I’m working on part 2 of Fideles Quaerens Intellectum. That should probably be out by this weekend. I’m about to try some different time management strategies, so hopefully we’ll see an increase in overall productivity. In the meanwhile, in looking at all the ruckus over Richard Clarke, I like Gregg Easterbrook’s analysis the best. Basically, he says that all this partisan finger-pointing over 9-11 is foolish. I can’t make myself believe for one minute that any American, Republican, Democrat, conservative, progressive, libertarian, Christian, atheist, whatever…any American would have known what was about to happen and done nothing to prevent it. Maybe I’m being naive, but I just refuse to believe that. The fact that 9-11 has become a political football with each party asserting that the other party should have known what was coming and prevented it saddens me a great deal. Heaven help us all.

“Funky Worm” - Ohio Players
“Ain’t We Funkin’ Now” - Brothers Johnson
“Ain’t No Sunshine” - Roy Ayers
“The International Zone Coaster” - Leaders of the New School
“This Is the Life” - Living Colour
“Whispering” - Benny Carter & Oscar Peterson
“As” - Stevie Wonder
“Sister Sanctified” - Stanley Turrentine
“Energy Blues” - Biz Markie
“A Touch of Jazz (Playin’ Kinda Ruff Part II)” - Zapp

Got sidetracked by that white “Black” dude. (You mean John Kerry was on the bus and I didn’t even recognize him?)

• “Takeover” – Jay-Z: “Five to One” – The Doors
• “The Truth” – Beanie Sigel : “Chicago” – Graham Nash
• “Tha Nigga Ya Love to Hate” – Ice Cube : “Weak In The Knees” – Steve Arrington
• “Bobyahead2dis” – Redman : “Atomic Dog” – George Clinton
(lots of songs have sampled Atomic Dog, but Bobyahead just beat the sample up so bad it towers above all the other uses to me.)
• “You Can’t Stop The Prophet” – Jeru : “Chain Reaction” – Crusaders.

Watched a couple episodes from the first season of Good Times again. Let me tell you, Good Times was a very different show those first few seasons. The difference was James. When James was there, it was still very much an ensemble piece. JJ was still cooning it up, but in the proper context, he was actually very funny; his elastic face and rubber band tongue provided an interesting contrast to the stern-faced, hollering James, Sr. Good Times wasn’t about any character in specific, it was about the family as a collective. Really, if you wanted to name the main “character” in the early episodes of Good Times, it was love. The principal form was the love between James and Florida, but there was also that confrontational-but-symbiotic love between the kids, especial JJ and Thelma. The James-Florida dynamic was the element that gave the show depth, however. Once James left the show, there was no balance; James kept everything in check. It was James’ old-school sensibilities like taking pride in his family and his ability to provide for them that gave the show its main source of material. What difference would it have made if James couldn’t find or keep that good job if Florida had been working? Not much.

Aside from that, it’s always interesting to me to look at the early episodes of a show to see how long it takes before the characters come to behave as we know them later. The characterization on Sanford & Son, for instance, really didn’t gel until the 2nd season. That’s when the bond between Fred & Lamont really started to seem solid. Likewise, on the Cosby Show, much of the material in the early episodes was taken right out of Bill Cosby’s stand-up act; Himself, in particular. (Speaking of which, when are they gonna put Cosby on DVD? That’s money out of my pocket already.) On Good Times, however, the episode does a very good job of introducing the viewer to the characters and letting the viewer know what each person is about. While some shows take a while to really hit their stride, Good Times had its voice early and lost it later.

Anyway, on the disc 2 are my favorite episodes of the show, “Sex and the Evans Family” and “Junior the Senior.” Coming in a close third is “Black Jesus,” which is on the first disc. It was the show’s second episode. From what I’ve read, there was a serious backlash to the fact that they had dared suggest that Jesus was not white. If I remember correctly, there were death threats and the whole nine. (Although I may have the death threats aspect confused with a play in NJ some time in the 90’s.)

“Sex and the Evans Family” is my favorite episode for reasons unrelated to its larger significance. The show starts with JJ and Thelma each getting ready for a date on a Saturday night. Thelma, who is 16, is going out with a 21 year-old man. While the kids are getting ready, Florida and Willona find this typewritten booklet entitled “Sexual Behavior in the Ghetto.” Florida immediately assumes the booklet is JJ’s and lights into him for reading trash like that. JJ denies owning the book, but Florida doesn’t believe him. When James comes home, Florida tells him about what’s going on and is nonplussed when James actually seems to be proud of JJ. Of course, it’s not JJ who was reading the book, but Thelma. And of course, when James finds this out, he hits the roof. In the end, the “filthy piece of trash” is Thelma’s date’s (played by Philip Michael Thomas with a pointdexter fro, parted down the side, an argyle sweater vest, and a tie with a fist-sized knot) Master’s thesis. He says that Thelma supports a theory of his, which is that children from two-parent homes, especially those in which there is a strong father figure, show lower incidences of teen pregnancy.

Anybody who watches television knows that the days when regular broadcast television would run a show in which the father’s vigilance in watching over his daughter is ultimately shown to be a good thing. To be sure, they did bring up the whole double-standard issue, with James “letting the wolf out while he kept Little Red Riding Hood locked up.” Unlike today, however, the focus of the show was not the issue of James’ double standard. James’ stance was actually affirmed by the academy; even smart people knew that James and Florida were doing right by hawking over Thelma the way they were. Nowadays, it would be all about James being old-fashioned or a chauvinist for not letting Thelma’s boyfriend sleep over. For as leftist a bent as the show had at times, it certainly demonstrated a high level of family values.

My second-favorite episode is “Junior the Senior.” In it, Michael, Thelma, and JJ get their report cards. Actually, Michael got his the day before Thelma and JJ. He brought home straight A’s. Thelma gets all A’s and a B+. JJ gets an A in art and C’s in everything else. Everything is good until JJ starts talking. Then Florida and James start to suspect that he’s not really earning the grades he’s getting. James says, “I’m readin’ C’s, but I’m hearin’ F’s.” They then march him down to the school to get the principal to keep JJ in 11th grade!

We can talk about school choice and vouchers and whatnot all we want, but if parents showed this much interest in their children’s education, the school system would be nowhere near what it is today. Having taught before, I can say that I personally have never had a parent come in to see me about giving their child too good a grade. I have never even heard of such a thing. Come to think of it, I have heard of it. My mom did that to me; she didn’t make me repeat a grade, but she did pull me out of the Individual Education program I was in. But that’s another story for another time. When parents are actively involved in their children’s education, the kids can’t help but be inspired. I, as a viewer, may wonder where James and Florida were all the while JJ was not-studying, but I have to like what they were trying to do when they found out.

As an interesting aside, Jeremy Pierce at Parablemania has posted the third in his series about John McWhorter’s book, Losing The Race: Self Sabotage in the Black Community. This time, Jeremy is looking at anti-intellectualism. Maybe this is a bit of television magic, but Michael, the “Militant Midget” is, in one sense, absolutely not anti-intellectual. For as sensitive as he is to racism (”Daddy, ‘boy’ is a white, racist word!”) he does not see learning as ‘white.’ In fact, he sees it as the pro-Black thing to do. One might question whether McWhorter would see Michael’s singular focus on Black issues as problematic, perhaps anti-intellectual in his unwillingness to deal with issues that are not related to Blackness, but I think there is a level at which having a means of praxis gives some value to intellectual pursuits. I’ll probably write about all that at some other time though.

Good Times. The first season, at least. Maybe sometime soon I’ll actually stop gummin’ about it and buy the 2nd season.

My pop once told me that every young man needs an old man. He either said “has” or “needs” and I like “needs” better. I feel fortunate that I have had a lot of “old men” in my life, even when I was still a boy and my old men were young. In some ways, I think that my life typifies what people on the left mean when they recite that old African proverb. My first communication with my dad came when I was 17 years old; I didn’t meet him face-to-face until my 20th birthday. Nevertheless, I had plenty of male role models, from guys who were slightly older than me, to uncles, to grandfather figures. In that respect, then, I don’t think that biology is as important as somebody being there. Obviously, it would be ideal if all children knew their fathers and all fathers were involved in their children’s’ lives, whether the parents were together or not. That goes without saying. Even though I had plenty of positive male influences around me as I grew up, I can see where knowing MY old man would have been helpful; more quiet confidence and less bluster and bravado. Still, coming from a single-parent home is no death sentence. There has to be a positive support network, though.

What made me think of all this is that last night I was at a beef-n-beer and I ran into my Funk “old man,” officer Doug Paige, whom I met when I was a freshman at Temple. He took me to my first P-Funk concert, back in August ‘96. That man has an encyclopedic knowledge of recorded music, funk in particular. I remember the first time I went over his house. I was trying to find the source for a sample on a Leaders of the New school song, “Sound of the Zeekers.” (The source song was “Express” by the B.T. Express.) Man, when I went to his crib, I was staggered by the amount of music he had. In the corner of the living room was a wardrober, full of CDs. Sometimes people are surprised when I tell them that I have around 500 CDs. His collection is literally staggering. Especially considering that his whole collection was not in the wardrober. I don’t know any hard numbers, but Iwould be surprised if it wasn’t closer to 1500 than 1000. I still have that B.T. Express CD, too.

Following his model, I have tried to be people’s funk “old man.” Actually, I’m some kids’ funk “godfather” because I supply their teacher, who is introducing them to the funk by playing them the source song for the hip-hop samples they love. I make genealogy CDs where I do just that. From what he’s told me, he got the biggest reaction from “Five to One” by The Doors, which is the sample for Jay-Z’s “Takeover.” I can’t lie, that’s one of my favorite sample uses, too.

This reminds me of a debate I used to get into with one of my professors (another one of my “old men”) over the legitimacy of hip-hop as an art form because of sampling. At the time we really used to get into it, Puffy was really hot, so the popular song all had very obvious, untouched samples. I agree that stuff like that takes no talent. However, as a contrast to that, if you listen to “Nation of Millions,” the use of samples there is incredible. For instance, on “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” the Isaac Hayes sample from “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquidalynistic” is perfect. It’s almost like a score for the movie Chuck D is talking in the song.

Come to think of it, maybe I’ll just break down and do a list of…there’s no way I’m gonna sucker myself into trying to make a literal top 10. I’ll just mention some samples that impress me, in the order that they came to mind.

• “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” – Public Enemy : Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquidalynistic” – Isaac Hayes
• “Rebel Without a Pause” – Public Enemy : “The Grunt”- The JBs
• “Thought @ Work” – The Roots: “Apache” – Incredible Bongo Band
• “I Am I Be” –De La Soul : “You Have Made Me Very Happy” – Lou Rawls
• “Fakin’ the Funk” – Main Source : “Magic Shoes” the Main Ingredient
• “Fat Pockets (radio remix)” Showbiz & AG : “Scorpio” Dennis Coffey

(I’m on the bus on the way to the crib. There’s this phenotypically white cat on here talkin’ about he’s Black and singing James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” Wow. Some stuff you just can’t prepare for, no matter what.)

As an addendum to yesterday, I was going to mention how it seems that there aren’t as many Black girls who have that ‘black girl’ butt, while White girls seem to be gaining. My friends and I have been marveling over this for years. Still, when you get right down to the bottom of it, the ones with the most pronounced waist-to-hip ratio are still sistas. Some’a them chicks I saw yesterday…man! My boy, Art, all he likes is chicks with those ghetto blasters and I did some broadcastin’ to him! There was this one young girl, that joint was outrageous. Art would’a jumped up and kicked his heels together.

Wow. Days like today make me really grateful that I was able to cop a lap. This is an absolutely gorgeous day. It’s about 65, maybe 70, the sun is shining, and I’m in Philly. The only thing keeping this from being an absolutely perfect day is that my lady’s not here. If she was, this would be an obscenely great day. As it is, it’s a censored great day.

Some random observations:

There’s nothing better than making a purchase, thinking you got a good deal and then finding out that you did for sure over the course of the day. I copped some art markers for about a dollar cheaper than I’ve seen them in either MD or VA, and then I went to another store and found that the price I paid was 25 cents cheaper than anywhere else in town. That’s hot!

On days like today, there’s one song lyric that keeps dancing in my head. It’s the opening line from “I Like the Girls,” by Fatback:

Winter time is gone/ and the summer’s almost here/yeah, yeah, yeah yeah/
time to get rid of all the overcoats/and let the girls go free/yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

That’s what I’m talkin’ about…yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! I’m in Rittenhouse square right now, but in a minute, I’m gonna head up to UPenn campus for old time’s sake. Sometimes I try to see if I can get on any of my friends’ telepathic frequencies, so if I see a girl who’s one of my friends’ brands, I try to send them an image. So far I don’t think it’s worked, but I keep trying. I think it’s because I keep thinking about sending them the image instead of actually sending it to them. Like I said, we’ll keep trying until we figure it out.

At any rate, I hafta be wrong and mention the fact that some women need to know how to dress appropriately for their figures. I mean, I should probably be gender-neutral and say people, but there’s two problems with that: first, I’m not interested in dudes so I don’t really care what they’ve got on, unless it’s a hot t-shirt or an outfit I think would work for me. Furthermore, I don’t really analyze their figures carefully enough to know if what they’re wearing doesn’t work well. Second, most men’s outfits aren’t really designed to show of the man’s figure. There are some, but normally, guys tend to err on the side of caution. Normally. Women, however, dress around their figures. Either they try to show it off, they try to hide it, or they hide some and show some, depending on what they think is appropriate vis a vis their religion, body type, self-perception, etc. So here’s some thoughts, most of which are things I think every year about this time. This year, I have a laptop and a blog, so they’re getting outside of my head and my notebooks.

• Everybody can’t wear those low-cut jeans. If your waist-to-hip ratio is too close to 1:1, the look won’t work. (As an aside, even though Black women tend to have higher BMIs than women of other demographics, many of the ones I’ve talked to understand this simple fact: it’s not necessarily about the size, it’s about the ratio. From the Black women I know, I’ve heard more complaining about having a flat butt than a fat one.)

• Every style is not meant for every size. Thankfully, I have not had to deal with this today, but if it stays warm like this for a few days I will. Even with good ratios, some people just don’t need to wear certain outfits. Overflow is definitely problematic. I tease my old lady when she points it out on other women, but for real-for real, I’m right there with her.

• What’s with these chicks with no butt wearing sweatpants with writing across the back? I saw a girl today, her pants said ‘NET.’ They were supposed to say ‘NORTHEAST.’

Another thing I like to do is watch dudes watch women. Now, I ain’t gon’ lie, I look, but I’m just observin’. None of these birds out there can fade my old lady. (And this ain’t brown-nosin’ because she doesn’t even read my blog regularly.) I can see, though, so whenever I see a good-lookin’ woman, I immediately look to see if there are any guys around. Earlier today, for instance, I was behind this bad Asian chick; reminded me of a word I used to use, “superhetrodyne.” When I saw her, I slowed down a little bit because I knew guys were gonna act a fool. They didn’t disappoint. One dude was with his lady. He couldn’t turn his head so he just kept trying to walk slow and move his eyes as far to the corner as he could. A little further down the block, there were two cats posting up against a building. The first brother checked her out a little as she was approaching, but just about broke his neck as she passed. The second brother leaned forward and started breathing so hard I thought he was gonna suck a piece of paper up off the ground. At that point, I got tired of walking so slow, so I walked ahead of her. Two business men came around the corner. “Wow!” one said to the other.

If you don’t watch dudes watch women, I highly recommend it. It’s the cheapest comedy you will ever see. The only thing is, you can’t really laugh out loud like you will probably want to.

I’ll probably make some more observations once I get up West, but ‘m bout to fold up and roll. (2:11p)

3:45P

I’m sittin’ outside the Penn bookstore, listening to this CD I made of some serious MCing. Right now, I’m on Rakim. These kids think these cats today can rhyme, but they don’t know the half of the half. Rakim was absolutely amazing. I’m listening to some of these songs 16 year after I first heard them and I’m still floored by the lyrics.

Anyway, I went to this used book/record/comic store, wishin’ that piece was there when I lived here, and I copped this Walter Hawkins record from 1972. That brother had a perm on the album cover. And when I say a perm, I mean that brother should’a been on the cover of some hair magazine. I know on the Love Alive albums he had a kind of blowout perm, but this piece he has on the cover of Do Your Best, it’s just a perm. Snoop Dogg wishes he could get his hair to look like this.

Checking out these women has made me think about the difference between looking and lusting. The fact that I bought some art markers so I can work on this portrait of my old lady only adds another level of texture to my thoughts.

Having done a fair share of figure drawing, I’ve seen my share of breasts and booties. Add that to my erstwhile choice of entertainment on weekends and the subject of a report in my dance class while I was in undergrad, and I’ve seen a whoooole lotta butts and breasts. And from seeing them in those two contexts, I can state with authority that all nakedness is not the same. But the difference is not observable to anybody other than myself and God.

When I pick up a pencil (or marker nowadays) and start drawing, I really don’t have time to get off on the model. It’s like the books always say, draw the planes. When I’m drawing the planes, I can’t sit there and think, “Oooh! That’s a titty!” I’m too busy worrying about rectilinear and curvilinear, shapes, and proportions. It just doesn’t work. So lust while drawing is just…well it’s not impossible, but it takes too much work. All the energy I’d spend lusting just takes away from the amount of attention I can pay to the picture I’m supposed to be working on.

To that end, I’ve seen where some Christian artists have suggested that Christian artist not draw nudes for the sake of lust. In this case, I think the artist in question was thinking more of the viewers than the artist himself. My dispute with that is that nakedness does not equal lust. That is to say, nakedness is not a requirement for lust whatsoever. I’ve known cats who try to check out garbed-up Muslim women, talkin’ about, “I bet she got a donkey under there.” Clearly, for those dudes, it’s not a matter of fabric. That means it’s not a question of what’s on the woman’s body (whether on the street or in a picture), it’s about what’s on the man’s mind. (I like women in suits, myself.) If a dude wants to lust, no amount of clothing is gonna stop him. Conversely, if I was to do a nude of a Rubenesque model, for most of the guys I know, there would be no expression of lust; maybe some disgust or ridicule, but that’s about it. So nakedness does not equal lust.

Now, when it comes to lookin’ at females, I think there’s a set line there, but it’s subjective too. So for myself, I have a 3 second rule when I’m not drawing. Up to three seconds, it’s still appreciation; recognizing the beauty of God’s design and being thankful for sight. After three seconds, though, it ain’t nothin’ nice. That also includes looking back to get a better view. Now that’s just something I came up with for myself. When I have conversations about this with other guys, I bring this up, but I don’t see it as a normative idea. Some dudes need to just walk around with blinders on. Some others could look for five minutes. It just depends. I think that’s the whole point of Matt 5:28. Every person has to be aware of and control what’s going on in his own heart. There is no watching what other people do and figuring out whether or not they’re lusting (Although some looks you can’t help but recognize.)

That said, fashion issues aside, some women should just know better. To quote Jeru the Damaja, “sisters with good minds get no respect when/their ass is all out…” I mean, to be honest, I don’t mind looking but some women just take it too far. I don’t need to see butt cleavage.

I got these out of this book, “The Little Book of Stupid Questions” by David Borgenicht

“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects”- Will Rogers

• If you were lost on a desert island and could only take with you one book,and CD, what would you choose?

Book: The Bible
CD: I can think of a couple that I’ve burned up recently that would probably do the trick. If it had to be a prerecorded cd, I would say “Songs In The Key of Life” by Stevie Wonder. Although if I could take my laptop, I could kill two birds with one stone.

• Are you more likely to be the “good cop” or the “bad cop?”

I’m the good cop. I’m all easy going, laughs, and good times. Until…

• If you could change your name, what would you pick?

Eric Avery. That’s what my mom was going to name me in the first place.

• If you had a theme song, what song would you pick? What if the song were played every time you entered a room or walked down the street? Would this change your choice?

I actually make my CDs with this idea in mind. When I graduated, I wished that they could’ve played “Freddie’s Dead” by Curtis Mayfield as I collected my diploma. (I did have it playing in my head, though.) Nowadays, I’m thinking my theme song would either be “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Roy Ayers or “Soul Power” by James Brown.

• If the person you hate most in the world needed a kidney transplant and you were the only person with a healthy kidney who is a perfect match for that person, would you give up your organ?

Yes. I would hafta pray myself up really hard, and I would hafta pray that I didn’t hope his body would reject it, but I would give it up.

• Shouldn’t you be able to rent one of those carts people ride at the airport, sort of like airport taxis?

Yes! Well, maybe not all like that. I personally travel very light, but when I’m with my mom or my grandmother, I wish I could flag one of those carts down.

• Which muppet are you most like: Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster, Grover, Kermit, or Big Bird?

Ernie…or Grover. But is Big Bird male or female? That’s what I need to know.

• Why didn’t Miss Piggy karate chop Jessica Simpson on that Pizza Hut commercial? That would’a been hot!

The intersection between politics and religion is a dangerous one. It’s fraught with more peril than the one between health, weight, and body image. To put it in a local context, it’s worse than the intersection of Red Lion Road and Roosevelt Boulevard (I’m back home for spring break). Countless people and have been killed physically and driven to commit spiritual suicide because of improper division the word of truth and a self-serving application to the physical and political worlds. (Think the Nation of Islam) I don’t propose that I have the answers, but I suspect that in attempting to make my behavior more closely align with The Answer (and I ain’t talkin’ about no AI), then as the song says, I’ll understand it better by and by.

I have said on countless occasions that I cannot stand political labels. Nevertheless, sometimes, it’s important to use them. When I do, I prefer to use the labels that the people themselves use. Like I say when I’m not being mean, it doesn’t cost anything extra to be nice. In this discussion, when I am speaking of political opinion, I will use the terms, conservative and progressive. When I am speaking of theological frameworks, I will use the terms fundamentalist, liberal, and liberation. This way, there will be misunderstood usage, so there’s no cross-pollination. Hopefully I’ll remember while I’m writing.

To start, I think most of the trouble stems from the fact that people tend to base their interpretation of the Bible on their political ideology. Being the postmodernist that I am, I know that people bring their previous knowledge and experience into any interrogation of new information. You can’t un-know what you already knew before you learn something new. That’s just facts, and there’s nothing wrong with it. However, for a Christian, since the Bible is inerrant, hypothetically there should be a different standard at play. That is, since the Bible can’t be wrong and we can, then if there’s any adjustment to be made, it must be on our part. Let God be true and every man a liar. However, I believe that it just doesn’t play out like that in the real world. People may mean to let the Bible determine their outlook, or they may do so to a certain extent, but at the end of the day, most times they wind up using the Bible to justify whatever they thought in the first place. For a good example, we’ll look at the story of the woman taken in adultery. (John 8:3-11). If you’re unfamiliar or don’t have a Bible handy, here’s the story:

Joh 8:3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
Joh 8:4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Joh 8:5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
Joh 8:6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with [his] finger wrote on the ground, [as though he heard them not].
Joh 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Joh 8:8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
Joh 8:9 And they which heard [it], being convicted by [their own] conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, [even] unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
Joh 8:10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
Joh 8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

Now the traditionional fundamentalist reading of this passage stresses Jesus as the forgiver of sin. He alone had the power to forgive her sin and he alone could exercise that power. There is also some discussion of the Pharisees’ attempt to entrap Jesus by attempting to juxtapose his judgment to that which would be prescribed by the law and Jesus’ move beyond the Mosaic law into a higher form.

The liberation theology reading of this passage places emphasis on the fact that Jesus sided with the oppressed against the powerful. Period. Using that interpretation, there is nothing more to add to this story; nothing more to exegete or attempt to explain.. Jesus sides with the powerless against the powerful.

Now personally, I don’t think that the core group of either school of interpretation gives full credence to the other view. (Liberation theologists are probably more familiar with the fundamentalist view, since liberation theology is almost exclusively an academic phenomenon. Hence, a liberation theologist would necessarily have to be familiar with fundamentalist theology in order to critique it.) There may be some movement on the fringes, but I doubt that it’s very prominent. What I know for sure is that in all the lessons I have ever heard taught, or in all of the fundamentalist literature I have read on this passage, there is no mention of Jesus as the liberator of the oppressed. In some cases, I think there might be outright hostility to that reading from the most conservative fundmentalists. The question is, is the liberation reading accurate?

I don’t know that there is any way that the liberation reading is not accurate. There may be some question as to the application of that concept, but to understand Jesus as the liberator of the oppressed is biblically consistent. See Luke 4:18 with any questions about that. Furthermore, I believe that the job description of the church, as the physical representatives of Jesus today, the body of Christ, is still “… to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised…”

Now, none of this is to suggest that the fundamentalists don’t do the above. In fact, I’m sure that many do. Nevertheless, it generally seems to me that healing the brokenhearted comes as an afterthought. Conservative Christian groups will get on the IB screaming long and loud about what they don’t like and who’s doing wrong, but when it comes to showing compassion, it gets a little quiet. Again, I’m not questioning whether it happens, but I am saying that there’s a great deal of emphasis, too much in my opinion, placed on certain aspects of being a Christian with much less emphasis on others. Specifically, the zealous fervor with which some sins (mainly the ones that pertain to sex) are sought out and prosecuted.

Looking back at the example in John, the woman was caught in adultery. She wasn’t reputed to have been an adulteress, she was the real deal. They caught her red… uh…well, they caught her. Everybody knew what she had done. Now, Jesus did tell her to go forth and sin no more. The implication there is that the woman repented of the adultery. I point that out because in no way does what I’m about to say suggest that Jesus condoned or tolerated or blinked his eye at anybody’s sin. Nevertheless, Jesus did not “come at her neck” for committing adultery. On the contrary, before he said anything to her about her sins, he defended her against the Pharisees. We should make some chewing gum out of that and work it around for a while. Before Jesus addressed the sin of the woman, he challenged the hypocrisy of her accusers.

The question for us as Christians, then, is what’s our role in this play? Do we act like the scribes and Pharisees, who dragged the woman before Jesus to condemn her? Do we look out on the world, stones in hand, looking to “get” people? Or are we Jesus? Do we forgo the opportunity to judge somebody who is clearly in the wrong, and then offer them the chance to meet Jesus so He can straighten out their lives?

Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what I think this means politically. One reason is that the American political system is basically adversarial. Political entities define themselves by what they disagree with as much as (and in some cases, more) they define what they believe. It’s all about cash and votes. Making a move like Jesus did in this instance would yield neither.

Now in terms of fundamentalist theology, I think that our emphasis on the individual can have somewhat deleterious effects. In Dorothee Solle’s Thinking About God, she writes, “From this perspective, the kingdom of God is completely suppressed in favor of the redemption of the individual…it takes no account of the impoverished masses of this earth; the starving appear at most as objects of charity. Otherwise problems of sexual ethics or the ethics of dying are far more important in this theology than social, political, or ecological questions.” I will raise my issues with Thinking About God later, but suffice it to say that this is one of the ideas I agree with. It is our theological approach that determines our political approach, not what the Bible itself says. Again, the postmodernist in me says that this is inevitable. The problem is, because the Bible is infallible, most people think their interpretation is infallible too. Therefore, they justify whatever they agree with by quoting some scriptures while explaining away or simply ignoring the rest. Everybody does it, it just changes form according to the political and/or theological ideology of the person in question.

For instance, to my fundamentalist women friends, I ask the question: when’s the last time you covered your head before you prayed? If you read, you had to have read that part.(1Co. 11:5) Why don’t you do it? Because by whatever exegesis the minister you listen to uses, those passages were explained away. Well, those people who believe that there is biblical support for abortion or homosexuality, to name two issues, employ the same strategies, for the same basic reasons; either they think the interpretation is incorrect or they think that those scriptures are intended for a specific audience at a specific time (and that time is not today.) And again, ask yourself: are men and women segregated in your church? Why not?

This is not to say that I think that there actually is biblical justification for either abortion or homosexual relations. It is to say that I think that fundamentalist theology can lend itself to some very non-scriptural tendencies and that it would serve us well to interrogate some other modes of understanding the scriptures. The Bible does a lot more than rail against fornication. I’m sure that some of the same ministers who were telling Dr. King to wait (the ones to whom the letter from the Birmingham Jail was written) were preaching against fornication. Fornication is a sin but tolerating (at best) oppression is okay? That’s not authentic Christianity.

For next time (because I seriously did not plan to go on this long): how the devil you gon’ tell me the Bible supports abortion?

For as much as I complain about the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton ‘nem, I can honestly say that if I was in a situation like those people in Texas who had been incarcerated by the lies of a rogue police officer, I would call Jesse or Al before any Black conservative I can think of (except my mother. I would call her first.). The problem is, I don’t think I’m the only one. Why is that? Given that most Black conservatives seem to stress the idea that we could achieve Dr. King’s dream if only Black people would stop crying racism at every turn, why isn’t anybody out there when there’s an unmistakable example of real, live racism? Why the attempt to act like everything’s okay? I look at Townhall.com just about every day. Not a peep out of the Black writers there. (Not a peep out of any of the writers, actually, but the cynical part of me is not exactly surprised.) Granted, the people were released from prison last summer, so there might have been a massive hue and cry. I wouldn’t put money on it. Although I think there probably is a good article for a traditional conservative in there on the high cost of police misconduct.

Like I wrote last week, that’s a weakness of Black conservatives, stressing the individual over the collective to such a high degree. In doing so, the “there, but for the grace of God go I” perspective gets lost. That’s problematic. Like I said, I know that if I lived in that town, it could have been me just as easily as it was those people. Those people were guilty of nothing. They just lived there and looked to the police officer (it only took one!) like the jury would believe they were guilty if he said so. (And the sad part is, he was right.) Same thing goes for the death penalty. I don’t have a problem with capital punishment in theory. In practice, though…the way things go in this country, the way some police lie, the way some judges hand out sentences unevenly, the way far too many innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death (and who knows how many people have been killed over lies?)…I just can’t sign on like it’s all good.

I’m at the Borders in Philly and they have a display copy of the picture book, GOAT: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.(The acronym stands for Greatest of All Time) That thing is absolutely fantastic. It’s incredible. I either own or have read most of the books about Ali that are out there, so when I say there are a lot of photographs that I haven’t seen, I’m serious. There’s this crazy picture of him before his first fight against liston, where he’s standing over the prone body of somebody in a bear costume. (Remember he called Liston the “Big Ugly Bear.”) That book is amazing. So is its price. It goes for a cool three grand. To buy one at this store, you hafta drop 1500 as a holder’s fee. For a while I thought that there was no way I would ever drop that much for a book about any person. On the other hand…if I had 3K to just toss around, just nothing better to do, I would buy it. Plus, the book is huge. One page is bigger than my laptop. Some of the shots are just amazing. If that joint was, like, 500, I would have a serious conflict.