The LeBron James Saga

I know that most folks are tired of hearing about the whole LeBron James saga. For the past few weeks, it’s been nonstop speculation and rumors. Then, finally, last week James shocked the world, especially Northeast Ohio, with his decision to bolt to Miami for better weather—and presumably a better chance to win an NBA championship. I reflect on the drama in a commentary at UrbanFaith.com, where I explore the various messianic monikers that have been attached to James by his marketers and himself (e.g., the King, the Chosen One) and I wonder whether now a more appropriate biblical metaphor might be “the Prodigal Son.”

I know there are more important things happening in the world, and that when it comes down to it LeBron is only a basketball player. But, as Washington Post columnist and ESPN analyst Michael Wilbon says in this great piece, the LeBron story touches on so many other cultural flashpoints beyond simply sports. We’re talking issues of money and power, family and friendship, civic pride and loyalty, manhood and responsibility, and, of course, race.

You’ve got Dan Gilbert, the bitter owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, posting a scathing anti-James screed at the team’s website, accusing his former employee of betraying the team as well as his hometown. You’ve got folks in Ohio burning jerseys and scrambling to dismantle the gigantic downtown murals of LeBron that, to the outsider, always appeared just a little bit too excessive (like a shrine to a Greek deity, or like the Jackson brothers strolling triumphantly over the earth). And now you’ve got Jesse Jackson accusing Gilbert of viewing James as a runaway slave.

You knew the race angle was coming. It’s never too far away when you’re talking about professional sports in America, especially in the NBA, where 99 percent of the ballplayers are black and 99 percent of the franchise owners are white. William Rhoden’s controversial 2006 book, Forty Million Dollar Slaves, is just one of many commentaries linking pro sports in modern America to the slave trade of yesteryear. 

I wish Rev. Jackson wouldn’t have been the one to verbalize the obvious pachyderm in the room (“There he goes again, injecting race into everything!” folks will say), but there it is.

Personally, while I think it’s probably impossible to completely extract race from the issue of power relationships in pro sports, I believe Gilbert should be allowed to rant, rage, and generally come across as an emotional jerk without being accused of racism. He simply reacted like any scorned human being whose business just lost an estimated $100 million in value probably would. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. That said, I think it would’ve been wise for him to wait a few days before issuing a statement. The unintentional damage that he caused his franchise through his outburst could be worse in the long term than losing LeBron James.

Still, it’s unfair to imply that Gilbert is acting out of a “slave master mentality” just because he happens to be white and LeBron is black. That doesn’t excuse the fact that Gilbert might be a mean, arrogant, and impulsive billionaire who was trying to save face. But why add “racist” to the equation without sufficient proof?

But back to LeBron James. As long as he’s still able to do the things that LeBron James does on the basketball court, his reputation as a superstar player, though tarnished, will recover. The real tragedy, in my view, is the way James made his announcement. He had every right to leave Cleveland, but why do it in such a … ahem … cavalier manner? He was apparently so disconnected from the reality of his decision—and focused on his own self-interest—that he could not grasp the full implications of rejecting his former team and his devoted fans in Northeast Ohio on national TV in an overblown ESPN special. Or, as some have speculated, maybe he did it that way to inflict maximum pain on Gilbert and his franchise for some behind-the-scenes reason.

Either way, I hope James will someday grow into a more mature understanding of humility and compassion. Come to think of it, in an odd way, maybe that’s why he’s going to a place with two other elite stars in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh (not to mention team president Pat Riley). Maybe he’s leaving the comfort, security, and adoration found in Cleveland because in his home state he’ll always be venerated as “the Chosen One.” Maybe he needs to escape to Miami to become human again.

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The Desegregation of the American Megachurch?

As you probably know, one of the big articles making the rounds this week is Time magazine’s major report on Willow Creek Community Church and the noteworthy progress being made in evangelical megachurches to bridge the racial divide. Time religion reporter David Van Biema uses Willow Creek’s journey, and senior pastor Bill Hybel’s personal spiritual awakening on the issue of race in America, as a window to how the larger evangelical church is doing in this arena. Assessing the American church’s long struggle to overcome its complicated racial history, Van Biema writes:

Since Reconstruction, when African Americans fled or were ejected from white churches, black and white Christianity have developed striking differences of style and substance. The argument can be made that people attend the church they are used to; many minorities have scant desire to attend a white church, seeing their faith as an important vessel of cultural identity. But those many who desire a transracial faith life have found themselves discouraged — subtly, often unintentionally, but remarkably consistently. In an age of mixed-race malls, mixed-race pop-music charts and, yes, a mixed-race President, the church divide seems increasingly peculiar. It is troubling, even scandalous, that our most intimate public gatherings — and those most safely beyond the law’s reach — remain color-coded.

Among the article’s most revealing claims is that Willow Creek’s congregation is now 20% minority (20% is cited as the quantitative threshold of a truly integrated congregation). Van Biema points out, however, that even though Willow has increased its numbers of non-white attendees, the primary pastoral leadership of the 23,400-person church remains entirely white. Van Biema writes:

Willow’s predicament is hardly surprising. To some white congregants, naming a person of another color to tell you what Scripture means, week in and week out, crosses an internal boundary between “diversity” (positive) and “affirmative action” (potentially unnerving).

This sobering observation serves to remind readers that the journey toward true diversity and racial reconciliation in the church is not an easy road. Megachurches like Willow are often looked to for their dynamic ministry models of “how to do it right.” But addressing racial and cultural issues in the local church context does not lend itself to simplistic formulas or 40-day adventures.

Overall, though, it’s interesting to see the mainstream press paying so much attention to racial reconciliation issues in the evangelical church. It’s a good reminder that what we do both individually and corporately as Christians is being watched and surveyed by many in the wider culture.

Read the entire article here, and stay tuned to UrbanFaith.com for an interview with Time‘s David Van Biema on what he discovered during the process of putting the article together. I’ll let you know when it goes up.

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Omaha’s Justice Journey

Just wanted to call attention to my friend Amanda Long’s two-part series at UrbanFaith.com. She writes about the Justice Journey taken by members of her church and several other Christian leaders in Omaha, Nebraska. The Justice Journey is based on the Sankofa event that was birthed in the Evangelical Covenant Church. It involves a usually multiracial group of folks taking a bus trip to historic civil rights sites in Southern cities and reflecting on that history and what it should mean for us today. The goal is to give participants a more personal and informed understanding of what may be required of us for true racial reconciliation and social justice in our churches, communities, and nation. Amanda’s two articles explore the “event” of the Justice Journey and look at how the experience is transforming the churches in her Omaha community.

Amanda Long

Amanda and her husband, Jeremy, are very dear friends who used to reside around the corner from us in the Chicagoland area but returned home to Nebraska a few years ago. Looking at Omaha through her “Chicago eyes,” Amanda was startled to discover that there are a lot of similarities between her new town and the big “urban” city that she left behind. She writes:

Omaha is routinely rated as one of the best mid-sized cities in the U.S., and we enjoy all it has to offer. However, soon after moving here I was surprised to discover some stark realities.

Omaha is a wealthy city, but it has the highest black child poverty rate in the entire United States. In the midst of our current recession, Omaha’s unemployment rate is still under 5 percent. However, in parts of North Omaha, which is a primarily black community, the unemployment rate is 20 percent overall, with census tracts that chronically experience a 30 to 40 percent unemployment rate. When friends from Chicago visit, it is not unusual for them to be disturbed by our local newscasts — they thought Omaha, Nebraska, would be different from Chicago — but we too hear regular reports of almost nightly shootings and homicides. We’ve also realized how segregated the city is, even compared to Chicago. So, while Omaha is a great place for some, others in my city have a different experience.

 This is Amanda’s first foray into journalism, and she does a wonderful job covering the Justice Journey event and interviewing the various leaders of the Omaha movement. Please check out her articles, then chime in with your comments. Have you ever participated in a Sankofa or Justice Journey? How effective do you think experiences like these are for bringing about genuine racial healing and reconciliation? Would the churches in your community benefit from a joint “Justice Journey” experience?

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Get a Free Copy of Donald Miller’s Latest

If you’re a Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz) fan, you’ll want to click on over to UrbanFaith.com and check out our interview with the author about his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. And, if you’re game, you can get a free copy of Miller’s book by leaving a response to this question:

Donald Miller discovered deeper meaning in life by applying the storytelling principles of a good movie to the way he lives. If your life were a movie, which one would it be and why?

Readers have left some very interesting responses to that question already. So, if there’s a particular film or film character that encapsulates your life journey so far, please head over to UrbanFaith.com and leave a brief comment about it. UrbanFaith will randomly select five respondents to receive a free copy of A Million Miles, but the contest expires Oct. 19, so share your responses now.

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That Speech, Health-Care Hysteria, Justice As Worship

Greetings, everyone. Thanks for the excellent dialogue happening regarding that last post about President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren. Just wanted to bring to your attention a postmortem on the event that I posted over at UrbanFaith.com. And while you’re at UrbanFaith, please also check out my friend Todd Burke’s hard-hitting commentary on the political hysteria surrounding the health-care debate—and feel free to chime in with your own opinions, since I’m sure some will take issue with Todd’s perspective. And, if you haven’t seen it yet, you need to read Jeremy Del Rio’s insightful essay on why the call for biblical justice should be a natural part of our worship.

If you don’t frequent the pages over at UrbanFaith, there’s probably a few other recent articles there that you’ll find interesting too, so please hang out and make yourself at home. (My livelihood as an editor and journalist is depending on it.) 🙂

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The Culture Clasher

UrbanFaith.com, my other blogging and writing home, has a new interview with Soong-Chan Rah about his book, The Next Evangelicalism, and why he still roots for the Baltimore Orioles. Also be sure to check out Soong-Chan’s new website, www.ProfRah.com.

Have a happy 4th of July weekend, everyone! Peace.

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Multiracial in America

Interesting timing. On the day that we posted an UrbanFaith.com interview with author Sundee Frazier about being “Multiracial in the Age of Obama,” this Associated Press report hits the circuit as well. The AP report says multiracial people have become the fastest growing demographic group in America.

Our UrbanFaith interview with Frazier, the author of an important IVP book titled Check All That Apply, explores the multiracial experience, what it has meant to have a mixed-race president, and some of the challenges that remain despite our nation’s progress on race issues. Please check it out and leave some comments; we need some action over there at UrbanFaith.

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Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda

Over the last week or so, I’ve been absorbed in Catherine Claire Larson’s new book, As We Forgive: Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda. If you’re interested in a deeper understanding of what happened in Rwanda in 1994, or a deeper understanding of the miraculous process of reconciliation, I commend this great book to you. 

Last month marked the 15th anniversary of the horrific Rwanda genocide, and the wounds are still apparent in the country. However, despite physical and emotional scars, something dramatic is happening among the Rwandan people. Survivors are forgiving those who killed their families. Perpetrators are truly repenting and doing practical acts of reconciliation to demonstrate their remorse, like building homes for those whose families they killed. God is moving.

In her gripping book, Larson shares seven stories about the genocide, its aftermath, and the spirit of reconciliation that is happening in a place that was once defined by inhumanity and death. What’s taking place in Rwanda today is instructive for all people, especially those of us who confess Christ. As Larson observes in my interview with her, now at UrbanFaith.com, “If forgiveness can happen in that country after such unthinkable crimes, surely it can also happen in the comparatively smaller rifts we face. In their hope, we can find hope.”

I highly recommend that you check out Catherine Larson’s compelling and well-written book, as well as the award-winning film that inspired it. Also, once again, don’t forget to read, link to, and pass along the UrbanFaith interview with Larson.

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Christian Campuses in the Age of Obama

FYI – We just posted a new article on UrbanFaith.com about some of the recent racial incidents on Christian college campuses. One of the themes of the article: How will the emergence of an African American president influence matters of race and diversity on Christian college campuses?

Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, Newsweek has a poignant and thought-provoking piece about Doug Paul. A former Wheaton College student, Paul, according to the article, typifies the Joshua Generation — the young white evangelicals who are more progressive in their politics than earlier generations of evangelical Christians. Reaching out to the Joshua Generation, says Newsweek, was one of Barack Obama’s keys to making headway with evangelical voters.

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Is Spreading the Wealth Wrong?

Sociologist and Divided by Faith author Michael Emerson has an interesting article posted at UrbanFaith.com regarding the issue of economic redistribution. Barack Obama took a lot of heat from his opponents during the election over this matter, as they labeled him and his policies (raising taxes on the wealthy and giving relief to the poor and middle class) as being socialist in nature. Here, Emerson examines the issue in light of early church practices and the noted work of John Perkins.

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