by Mark Jefferson I will never forget the feeling I had when I first heard Kanye West’s "Jesus Walks" track from his The College Dropout album. It felt like Kanye channeled and articulated my angst, hope, faith, and doubt in less than four minutes. I was not the only person to connect with the song considering its massive commercial success. For me, the brilliance of the song was not displayed in the first two versions of the Jesus Walks videos, which garnered... Read more

by CECILIA T. CAPERS Tupac Amaru Shakur’s music has been dissected by inner city griots as well as ivory tower scholars. In light of all of the material about Tupac that is available, it is easy to believe that there in not much more to say about the rapper whose fierce fire was extinguished fifteen years ago. Such a belief can be dismissed after seeing Christina Tyler and George Carroll’s original play The Tragedy of Tupac Amaru Shakur or Who... Read more

By HARRY JACKSONWall St. Journal When Herman Cain began singing “Amazing Grace” at the National Press Club on Monday, some believed he was trying to distract attention from the sexual harassment charges that had surfaced against him. But, as he explained, “My faith is a big part of who Herman Cain is.” In fact, though he’s decided to campaign on his background in business, Mr. Cain is an ordained minister and deeply religious man. Like President Obama, Mr. Cain belongs... Read more

Be modest. Those are the words of potential Egyptian presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail to his supporters, and especially to the country’s female population. His firebrand rhetoric, which endorses “Islamic dress” has begun to spark fears among Egyptian women that he wants a Saudi Arabian styled future for Egypt, where women are forced to cover and are barred from beaches. At least two-piece swimsuits, Abu Ismail said at a recent interview on a TV program called “90 minutes.” He... Read more

It’s been about 50 years since the bulk of the Asian meditation masters arrived here — Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Vietnamese and so on. Many of us have spent our whole adult lives trying to practice and absorb what they taught us. I’ve been thinking recently about the “50 year lessons” that we have gleaned during this time. Some of the lessons have been transformative, others disappointing. Many of the lessons we learned the hard way — by making mistake after... Read more

by Lerone Martin Why is Reverend Creflo Dollar, megachurch pastor and scion of the prosperity gospel, telling his congregation “Life is too short to be worried about possessions?” Maybe it’s because even megachurches are at risk in the new economy. The latest employment numbers released by the U.S. Department of Labor show that regional unemployment is highest in the same regions, the west and the south, that host the highest concentrations of megachurches in the country. The once prosperous Southern... Read more

This Tuesday, Mississippians will vote on Initiative 26, a “personhood” amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” This “profoundly ambiguous” amendment will deliberately trample on a woman’s reproductive health and privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion, outlawing contraception like the birth control pill, and even preventing couples from having a child through in vitro fertilization. It is these consequences that leave even the most staunch anti-choice activists cold. The National Right... Read more

by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite As the story of the sexual harassment allegations against GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain broke, Cain had his best 24-hour fundraising stretch. What should women conclude from this? Is this just support for Cain, or yet another Republican attack on the hard-won rights women have gained in the last three decades? Before the ground-breaking work of Catharine MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination in the late 1970’s, the term “sexual harassment” did not even exist.... Read more

If there seems to be a lot of religion in politics this electoral season, at least it has a long history. Vanderbilt University’s James Byrd, an assistant professor of American religious history, says the American Revolution was fueled by a new rhetorical style that came straight from the revivals of the first Great Awakening. In a Thursday lecture at the Divinity School, Byrd talked about the influence of colonial-era preachers like George Whitefield, who inspired thousands with his showman-like presentations... Read more

by Tiffany Buchanan While preparing for class recently, I read an article by Walter Brueggemann “The Liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity” which takes a Christian theological analysis to the notions of abundance and scarcity. This article roots the historical biblical concept of scarcity in pharaoh’s desperate need to maintain power over resources. This becomes important to consider because over 75% of Americans self-identify themselves as “Christian” according to the CIA with over 2 billion Christians worldwide. It is important to assess the dominant American... Read more