DebraDickerson.com - Blogs - Down by the Riverside

Down by the Riverside: The religious, mental and spiritual state of Black America

McClurkin's War on Gays: Gospel Great Says Homosexuals Can Be Cured. And pigs can fly outta........Austin Powers' you-know-what.

PRESS Release (cuz I just love me some Rooooo-ben!): RUBEN STUDDARD GOES TO CHURCH!

For almost six months, millions and millions of television viewers watched the Fox network's hugely successful "American Idol" show and week after week, they voted.

On May 21, 2003, the final vote was cast: Ruben Studdard - nicknamed the 'Velvet Teddy Bear' by the legendary soulful diva Gladys Knight - emerged as the winner of the intense competition with over twenty- four million callers logged. Two months later, in the midst of a hectic national tour with fellow 'Idol,' competitors, the 25-year old native of Birmingham, Alabama calmly reflects, "Having a career in music is what I've always wanted to do so this is the fulfillment of my dreams!"

And now, another of his dreams is about to be fulfilled. In November, Ruben will release his first ever gospel recording, aptly titled "The Gospel Album". Beginning immediately, he will be available for limited performances in churches. Call the William Morris Agency at 615-963-3000 for more information on bringing The Velvet Teddy Bear to your church.

Spreading the Pope's Message of Sexuality and a Willing Spirit. "What's the origin of the family?" the speaker asked his audience.

A frank talk about sex is not usual, or easy, fare at Roman Catholic parish halls, but about 140 people gathered one night in May at the Church of the Holy Family in Sewell, N.J., to hear Mr. West, a theology lecturer from Pennsylvania, delve into topics like lust and sexual pleasure."

And as long as its neither 'usual' or 'natural', just go on pretending it has nothing to do with our unplannged pregnancy/abortion/adoption/STD rates, padre.

Crusade: The Bush campaign is assembling a mighty army of religious warriors.

Once and Future Islam: A Sufi imam challenges moderate Muslims to fashion a new, American faith. by Lee Smith, Slate.

Hip-hop mysticism. Artist mixes black pop culture with exotic spirituality, ASSOCIATED PRESS.

The Faith-Based Presidency. You can question Bush's veracity, his grip on reality, and the rationality of his policies, but not his faith. by Jack Beatty, Atlantic Monthly. George W. Bush has made rationality an antonym of Republican. His is the first faith-based presidency. Above the entrance to the Bush West Wing should be St. Paul's definition of faith—"the evidence of things unseen."

So much of President Bush has to be taken on faith. His integrity, for example. You have to trust the evidence of things unseen to believe him, for the visible evidence indicates a disposition toward deceit. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the cost of his prescription-drug bill, the effect of his tax cuts on the deficit, the number of lines of stem cells available to scientists after his restrictions on research. You name it—from who hung the Mission Accomplished banner up behind him for his "victory" strut on the USS Abraham Lincoln to his claims that on September 11 he, not the Air Force Chief of Staff, was the one to order the military to highest alert—he's lied about it.

"'Father Joe': The Saint and the Satirist, By ANDREW SULLIVAN in the New York Times. Saints are perhaps always best evoked by sinners. And it would be hard to think of someone more at ease in the world of modern sin than Tony Hendra. He is and has been a brilliant satirist, an alum of National Lampoon in its glory days, an architect of the peerless parody rock documentary, ''This Is Spinal Tap,'' a man who has known (and tells us of) serial sex and drugs and rock and irony. But this extraordinary, luminescent, profound book shows us something wonderfully unexpected and deeply true. These ideas of sin that we have are not really sin. Or rather: they are the symptoms of sin, not its essence. And its essence is our withdrawal -- our willful withdrawal -- from God's love. This book is about Hendra's slow, aching, hilarious but profound attempt to accept God's unconditional love for him. And this truly difficult acceptance is a consequence of one other man's quiet listening and faith."

"New online dating service is for those who have faith. Niche site based on religion, values offers promise of love (and profits). By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY

Looking for a slender, single, non-smoking, white female who believes in angels, God and capitalism -- and who struggles with only three of the seven deadly sins?

You just might be able to find her someday soon on a new dating service from popular multi-faith Web site Beliefnet."

"Does the GOP have a lock on God? 'Religious vote' could suprise us." From the Boston Globe.

New Independent documentary, Let The Church Say Amen: "Members of a small church call upon their faith to fulfill their hopes for a better life in the nation's capital. The film reveals how this church, like others across the country, becomes a tremendous source of strength and power for an urban community."

"Wait Wear is a clothing line designed to bring about awareness of abstinence until
marriage and celebrating virginity. Whether you are a teen, young adult,
single parent or born again virgin, Wait Wear will help serve as a reminder to the
commitment you have made to remain celibate until marriage."

Prenuptial Jitters: Did gay marriage destroy heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia?

Slippery Slop: The maddening "slippery slope" argument against gay marriage.

Secular Illusions: The right way to rescue America from religious correctness.

Spiritual, but not religious: Fewer Americans identifying with particular faiths.

TESTING THE FAITH: Christians look to form 'new nation' within U.S.
Same-sex marriage called last straw prompting plan for 1 state to secede.

Muslim comedians put the 'fun' in fundamentalist. Sporting a bushy beard and blackskullcap, Azhar Usman bounded onto the stage. "I'm Osama bin Laden's cousin," he declared. "They call me 'bin Laughin.' "

In a Reverse Migration, Blacks Head to New South, California, other regions lose African Americans feeling the pull of 'home' and a slower pace.

In what demographers are calling a "full scale reversal" of the Great Migration in the early part of the 20th century, blacks are leaving California, New York, Illinois and New Jersey and retracing steps to a place their families once fled — the South.

This population shift of hundreds of thousands of blacks is nowhere near the millions who left the South from 1910 to 1970. But the flow is sustained and large enough, according to a study released today by the Brookings Institution, that a new map of black America must be drawn.

[Nearly a decade ago, I reviewed a book on this subject called Call to Home: African Americans Reclaim the Rural South, by Carol Stack.]

but see what us just trying to get our retirement on does to the political equation...

"Black migration jolts electoral math. Red America is Bush country. Blue America belongs to the Democrats. Yet more than half of Black America, the truest-blue bedrock of the Democratic base, lives in Red America, and more moves there every year.

That may spell trouble for Democrats as they attempt to assemble an Electoral College majority in 2004.

As of the 2000 census, 58 percent of blacks lived in states that President Bush carried over former Vice President Al Gore. With the growing migration of blacks to the solidly Republican South, that proportion swells with each passing year."

"Preaching the hip hop gospel. One of Oakland's largest churches went hip-hop on Easter, raising some eyebrows among members of Greater St. Paul Baptist Church, mostly from church elders who were able to cram inside Kaiser Auditorium near Lake Merritt. More than 2,000 people packed the hall for the rap service, the vast majority of them less than 25 years old. The line to get in resembled a secular rock concert -- it formed nearly two hours before the service and snaked outside and down the steps. Another 300 people were turned away at the door. The Oakland church's recent Sunday service is part of a nationwide movement to recruit the next generation of churchgoers by packaging the message of faith in hip urban themes."

"Newark imam takes podium in absence of national leader. He tells 700 at Rutgers of his aspirations to guide Muslim group. About 700 people filed into the Paul Robeson Campus Center at Rutgers University yesterday intending to hear Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the recently resigned leader of the American Society of Muslims, talk about community development" These are black folks y'all, practising real, spaceship-free Islam.

First Black female student rabbi leads congregation. In yesterday's Annotations, I made fun of blacks' obsession with our outsider status by fetishizing every black accomplishment, however run of the mill. Ok, a Sister Rabbi is a horse of a different color, but still, I think I'll just start keeping track of all these 'first black' this's and that's. I feel some smart-assery coming on.

"Meditation Helps Teens Lower Blood Pressure. Daily Transcendental Meditation Eases Tension, Lowers Blood Pressure." Think it might help all those evil sisters working at the DMV, the drug store and every last one of my doctors' offices?

"House Democrats issue warning to Church: Forty-eight Catholic members of Congress have signed a letter warning that the church risks bringing "great harm" on itself if bishops decide to deny Communion to legislators who support abortion rights or take other public positions that are odds with church doctrine." From Salon. This, from the folks who winked and nodded at pedophiles for decades. Might wanna be focused a tad more inward for just a little while longer guys.