Denzel Has Offended...

Denzel Washington.  Family man.  Actor.  Sex symbol.  Target for atheist rage.

Indeed.  Denzel, the man everyone loves to love, has found himself in a bit of hot water with atheists recently.  While publicizing his new movie, "Safe House," which opened last weekend with impressive box office receipts, he likened atheism to being a sociopath...or at least that's what atheists are saying he did.

In the interview in question, Denzel says in response to a question about how he prepared for the role and character he played in the movie says, “There’s a book I read called, ‘The Sociopath Next Door,’ and… a, it really became sort of the Bible for me in developing this character. I think he is a sociopath. I think he doesn’t have a conscience. I think he is an atheist and a murderer and a liar.”

For atheists, this is indicia that Denzel hates them and thinks of them as sociopaths.  The atheist community has gone to great links to liken Denzel to Mel Gibson for this comment.

But, down here in reality, Denzel's remarks, when listened to in context (and not in an effort to find a way to be offended about everything), was simply a list of all of the things his character was.  Black, sociopath who also happened to be an atheist.

Try again, atheists.  This one's not going to work. 

Is This Really How We Do It?

Okay.  I don't have much to say about this commercial, it really does speak for itself.  There's no thoughtful theological point I'm trying to make, no social commentary, I'm not even trying to make a funny here.  I'm laughing at this commercial to keep from crying.

It's Black History Month people.  I'm not so sure that this is where Dr. Carter G. Woodson wanted things to end up, but I'm afraid this is where he predicted they would be--dancing, rapping or singing.

But, at least he's working in this commercial, right?

Happy Black History Month. 

Former Slave Owner to Former Slave: Let's Stay Together...

President Obama made waves recently when, at a fundraiser, sang a few lines of soulful crooner Al Green's "Let's Stay Together." His rendition--a telling reminder to the unusual coalition of supporters he galvanized to win the presidency in 2008--was spontaneous and actually pretty good. The president can sing.


But, it appears that the president isn't the only one in history who has made poetic overtures to congeal an interesting union.
This week, letters from an August, 1865, exchange between a former slave owner and a former slave were discovered. The letters show how a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Tennessee, tried to persuade his former slave, Jourdon, to come back to work on the plantation by promising to treat the former slave "better than anybody else can."

The former slave wrote in response the former slave owner:

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

The former slave goes on to say at the end of his letter:

We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

So, if you're keeping score, the former slave master denies his former slave wages, kills a Yankee soldier, shoots at the slave, not once but twice, and then writes to the former slave to ask the former slave to come back. "Let's stay together," so to speak.
And the former slave responds in a measured and calm manner, saying in essence, that the Creator will right all of the wrongs you have done to me and my family.

This is some real Christianity in action in the Romans 12:9 (Paul quoting Deuteronomy 32:35, "To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.") sense.

Being spiritual and being a Christian does not prevent us from taking action or calling out wrong doing or social ills, rather it is incumbent upon the faithful to make the case against wrong doing, and allow the Creator to be the punitive heavy.

That is precisely what the former slave did in this instance.