LOS ANGELES – Black churches need to speak out against gangsta rap and its negative influence on young people, black pastors from around the United States were told late last month in Los Angeles.
“The church ought to say, if you can’t do more positive rap, shut up and get the hell out,” the Rev. Michael A. Battle, president of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, told the third annual Pastors and Laity Conference at West Angeles Church of God in Christ.
In an impassioned plea, Battle, a Baptist preacher who leads the nation’s premier center for black church scholarship, said gangsta rap denigrates all young blacks, especially black women.
Battle, speaking at the conference Jan. 29, charged that gangsta rap has stolen “the soul of positive rap,” meant to articulate the “sociological circumstances” of blacks, especially men. Some rap captures the obstacles facing a teen as he tries to “become a man … somebody with character in their turbulent circumstances.”
Battle, whose center is home to six theological schools encompassing as many denominations, also attacked the “wealth, health and prosperity part” of the church as “what gangsta rap is to the hip-hop.”
He said church leaders have to confront unpleasant truths about the black community.
“Tell the truth, even if you don’t get a federal grant,” Battle urged. “Tell the truth, even if you don’t get appreciated by those in power.”
Pastors gave him a standing ovation.
Throughout the conference, Christian leaders prayerfully and candidly considered other issues facing black churches, such as HIV-AIDS and the alienation of young blacks from the church.
During day sessions, they met at Holman United Methodist Church, where they heard experts and then held discussions on the role of the black church. In the evening, they gathered for sermons by prominent black preachers.
The conference began with theologian Lawrence Mamiya, a professor of Africana studies and religion at Vassar College, who presented a paper, “Challenges for the Black Church in the 21st Century.”
To meet modern challenges, Christianity needs to be in the street, just as “its chief strategist – Jesus – was in the street,” said the Rev. Mark V. C. Taylor, pastor of the Church of the Open Door in Brooklyn.
Taylor noted in an interview that rappers refer to the street as an institution.
“The rappers say, ‘The streets say this,’ ” he said. “One reason the streets can say things is because there are not enough Christians in the street … to challenge.”
Taylor said he agreed with Battle in calling for churches to speak out.
But, as a “shepherd” to his flock, he doesn’t want to wind up “blaming these young black males for something they view as a viable choice” to help them succeed in this society.
“Many times, the educators, the shepherds, the leaders – we’re at fault because we haven’t said, ‘Here is a better way. You don’t have to be a rapper. You don’t have to be an NBA player, you don’t have to be a football star. … There are white executives behind them. As we become critical, let’s look behind the performer to see the producer, the disseminator, the controller.”
The Rev. Frank Portee III, pastor of the Church of the Redeemer in Los Angeles, said that although the discussions touched painful topics, it is important that they continue.
“When pastors get together and talk about their common issues, problems and challenges, through that interchange, the Holy Spirit is able to empower us above the negativity and move into the direction of empowerment and change,” he said.
The challenge for the 21st-century black pastor, he said, is to claim the church’s historic responsibility of being the glue for the community, to embrace it and to pass it to the next generation.
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