The row over the “black national anthem”

Did you know that my hometown of Pittsburgh has a “national anthem?”

Yes, we do. It’s called “Sugar,” the title tune from an album released in 1970 on CTI Records by tenor saxophonist and composer Stanley Turrentine, a native of the city’s Hill District. It’s referred to colloquially as a “national anthem” because literally every jazz musician here, myself included, can play it in his sleep. (Indeed, the day he died in 2000 — and I co-wrote his obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — a bunch of us “cats” appropriately closed a jam session at a local club with that tune in tribute.)

I was reminded of that when certain folks decided that they would boycott the Super Bowl, being played tomorrow, over the performance of the “black national anthem,” claiming by doing so it would spark racial division. But if anything, it would highlight the division that has always existed but that some folks have refused to acknowledge.

The name of the song, more accurately the hymn, is “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” The words were written by James Weldon Johnson, an officer in the NAACP, and set to music by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson in 1899 — that’s right, at the turn of the last century — and have been sung in most black churches ever since. In that context it might be considered a “national anthem,” understanding that the phrase is a figure of speech for a piece of music that people of a certain culture would know because they grew up with it — including the two-thirds of National Football League players who are black. (Ray Charles even recorded it over 50 years ago for the album “A Message from the People” — the same album as his classic rendition of “America the Beautiful.”) Indeed, if you ever listen to the words, they express not only a greater degree of pure patriotism than “The Star-Spangled Banner” but also a sense of hope for the future — and, for people who believe in God, a reference to Him.

The playing of the hymn at NFL games thus started in response to not only the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, which President Trump wanted to send in active military troops to shut down; but also then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s “taking a knee” in protest of police brutality in 2017 (which caused Trump to refer to him and other protesters “[S.O.B.’s] who should be fired”). And that wasn’t the first time something like that had happened — you may recall the football players’ threatened strike against the University of Missouri in 2015, which resulted in the resignation of both the president and chancellor for doing little or nothing to discipline those who smeared feces on the school’s black cultural center.

Clearly, a certain segment of America believes that the collective voice of black America should be silenced, witness Trump’s attempt to eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs in the federal government and that filtering down into private enterprise. And that wouldn’t be news, as at the time of his death Martin Luther King Jr. had only about a 15 percent approval rating and other civil-rights leaders are similarly denigrated to this day.

If there’s a problem here, it’s that the term “national anthem” for “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” is often capitalized, as though it’s a separate anthem for just one race or ethnicity. That’s not the intent — it’s simply a hymn with a great deal of meaning to the black community.

Jackie Robinson: “DEI hire”

Since Donald Trump, who over the years has demonstrated his racism time and time again, has returned to the White House, he has promised to, echoing much of the racially insensitive political hard-right, abolish Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs in the federal government, the belief is that having women and racial minorities actually waters down efficiency and that positions and promotions should be based solely on “merit.”

What he and others truly don’t understand is that the concept of DEI is not only not new but has been practiced for decades to get opportunities to “underrepresented” folks into certain fields that had been previously denied to them due to their color or gender.

Exhibit A: Jackie Robinson.

Of late a number of conservatives have said that Robinson earned his spot on the Brooklyn Dodgers because he was a great player — and yes, he proved to be a great player — but that had nothing do with his being the first black man to play Major League Baseball in the modern era, called up from the Montréal Royals, the Dodgers’ top farm club, on April 15, 1947.

See, there was never a statutory ban on black players, “Jim Crow” laws being illegal in many states where teams operated. (Recall that no MLB teams called the Deep South home until the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, well after the start of the civil-rights movement; only in former slave state Missouri, where the St. Louis Cardinals and Browns, the latter moving to Baltimore to become the Orioles, was that even an issue.) In those days team owners had a “gentlemen’s agreement” to keep black players out, largely due to the large number of Southerners on team rosters.

Then-general manager Branch Rickey, who did want to integrate the game, had several things in mind. One, he saw MLB as stodgy and boring and wanted to bring the excitement that black players, then in the Negro Leagues, could provide, with their base-stealing and defensive flair. Two, he gambled, successfully, that having a black man in the lineup would bring a whole new fan base, not to mention money, into the Dodgers organization. (One of those fans was a black man in Puerto Rico whose name is familiar to us here in Pittsburgh: Roberto Clemente, who actually was a Dodgers farmhand until selected by the Pirates in that day’s version of the Rule 5 Draft.)

But it simply wasn’t sufficient to call up the best black ballplayer. Because he was headed into uncharted territory, with likely the majority of black men in general having the proverbial chip on their shoulder anyway, Rickey needed someone who would not react to the inevitable abuse, slights and insults, at least for three years — that is, exhibit the right temperament and let his playing do the talking. Which led to another goal of Rickey’s: Build team chemistry, with an “us-against-the-world” mentality that might carry a team to a championship, with those not accepting Robinson being cut or traded away. (And it eventually did, in 1956, a couple of years before the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, where Robinson grew up and was a four-sport star at UCLA.) Robinson’s presence was said to have inspired Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent crusade to overthrow Jim Crow in the South.

And that is the intent of DEI.

Therefore, it’s an absolute insult to those black folks who actually meet qualifications but, because they’re black and/or female, were seen as less deserving. During his 2020 run for the White House, Joe Biden promised to put a black woman on the Supreme Court; as president, he nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson — who, as things turned out, had higher credentials than anyone already there. Then-vice-president Kamala Harris, after Biden was pushed out of running for reelection and inarguably more qualified than Donald Trump, received the Democratic nomination — but was subsequently blasted as a “DEI hire” who “slept her way to the top” (she did have a relationship with Oakland congressman Willie Brown).

No, the issue was never “merit” — it was a rejection of the power of the entitled-white-and-male “old-boys’ network.” And that’s what Rickey and Robinson blew up.

The untimely end of ‘Christian nationalism’

The bastardization of the Christian faith commonly regarded as “Christian nationalism” may have breathed its last. It may not be obvious right now, but it’s clearly headed for the scrapheap of history.

I say that for two reasons.

One, many of its institutional supporters are — just as in the 1980s, with the TV evangelists — victims of scandal because they wouldn’t police themselves due to their drunkenness on power. Most recently, the pastor of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo. was revealed to have abused a number of younger female members of that congregation, which has supported the heretical “seven mountains of culture” doctrine that suggests — with no biblical support — that spiritual revival will come when Christian “take dominion” over those pillars of society.

The problem, of course, is that evangelism, character development and service, the things that grow people in the faith as well as congregations, take a back seat.

The “prophetic movement” in some charismatic circles as a rule has ignored this basic truth, focusing more on outlandish predictions than a scriptural understanding of God’s intent. That’s why it’s making fools of itself and God in doing so, especially in insisting that Donald Trump was a shoo-in for reelection four years ago; and, even now, saying that he’ll return to the White House in 2025.

Which leads to another complication: The SCOTUS’ Dobbs decision obliterating Roe v. Wade.

Much political evangelicalism has believed for decades that making abortion illegal would mark another step in such revival. It never considered, however, that the pro-choice side would mobilize as never before, with six states passing laws or even ballot referendums to keep abortion legal. And rather than Trump thundering about it, he’s gone on the record calling it a “mistake” but also that it should be a matter for the states to decide.

Well, which is it? his supporters are asking. That’s the point, because one thing Trump wants is worship and a continued focus on the abortion issue threatens that. He’s now sounding like of one those mealy-mouthed politicians talking out of both sides of his mouth — indeed, one of the reasons the Christian nationalists supported him in the first place is because they believed that his anti-abortion stance was genuine (even though he’s flip-flopped on the issue). And they clearly don’t have the votes in Congress to enact a nationwide ban on their own.

Yes, the theory of “Christian nationalism” is dangerous. But as a practical matter, it never had much chance of being implemented. And God Himself would see to that.

Is the MAGA movement collapsing?

That the Donald Trump-speared “Make America Great Again” movement, inspired by a Ku Klux Klan-inspired slogan in the early 20^th Century and every bit as dangerous, has been a driving force in his campaign to retake the White House after his 2020 loss isn’t a surprise. Indeed, in certain “swing states,” including my state of Pennsylvania, he and current President Joe Biden are running neck-and-neck.

But two recent situations lead me to believe that “Trump fever” might be breaking.

The first is his walking back on an anti-abortion stance that he adopted to get conservative “Christians” to vote for him — specifically, his vow to have the Supreme Court reverse Roe v. Wade. That has, however, since backfired as numerous states have strengthened their own laws permitting abortion, whether by legislation or voter referendum. Trump has since occasionally called its repeal “a mistake,” disappointing anti-abortion activists, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who were convinced — with no evidence — that he was truly on their side.

The other is tying aid to the war effort in Ukraine to more control of the border with Mexico — or, at least, the ruse of such. You may recall that congressional Republicans were stalling on military aid to Ukraine, which had been invaded by Russia two years ago, to get an immigration bill passed (something that then-President Obama had pleaded for a decade previously). Well, President Biden eventually was able to broker such a bill but Trump, running for the presidency again, said that Republicans shouldn’t vote it because he wanted to bludgeon Democrats with the issue during the campaign, effectively killing it.

Thing is, aid to Ukraine recently passed. Why? Well, Trump of late has been distracted with the “hush money” trial in New York state court involving his alleged one-night stand with adult-film star Stormy Daniels and thus couldn’t comment on its passing; we all know that Trump, when he was president, tried to pull the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, rumored to be at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long sought to destroy that alliance because it crimps his imperialistic tendencies. (Keep in mind that paying off Daniels with $130,000 to keep quiet wasn’t itself illegal; it’s that he tried to charge that money to his campaign, thereby committing business fraud under state law.)

Even more recently, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s strongest supporters, introduced a resolution to remove Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House for working with Democrats, which went nowhere in large part because Republicans noted — correctly, in my view — that they’re now being blamed for causing chaos but getting absolutely nothing done, thus giving more power to the Democrats. One GOP congressman even responded to Greene’s move with the sarcastic Southern saying “Bless her heart.” And it’s that chaos that Trump has always brought to the political scene that led Geoff Duncan, a former Georgia lieutenant governor, to write an endorsement of Biden in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

What I suspect we’re seeing is that Trump, who has always painted himself and been regarded as an “outsider,” with his response to the abortion issue turning against him, has been reduced to one of the mealy-mouthed politicians that he has always denounced in acerbic, insulting terms. To be honest, I didn’t entirely expect that the takedown of Roe would have this effect on the abortion-rights-supporting political left. But what we’re seeing now is a man trying desperately to save his own political skin by going back on his stated position because it’s now being used against him, which is why the approval of aid to Ukraine is also important

And that threatens MAGA ideology, because it has always wanted to dominate the political process by bullying its opponents into silence.

An inside job

Recently I’ve noticed a meme on Facebook noting that evangelical Christians had been warning about an “Antichrist” for decades that but when one actually appeared on the scene they ended up voting for him.

I am of course referring to the narcissistic, arrogant Donald Trump, whom exit polls reported in 2016 as receiving an astonishing 81 percent of the votes of white evangelicals for President of the United States despite his lengthy history of corrupt business practices, racism, abuse and denigration of women — and that’s just for starters. Another meme gave specific Bible verses as to the Antichrist’s conduct and how they lined up with Trump’s words and actions. (For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that the Bible teaches about a personal Antichrist, just a spirit of such.)

The obvious question is: How could so many believers be so blind?

I have an answer to that, and it isn’t pretty: These folks never considered that it might be an inside job.

For decades, certainly with the advent of the “religious right” in the 1970s, the focus of many parachurch ministries fighting the so-called culture war became rallying the troops to fight outsiders — most notably but not limited to the “gay lobby,” abortion-rights activists, “globalists” and diversity advocates — to preserve a form of Christian hegemony. (Which is why you have the heretical “seven mountains of culture” doctrine, which started around then.)

And on top of that, many of your conservative church bodies doubled down on their commitment to “orthodoxy,” the American Protestant Episcopal and Presbyterian churches splitting and the Southern Baptist Convention purging its ranks of “moderates” for the sake of what we might consider doctrinal purity.

The trouble with all that remains that the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the heart of which has always been reconciliation, ended up being pushed aside — and that’s the one thing that the devil cannot imitate because the kind of forgiveness required to do that was never on his radar screen. And when you also consider that many Christians beginning in the 1980s ingested a steady diet of right-wing talk radio laced with bitterness and resentment toward certain targets, a couple of hours of Bible study and church attendance couldn’t compete with the hours of daily spiritual poison to which they subjected themselves.

All this led to the spirit of Antichrist mentioned in Revelation but which has slipped the consciousness of much of the church to a point to where the very words of Jesus, mentioned in especially the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 through 7, are regarded as “liberal talking points.” (And although I don’t have any empirical evidence of this, I suspect that it’s also behind much of the “deconstruction” going on today, with folks who grew up in conservative churches questioning the veracity of the Scriptures.)

Which is why, if we really want revival in this country, we Christians need to reject Trump openly — because, as things stand now, he’s in God’s way. But more importantly, we need to look inward and recognize how we got off-track because Satan almost never attacks openly, engineering small compromises so that eventually God’s intent is papered over for the sake of power.

And that is the spirit of Antichrist. 

‘Clean up your own back yard’

 When I was a child my parents had the album “O.C. Smith at Home,” which was released in 1969. One of the songs on that album was “Clean Up Your Own Back Yard,” two of its three verses referencing a so-called religious prophet “telling everybody how things oughta be” but still in bed on Sunday morning hung over from a night of drinking and a businessman who prided himself on integrity having an affair.

It was the first time I ever heard that phrase, and I was the kind of kid who in those days took things quite literally. And yet I knew the point of the song.

Last week the Southern Baptist Convention released a report that noted that it had kept a secret list of leaders who had engaged in sexual misconduct. I won’t get into the details, but one of the concerns that top leadership had was that, had that list become known, the reputation of the association would have been damaged, compromising its evangelism efforts.

The sad part is that such leadership missed the point of evangelism in the first place — not merely to get people “saved” but to encourage them to live holy lives different from the world. And part of that is recognizing one’s own shortcomings, sins and struggles thanks to the “unholy trinity” of the world, the flesh and the devil.

Put another way, it didn’t appreciate the comprehensive nature of sin. Many of these churches were leading the “culture war” against abortion and gay rights, which generally take place outside the church, but likely never about the things that went on within it.

Of course, this is hardly news. Most of us got a glimpse of it in 1987-88 thanks to the TV evangelist scandals and it’s since been repeated in the Roman Catholic Church and with some “old order” Amish groups, so when it happened again in the SBC, it took virtually no one by surprise.

What’s the root of all this? I would say pride — a desire to appear respectable but on the inside, as Jesus said in Matthew 23:27, “full of the bones of the dead.” Let’s remember that God sees all and knows all — and, when things got out of hand, will tell all.

One thing that I appreciate about the Scripture is its honesty. A few years ago it dawned on me that virtually every major biblical character (except Jesus, of course) is recorded as falling into gross sin. That goes for Abraham, Noah, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Peter, Paul and a few others. And that should give us pause as to what we think we can accomplish — that is to say, if all these characters fell short in some major way, what makes us think that we’re more “spiritual” or “enlightened?”

I think some humility might be in order. Instead of shaking our finger at “sinners,” I say we should look at ourselves soberly and admit, “There but for the grace of God go I.” And not only that, but the Scripture tells us to confess our sins to each other because in doing so “we will be healed.”

In no way am I trying to minimize the emotional damage perpetrated on victims of sexual abuse in churches; if anything, I don’t think it can be emphasized enough. Nor am I trying to ignore the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. That being said, however, God is a God of justice Who in the end always gets His. That should fill us with holy dread but for some reason doesn’t always.

We can laicize or expel offending clergy all we want and certainly should do so. But doing so won’t address the real issue — that, even after conversion, we still have this bent away from God; as the hymn goes, “Prone to wander — LORD, I feel it / Prone to leave the God I love.” And that means that we have work to do in our own hearts, because if we can’t get that right our “evangelism” will have no effect.

And if Trump dies ... what then?

Over the past year, since Donald Trump was dethroned as president but has since expressed interest in returning to the White House, one of the questions on the lips of a lot of people, whether supporters or detractors, is “What are his chances of doing so, and what would happen if he succeeds or fails?” Should a run fail, some have suggested that a failed run would result in an incident that would make the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection look like — pardon the pun — a tea party.

But I think we need to consider another possibility: Suppose Trump doesn’t live that long. That isn’t beyond such a realm, since he isn’t a young man, in great physical shape and even, as we saw two years ago, wasn’t even immune to COVID-19, with reports that he was sicker than he let on. (For a while he defiantly refused to wear a mask, insisting that doing so made him look weak.)

And even if these weren’t the case, he’s a mortal like everyone else and his time on this earth is limited. What bothers me about Christians’ worship of Trump is that they almost assume that he is indeed immortal and thus not subject to the normal parameters of life. As I’ve written before, he’s seen quite ominously as a messianic figure who will remove power from the people they hate — that is, “liberals” — and restore things to the way they, shall we say, “used to be.” (Recall that was the misunderstanding of the original prophecy of the Messiah.)

That was the case with the two travelers on the road to Emmaus, recorded in Luke 24, who didn’t recognize Jesus, who by this time was resurrected, as He walked among them, but He opened the Scriptures to them — and then vanished. The travelers understood that they had completely missed the point — that he had come to redeem mankind, not just Israel.

We would be foolish to expect something similar from Trump despite the prayers and singing of Christian songs before the riot of last Jan. 6. After all, we can be sure of this: When he dies, he will not be coming back.