Church Abortion Coalition Still “Keeping it Real”
Rebekah Sharpe
July 17, 2009
Hosting controversial former Clinton era U.S. Surgeon General “condom queen” Jocelyn Elders, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) convened its 13th annual National Black Religious Summit on Sexuality in Washington, D.C., urging support for abortion rights and homosexual causes.
Agencies of the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopal Church and United Church of Christ belong to RCRC.
Last year, the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church voted by a narrow margin to continue its affiliation with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), a pro-abortion lobby that uses the moral authority of religious groups in the United States for its political agenda. Their support enables both the lobbying efforts of RCRC, which are currently directed at efforts to provide for taxpayer funded abortions in the healthcare bill Congress is working on, and the organization’s conferences, such as the annual National Black Religious Summit on Sexuality, which met at Howard Divinity School in Washington, DC from July 8-10.
There, 600 attendees—more than 300 of them teenagers—from predominantly African American churches were encouraged to return to their communities and spread the gospel of contraceptives, comprehensive sex education for children beginning in primary school, and “choice” for women seeking abortions.
Carol Blowers, a longtime United Methodist from the Troy Annual Conference, welcomed attendees in her role as the chairperson of RCRC’s advisory board. She commented that two major events stood out since last year’s summit. One, she lamented, was the murder of partial-birth abortion provider George Tiller. “Dr. Tiller was not [just] an abortion doctor, he was a healer,” said Blowers, herself a longtime staffer at a Planned Parenthood clinic. “Every day reproductive health workers who provide abortions go to work knowing they could be murdered. We need to let them know we support them,” she stated.
The other significant event, rejoiced Blowers, was the election of Barack Obama. “President Obama has committed to end eight years of [the Bush Administration’s] policies of keeping our children in the dark about sex, but he cannot do this alone… we have to keep him there… [and] make sure his policies are put into practice.” Anticipating that evening’s Congressional Black Caucus reception on Capitol Hill, Blowers told conference-goers to remember to “tell [congressional representatives] we need additional funding” for “family planning.”
The Rev. Dr. Kenneth Samuels, pastor of the UCC Victory for the World Church, a mega church in Stone Mountain, GA, preached that Christians should follow Christ outside the parameters of tradition. “Calvary was and Calvary still is a dangerous place,” he commented, because it “lies outside the norm of that which is deemed and defined as normal or decent, outside of religious conformity, outside of the city gate.” Though he said Christians are willing to “follow Jesus into the downtown of deregulated capitalism,” he lamented they are reluctant to follow when Christ calls them “outside the rubric of right-wing religious zealots.” He added, “Thank God for real folk in the church,” who are unafraid to encourage contraceptive use rather than preaching abstinence only, because “it didn’t work for Sarah Palin’s daughter, it probably won’t work for you!”
According to Samuels, “Jesus refused to be bound by orthodoxy; he reinterpreted the Old Testament.” In contrast, he lamented, “We got too many gate keepers in the house who draw the lines of the established order, and decide who’s in and who’s out.” In contrast, he asserted, “true creativity and real genius cannot be locked behind the gates” even though “those who see the truth and tell the truth early are often persecuted.”
The Rev. Dr. Carlton Veazey, President and CEO of RCRC, proclaimed that he was “enthralled with [Samuel’s] boldness,” and informed the audience that Samuels had lost 3,000 of his 10,000 church members because “he took a stand on sexual orientation and diversity,” a euphemism for Samuel’s support of the homosexual agenda within the church. The United Church of Christ, the denomination to which both Samuels and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, the controversial former pastor to President Barack Obama, belong, supports the practice of homosexuality, same-sex “marriage,” and ordains practicing homosexual clergy members.
Rev. Drs. Christine and Dennis Wiley, the husband and wife pastor team of Covenant Baptist Church in Washington, DC, continued this theme of becoming “an inclusive church where all are welcome.” They led a workshop for participants on how to make their church a “Whosoever Church”—that is, one where homosexuals are encouraged to continue in their same-sex relationships.
The more conservative leanings of the original parishioners at Covenant Baptist were all too apparent, said the Wileys, when they began their ministry as Bible Study leaders in 1985. “We were able to see where the congregation was; they were willing to condemn all their friends and all their relatives straight to hell if they weren’t Christian,” said Rev. Christine with surprise.
“We don’t believe that homosexuality is a sin,” said Rev. Dennis, adding that sexual orientation is “not something that is chosen; it is an essential part of one’s identity in terms of who that person is.” The Wileys did say that when homosexual members of their congregation came to them to discuss becoming ministers in the congregation they required that these two members to stop living with their same-sex partner until an official union ceremony could be done for each couple. Rev. Dennis said, “We believe that you can be holy and gay at the same time… we condemn [homosexuals] for being promiscuous, and at the same time we close the door to any commitment; I think there’s a contradiction there.”
The decision to perform same-sex union services for these two members occasioned great controversy within the traditional African American Baptist community. Many congregants left, and one parishioner who stayed observed, “Losing so many people that I had grown up with in the church: that was a very, very, painful experience.” In defense of the Wiley’s, she continued, “They were democratic, you know; if you believe [their liberal sexual teachings], stay; if you don’t, go.”
Former Surgeon General for the Clinton Administration, Dr. Jocelyn Elders, spoke about the importance of comprehensive sexual education starting in primary school and emphasized condom usage, her trademark issue that earned her the moniker “the condom queen.” “Sexuality is a normal part of being human,” instructed Elders, “it’s not just for procreation, for people that are married, and for people that are heterosexuals.” She called on pastors to “stop moralizing in the pulpit,” remarking that “The church has to change from a language of condemnation to a language of embrace.” Elders acknowledged, “I know that we feel we have to wait and get married [to have sex], but you know some people never get married.”
“We need to have comprehensive sexual education from kindergarten to 12th grade,” said Elders. She argued that schools could deliver such education in age appropriate ways. “I know we say that we want the parent to be the first teacher, but the parents can’t be the only teacher; we all got to get involved.” Elders cited statistics about high AIDS and STD infection rates among African American women, who she said, “are allowing ourselves to be destroyed from the inside because we refuse to talk about sex.”
Finally, Elders alluded to legalized abortion, saying, “We’ve got to have some political strategies [and] keep compassionate laws on our books. Women must be in control of their reproductive health; they’ve got to have the right to make good choices.” Possibly referring to Bush-era prohibitions of federal funding for international abortion providers, she commented that in the past, “Certainly we’ve made some terrible compromises across the world on women’s reproductive health.”
The Rev. Dr. John Kinney, Dean of the School of Theology at Virginia Union University, said that Christians’ image of God had been distorted “because we serve an over God” and that by placing God above ourselves in a hierarchical authority relationship, “you have just created separation from God.” Similarly, he discouraged teaching wives to submit to their husbands, arguing that “If I bring you to church to teach you to how to remain subject I am [ensuring you remain] a cursed woman.”
Furthermore, Kenney rejected the idea of a literal Hell, saying, “We have taken the truth of God and created a new religion and made a hierarchy, and then in the hierarchy we gotta send some people to Hell… Why create a religion whose ultimate expression of authority is to send people to Hell?” He contended that if a parishioner wanted to “be a thinking, informed person,” then they would overcome excessive dependence on scripture, and “you will recognize you not only listen to the Bible you listen to doctors and you listen to psychologists.” He also defended pantheism, the belief that God is present in all things, positing that “You’ve discovered that your ancestors were not polytheists because they say, ‘I honor the God in the tree…’ or talk[ed] to the moon, [saying] ‘you are God.’”
Kenney affirmed RCRC’s pro-choice agenda: “I’ve been reading about spontaneous abortions [that happen] all the time; abortion is a part of nature.” He mused that “attempts to control what a woman does through her body,” because they rob the woman of choice, are “murder.”
In marked contrast to almost all other speakers present at the conference, the Rev. Dr. Frank A. Thomas made scant reference to government provision of contraceptives and abortion. Instead, he said that African American men should be prepared with a “resource strategy” that will enable them to provide for their families. Thomas drew on the Genesis text where Jacob steals his brother, Esau’s, birthright, saying that too many children “turn to us just as Esau turned to his father, and say ‘Hast thou no blessing for us? Bless us too, our mothers and fathers! [But] because we did not wait, because we did not plan, because we did not follow God, we have no blessing.” He added, “We will not have enough blessings for our children until we get control of our sexuality.”
While Thomas argued that the church had a role to play in helping young men create a resource strategy, he said, “We can’t depend on Uncle Sam to provide for our family.” Nor, said Thomas, should men “steal someone else’s inheritance” “to get resources.”
Thomas called on fathers to provide for their families and be faithful husbands. “If you haven’t thought about what I’m talking about you ought not to be having sex with nobody… What I see far too many times is brothers having sex with no resource strategy, no commitment, and no responsibility.” He acknowledged, “I know it’s old fashioned,” but questioned, “When are we going to be located at one address, living with one woman, in one marriage? You don’t bring children into the world except in the context of a successful marriage.” Thomas said it was important to have other male friends who would hold them accountable to being faithful husbands, and to have a relationship with God.