a prominent African-American Maryland  pastor, Delman Coates of Mount Enon Baptist Church, spoke up then out in support of the Same Sex Marriage Bill in his home state. Coates is quoted as saying, “Gays and lesbians are a part of our communities, they are a part of our families, [they are] a part of our church families. I believe the church ought to be a place where all people, regardless of their lifestyle, ought to be welcome.”

While Black churches are far from monolithic, and certainly not on this issue, most progressive conversations regarding the right of same gender loving couples to openly acknowledge and affirm their love and relationships in the Church has been silenced. Silenced under the literal interpretations of the Bible and what some think it says about homosexuality, marriage and sin.

To believe that LGBT people are created in the image and likeness of God and worship as such in the historical Black church is not only unlikely but close to impossible. Homophobia in the Black church has outlasted slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell and even the election of the first African-American President of the United States of America.     

While Coates may not have it totally right, as he wrongly asserts that homosexuality is a “lifestyle” choice, he is headed in the right direction with such a bold and courageous declaration. His statement is more congruent with what it truly means to capture the essence of African religion which is pragmatic, informative and communal—where everyone has a soul and religion permeates all dimensions of our lives and strengthens our humanity.

We, as Black gay men and women, are being characterized as the ‘great evil’, and denied civil and human rights because of biblical [mis]interpretations, based on fear, hate, ignorance and prejudice. How is it that those being most oppressed in society are perceived to have the power necessary to destroy the entire institution of marriage simply because they want to openly affirm their love for their same gendered partner with God’s blessing in the church?

We who claim spirituality, shaped not only by our American history but also by our African past, must become a people willing to engage the Bible not as God but as a pathway to better know a loving God. A puritan morality that gave our community the idea that the only moral sexual position was the “missionary position” has done as much to demean God’s rich gift of sexual expression and the belief that love is God’s gift to all humankind.

Washington Post article, “Speaking out for same-sex marriage law, black minister stands apart”

Back on Top

"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have." —James Baldwin Imagine my surprise and disbelief last week when out of the blue I received a text message from a friend asking me if I could confirm the news about Whitney Houston’s passing. No sooner than I turned on the television, did I see the "breaking news" story that singer/actress Whitney Houston was dead at the age of 48. One has to understand that this was not just another celebrity death, but she was an icon of my generation and someone that guided my early adult years with her tremendous vocal talents and stunning beauty. In the days that followed, I struggled, as a person of faith, to find the greater meaning in her short life and sudden death. It was far too easy to blame all of this on her history of drug abuse and poor choices. If life suddenly took everyone who refused to say "no" to drugs and alcohol or chose the wrong partner to marry, the world would be scarcely populated and those left on earth would never be able to reach the high notes that Houston did in so many of her number one hit songs. The larger questions seem to be, in the case of Whitney, if she is of lesser value because of how she died or simply because she is dead? Is death for her the end or the beginning? Or put another way; is death her ultimate punishment or her ultimate healing? The answers to these questions will largely depend on what one believes about death. Good Morning America reported this week that Whitney may be worth more in death than she was while alive. According to experts her estate is set to gross more than 10 million dollars in record sales in these weeks following her passing.

Death, for me, is not the end, but another leg of the journey in life that leads to ultimate healing. Death is the one thing we can surely count on and yet, it is the very thing that we spend our lives trying to avoid. I remain confident as life makes way to death the presence of God was with Houston in life, and continues to be with her through death. We, who remain, are also in the presence of God as we journey through this aspect of life toward our very own death. I am reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” It is likely that Whitney understood this theological tension regarding the journey of life to death as she belted out that short, yet prophetic rendition of Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah in 1993 with Barbara Walters. One only calls on Jehovah, when one understands the struggles, stresses, and pain that life presents with belief Jehovah will respond to that call.

Tomorrow Whitney’s family will hold a private funeral at the New Hope Baptist Church in New Jersey. This will be their final farewell to a daughter, mother, sister, and friend. In respecting the pain of her family who in death has lost a loved one, all can take comfort in the words from the Apostle Paul who knew death in life, “To be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord,” which allows Whitney to once again be free and back on top of the only chart that really matters.

Good Morning America report

Barbara Walters Special interview with Whitney Houston

Back Where Taken

Is it just me or does anyone else’s palms get sweaty and heart begins to beat faster when they hear one of the wise men otherwise known as the GOP Presidential Candidates… tell their supporters and the world that we have to “Take Our Country Back” if we are to save this great nation from disaster!  I mean really!  Take it where?  From whom are we taking it?  Who exactly is the “we” that will do the taking? More to the point, who will be taken?  I am not ready to go BACK, and especially until I have these questions answered by someone other than a privileged politician who wants my support!

Coincidentally, just a few weeks ago, the question was posed to me, “Wouldn’t you have loved to live back in the 1950’s?” Of course the answer to that question for me is, “NO!” As an African American male, born in the early 60’s, in the shadows of Jim Crow, segregation and the Civil Rights Movement; the very last thing I want to do is go BACK to a day when Black people were treated as second class citizens waging a fight for equal rights. “Take us back where, where we were taken?”

If their distorted reporting regarding President Obama’s performance as Commander and Chief is to be believed, one would assume we were better off before he came into office in 2008. Sound familiar? The children of Israel suffered from the same plight of romanticizing their former days of captivity, complaining to their leader, Moses, as they wondered around for 40-years in the wilderness; but at least Moses was given time and opportunity to get the people on the road to the Promised Land before they began to whine about their former days. In our country’s case, we hadn’t even stowed the patriotic buntings and memorabilia from our 44^th President’s historic inauguration before critics proclaimed him a “one term president.” Our battle cry for Hope and Change had been swept away as fast as the ticker-tape pieces littering Pennsylvania Avenue.

So while we cannot be certain of what direction the future of this country could or should take, our spiritual minds, coupled with pure common sense must prevent us from believing that our future lies behind in the past.  The problems that the Lot’s ran into in biblical days, was despite God’s call for Lot, his wife, and his family to move to a unknown and unfamiliar place that God would create for them and not look back; Mrs. Lot, like our wise men, held on to romanticized, nostalgic but inaccurate memories of days gone by and made a foolish attempt to revisit, if for only a moment, that place which God was to destroy. In turn, she paid the ultimate price by becoming a pillar of salt. 

Rather than using a contextual frame-work of blue or red state, let us seek to embrace a color, creed or context that propels the yet to be ”United” States of America forward in a progressive and inclusive manner  allowing us to draw on our God-given co-creative abilities to navigate to places yet unchartered but assuredly ahead and not behind us.

The Bigger Game

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever effects one directly, affects all indirectly;”


If there is any prophetic truth in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I tend to believe there are, what say ye, then, as American Airlines plans to eliminate 13,000 workers, or 16% of its workface on the eve of the biggest single sporting event of the year known as the Super Bowl.  What should a football game, with expected revenues to exceed 250 million dollars generating more than 170 million in ad sales for CBS, matter to those airline employees negatively affected by a weak economy and fierce market competition?

With the tragic news of American Airlines, dislocated employees and their families are devastated about an uncertain future and having their livelihoods threatened. While at the same time, thousands of cheering fans and spectators find their way, mostly via air travel, to the Super Bowl game and all of it’s lavish parties, half-time performances, and over-priced memorabilia.  Can this be the network of mutuality Dr. King speaks about?

In the US, we boast of being a great nation, but yet there is strong disconnect between the haves—those who live in extravagance, abundance, lavishness and consumption on an almost obscene scale; and the have-nots—those who have little or nothing and want for more necessity than desire. Perhaps we don’t realize in the midst of this widening gap, poor people like nice things too, but often live lives without the basic resources for existence.  If we want to comfort ourselves with the motto: “In God We Trust,” in a nation that has been rescued from economic collapse, it seems the very least we can do in gratitude to God, is to work toward a more just society by caring for the most vulnerable among us. I become very concerned, and with good reason, when I hear Republican Presidential Candidate, Mitt Romney, say, “I’m not concerned about the very poor we have a safety net there…” I say to Mr. Romney, it is the least of these that we ought to be most concerned. If we are not concerned about them, we are just playing the game that allows the rich to keep getting richer and the poor to become more disenfranchised.

In just a few short days, we will sing America’s Anthem,“The Star Spangled Banner,” and with the flag waving and our hands pressed against our hearts, Super Bowl XLVI, will kickoff.  As the first whistle blows, may it also be an invitation for us to remember, with beer in one hand and remote in the other, the most important goal we must score in the land of the free and the home of the brave, to excogitate opportunities for all of us to thrive together weaving ourselves into a single pattern of destiny where each thread enhances the beauty and texture of the other creating a seamless garment.

Stay tuned

For many years I have been encouraged to become a blogger. Well, stay tuned. It's about to take off!!!