Category Archives: Writing

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The Top 10 Blog Posts and or Articles for Black Christian Women in January 2016

january

Hello World,

It’s hard to believe that 2016 is a month old, and I hope it’s been a great year for you so far. As I’ve done for the past few months, I’ve corralled another list of interesting blog posts and or articles for black Christian women from last month that intrigued me as a black Christian woman ( but you don’t have be a black Christian woman to to check them out:) ! ) As usual, let me know if you like my list! Enjoy and share!

1. “New Pastor Coming to Emanuel AME Seeks to Bring Hope, Unity” by Jennifer Berry Hawes

Excerpt: The Rev. Dr. Betty Deas Clark has been named pastor of Emanuel AME Church, where nine black worshipers were gunned down on June 17 by an avowed white racist. She will be the church’s first female pastor. See more at: postandcourier.com.

2. “How a Facebook Comment Turned into a Nightmare for ‘the Evangelical Harvard’” by Sarah Pulliam Bailey 

Excerpt: It’s not the first time Wheaton has wrestled with theology and identity. But the Hawkins case exploded in the thick of a national conversation about the place of Islam, and about race and privilege. Hawkins is one of Wheaton’s five black tenured professors, who make up 2 percent of the faculty, and its only full-time black woman professor. See more at: washingtonpost.com.

3. “How YWCA USA Is Evolving To Better Support Women And People Of Color” by Kathy Caprino

Excerpt: First and foremost, we’ll give the public greater clarity about who we are and what we do. Our mission is squarely focused on eliminating racism and empowering women. The 225 YWCAs around the country serving more than 2 million women and families annually work hand-in-hand with people as they take steps to improve their lives, whether through domestic violence services, housing, childcare, job training, or the many other programs available at local YWCAs. See more at: forbes.com.

4. “Why the Black Church Should Speak Out Against Sexual Predators” by Rev. Dr. Najuma Smith-Pollard

Excerpt: To be silent on Bill Cosby is a missed opportunity to speak to the real people in our pews who have been victims of sexual violence. Here are a few statistics every pastor should know. The national average suggests that 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Translation, if you have 50 Women in your church, 16 to 20 of them have had similar acts of sexual assault, rape, happen to them as have been described by the 55 women who have come forward about Bill Cosby. See more at: lasentinel.net.

5. “Awarding Purity & Preserving Patriarchy: Why I Don’t Agree With Scholarships for Virgins” by Erica Nichole

Excerpt: The mayor in Uthukela, South Africa is awarding young women enrolled in schools with scholarships, not for excelling academically, but for remaining virgins during their time in school. Yep, there are scholarships for virgins. While the road and process to being granted a scholarship is competitive in most countries, students with exceptional academics are awarded grants to further support their education. But is it right to encourage higher education to women by solely making virginity the qualifier for the grant? See more at: xonecole.com.

6. “Loving the Stranger in My Bed” by Trillia Newbell

Excerpt: As you live, you change. I’m not the same woman my husband married 12 years ago. I’d like to think in some ways I’ve matured, but even many of my interests have changed. I’ve had children, so my body has definitely changed. Even my temperament has changed as we’ve experienced more trials in our growing together. I’m still me to the core, but I’m also different. Because of the familiarity we feel in marriage, it takes intentional effort to stay close as each person changes. See more at: todayschristianwoman.com.

7. “Single Mom of Six Gets Special Gift from Church” by Jennifer Shaw

Excerpt: Pollard’s luck changed on Jan. 3 when Pastor Chris Williams read her letter aloud to the congregation of Church at Antioch, then announcing that she was the recipient of a donated 2002 burgundy Ford Taurus,also as a way of recognizing the church’s one-year anniversary. See more at: contracostatimes.com.

8. “Harlem ‘Church Ladies’ Get Their Due”

Excerpt: Church Ladies: Untold Stories of Harlem Women in the Powell Era is an oral history based on interviews with 15 black women, members of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, N.Y. The book is a rare glimpse into the world of women’s leadership in the black church and gives voice to Harlem women and their activism during the tumultuous mid-20th century. See more at: blogs.baruch.cuny.edu.

9. “The Black Church and the Habitus of Resistence: An Ethnographic Study of Religious Practice and Social Change” by Joi R. Orr

Excerpt: In the spring of 2015, I observed a longstanding group of moderate and liberal black clergy members in Atlanta, Georgia, whose mission is to “provide leadership, advocacy and service to the homeless, helpless and hopeless in our community.” Every Monday morning, this coalition hosts a community forum to move their agenda along. With this sustained practice, the coalition prepares and situates itself to participate in direct-action campaigns and to take on issues of mass incarceration, a livable minimum wage, and voter mobilization.  See more at: theotherjournal.com.

10. “7 Dead Giveaways You’re Attending A Black Church” by Dontaira Terrell

Excerpt: Leave With A Home-Cooked Meal. It’s a week of built-up anticipation, hoping to get a taste of Ms. Gladys’ mac and cheese. Your prayers have been answered the moment you hear there will be food served in the fellowship hall following the worship service.  The menu usually consists of good ol’ soul food, but if you don’t hurry, Sister Patterson’s collard greens and Ms. Gladys’ mac and cheese will definitely be gone! See more at: atlantablackstar.com.

If you know of any black Christian women bloggers and or writers, please e-mail me at jacqueline@afterthealtarcall.com as I’m always interested in expanding my community of black Christian women blogs and websites. As I noted before, while this is a roundup of interesting blog posts and or articles for black Christian women, you don’t have to be one to appreciate these pieces :).

Any thoughts?

 

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Leonard Pitts’ Novel ‘Grant Park’ Provides a Framework to Say Goodbye to President Obama

A Book Review...

grant park photo

Hello World,

Earlier this month, I delivered a speech as a part of my church’s annual Racial Reconciliation Service. I was asked to speak on the theme “Things We Have in Common” based on Ephesians 4:1-6. About the time that I was asked to be the featured speaker in October, I was aware that a creeping sadness was starting to make itself known in my consciousness. Maybe it’s just me, but ever since President Obama was elected in November 2008, the air has felt different, like a new optimistic oxygen had been injected into the atmosphere overnight from the moment Senator Obama was named the victor in the presidential election to the morning we woke up living in a country where a black man was named president-elect. This new air had me feeling high like I was a party balloon floating and preening…

So as the days ticked by last October while a new crop of presidential candidates began vying for our votes (when I finally started paying attention to them anyway), it occurred to me that we were on the cusp of President Obama’s last full year in office. And since I had that realization, I feel like I’m breathing a little less of that new oxygen, like I’m a party balloon just past its prime hovering closer to the ground each day…

So what does all of this have to do with Grant Park, the latest novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Leonard Pitts, Jr.? Like the youth pastor of my church is fond of saying in his sermons, I’m so glad you asked that question. Below is the official description of the book…

Grant Park is a page-turning and provocative look at black and white relations in contemporary America, blending the absurd and the poignant in a powerfully well-crafted narrative that showcases Pitts’s gift for telling emotionally wrenching stories.

Grant Park begins in 1968, with Martin Luther King’s final days in Memphis. The story then moves to the eve of the 2008 election, and cuts between the two eras. Disillusioned columnist Malcolm Toussaint, fueled by yet another report of unarmed black men killed by police, hacks into his newspaper’s server to post an incendiary column that had been rejected by his editors. Toussaint then disappears, and his longtime editor, Bob Carson, is summarily fired within hours of the column’s publication.

While a furious Carson tries to find Toussaint—while simultaneously dealing with the reappearance of a lost love from his days as a 60s activist—Toussaint is abducted by two white supremacists plotting to explode a bomb at Barack Obama’s planned rally in Chicago’s Grant Park. Toussaint and Carson are forced to remember the choices they made as young men, when both their lives were changed profoundly by their work in the civil rights movement.

Racial Reconciliation…

As I began to prepare my speech, I realized that the two-term presidency of President Obama has been the proverbial “best of times” and “worst of times.” Below are the exact words from my speech…

In reflecting on President Obama’s historic presidency, the anniversaries of so many pivotal historic events have coincided with his two terms in the White House. Last year, we recognized the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama. In 2013, we recognized the 50th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. And less than 50 years after his death, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in D.C. debuted in 2011. All of these pivotal events happened during the Civil Rights Movement when there were seemingly two Americas – one for White America and one for Black America.

And yet during this time, over the last eight years, the nation has grappled with the deaths of black boys from Trayvon Martin to Tamir Race, the Confederate flag debate and the shooting massacre at Emanuel AME Church and more.

Time seems to be moving forward and standing still.

While I was preparing my speech over the last few months, I read Leonard Pitts’ Grant Park. And while it is a work of fiction, it made me feel like I was in 1968 watching the sowing of seeds of civil unrest that came to a glorious fruition when President Obama was elected in 2008. Pitts does an excellent job of capturing a conversational President-elect Obama just hours after he wins the election. And as we know now, eight years later, racial reconciliation in this country, despite President Obama’s election, still has a ways to go. Pitts’ novel provided a framework to examine where we were in 1968, how far we came in 2008 and the journey we still have to tread post Obama…

A Love Story…

My favorite character in the book was Bob Carson. In 1967, he was an 18 year old eager to join the Civil Rights Movement so much so that he elected to attend small Christian college in Mississippi to the alarm of his white parents. He welcomed ” protest and snarling dogs and Freedom Riders and marches and injustice and voter registration and ferment…change.” After arriving on campus, he joined Students Organized in Unarmed Love (SOUL), which included black and white students, and met Janeka Lattimore at one of the organization’s meetings. They quickly begin an interracial romance which obviously was particularly challenging then. So I love a coming-of-age, against-the-odds love story. It reminded of the real-life interracial love story of novelist Alice Walker and Mel Leventhal which also began at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. (I read about it in a book about her life. ) So even while I was thinking deeply about the nuanced racial issues that were examined in the novel, I was also racing through the pages to see what happened to Bob and Janeka.  When Bob first sees Janeka at a meeting, he is immediately drawn to her beauty  and curvy body but then scolds himself for his lustful thoughts. “This was his sister in the body of Christ. She was his colleague in the struggle for human rights. More than that, she was a human being with a mind, and emotions and a soul and inherent, intrinsic worth. Yet, her he was cataloging her, the pieces of her, as though she were side of beef. What kind of loathsome male chauvinist pig had he suddenly become?”

I won’t tell what happens to them, but I will say this. Young Bob is an enthusiastic Christian ready to take on his pastor about racial reconciliation as it is espoused in the Bible even quoting Malachi 2:10, a Bible verse that I used in my speech. (Thanks Mr. Pitts 🙂 !) But Old Bob had evolved into “an Easter Christian, a Christmas Christian, when he bothered to be any kind of Christian at all.” I speak from experience: One of the things that will make you lose your religion is lost love…And that’s all I have to say about that…

The Future of Journalism…

As a journalist, I also appreciated the examination of the journalism industry. At the start of the book,  Malcolm Toussaint is disillusioned with his career although it has been good to him, taking him “from a hovel on the south side of Memphis to this palace in Chicago, two Pulitzer Prizes, countless lesser awards lining the walls of his office.” He also writes a “twice-weekly nationally syndicated column,”  and “New York Times bestsellers blurbed by Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton.” Despite Toussaint’s “storied career” in journalism, my field has been undergoing a seismic shift with the advent of the Net…It’s scary and exhilarating at the time…Sadly, newspapers and magazines continue to die, but I have hope that true storytelling will survive…somehow and some way…

So here are a few of the lines that ring true for journalism going forward. “Suddenly, it was no longer enough to be the best journalist you could be, to do the work and put it out there and let it speak for itself. Suddenly, you were supposed to keep a Facebook page and answer emails and moderate discussion on your message board.” Here is a description of a young journalist in the novel who actually wanted to work at a newspaper: “The old heads in the newsroom called people like her ‘true believers,’ meaning Gen Y kids who somehow missed the memo that a thing was not worth doing unless it was done digitally.”

While there are more elements I can highlight in this excellent book, I hope I’ve given you enough to get this book! And if you’re looking for a way to come to grips with the pending last days of President’s Obama’s presidency and be entertained at the same time, Leonard Pitts’ Grant Park is a must read…

Any thoughts?

 

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Oprah Winfrey’s New Megachurch Drama ‘Greenleaf’ to Have a Two-Night Premiere May 24 and May 25!!!

Will You Be Watching?

Grace Greenleaf (Merle Dandridge) and her father Bishop James Greenleaf (Keith David) Photo by Eli Ade; Courtesy of OWN

Grace Greenleaf (Merle Dandridge) and her father Bishop James Greenleaf (Keith David)
Photo by Eli Ade; Courtesy of OWN

Hello World,

The new original series “Greenleaf,” featuring Oprah Winfrey’s first recurring scripted television role in two decades, will launch with a two-night premiere on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network on Tuesday, May 24 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and Wednesday, May 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. The megachurch drama from Emmy nominated writer/producer Craig Wright (“Lost,” “Six Feet Under”) and Lionsgate Television will regularly air on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT for the remainder of its 13-episode first season.

“Greenleaf” centers on the journey of estranged daughter and disillusioned preacher Grace Greenleaf (Merle Dandridge, “The Night Shift”) who has returned home after 20 years on the occasion of the mysterious death of her sister, Faith.  As she reenters the world of Calvary Fellowship World Ministries, the Memphis megachurch run by her powerful parents Bishop James Greenleaf (Keith David, “Enlisted” and “Community”) and Lady Mae Greenleaf (Lynn Whitfield, “The Josephine Baker Story”), it becomes evident that things are not as virtuous as they seem and that the family’s outward display of faith hides sin and misdeeds.

In the season premiere, directed by Clement Virgo (“Book of Negroes”), Grace and her teenage daughter Sophia (Desiree Ross, “Falling Skies”) are warmly welcomed home by Grace’s father, Bishop James Greenleaf, but tensions quickly rise soon thereafter at a family dinner in the Greenleaf mansion.  Grace’s mother is cold and hostile; her sister-in-law Kerissa (Kim Hawthorne, “Rake”) questions her about her faith; and sister Charity (Deborah Joy Winans, “Whitney”) erupts with jealousy at the suggestion that Grace might preach at Calvary.

Later, blues club owner and Grace’s aunt Mavis (Oprah Winfrey, “Selma”) discuss the circumstances of Faith’s death and Mavis reveals some shocking information about Grace’s uncle “Mac” (Gregory Alan Williams, “Terminator Genisys”). Mavis is still estranged from the Greenleaf family and it starts to become evident that she intends to use Grace to sow the seeds of its destruction.

The new original drama series “Greenleaf” from award-winning writer/producer Craig Wright (“Lost,” “Six Feet Under”) takes viewers into the unscrupulous world of the Greenleaf family and their sprawling Memphis megachurch, where scandalous secrets and lies are as numerous as the faithful.  Like so many megachurches in America, Calvary Fellowship World Ministries is more than just a house of worship. It’s a home. It’s the center of the community for the thousands of predominantly African-American members who attend services there.  But beneath its steeple lies a den of iniquity — greed, adultery, sibling rivalry and conflicting values — a multigenerational matrix of deception that involves the church’s founding family, but also extends to the congregation and prominent members of the Memphis community and beyond. Yet, amidst all of the mayhem and deception, the power of something greater persists, calling everyone to conscience for their sins.

“Greenleaf” stars Merle Dandridge (“The Night Shift”) as Grace Greenleaf; Keith David (“Community”) as Bishop James Greenleaf; Lynn Whitfield (“The Josephine Baker Story”) as Lady Mae Greenleaf; Kim Hawthorne (“Rake”) as Kerissa Greenleaf; Lamman Rucker (“Meet the Browns”) as Jacob Greenleaf; Tye White (“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”) as Kevin Satterlee; Deborah Joy Winans (“Whitney”) as Charity Greenleaf-Satterlee; Desiree Ross (“Falling Skies”) as Sophia; and Oprah Winfrey (“Selma”) in a recurring role as Mavis McCready.

“Greenleaf” is produced for OWN by Lionsgate Television.  Executive producers are Oprah Winfrey, Craig Wright and Clement Virgo.

I’ll be watching this new show, but I wonder why novelists such as ReShonda Tate Billingsley (whose movie “Let The Church Say Amen” debuted on BET last August), Victoria Christopher Murray, Kimberla Lawson Roby and Tiffany L. Warren, who have written books about similar themes, aren’t consulted for projects like these…

Any thoughts?