RACIAL PROFILING

 

 

 

 

For those of you who know me, you are aware that I am one of the persons who is very troubled by the death of Trayvon Martin on 2/26/12, and the recent acquittal of the man who shot and killed him. I am concerned for his family who has los...t a son, brother, nephew and cousin. And I am concerned about what this means for America, the nation of my birth and life, and especially what this says and means about the perceptions that we have about young black and brown males in America, and how we value their lives.

I write and speak not as a media pundit or politician, but as a concerned citizen of the United States. I write and speak as a parent, a pastor and a theologian. I write and speak as a person who has led, taught and coached young persons of many nations and all races for three decades. I write and speak because I believe it is our right and duty to do so. And I write and speak because I seek to more fully understand what is going on in our nation, and perhaps to help raise consciousness so that we can all do our part in making things better for all people.

One of the images that has haunted me for over a year as it regards Trayvon Martin's death is the hoodie that he was wearing. Maybe it is because I have seen my sons - who were both excellent athletes and honor students - leave the house on hundreds of occasions wearing hoodies. Maybe it is because I wore a hoodie through many years as a football and basketball coach of young boys of all races. Maybe it is because today I wear a hoodie to the gym four days a week to stay warm after sweating through my workouts. And so more than even the Skittles or Arizona Ice Tea, it is the image of the hoodie that haunts me.

This past week, Geraldo Rivera went on the record again by saying that the reason why Trayvon Martin was shot in the chest and killed was because he was wearing a hoodie. I wonder what the direct connection is between a teenager's death and wearing a hoodie, and how in the world anybody could arrive at this conclusion. I've appealed to Aristotle's formal logic on this one, but I can't figure it out... ‪

SHORT PEOPLE

 
 
 
 
 
 

Luke 19:1-10

This morning, I’m here to talk to and about short people.  No - I’m not here to talk necessarily to or about people who are short in physical stature.  I didn’t come today to talk to or about those who are perhaps “vertically challenged.”  But this message is for some short people.

I’m here to share some things with all of us – because in some way – we’re all short.  The apostle Paul said it best when he declared that “we’ve all sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  

We’re all short in one way or another - short on mercy and grace in our lives – short on loving our neighbors – short on caring for the needy – short in the areas of generosity and compassion – short in gentleness and kindness – short on doing justice and walking humbly with God – short in forgiveness - short on speaking the truth in love - short on caring for the environment – short in our commitment to the church - short in our love and relationship with God.  We’re all short in one way or another. 

BECOMING A TRANSFORMED NONCONFORMIST (THE REMIX)

 

“Be not conformed to the world; but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

 
About fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon entitled, “Transformed Nonconformist.”  Dr. King based his message on the familiar text from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman Church, where in the 12^th chapter, Paul reminded the Christians in Rome that they were to “be not conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of (their) minds.” 

The context for Dr. King’s message, this matter of transformed nonconformity, was the American Civil Rights movement of the mid-20^th century, and the need for leadership in the church and society that would stay the course in seeking to transform society and deliver America from the racial division, economic disparity, and other social maladies that plagued our nation then.

Dr. King’s message has haunted me over the years, as I have thought about what it means to be a leader in the church today.  And it has led me lately to think about what it means for us to be adaptive in our leadership.  In a nutshell adaptive leadership is what I sense that Dr. King was talking about when he talked about transformed nonconformity. 

THE POWER OF LOVE - MOHONDAS K. GANDHI AND NON-VIOLENCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

by Rev. C. Anthony Hunt, D.Min., Ph.D.

 

(This public lecture was delievered at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, Maryland on February 10, 2012)

                    

Mohandas K. Gandhi was one of the few pesons in modern history to lead inthe struggle for human progress simultaneously on moral, religious, political and cultural fronts. His life and praxis of non-violence impacted many persons in india and across the world in the promotion of peace and love with jsutice, and continues to impact persons and institutions today.  With the ongoing proliferation of violence, war, local and global conflict, and geopolitical discord, Gandhi’s philosophy and praxis could be helpful in the discovery of non-violent approaches to conflict resolution and transformation in the 21^st century.

Huston Smith, in The World’s Religions offers that “the face of Hinduism for the West is Mohandas Gandhi.”  According to Smith, “Most responsible for awakening the West to (the realities of the East and the beauty of Hinduism) was a little man who weighed not much more than a hundred pounds and whose possessions when he died totaled two dollars.[1]  If his picture were to appear on this page it would be recognized immediately.  How many other portraits would be recognized universally?  Someone ventured a few years ago that there were only three: those of Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Mouse, and Mahatma Gandhi – “whose essence of being is great” as the title “mahatma” would be literally translated.

The achievement for which the world credited Gandhi was the British withdrawal from India in peace.  What is not as well-known is that among his own people, he lowered a barrier much more formidable than that of British colonialism in India, racism in the United States or Apartheid in South Africa, renaming and redefining “untouchables” in India as “harijan”, God’s Children, and raising them to human status.   

WITHOUT LOVE

(This is an exerpt of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 5/12/13)

“Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge…. but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2)

This text is familiar to many of us because it is a part of what has come to be known as the “love chapter” in the Bible.  It is not uncommon for couples who are preparing to get married to scan the Bible for a scripture text that they wish to be read at their wedding ceremony, to park here are at 1 Corinthians 13 at these marvelous and challenging words attributed to the Apostle Paul.

There is no evidence that Paul intended for 1 Corinthians to become known as the “love chapter,” and the “wedding poem,” but upon close examination, his words speak to the very nature of love for those seeking to be in relationship within the context of the church, and for those of us seeking to understand love in our daily lives. 

On at least five occasions in this particular text, Paul juxtaposes love against various and sundry actions and activities that the people of his day might have understood and to which they might relate.  Paul here talks about the many gifts of the people of Corinth – gifts of tongues of mortals and of angels, gifts of prophecy, gifts of wisdom, gifts of faith, and gifts of charity.  But Paul shares that without love, none of these gifts really mean anything.  

Common Ground for the Common Good

Rev. C. Anthony Hunt, D.Min., Ph.D.

(This is the text of a public panel response/presentation given on April 9, 2012 at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology, St. Mary's Seminary and University in response to Rev. Jim Wallis's new book, On God's Side.)

 

I would venture to suggest that at the root of Protestantism is an ongoing quest for an appropriation of the common good.  Martin Luther’s call for the reformation of the church in the 16^th century seemed to signal a call for Christian communities to address matters of ecclesial, theological, and socio-political significance to the masses of people.    By its very nature Reformation faith and Protestantism served as a faithful protest against what was viewed – at least to some degree – as the perceived class abuses of the church and society – directed primarily toward the poor.  In as much as the Protestant Reformation was to become a protest against some of the practices of the church - as perceived by Luther and others - it would also become a framework for reforming and reframing some of the practices of Christianity in the search for common ground and the common good.    

The quest for such common good became one of the marks of enlightenment faith that would be the hallmark of early Protestantism in America.   Martin Marty intimates in his book Pilgrims in their Own Land, that although early 15^th and 16^th century settlers in the American colonies were largely “pilgrims of dissent,” what they shared was a common quest for freedom, and that colonists were “knit together by law, religion, and custom.”[1]

Addressing Educational Disparities in Urban Settings

          


Dietrich Bonheoffer, the great German theologian pointed out in the middle of the 20^th century that the test of the morality of a society is how it treats its children.  A statement of American abolitionist Frederick Douglas from more than century and a half ago sheds light on the critical importance of properly educating today’s urban young.  Douglas intimated that “literacy unfits a child for slavery.”  Similarly, today education unfits children for poverty, addiction and incarceration. 

It is important to give constructive attention to the education of children in urban areas because – as Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund points out - urban children  face the higher likelihood of being abused and neglected, born into poverty, born without health insurance, killed by a firearm, or born to a teenage mother.  These figures are exacerbated for black and brown children in urban settings.[i]