Charles Duplessis on Pat Robertson

LeDayne sent around this note:

"I happened to be in New Orleans this weekend at a CSC (Churches Supporting Churches) meeting — and stayed for worship at Mount Nebo Bible Baptist in the Ninth Ward. As you might imagine, the people of New Orleans feel very deeply the pain of the people of Haiti, having experienced so much of the same pain themselves.

"Mount Nebo’s Pastor Charles Duplessis (one of my favorite people in the world) -- did a brilliant piece in his sermon about Pat Robertson’s nonsense — layering Pat’s comments with Matthew 25."

What did you do for me when I was sick, grieving, buried under the rubble, naked, hungry?

Well, Lord, I condemned you in the national press, of course.

Today in Caribbean History

New Year's Day marks the remembrance of two significant events in Caribbean History--Haitian Independence Day and Cuban Liberation Day.

On 1 January 1804, following history's first and only successful slave rebellion, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti's independence, making Haiti the second independent country in the Western Hemisphere and the first Black Republic in the world. Today, Haitians throughout Haiti and the Haitian diaspora will eat soup joumou (squash stew) in remembrance of this momentous event.

On 1 January 1959, Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro succeeded in wresting power from right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista. Today marks the 51st anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

Friends of Justice Works for All of Us

Some of you may know Alan Bean. He is a Baptist preacher (of European descent) living in Texas, and PhD graduate of Southern Baptist Seminary in theological ethics. As I recall from conversing with him, he studied with some folks like Glen Stassen who have influenced many of us. But he has built a reputation as a hard-nosed fighter for racial justice. I posted the following piece on my blog today, and thought it might be right for our readers here, too.

My friend Alan Bean, the founder of Friends of Justice, has played a central role in a number of major cases of racial injustice in recent years: the falsified drug busts in Tulia, Texas; the out-of-proportion charges in Jena, Louisiana; and more.

His most recent work is being done on a case from Winona, Mississippi. A man named Curtis Flowers has been tried five times for the same crime, but the District Attorney can't get his conviction. So, against all odds, he is going to put Curtis Flowers on trial again. In the meantime, Flowers has spent thirteen years in prison for a crime for which he has not been convicted.

Bean has traced the meandering, strange, and disturbing details of this case for months now. As happened with the Jena case, Bean kept doing his hard work, studying history, meeting with people, writing, speaking, and negotiating, until finally a major media company took notice. With Jena, it was the Chicago Tribune, and then the BBC. This time, the BBC bit first.

Thanks to Alan Bean, a shady case of racial injustice that was allowed to fester for over a decade will now be brought into the light of day. You can listen to the BBC story and read a shortened version online. But for the best coverage, with a wide range of research, you will have to read Bean's blog.

Bean's work is often featured on the Sojourners blog, "God's Politics." Check out Friends of Justice, and let's all learn from Bean. I'm hoping to see his good research and writing find its way into book form sometime soon.

Quote of the Week

"Failure to love one's neighbor is a frequent form of disobedience to God. Wars are just a large scale version of this type of sin."

Millard J. Erickson (1932- )
Distinguished Professor of Theology
Western Seminary

Lest We Forget: Remembering the Other 9/11

Today marks the 21st anniversary (September 11, 1988) of the destruction of St. Jean Bosco Church in the slums of Port-au-Prince. While Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide was giving mass, armed thugs working for the Henri Namphy regime entered the church and, in a siege that lasted several hours, massacred over twenty parishioners and injured many, many more before setting fire to the church. While Aristide managed to escape with his life, the incident eventually led to his expulsion from the Salesian order on December 15, 1988. Aristide, a liberation theologian and Roman Catholic priest, led the popular movement that led to the downfall of the Duvalier regime on February 7, 1986. Two decades (and two not-so successful Aristide presidencies) later, Haiti continues to be mired in poverty and violence.

Let us continue to work for peace and justice for the Haitian people.

Naga Insurgents Agree to Reconciliation

American Baptist missionary Dan Buttry writes:

For over twelve years I’ve been working for peace and reconciliation with the Nagas who live in northeast India and northwest Burma. The war between the Nagas and India has been going on since 1955. Then in 1975 a flawed peace agreement sparked division among the Nagas that has been as bloody as the conflict with India. In 1997 I participated with Ken Sehested of the Baptist Peace Fellowship and John Sundquist of International Ministries in the Atlanta Talks. Wati Aier was the leader of the Naga mediation team with whom we worked. All four of the major Naga factions at the time were due to attend, but at the last minute one of the largest groups pulled out. Though the participants drafted “The Atlanta Appeal” for reconciliation, the splits were still very deep and expressed in on-going violence.

Read the full story here.

Lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my!

From the Denver Post.