The long-awaited justice for R. Kelly’s survivors finally came last month when a New York federal jury found him guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking. For nearly 30 years, Black girls and their families have tried to bring Kelly to justice.
Now the question being asked is, what took so long?
The answer comes in the form of a wide web of enablers: music industry insiders, the judicial system, law enforcement and the Black community — in particular, the Black church.
The Black church missed out on an opportunity to help those in need. Black Christian leaders have rightfully been called out on their self-serving defenses of Kelly, at times even using scripture to do it.
Seven-time Gospel Stellar Awardee Bishop Marvin Sapp was rebuked for his association with R. Kelly: the two collaborated on the 2017 track “Listen.” In an interview on the Black gospel radio show “Get Up!,” Sapp first defended himself, saying they recorded the tune before the controversy. (Of course, you have to wonder what world Sapp had been orbiting in since controversy had been following Kelly for decades.)
But Sapp also cited prayer as one of his reasons for ultimately releasing the song. “After praying about it — in studying scripture — one of the things that I think that all of us in the body of Christ need to notice is that the message has always been bigger than the messenger,” he said. “I think many of us miss that. When you study scripture, you will notice that when God decided to do something great, He chose a flawed individual.”
Affiliation with pastors shielded Kelly. In 2002, the same day he posted bail on child pornography charges, Kelly left the court to attend a children’s graduation ceremony at Salem Christian Academy in Chicago. Accompanying Kelly from the courthouse to the graduation was the renowned Reverend James Meeks — his spiritual advisor and the senior pastor at the Salem Baptist Church.
But it’s not just that individuals defended Kelly: one of his top tracks has been heard for decades at Black churches’ services and celebrations. In her Religion News Service op-ed, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes wrote about the messy ties between gospel music and the church — and, specifically, R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly.” Gospel music, she writes, “from its beginnings had a strained and troubled relationship with commercial interests and secular artists.”
Gilkes, a professor at Colby College and assistant pastor for special projects at Cambridge’s Union Baptist Church, reminds us that the song, and therefore Kelly, are forever tied to the church. It’s sung ad nauseam at funerals, weddings, graduations and churches.
.@marvinsapp, there are women being abused in your congregation, and pastors who take their example from you.
— mercury is here so I am not 😂 (@MsPackyetti) January 10, 2019
Everyday you stay silent and support #RKelly, you send the message that abuse of black women is permissible-especially in the church, the place we should be safest.
The Black pastors used self-serving theological reasoning in supporting Kelly, and Black women called them out, pointing to how they’ve been negatively impacted by the defenses — especially when it comes to sexual abuse at the hands of male parishioners, deacons and pastors. Black girls, women and nonbinary individuals are vulnerable to abuse and violence, confronting higher domestic violence and rape incidences, sexual abuse at a young age and being killed at a higher rate than any other racial or ethnic group.
Religion News Service’s Gilkes hopes “I Believe I Can Fly” won’t be heard in churches anymore, and I want the church to take it a step further. Stop stifling conversations about sexuality and sexual abuse — and develop an embodied theology. As a child of sexual abuse, R. Kelly needed help. The girls Kelly abused needed rescue from him. The Black church missed the opportunity to help them all.
