When our Culture Becomes our Cancer

By, Pastor J Edgar Boyd,

Sr. Minister, FAME Church of Los Angeles

(In response to a recent TCR editorial)

“On the Matter of the Rev. Dr. Jerome Harris.”

Dear editor, your recent editorial, “On the Matter of the Rev. Dr. Jerome Harris,” was most timely and appropriate in the wake of allegations surrounding the absence of a substantial portion of the AME Church’s retirement resources.  It is telling that a significant number of the salaried and non-salaried members of the AME Church are reluctant to publicly address the issue at hand, but are driven to the false safety offered in a refuge of silence.  It is painfully difficult to fathom the irreparable injury sustained by many retiring clerical servants who bear a double dolor; no access to their hard-earned retirement savings, and now, what appears to be a callous unwillingness on the part of our system to hold the perpetrator(s) to a proper reckoning.

It has been suggested by some, that the current matter may very well be characterized as the darkest chapter in the two hundred-plus year history of our church.  Where is the demand for justice?  Why is there no mandate for the corrective actions of restoration?  Why is there such an atmosphere of silence, in face of such an egregious eclipse of trust? 

It is almost unthinkable that anyone in our church would not think it appropriate that such alleged and egregious behavior should be met by a swift calling of the alleged to accountability.

At the Bi-Centennial of African Methodism, our denomination took on itself, a connectional label which suggest “…we are a liberating and reconciling people.”  That mantra speaks to the courage that emboldened the framers of our denomination to conceive and construct the very institution that we are privileged to serve today.  Our current generation (AMEs) are the beneficiaries of an institution which evolved out of the hellacious system of American slavery, an ecliptic era where oppression and subjugation were used to keep the enslaved “in their place.”  In the aftermath of such atrocities, it should be unthinkable that the AME Church, birthed out of the womb of oppression, would tolerate even the hint of such a dehumanizing attempt to constrain any just voice within the family of Allen. 

During the first 150 years following the emancipation, Black Americans created the tradition of “Soul Food,” a dietary tradition replete with dishes high in cholesterol, fat, sodium, and sugar.  As culturally satisfying as those foods and culinary practices were, that culture which was consistently embraced by many Blacks, over time, is determined to have negatively impacted our physical wellbeing.  As a result, the practice of such behavior has evolved into today’s culture of cancer for many Blacks.

Many health-conscious Blacks soon discovered that it was not necessarily hereditary or genetic disorders that resulted in the widespread and disproportionate imbalance of disease and poor health within the Black community.  Black Americans soon came to know that it was our culinary habits, over time, that that contributed to an evolutionary culture of cancer, and our health providers helped us to see that the culprit was reflected in our choice and our behavior.  Armed with this life-saving information, responsible voices from across Black communities began to sound the alarm and assisted our communities in modifying our diets and physical behavior.  Positive beneficial evidence is seen in the increased life-span within the our pews, and across Black America.

The notion is widespread (within African Methodism), that a stale wind of oppression is growing across our denomination (over clergy and lairy alike), creating a culture of behavior that, if not corrected, will surely metastasize throughout the church body (AME).

Mr. Editor, thank you for arousing the consciousness of the General Board, back in June, to initiate a path that seeks truth, accountability, and a just restitution.  We (the rank and file) have been given very little information about the financial and fiscal crisis manifested in the Department of Retirement Services.  When making consideration of the small amount available information, I fear, it reflects only the tip of the iceberg, and we remain innocuous to the 90 percentiles of facts hidden just beneath the surface, facts that are necessary to move the masses to the urgency of action.

The deadliness of a cancer is not necessarily determined by its detection, but rather by an unwillingness to seek urgent treatment of the legion, and quickly submit to a change in the very behavior that made fallow, the very ground from which it grows.

Do we submit to the treatment of bold action, or continue in the repressive state of silence?  Our deliberate choice and behavior, going forward, will determine the state of our future.  “When our culture becomes our cancer.”