{"id":625,"date":"2014-06-07T13:26:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T13:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/06\/its-bigger-than-jamal-bryant.html"},"modified":"2014-06-07T13:26:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T13:26:00","slug":"its-bigger-than-jamal-bryant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/06\/its-bigger-than-jamal-bryant.html","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Bigger Than Jamal Bryant\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Recently, in a\u00a0sermon<\/a>\u00a0to his predominantly black congregation, pastor Jamal H. Bryant appropriated troubled singer Chris Brown\u2019s song,\u00a0Loyal<\/a>. To be sure, using any of Brown\u2019s music in a\u00a0context that claims to empower mostly black female congregants through \u201cthe Word\u201d<\/a>\u00a0is questionable. Bryant\u2019s use of the popular in sacred space isn\u2019t novel. The Black Church and black folk have long remixed black religion with black popular culture. Just visit the black religio-cultural archives and check out Thomas A. Dorsey, James Cleveland, C.L. Franklin, Kirk Franklin, and many others. Bryant stands within a long line of black preachers who deploy pop cultural products in religious space (and vice versa) in efforts to not only \u201cmake it plain\u201d and \u201cbring it home,\u201d but to further mass mediate certain messaging that listeners may instantly connect to.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Simultaneously, Bryant stands in a long line of repeat offenders\u2014those who use the sermonic moment in black churches to draw upon, reproduce, and maintain the cultural myth of black female hypersexuality. Among other things, in a\u00a040 second sermon clip<\/a>\u00a0Bryant invokes the spirit of Chris Brown and exclaims, \u201cthese ho\u2019s ain\u2019t loyal!\u201d\u00a0 Before going forward, I want to explicitly state that there is nothing redeemable or life giving about Bryant\u2019s appropriation of Brown\u2019s lyric. However, I do think it is important to think about 1) Bryant\u2019s use of the lyric, 2) the audience response, and 3) Bryant\u2019s privilege to deliver such a message in the first place within the Black Church context. Context does not excuse foolery, but it does matter. It matters in that it helps us to better understand both what\u2019s happening and what\u2019s at stake.\u00a0Somebody tap your neighbor and say, \u201cThis is bigger than Jamal Bryant.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, in a\u00a0sermon\u00a0to his predominantly black congregation, pastor Jamal H. Bryant appropriated troubled singer Chris Brown\u2019s song,\u00a0Loyal. To be sure, using any of Brown\u2019s music in a\u00a0context that claims to empower mostly black female congregants through \u201cthe Word\u201d\u00a0is questionable. Bryant\u2019s use of the popular in sacred space isn\u2019t novel. The Black Church and black folk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIt\u2019s Bigger Than Jamal Bryant\u2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Recently, in a sermon to his predominantly black congregation, pastor Jamal H. 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