Black Christian Book Marketing Magazine

Dallas County’s First African-American District Attorney, Craig Watkins, Named Texan of the Year

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:00:12 +0000

Jan.1, 2007, the day Craig Watkins was sworn in as Dallas’ first African-American district attorney, marked a seismic shift in local politics. Perhaps even more significant than the election of Ron Kirk, our first black mayor, Mr. Watkins’ first two years in office illustrate a commitment to just and effective enforcement of the law; citizens expect as much and rightly so.

Mr. Watkins has taken his charge one step further – an equal commitment to justice. The Dallas D.A.’s office is as committed to seeing the innocent go free as it is in seeing the guilty prosecuted – and Mr. Watkins has redoubled those efforts in 2008.

For that reason, Craig Watkins is my nominee for Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.

To date, 19 men, unfairly prosecuted and falsely imprisoned, have had their Dallas County convictions overturned through DNA technology that was unavailable at the time of prosecution. Most of them were found guilty because of faulty eyewitness testimony. But all were innocent.

These were men who lost not just years of their lives but also lost family members, friends and the opportunity to contribute positively to our society. And chances are that all might have remained in prison if it had not been for the zealous commitment of Mr. Watkins.

Mr. Watkins has not randomly run across these victims of the criminal justice system, but as a result of his decision to partner with the Innocence Project of Texas and review more than 350 questionable cases.

These exonerations wouldn’t be possible were it not for the fact that the Dallas County District Attorney’s office has kept forensic evidence longer than any other county in the state. Nonetheless, it was Mr. Watkins’ fervor to make sure prison is reserved only for criminals that jumpstarted this process and sustained its momentum.

What is particularly courageous – as well as ironic – is that in pursuing the liberation of these men, Mr. Watkins also has had to take on the formidable legend of Henry Wade, the Dallas County district attorney for 36 years. Mr. Wade prosecuted Jack Ruby for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. He is the Wade referred to in the Supreme Court case Roe vs. Wade.

Mr. Wade and his team of prosecutors boasted a 90 percent conviction rate and, in his last 20 years in office, won 165,000 cases – including some of those 19 since-exonerated men. “There was a cowboy kind of mentality, and the reality is that kind of approach is archaic, racist, elitist and arrogant,” said Mr. Watkins.

But the irony is that it was the Wade administration that made the decision to save the biological evidence that has led to many of the recent exonerations.

The significance of Mr. Watkins’ work should ultimately lead to new legislation. We must find ways to adequately compensate those who have been victimized by the criminal justice system. Both their compensation and a gubernatorial pardon should be immediate upon release.

As someone whose family has suffered the loss of a loved one through violence, I know what it is like to want the perpetrator brought to justice. But my family and I want the right person prosecuted and punished. We are all ill-served otherwise.

Mr. Watkins understands this and has taken the right step by creating the Convictions Integrity Unit to ensure proper prosecutorial procedures. We may well be getting to the point in Dallas County when there will be little doubt that our trials are fair. And that’s the work of Craig Watkins.

Whatever else positive he does during his term, whether or not he wins re-election, Mr. Watkins has built a prosecutor’s office of which we can all be proud.

Source: Dallas Morning News

What Foreshadowed Our Economic Crisis

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:35:34 +0000

Roger Babson, famed statistician, said, “Every economic depression is foreshadowed by a religious decline.”

Great is the need for an authoritative voice to point the way out of our moral and spiritual confusion in America–a voice totally dedicated to God and his imperishable Word.

Why Obama May Be Good News for Christian Higher Education

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:00:34 +0000

Leaders in Christian higher education could be in for an easier time under Barack Obama’s administration than they had under George Bush. Under Bush’s administration, the federal government became increasingly involved in accreditation for higher education, said Paul Corts, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Corts and others in Christian higher education are hopeful that the Obama administration will back off from further involvement.

“Historically, you think Republicans are less intrusive on rules and regulations and stingier on money; Democrats usually are more liberal on money but want to be much more regulatory,” Corts said. “We’ll see. Obama keeps talking about change and a new day and he’s trying to do things a lot differently, so maybe we won’t find what everybody expects.”

The nomination of Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan as Obama’s secretary of education leaves many higher education predictions unanswered because of his K-12 focus, but those in higher education are watching closely for decisions on government involvement in accreditation.

The federal government became more involved in the regional accreditation process when the Bush administration created a structure for regional agencies to report on the federal level. It had stayed out of the actual accreditation process until the spring of 2007, when the department suggested requiring minimal standards and stricter data reporting from accrediting agencies.

“That’s where this feeling that it began to be heavy-handedness on the part of the administration came from,” Corts said. “Secretary [Margaret] Spellings made some pretty significant statements hinting at far greater federal leverage coming down — that gave a lot of heartburn to higher education, which wanted to resist that very strongly.”

A discussion of Christian engagement in politics with Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in California, took place the day after the election at Wheaton College, an evangelical college in Illinois.

“Activist Republicans are sticking their hands into higher education,” said Duane Litfin, Wheaton’s president. “Democrats hear the same complaints, but Republicans feel like the foxes are in charge of the henhouse of higher education, and the result is a tremendous amount of intrusiveness coming at us.”

Christian colleges will also watch how the Obama administration handles government funding, which could lead to hiring restrictions outlawing faith-based discrimination. While campaigning in July, Obama laid out his plans to continue support for faith-based social services, saying, “If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion.” Since then, there has been extensive debate on the precise nature of the regulations Obama might impose.

But money always has potential strings attached, said Gene Veith, provost of Patrick Henry College, a Christian school in Virginia that does not accept government funding. The government, he noted, is generous in its higher education grants now, but there are already some conditions, such as privacy laws that restrict access to student grade reports.

“There’s concern at some point that the federal government might mandate, through antidiscrimination laws, laws about homosexuality and other things like that,” Veith said. “That’s possible. I don’t really see that on the horizon yet, but it could happen.”

Patrick Henry heavily emphasizes government involvement, and many in the college speculate about whether it can place as many students in political internships as it did under the Bush administration.

Some Christian colleges are also concerned that a national accreditation process could force schools to be more similar in their missions, creating problems for colleges that want to focus on research or the liberal arts because of requirements that must be met. The federal government is not involved in the process now, but the Bush administration headed in that direction.

“The diversity of institutions in the U.S. is one of the great strengths of our educational system — the assessment conversation tends to sound like there’s one type of institution,” says Chip Pollard, president of John Brown University, an evangelical college in Arkansas.

But as long as federal assessment mimics regional assessment and takes the mission of research, liberal arts, and religious schools into account, Pollard said more assessment will only help Christian colleges.

“I don’t think [assessment] will be a problem for us,” Pollard said. “But I don’t want to have one cookie-cutter way of doing assessment that assumes a state or research institution as the institution we’re assessing.”

Source: Christianity Today

Long Island Obama School Nixed By Parents

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 06:55:53 +0000

The New York Post reports that the Clear Stream Avenue Elementary School will not be changing its name to honor President-elect Barack Obama.

Cristobal Stewart, a trustee of the school district in Valley Stream, first broached the idea of renaming the Clear Stream Avenue Elementary School in November to commemorate Obama’s electoral triumph.

But the plan was met with loud resistance at a Nov. 24 hearing. Town residents and parents argued that the existing name, in place since 1924, represented a long and proud tradition that shouldn’t be tinkered with.

In November, another Long Island school changed its name to Barack Obama Elementary School. According to the network, the name change was inspired by the school’s proximity to Hofstra University, where the final presidential debate was held.

Source: Huffington Post

New York Man Accused of Fleecing Fellow Churchgoers

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 06:00:23 +0000

What the authorities say happened to members of El Camino Church, a gray brick building wedged into a corner of Washington Heights, will not make financial history. No charities will have to close, no endowments will be eviscerated. Millions were not lost, let alone billions.

But when the cost is totaled, court papers and interviews suggest, many of the worshipers at the tiny Christian Evangelical church will have lost all or part of their savings in a Ponzi scheme that operated far beneath the orbit of the wealthy or well-connected.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged that Bryant Rodriguez, 44, insinuated himself into the congregation last year — he showed up first for baptism classes — and enticed fellow churchgoers to trust their money with him. Now, about $600,000 is gone in a scheme prosecutors call a classic mold of financial grifting — neither sophisticated nor, in hindsight, difficult to see through.

“Obviously these weren’t billionaires,” Allan Weissmann, a postal inspector and spokesman for the United States Postal Inspection Service, said of the parishioners. But he added: “It’s all relative. It means a lot to them. It’s their life savings in many cases, and they, too, are devastated.”

The authorities said that Mr. Rodriguez asked parishioners to invest in an electronics firm he represented, which he said wanted “a blessing for a blessing” by providing Jews and Christians with the opportunity to invest in his company, a criminal complaint charges.

A lawyer for Mr. Rodriguez, who is in jail pending a bail hearing, said he did nothing wrong. “There’s no question that he’ll plead not guilty,” the lawyer, Paul J. McAllister, said.

The church, at Audubon Avenue and 172nd Street, occupies a century-old building. It is just a few blocks from Yeshiva University, which says it lost $110 million by investing with Bernard L. Madoff, who stands accused of one of the largest financial frauds in history, a Ponzi scheme involving up to $50 billion.

One night this week a few dozen worshipers gathered for a regular service in the basement of El Camino. As a conga player, a keyboard player and a guitarist played in the background, the group sang a Spanish version of “Silent Night,” their hands outstretched, their palms up.

At the end of the service, the pastor, the Rev. Miguel Amadis, addressed the congregation.

“We’re going through a very hard time,” he said. “We have to stay united.”

At least three dozen people invested with Mr. Rodriguez, according to the complaint; the pastor said he and his family alone lost $300,000. All told, according to the complaint, members of the church gave Mr. Rodriguez about $1.1 million, but received back only about $450,000.

Mr. Rodriguez has been charged with one count of mail fraud. “Each of these investors has lost all or part of their investment,” Postal Inspector Eleanor Berry wrote in the complaint, referring to a group of 30 parishioners and their friends.

The complaint said Mr. Rodriguez began taking baptismal classes at the church in 2007, and was later baptized there. He told people that he worked with a company called C & E, and sold electronics to the church and some of its members.

According to the complaint, he said his business sold wholesale electronics to large retailers like Best Buy and P. C. Richard & Son. He promised returns of 30 percent every two weeks, and kept his promise to initial investors, at least for a while. Those investors then brought in other family members until a number of them were hooked.

In one case described in the complaint, a church member gave Mr. Rodriguez about $3,000 in cash in June 2007. Two weeks later, Mr. Rodriguez paid the man about $900, followed by another $900 payment soon thereafter.

The victim told relatives and friends about the opportunity, the complaint says, and they gave Mr. Rodriguez a total of about $57,000. After the investor pressed Mr. Rodriguez last August about his investment, he was given “a loan” of $5,000.

Neither the investor nor his family and friends received any more money from Mr. Rodriguez, the complaint said.

One church member, Alexander Perez, said his family and friends had lost about $80,000.

“He came here telling us he did business with all these big electronics stores,” said Mr. Perez, 30, a construction worker from Washington Heights who has been a member of El Camino for seven years. “We didn’t think there was anything wrong, so we invested with him.”

“It hurts, trust me, it hurts,” Mr. Perez said.

Ana Vasquez, 44, an interior decorator, said she and a friend invested $10,000.

“He paid us at first to get more people interested,” she said. “He told us to find family and friends to invest. He told us that everyone who invested $5,000 would get a bonus of $10,000. To get enough money, a lot of us looked for more people to chip in.”

According to the complaint, retailers have told the authorities that they had no contract with Mr. Rodriguez or any firm he ran.

Mr. Rodriguez has a previous felony conviction for impersonating a United States immigration officer, the complaint says.

In court on Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez’s lawyer, Mr. McAllister, blamed the church’s pastor, Mr. Amadis, for any money that was lost. Mr. Amadis, referring to Mr. Rodriguez, said, “He’s trying to say that I had something to do with it, but that’s just not true.” No charges have been filed against the pastor.

“He came to us like anyone else comes to the church,” Mr. Amadis said. “When I met this guy, he convinced me he was a true original Christian. Man, this guy could talk. He could convince anybody.”

Source: NYTimes

Obamas Miss Out On Religious Services in Hawaii

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:56:35 +0000

Barack Obama has long stressed the importance of religion in his life. But as his fellow Christians around the world attended Christmas services on Wednesday and Thursday, the president-elect and his family remained sequestered at their vacation compound on the windward coast of Oahu.

His lack of attendance at formal religious services was obvious and showcased a dilemma faced by Obama, who is between churches and often also expresses concern about bringing the disruption of his security detail into the lives of others.

Still, he has not attended a public church service since before being elected, a departure from the actions of his two immediate predecessors.

“The president-elect didn’t want to disrupt a church community on Christmas with the burdens that come with a presidential visit,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Thursday.

To seek church in D.C.

Aides said the Obama family celebrated Christmas Day by opening presents at their vacation rental compound in Kailua. Dinner included turkey and ham.

Earlier this week, Obama did visit a church when he attended a private memorial service for his grandmother, who died less than two days before the election at the age of 86. The service for Madelyn Dunham was held at the First Unitarian Church, a congregation here that made national news in 1969 when it offered sanctuary to dissident servicemen protesting the Vietnam War.

In a Chicago Tribune interview this month, Obama said his family plans to find a home church in Washington, although no selection has yet been made.

“We frankly haven’t thought about it yet because right now we’re just trying to make sure that we don’t lose anything in the move, including our children,” he said.

Source: Houston Chronicle

The World Celebrates Christmas

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:55:41 +0000

Thousands of pilgrims overcame checkpoints and tight security to celebrate Christmas with a mass last night in the birthplace of Christ, Bethlehem.

While Manger Square thronged with families and pilgrims, Palestinian and Israeli troops working together to see that the festivities went ahead without any trouble and revellers set off pink fireworks in celebration.

Happy crowds gathered at the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, for the midnight mass led by the most senior Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal.

He told the congregation that peace came from God.

“War does not produce peace, prisons do not guarantee stability. The highest of walls do not assure security. Peace is a gift of God, and only God can give that peace.”

The scene in the West Bank town was a stark contrast to Hamas-controlled Gaza just 45 miles away, where militants fired rockets and mortar shells onto Israeli communities.

The Pope similarly called for an end to “hatred and violence” in the Middle East in his midnight mass.

Addressing a packed St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Pope Benedict appealed to Christians to pray that “hearts will be opened so borders will be opened.” He will deliver a Christmas Day sermon later today.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said in his Christmas message, meanwhile, that the global work of salvation starts close to home.

“The gospel tells us something hard to hear – that there is not going to be a single charismatic leader or a dedicated political campaign or a war to end all wars that will bring the golden age; it tells us that history will end when God decides, not when we think we have sorted all our problems out,” he said.

“What can be done to show his glory? So often the answer to this lies in the small and local gestures, the unique difference made in some particular corner of the world.”

The Queen is using her Christmas message to address the impact of the credit crunch on the nation.

The festivities will take on a more “sombre” tone for many this year amid job losses and financial insecurity, she will say.

Source: Christian Post

Blagojevich Scandal: Governor’s Lawyer Wants Obama Staff Subpoenaed

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:53:49 +0000

In a move intended to force public testimony from President-elect Barack Obama’s inner circle, a lawyer for Gov. Rod Blagojevich has asked the legislative panel considering impeachment of the governor to subpoena more than a dozen witnesses, including Obama’s incoming chief of staff.

State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie told The Associated Press on Thursday that the House committee received a letter from Blagojevich attorney Ed Genson asking it to subpoena Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett and more than a dozen others, including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

Currie, the head of the committee, said she didn’t yet know what the committee’s response to Genson’s request would be.

However, she noted that the U.S. Attorney’s office has already denied the panel’s request to interview a list of people named in the criminal complaint against Blagojevich.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said earlier this week that lawmakers’ interviews of current or former members of Blagojevich’s staff might jeopardize his criminal investigation.

Currie said the House panel’s next meeting is set for Monday.

U.S. Attorney’s office spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment Thursday.

Messages left Thursday for Genson, Jackson and attorneys for Jarrett and Emanuel were not immediately returned Thursday. The Obama transition team declined to comment.

Members of Obama’s transition team declined to comment.

Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on charges alleging he tried to sell Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. He has denied any wrongdoing and is ignoring scores of calls to step down, including one from Obama.

None of the possible candidates for Obama’s Senate seat _ said to include Jarrett and Jackson _ are identified by name in the complaint, but Jackson has said he is the individual dubbed “Senate Candidate 5.” The congressman has said federal prosecutors told him he is not a target of their investigation.

Genson told the Chicago Sun-Times that testimony from Emanuel, Jarrett and Jackson would help prove the governor’s claim that he didn’t do anything wrong in his handling of Obama’s Senate seat, the newspaper said Thursday.

On Tuesday, Obama revealed that he, Emanuel and Jarrett had met with federal investigators about Blagojevich. He also released an internal review that found no inappropriate contact with the governor’s office by him or his staff.

Emanuel was the only Obama transition team member who discussed the Senate appointment with Blagojevich, and those conversations were “totally appropriate and acceptable,” according to incoming White House attorney Greg Craig.

Source: Huffington Post

Radical Evangelism: Man Returns to D.C. Inner-City to Save Souls After “Swearing” He’d Never Go Back

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:50:51 +0000

Carlos Williams swore he’d never return his children to Washington, the city where drug deals, fights and drunks outside his father’s apartment used to keep him and his brothers awake at night.

But there they were, Carlos, his wife and their seven children — all under 13 — tumbling out of the family’s white van one Saturday in Trinidad, the small Northeast D.C. neighborhood plagued by more than 125 violent crimes in the past year.

As they began their rounds, the kids giggling and running up alleys, young men on sidewalks and older women on stoops tended to stare, as if to say, What are you doing here?

Saving souls, or at least trying.

The Williamses believe that God called them to Trinidad two years ago, and they have reorganized their lives around the neighborhood, even if it costs them the stability it took more than a decade to build. In September, they sold their home on a wooded, 1 1/2 -acre patch of Anne Arundel County and moved into a rented, one-bathroom rowhouse on Florida Avenue, where Zenobia Williams home-schools all seven children. Before moving, they drove 25 miles to get to Trinidad every Saturday, an unlikely looking missionary troupe, checking on people, praying with them on doorsteps, walking past a police checkpoint. Twice they brought a mobile baptismal tank in a school bus and prayed in tongues as Trinidad’s children plunged beneath the water.

But saving souls involves more than just desire, Carlos Williams is finding. Residents of Trinidad tell him, yes, they need Jesus, but first they have more pragmatic questions: Can Williams, a baby-faced 38-year-old telecom worker, help them find a job? Pay their utility bill? Other residents are indifferent to religion. Then there is the devil, whom Williams considers a direct rival.

He said he sees the Devil in “a spirit of oppression, a heaviness over that neighborhood. There is an adversary that opposes any spirit of God,” he said the day after a slow Sunday. “To me, it’s crystal clear that it’s not people we’re up against — it’s a spiritual deal.”

That’s the mind-set of a grass-roots, walk-the-beat kind of soul saver, a throwback. A guy who runs Bible study every Wednesday night in a McDonald’s. Who won’t get on the train home on Fridays until he prays with a desperate-looking stranger. Who thinks Washington has too much religion and too little Jesus.

“A church on every corner and all this carnage?” he said one Saturday outside the Trinidad Recreation Center. Inside, a memorial service was underway for a 13-year-old shot dead during the summer while visiting from Alabama.

As his kids scurried up a grassy slope to a playground, Williams laid out the stakes, the reason he is willing — eager, even — to uproot his family. He wants to test the identity around which he has constructed his adult life.

“This is not some, ‘Hey, why don’t you come to church on Sunday, and we’d love to have you leave the same way you came in,’ ” he said. “This is life and death.”

* * *

Williams got the call to start a church July 31, 2006. His nondenominational Pentecostal church, Antioch Apostolic in Arnold, has been launching churches since it was founded, and at that night’s service, it was the Williams family named to spread the Gospel to Washington. Carlos had worked with programs for youths, the homeless, prisoners; church leaders knew he was headed for some type of ministry, and they saw a huge need in the District.

Still, Williams didn’t expect to be tapped to create a new church. The pastor did not tell him in advance and instead announced from the pulpit that Williams and his family would be starting “missionary” work in Washington. But the word “missionary,” to him, was a sign. He’d long believed that God was calling him to a foreign mission field. Apparently his native city was it.

He began driving in the District, feeling for his spot. When he got to Florida Avenue NE, a southern border of Trinidad, something struck. Williams, who has the cheerful, wholesome aura of a camp counselor, said people seemed to carry “a heavy weight. I felt the need here.”

Initially, the family commuted. That winter, all nine Williamses bundled up and walked Trinidad’s streets. “People were like, ‘You’re taking your kids into Trinidad?’ We felt we were with the will of God, that He’s covered us,” Carlos Williams said.

Mostly, the big family was a curiosity in Trinidad, where signs say “A Garden Community” but parents say they don’t feel safe letting their children wander. Some blocks look idyllic, with neat brick rowhouses and well-tended gardens. Many others are empty, and people hustle from their car to their door. Although things have calmed in recent weeks, the neighborhood has faced spasms of violence, with so many slayings that police even blocked it off to all but residents for a time. Beginning in May, city officials will install about 30 video cameras on Trinidad’s streets to deter crime.

Willliams’s plan was that on Saturdays they’d roam and on Sundays hold worship services. But his first attempt to find space in Trinidad for his Northeast D.C. Apostolic Church was met coolly. Pastors of established churches, mostly Baptist, he said, were uncomfortable lending space to an unknown Pentecostal. Pentecostals tend to place a higher value on speaking in tongues and evangelizing and a lesser one on formally educated clerical leadership. He was shocked when a city prison chaplain turned down his offer to minister to prisoners.

“She said, ‘What can you offer these people? Can you provide suits for these guys?’ ” Williams said she told him. “I said, ‘Ma’am, more people are going to hell than ever, and you’re telling me these guys need a suit?’ “

But there were those who welcomed the Williamses, such as Valerie Norville, a retired D.C. teacher who was so scared of the violence in her neighborhood that she hadn’t walked on the central Trinidad Street for two years. Then the family knocked on her door, and she began dropping her grandchildren at their Sunday school on H Street. She said that even though she knows little about the Williamses’ theology, there isn’t much in the neighborhood for children to do. And, she likes their warmth and focus on God, not social work.

Churches “have gotten away from their real purpose. . . . They reach out to people, but they can’t hold them.”

Harold Lovelace, a deacon at the 87-year-old Bethesda Baptist in Trinidad-Ivy City, relates to Williams.

“Most [church members] don’t get involved in the neighborhood. They come for services and then leave in their beautiful cars back to Mitchellville or wherever,” he said. “That’s the way black churches are made up these days.”

The Williamses decided that their ministry would fail if they remained outsiders and decided to sell their home in Anne Arundel — a shock even to their pastors — just as the real estate market collapsed. But Carlos was soaring: “I really feel this is the will of God for my life.”

* * *

One Saturday in July, the Williamses were making their typical rounds: Trinidad Street to Queen Street to Montello Avenue. The neighborhood was silent, save for the sounds of Carlos and Zenobia constantly reminding their brood to stay close. Seeing two young men on a corner, Carlos smiled and handed them fliers for the H Street services, which have ranged from 15 to almost 60 people, although many are local children or people from the Williamses’ home church in Arnold.

Williams had been growing frustrated: The family had held a large outreach party at the recreation center a few weeks earlier, with free hot dogs, grape soda and music, and 150 people signed a list saying they wanted to be contacted. The next day, at services, not one of them showed
.

Soon the family arrived at a small apartment building across from a telephone pole covered with flowers and stuffed animals: a memorial at the spot where three people were fatally shot a few weeks earlier. A group of children who attend the Williamses’ Sunday school live there, and Carlos and Zenobia knew some of the people sitting on the steps out front. Carlos launched into an intense conversation with a man named Earl, who held a beer in a bag and wore a sad look.

“I pray to Jesus: Show me a sign,” he slurred a bit as Carlos prayed with him. He was down; he told Carlos before that he’d come to church but hadn’t.

“Jesus needs me and you. He’s looking for who’s available. It’s not the vase, it’s what you put in it,” Williams said with some insistence.

Zenobia moved up the block, as the children had become restless. Carlos stayed with Earl, who was listening and nodding his head intently. “Don’t lose my number, man,” Earl said. “I need to talk to you more.”

He vowed to come to services the next day. He didn’t.

* * *

The Williamses got a gorgeous, warm October Saturday for a big event they’d been planning for weeks — a second block party. Again there would be gospel music, free hot dogs and the baptism bus. This time, they hoped they were better known in Trinidad and would be a bigger draw.

By 2 p.m., 15 of Trinidad’s children were jammed around the metal tub inside the school bus, staring as Williams prepared to lower a wide-eyed boy into the water.

“There’s no way you can make it to heaven without being baptized in His name,” Williams said. “Think about your Mom, Dad, anyone at school — is there anyone you have something against? Anyone you want to forgive you?” The boy shook his head, closed his eyes, held his nose and went briefly under the water.

As the boy came up, droplets falling from his face, the adults put their hands out to him. “Lord, you added another to your kingdom! Lord, don’t let him forget this experience!” Williams almost begged, his head down and both hands on the sopping boy.

The scene replayed itself throughout the afternoon. All the takers were children, though; Williams and others called out the bus window to adults passing by: “Anyone want to get baptized?” People just smiled and kept walking; we’ve already got a church, several said.

More than 100 people had filled out contact cards, but the next day only about nine adults came to the H Street services, which are held in a small, second-floor office. Most, again, were from Williams’s home church. Sixteen children came, including the Williamses’ seven.

As usual for services, Williams was dressed sharply — in a pinstripe brown suit — and Zenobia, an interpreter for the deaf, was at the front of the room, signing. Williams’s sermon was partly about Scripture and partly an exercise in therapy, as he told his congregation about the previous day and his struggles to do God’s bidding in Trinidad.

“I don’t want to say I’m discouraged, but I guess I’d gone in with a certain level of expectation, that we’d have an outpouring of adults — men, women, children — and people would be led into that bright light,” he told them. Soon he was consoling himself with the idea that children’s souls are just as important, particularly in a scary time when the young face drive-by shootings and guns in schools.

“I decided I’m just looking for someone who is hungry for the word of God,” he said. “I’m looking for someone. I need to identify with something.”

And the next week, he was back out there looking.

Source: Washington Post

For New Christians, Christmas has New Meaning

bcbmmag — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:45:16 +0000

It’s not that Christmases past weren’t meaningful for Tracey Keim. But today, the 41-year-old Metuchen resident expects to have her most spiritually important Christmas yet, one revolving more around a manger than a tree.

She is becoming Catholic. And each day for nearly a month, she has been counting the days of Advent, the period when Catholics and many Protestants anticipate Jesus’ birth 2,000 years ago by recognizing what preceded it biblically — for example, the Annunciation, when Mary learned of her impending motherhood, and the Incarnation, when God was “made flesh.”

Keim and thousands of others in New Jersey are paying newfound attention to the religious sides of Christmas this year, because they are in the process of changing Christian denominations — or of coming to Christianity for the first time — and are learning about their new church.

“I’m appreciative more of the religious aspect of the holiday,” said Keim, who was born Russian Orthodox and married a Catholic on Nov. 15. “I’m getting gifts for people, but that’s not the first priority. The first priority is to go to church.”

Many Americans change denominations, or religions, each year, whether because they married someone of another religion, decided a new path is more meaningful, or for a host of other reasons.

About 44 percent of Americans eventually leave their childhood denomination for a new one, a new religion, or no religion at all, according to a study released earlier this year by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

When they make that change, either between Christian denominations or to Christianity, education about their new church often makes Christmas more meaningful to them, said the Rev. Michael Sheehan, director of the catechumenate for the Newark Archdiocese. In the Newark Archdiocese alone, about 1,200 people are going through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, a year-long process culminating on Easter by which adults become Catholics and parish members.

“When people are moving from one Christian community to another, they’re used to the traditions that our culture celebrates. But have they always understood the meaning of these traditions? No, probably not,” he said.

For many, like Tommy Michaels of Edison, who is participating in the Rite of Christian Initiation, the time to change is when a baby is on the way.

“A lot of what I’ve known about Christmas is from advertisements and TV,” said Michaels, who was raised in a Lutheran family and whose wife, due to have a baby boy Jan. 8, is Catholic. “This Christmas, my mind is more focused on the true meaning of Christmas and the birth of Christ, and the spirituality behind the holiday.”

He has fond family memories of previous Christmases, he said, but “I think the spiritual aspect was missing to some degree. I think that’s how it’s going to be different. The true meaning of Christmas is that we’re celebrating the birth of Christ. That’s so much more meaningful than simply the gift-giving. Family’s still an important piece of it, but I’m giving more thought to the religious aspect of it.”

Nativity scenes representing the site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem take on larger roles in the Christmas observance of most people participating in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, said Sara Sharlowe, director of that program in the Metuchen Diocese.

“Prior to them going through the process, Christmas had very secular connotations,” she said. “Yeah, they understood they’re celebrating Jesus’ birthday, but the big thing is the gift-giving. When they come into this process, they’re really focusing on who Jesus was, and the fact that God loved us so much that he became man. That’s one of the things we’re celebrating at Chistmastime.”

That is true for Keim, who has a manger and other elements of a nativity scene in her house for the first time.

“Before, it was always, ‘Let’s get a Christmas tree, let’s get gifts!’” said Keim, who is taking the classes even though she is not technically a candidate for the Rite of Christian Initiation, because earlier in life she received sacraments in the Russian Orthodox Church that are recognized by Roman Catholicism. “But just buying a manger and having a place for that in your home, it’s just kind of centering.”

Some others taking classes for the Rite of Christian Initiation, like Damien Lastro of Metuchen, were already baptized Catholic but skipped other sacraments like Confirmation and never became regular churchgoers. For them, too, this Christmas will stand out.

“I’m definitely going to make it a thing to go to Mass on Christmas and Christmas Eve, where, in the past, it was you might go one year, might not go the next year,” Lastro said. In the run-up to Christmas, he said, “I’ve been trying to be more aware of things like praying and keeping others in mind, and being less selfish and helping others. Now that I’m going through the process and very absorbed in it, it’s more of a commitment than it’s ever been.”

Source: The Star-Ledger