Your Life Depends On It!

Commentary by Wanda

“For the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line” is a famous line from one of the most prolific black sociologists of the 20th century, WEB Dubois. Dubois believed that the power to overcome the color-line could be attacked through political power (the right to vote), civil equality, and education–collectively. Dubois' message was to all African Americans but I want to specifically address those who claim a conservative Christian perspective. Elections are right around the corner and for the past several years, I have witnessed many African American Christians vote based purely on “traditional family values” and the protection of the family (anti-same sex unions). When these candidates and officials talk about protecting the family they are never referring to "Pookie" and "Nay Nay’s" family…trust me! For if they were, there would be a greater emphasis on increasing minimum wage, improving education, and attacking drugs and violence in our cities. Some of our esteemed African American religious leaders parade these conservative candidates in their pulpits, pose with them for photo opportunities, and affirm these candidates based merely on their opposition to abortion, same sex unions and homosexuality.

I believe that the black church should be the agent for social change. Instead of focusing solely on prosperity, personal pursuits, financial literacy, and materialism, the church should be the prophetic voice addressing all the issues that their parishioners battle week in and week out in their respective communities. Many pastors resist discussing politics from the pulpit for fear of offending their members. But how is it possible that the black church, with a conscience, can distance itself from social activism? Lack of quality education, access to healthcare, and insufficient social security benefits are issues that affect African Americans disproportionately, so how can we remain silent?

Years ago in Atlanta, black pastors would interview local political candidates and then provide recommendations to their congregations. This type of collective power brokering resulted in informed citizens and an active leadership. What type of power would the African American community yield if pastors would revisit this type of collective political power?

African Americans of the middle and lower classes can’t afford to vote merely on moral issues when their economic stability is being threatened. As many continue to base their political ballot on whether or not a candidate is a member of The First American Church of Whatever and is Pro-Life and anti-gay, the gap between the haves and have nots widens, more and more black children slip through the cracks and our grandparents continue to be unable to support themselves. I know there are a myriad of other issues that this country deals with outside of the oppression of blacks and poor (we are not only homophobic, but also xenophobic – border issues and immigration laws); we’ve created powerful enemies and stand in fear of an attack on our liberty and, with the heightened threat of North Korea, our very lives. When we are made to focus on hot topics like abortion and homosexuality, we can forget that many are underemployed, undereducated, and undervalued as citizens of this country.

Don’t forget to exercise your right to vote on November 7th. Get involved in a local organization that addresses issues that help to make your community better. Check the candidates voting history and the causes they support – don’t let Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, and Anti-Same Sex Unions be your guiding decision, find out how they stand on economic and social issues that impact your community- because your very life depends on it.

Response by Cantice

Now I see the light. I wondered why Wanda would want to partner with me (someone who disagrees with her on the most essential spiritual doctrines and political ideologies) on anything, let alone a blog. But now I’ve got it. She brings it all to bear in this week’s commentary; she wants to convince all five of my conservative black friends to vote for Democrats.

Even if she does, it won’t impact the November 7th election. I can’t believe she wastes a whole page talking about people who vote on the basis of abortion, and same-sex marriage. I’m the only person I know who switched parties because of the life issue. The other people who vote Republican were going to anyway. The problem is exactly the opposite of what Wanda bewails. “Our” people, people in general, don’t vote based on morality; they vote (and Wanda urges them to) based on economics, and a limited knowledge of economics at that.

Wanda’s says the black church isn’t political enough because they’re not holding forums and interviewing candidates. I think that educating members about “The Peace Plan” and the "five global giants" (something that my “black church” does) as defined by Rick Warren has the capacity to make a greater difference than interviews and forums for addressing politics in our country and the world.

Morality doesn’t stop at marriage, it reaches into the economy. Let’s talk about raising minimum wage (this would be more of a conversation if we owned more of the businesses that were forced to comply with this regulation); I don’t think that anybody is satisfied with minimum wage. We’re not supposed to be. The best way to overcome the dissatisfaction is to keep acquiring the skills to qualify for more highly paid positions. This isn’t elite thinking, this is common sense. When I made minimum wage during college work study, I wasn’t mad. But neither did I expect to continue making that wage after graduation. Lowering our expectations for workers doesn’t create a better economy or society. And believing that economic status blurs the line between moral and immoral is an ideology that I detest. The bible is explicit; it is worse to be immoral than poor. I know poverty intimately, but I refuse to return to immorality.

It is a dream of mine that one day we will have a party system that actually requires a moral person to make hard decisions around Election Day. We’re not there yet and Wanda’s commentary assures us that we aren’t even close. If those who cry out against suffocating economic pressures or concealed racism would add the atrocity of abortion or other moral topics to their list of oppressions, I guess I would respect them more. As I once told my mom, if I feel like my life as a black person is being threatened, then I have a voice and a vote and any other means necessary to fight back. The young humans that I switched parties to vote for don’t have that power.

Five Global Giants: http://www.thepeaceplan.com/

The Joy of Parenthood

Commentary by Cantice

This weekend a friend and I attended the Georgia Right to Life Annual Conference. It was my friend’s first conference (my second) and understandably, she had some preconceived notions about the people she would encounter. To her surprise, nobody wore a baseball cap with buttons shouting “abortionists deserve to die”-type slogans. My friend enjoyed Scott Klusendorf’s (the keynote speaker’s) address on how to engage the pro-choice other side in meaningful discussion.

Many of you might be wondering how I came to feel so comfortably a part of the pro-life movement. The short story is that while in college, more than a couple of my friends became pregnant by the spring of my freshman year. Prior to this time I was passively pro-choice, believing that abortion was wrong, but that a person should be able to choose. For all my religious jargon, I knew that I didn’t have the substance to endure the nine months of shame that pro-life single mothers bore, nor was I unselfish enough to allow motherhood to alter my plans for academic and professional greatness. Maybe that’s why, when I was promiscuous, I feared pregnancy worse than death. I thank God that before I ever had to make a personal decision for or against life, my heart was turned to sympathize with the unborn.

As college drew on, I became more than passively pro-life. I read “Jane Roe” Norma McCorvey’s book, Won by Love, and began researching abortion procedures. A friendly local organization sent me a video called “Silent Screams” and others that either showed aborted baby remains or ultrasound footage of abortions being performed. Through sonography, one of the films depicted a gestating baby trying to escape the suction apparatus that would annihilate its tiny body. Before viewing the films, I was pro-life for religious reasons. After the films, I realized that abortion could be opposed on the basis of human rights violations.

Add to this negative milieu the fact that Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was sacrilegious and a proponent of eugenics. (For those wondering, eugenics is the proposed improvement of the human species by encouraging or permitting reproduction of only those individuals with genetic characteristics judged desirable.) That said, it should not be surprising that Sanger and others marketed contraception to African Americans in a eugenic experimentation that “peacefully” related to the violent actions of Nazi Germany against Jewish and Polish populations in Europe. But I digress.

It is my belief that today and in the years to come, more people will need encouragement to choose parenthood. As a community, we are backward in our thinking when we shun pregnant singles but condone extra-marital sex. I worry that married couples who aspire to be wealthy, but not to be parents, do not fully embrace the vocation of marriage. I fear that a society that prefers abortion over birth has lost its fear of God and its hope in the future. No abuse that a child could suffer is more gruesome than death at the hand of its parents. But a society that expects nothing more than abortion from its citizens deserves the abortionist and the unregretful consenter as its neighbors.

Abortion Reality Link: www.abort73.com

Response to The Joy of Parenthood
By Wanda

I think almost every woman I know has had a pregnancy scare. I believe that abortion is immoral since it can only be performed during the 6th week of pregnancy which is 3 weeks after the heart has been beating and blood has been flowing through its veins. Calling abortion a right is a fallacy, however, I will not condemn anyone who has had an abortion or condone it. Each individual makes decisions in their lives that they have to answer to God for, whether good or bad. I do know that many women who have experienced it were never the same again.

Now, on to my disagreement with your position that parenthood is a vocation of marriage. Are you trapped in 1602? Do I need to call Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown from ‘Back to the Future’ to bring you into the year 2006? Parenthood is wonderful; Marriage is wonderful; if it is for YOU. Neither marriage nor parenting is a commandment given by Christ, although somehow I am sure you and your cronies have figured out some way to state it is. There are couples who decide not to have children, delay having children, or can’t conceive a child naturally and that doesn’t mean that they are not fulfilling their marital vocation. How can we assume that pursuing wealth and not having children is not a couple’s vocation? Who is to say that they shouldn’t wait? Why is it selfish and less ethical to decide to not have children? Valuing life not only means protecting it through Pro Life, Gun Control, Crime Prevention advocacy but also allowing those with life the opportunity to live in the liberty of Christ.

The HHIC: The Head Hu(Man) in Charge

Commentary by Wanda

As a result of our recent postings, I have had the privilege of engaging in conversations with several of my male acquaintances about the meaning of manhood. My question to these self-assured individuals is “What does it mean to be a man in the 21st century?” Their understanding of manhood and how it functions in gender relations is intriguing. Many times my counterparts define manhood as God given responsibilities as leader, provider and protector of the family. But how do we see these roles being played out in our personal situations? Most of these men had working wives, typically she has more “Christian experience” than him, and they owned car theft and home security systems. There were also several generative themes that reoccurred: receiving respect, honor and support from their wife. When I reflect on this list of determining factors to affirming ones manhood, his needs didn’t seem any different from my needs as a woman. Overwhelmingly, these men defined manhood in terms of spiritual headship.

Understanding leadership as divine and orderly is a confusing theme to me. What is out of order, what is disorganized by virtue of the man not staking his claim as the leader of the family? In my opinion, full participation in the health of your family is not leadership it is assuming the responsibilities of your marriage vows and your parenting obligations. I acknowledge and celebrate the differences between male and female but those differences don’t determine “divine order” they demonstrate God’s unique creative abilities. However, we immediately resort to referring to biblical times to reaffirm the role of women – which is an enormous mishandling of history. First, male headship is not Judeo-Christian concepts; these ideologies can be seen in many socio-religious settings. Secondly, before the last 200+ years, women many times were illiterate, unless of the middle classes and nobility, and they did not possess rights to own land, right to vote and even power over their children, unless a widow, and even in those cases there were definite limitations. So manhood for those times could rationally be defined in terms of provider, leader, and protector. But how do you translate those societal norms into today?

Now, don’t misunderstand my diatribe against male headship, if you are a woman who agrees with male headship, more power to you! I know that many of us (women) feel that our natural inclination is to support and nurture others however that does not translate to the necessity of male headship. Although, I don’t agree with headship in any terms, I wanted to give you some food for thought:

If God, who could possibly be understood as female - since God creates, births, nurtures, loves all creation- wanted a head wouldn’t God have chosen the woman to be the HHIC? For the woman has the power of the womb and typically functions as the spiritual and moral agent through child rearing.

A Response to HHIC
by Cantice


Wanda is trying to have her cake and eat it too. She continues to attempt to incorporate the voices of men by speaking to them in person and through poetry, but she stops short of considering the validity of their desires to be given some controls and leadership in the family that are not accorded to women.

What Wanda and other women don’t admit is that in any institution, it is confusing for the subordinates and for the leadership to have no concept of there being a final authority. Perhaps this is the true reason for God assigning roles in the marriage relationship. The same hierarchy is demonstrated in the concept of the trinity as understood by orthodox Christianity. In the trinity doctrine, Jesus (God the son) is subordinate to God the father in the economy of redemption, even though the father and son are equal in being and attribute (Sproul 80).

Further, perhaps leading to Wanda’s confusion about leadership (“Understanding leadership as divine and orderly is a confusing theme for me.”) is Wanda’s unwillingness to recognize God the way Jesus described him. I think it would be confusing at best to understand God as female, mostly because Jesus (who knew God better than Wanda and I) understood him to be Father. The words Jesus uses for father are not gender neutral.

Lastly, Wanda says that “we” refer to biblical times to reaffirm the role of women. I’m not sure who “we” is, but I refer to the inspired manuscript, not biblical times to take my instructions on the roles of men and women in marriage and family. There is a big difference. Christian themes in the Bible, especially those for women, in the centuries immediately preceding and following the death of Christ were revolutionary (see MacArthur’s Twelve Extraordinary Women).

Having said all this, I’d like to bring this theme home in a literal way. The reason that I can embrace this male headship so whole-heartedly is because I have seen it in action in my husband. Few men embrace leadership the way Jesus demonstrated it—as a servant. My husband demonstrates servant leadership daily in our marriage and in his relationship with our children. His headship looks less “manly” than the men Wanda surveyed would expect. Few men have accurately grasped this concept of leadership, which is why few women are quick to comply. But, show me a man who is a servant leader, and I’ll show you a throng of women in line to follow him.

MacArthur, John. Twelve Extraordinary Women: How God Shaped Women of the Bible and What He Wants to Do with You. Nashville: Nelson (2005).

Sproul, R.C. Essential Truths of the Christian Faith Wheaton, IL: Tyndale (1992).

Fight for Your Right!

Commentary by Cantice

I assure you that I am not trying to put the s-e-x word on this blog too frequently, but this week’s topic revisits that ancient love sport. While reviewing a reproductive rights organization’s website I came across this assertion:

“…SisterSong believes that sexual prohibitions are not only promoted by moral conservatives, but also by reproductive rights advocates who fail to promote a sex positive culture” (http://www.sistersong.net/2007_NationalConference/2007NC_index.html).

The group goes on to say, “We believe that sex for pro-creation or sexual pleasure is a human right, and we are striving to create a pro-sex space for the pro-choice movement.”

I’ll state the obvious: if the pro-choice movement doesn’t already consider itself to be a pro-sex culture, I’m afraid of what US society would be like if this group achieves its objective. That assertion aside, viewing these statements on the website made me wonder, when should rights be advocated and under what circumstances is sex a right? I assume that one must attend the SisterSong conference, Let’s Talk about Sex, to get the answer, or at least I hope these parameters will be discussed. Or maybe I’m missing the point entirely, maybe there are no qualifications for sex as a right; perhaps we come out of the womb with the right to engage in intercourse and all other forms of “sex.”

Prohibitions are sometimes good, I think. That I’m not supposed to drink and drive is a helpful one. I don’t feel like my right to drive is inhibited by that prohibition. There are other good prohibitions, but you get the point. Besides that, this group has distorted the “moral conservative” position on sex. It is not prohibited, it is protected by marriage.

They didn’t even say consented sex. Isn’t that problematic for people who are likely to rage in response to date and acquaintance rape statistics with the slogan, “No means no!”? I’m just thinking…isn’t sex pleasurable precisely because it is not commonplace? And don’t we value sex by establishing guidelines for it? I can hear the other side now calling me a capitalist. I won’t mind that as long as someone tells me how we value something by making it free. Love costs. Friendship costs. Freedom costs. Just ask anyone who’s fought for it.

So what’s the point of me bringing up the SisterSong position? It’s simple: pro-sex (unrestricted sex) + pro-choice = higher abortion rates, more incidents of schizophrenia in women, more breast cancer, higher rates of infertility in women, more STDs and STIs, increases in dysfunctional marriage and psychologically disturbed children. So, raise your hand if you're for it …against it?


A Response to Fight for Your Right!
By Wanda

I think I have talked about sex more this month than I have ever in my 33 years on this planet! One major reason could be that I am enrolled in a ‘Sexuality and the Bible’ seminar. Nevertheless, let’s talk about sex. Cantice, humans have never fully adhered to sexual prohibitions or parameters. Although, we love to think they did. Sex outside of marriage, prostitution, homosexuality, rape, infidelity, orgies, have existed since Hebrew Bible times--- and that was a long time ago.

Sex is a natural, healthy desire – just like eating. Which is why so many people struggle with the two. If you don’t have a desire for sex (unless you have a screaming infant or toddler) then you better run to the doctor- immediately, seriously, no I’m not kidding, get to the doctor- now! But those who ascribe to specific religious beliefs understand the boundaries as positive and not an infringement on human rights. And that is it. How can you have a productive discussion about this? It’s a waste of time(Remember Ms. Founder*).

But my concern for every one of us who believe it is our life’s mission to tell everyone else what we think, why we think it, and why they should think like us, is that we use more wisdom in engaging those different from us in meaningful conversations. Moral conservatives should stray from jamming religious beliefs down people’s throats and Liberals should avoid dismissing religious convictions. If this could happen maybe we could spend more time on other important issues, like fighting for one’s right to affordable healthcare, greater employee and tax benefits for childcare and maternity leave. Now that sounds like something to fight for the right to party to..don’t you think?